Christa Pike to Become First Woman in 200 Years to Be Executed in Tennessee Decades After Torturing and Murdering Victim as Teens

Christa Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, making her the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.

The 50-year-old was convicted of the brutal 1995 torture and murder of her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer at a Knoxville Job Corps training center when Pike was 18 years old.

Despite final legal arguments highlighting her youth, severe childhood sexual trauma and bipolar disorder, the Tennessee Supreme Court recently denied her request to halt the execution, leaving her final hope in a last-minute clemency decision by Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

Pike, along with her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and friend Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee under the guise of making peace.

They tortured and slashed Slemmer for over 30 minutes, carving a pentagram into her chest. Pike ultimately crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt and kept a piece of the bone.

Pike confessed to the crime shortly after her arrest and was sentenced to death at age 20. Because Tennessee law excludes juveniles under 18 from the death penalty, Shipp (who was 17 at the time) received a life sentence instead. Peterson received probation for assisting after the murder.

Pike’s defense attorneys have petitioned Gov. Lee for clemency, asking to commute her sentence to life without parole. They argue that severe mitigating evidence — including extensive, extreme childhood physical and sexual abuse, and organic brain damage — was never properly presented to the jury.

Forensic psychologist Dr. Diana McCoy said that Pike was abused by her mother’s partners and husbands and was raped at least twice at 11 and 17 years old.

Psychologist Dr. Bethany Brand said that “Pike’s traumatic childhood helped to explain why she felt threatened by Colleen and was unable to control her emotions when she killed the young woman.”

Pike requested an all-female prison staff team for her transfer and execution, stating that being held down by men would trigger past trauma.

The Tennessee Department of Correction has stated it will attempt to staff her extraction and transportation with female officers.

Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, remains firm in her support of the execution, explaining she seeks final peace for her daughter.

"She did the crime. I think she should pay for it," Martinez told a Knoxville radio station.

If the execution proceeds, Pike will become only the 19th woman executed in the United States since the modern death penalty era began in 1976.