Christa Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, which would make her the first woman to be executed in the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years. Pike has spent three decades on death row after being convicted of the 1995 killing of Colleen Slemmer. Now 50, Pike was 18 years old at the time of the crime.
The execution is scheduled to go ahead after decades of legal challenges by Pike. Pike met Slemmer while taking part in the Job Corps government program in Knoxville, which provides low-income young adults with educational and vocational training. Prosecutors said Pike became jealous of Slemmer, who she accused of attempting to steal her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp.
On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp and another student lured Slemmer to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee's campus, where Pike and Shipp tortured, beat and killed her. Shipp also carved a pentagram into her chest. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull, which she later showed to classmates, according to witness testimony at trial.
She was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and sentenced to death in 1996, when she was 20. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied a clemency request from Pike on Monday, despite ongoing calls from civil rights groups that her death sentence be commuted. Civil rights groups including Amnesty International, Cornell Law School’s Center on the Death Penalty, and United Nations experts have raised concerns that potentially mitigating evidence about Pike’s lengthy history of childhood sexual abuse and violence was not presented by her defense attorneys at trial.
These groups have also pointed to her suffering from severe mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. In response to the governor’s decision to deny clemency, Pike’s legal team said they were “saddened and heartbroken” by the decision, pointing to her youth at the time of the offense and her troubled childhood. The execution will not be televised.
However, media representatives and select witnesses are allowed inside a designated viewing area to witness executions in Tennessee. The Tennessee Supreme Court appointed Senior Judge Mark Ward in July as a special master to review evidence and hear testimony on whether Pike's planned execution complies with the state's constitution. Pike’s case was the first to be reviewed under this process, with previous inmates’ requests having been rejected.
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