True Crime

Christa Pike survived Tennessee's attempt to execute her Wednesday night ... and years before the botched lethal injections, she was fighting the state over another part of death row -- decades spent virtually alone in solitary confinement.

In a 2022 federal lawsuit, obtained by TMZ, Pike asked to be released from mandatory segregation ... with her attorneys saying she had spent more than 25 years with virtually no meaningful human contact.

Her lawyer wrote Pike's life had been defined by "four concrete walls and bare floor" ... adding, "She is fundamentally alone."

Christa Pike is still alive after 2 attempted lethal injections in Tennessee.

Around 8:26 p.m. local time, witnesses said “executioners had injected both syringes of lethal injection chemicals and Pike is still alive and snoring” ... her lawyers said in a federal court filing, according to NBC News.

Pike was scheduled to be put to death Wednesday after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for Tennessee to carry out her execution ... overturning a last-minute stay from a federal appeals court.

Tennessee can move forward with convicted murderer Christa Pike's execution, the Supreme Court has ruled.

On Wednesday, the court decided to lift the stay of execution that had been ordered just an hour before her lethal injection. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

Pike's lawyers were trying to get her sentence changed to life in prison, arguing that her attorneys had failed to present her history of sexual abuse and mental health conditions. That's why her execution was paused just an hour before her scheduled lethal injection.

The holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy's murder case is asking the public to stop focusing on him and to turn their attention back to the three young children who lost their lives.

Check out the new YouTube collab between TMZ and the New York Post, "The Low Down," where we bring you stories that are gripping, outrageous, and sometimes scandalous.

Diego Sarabia -- one of the seven Cornell University fraternity brothers accused of taking part in an alleged 2024 gang rape -- is out of a job at Wells Fargo amid the revived criminal investigation.

10:47 AM PT -- Closing arguments have concluded and the jury is now deliberating.

Former "American Idol" contestant Caleb Flynn is entering the home stretch of his murder trial ... it's time for closing arguments ... and TMZ is streaming live.

Both sides rested their cases Monday ... prosecutors called 40 witnesses. Flynn did not testify, and his defense did not call any witnesses ... his attorneys argued there was no direct or forensic evidence tying him to his wife's fatal shooting.

Now, prosecutors and the defense will make their final speeches to the jury before deliberations.

A Tennessee Death Row inmate says she feels a true connection with Lindsay Clancy, saying they share "uniquely female issues" as she faces state execution for her crimes this week.

Christa Pike, 48, will be executed by lethal injection Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Recently, Pike sat down for a wide-ranging interview with The Times during which she made the Clancy comparison.

She told the reporter ... “I feel a kinship with Lindsay. We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues. One thing is different, however, is that times have changed a lot on awareness of women’s issues since I was put on trial."

Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of scamming her many investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars and ordered to pay $452 million in restitution ... but after more than 3 years in prison, she says she's now fighting to prove she did nothing wrong.

Holmes -- the former CEO of the blood testing company Theranos -- posted a message on X Sunday night, and kicked things off by saying that she was "silenced for a long time ... and then imprisoned."

She then said she's "fighting to prove my innocence and come home to my babies and the love of my life," referring to her husband, Billy Evans.

Elizabeth Holmes is getting out of prison next year ... and she'll be transferring to a halfway house in Texas ... and she'll be close to lots of other tech titans.

The disgraced former Theranos CEO is being moved from the Federal Prison Camp in Bryan, Texas, to a halfway house near Austin ... according to ABC News reporter Rebecca Jarvis -- who says Elizabeth's victims were just notified of her upcoming change of scenery.

However, there's a pretty big caveat ... the move isn't for about a year ... Elizabeth will officially be getting out of FPC Bryan on August 23, 2027 ... and the message sent to her victims is just advance notice.

Patrick Clancy says compassion and accountability can coexist in a murder case when mental illness is involved ... even in a tragedy as horrific as the deaths of his three children.

A new clip from Patrick's "60 Minutes" interview aired on "CBS Mornings" Tuesday ... and it features his thoughts on what justice looks like in cases like his ex-wife Lindsay Clancy's murder trial.

Patrick said he believes society can find a compassionate way to deal with such tragedies, but stressed, "That doesn't mean no accountability."

Melissa McCarthy says playing JonBenét Ramsey's mother in a true crime drama forced her to make up her own mind about the murder ... and she doesn't believe anyone in the family did it.

The actress plays Patsy Ramsey in Netflix's upcoming "The Murder of JonBenét Ramsey" ... and she tells Variety she developed a lot of compassion for the family while working on the project.

Melissa says the case became something people treated almost like a sport ... with everyone offering up their own theory as if it were fact.

She says she couldn't play Patsy without deciding for herself what she believed happened.

Lindsay Clancy's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, is asking the court to allow for a thorough investigation of the holdout juror ... including access to his phone records and a review of his 2021 criminal charge for allegedly assaulting his wife.

The attorney filed a document in court recently asking the judge to let his team see the confidential juror questionnaire and "Juror Doe's record from the statewide domestic violence registry."

Reddington is asking for the juror's mobile phone records -- calls, texts, and data from August 27 through September 4.

Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband Patrick Clancy sat down for an emotional interview on "60 Minutes" ... and he opened up about the heartbreaking moment he held dying son Callan in his arms as he passed.

In Sunday's wide-ranging interview ... Patrick said during his son's final moments in the hospital, he told him he was sorry.

Patrick told CBS' Ross Douthat ... "I said 'I'm so sorry,' and I got to hold him, I got to lay down next to him. And he died in my arms."

The holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy can be seen holding his daughter in a new pic shared by his legal team ... and his lawyer has a message for everyone interested in his client.

Attorney Edward Andrew Paltzik shared a photo of Michael Péguy Desronvil -- and Desronvil's daughter as a baby -- on Instagram Saturday ... calling the juror an "American hero champion of justice."

Desronvil previously told TMZ that he "didn't have any doubts" about Lindsay ... and opened up about what went down in the jury room.

Lindsay Clancy's ex-husband Patrick Clancy says he thinks he did the "best I could" during their marriage ... but he lives with the fact Lindsay killed their 3 kids "every day."

In a teaser for his interview with "60 Minutes" Sunday, he said ... "I think I did the best I could with what I had at the time. And I live with the outcome. I live with it every day. But I think I did the best I could."

In several clips published this past week during the lead-up to Sunday's emotional sit-down, Patrick opened up about the aftermath of his kids' death.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, ripped into Vice President JD Vance ... roasting his "fake" beard and challenging him to a bench press competition.

Check out the new YouTube collab between TMZ and the New York Post, "The Low Down," where we bring you stories that are gripping, outrageous, and sometimes scandalous.

New footage of the Los Angeles news helicopter that crashed shows the blades of the airship seem to have stalled before it fell to the ground, exploded and killed three people.

"American Idol" alum Caleb Flynn allegedly wasn't subtle about wanting his wife dead ... prosecutors say he texted his mistress about wanting to kill his wife and get away with it.

Caleb is standing trial on charges he murdered his wife ... and during opening statements Friday, prosecutors said investigators found more than 100,000 messages between Caleb and his mistress from the year before his wife Ashley Flynn was killed.

In one alleged message, prosecutors say Caleb wrote he stayed up until 4 AM "trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail" ... adding he'd kill Ashley "in a heartbeat" if he could do it without going to hell.