Trigger Warning: The article contains details of murder. Reader discretion is advised.
Christa Gail Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, has been scheduled to be executed next year. The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled that the 49-year-old will be executed on September 30, 2026, 30 years after her heinous murder.
If it is approved, Pike will be the 19th woman to die on death row in contemporary American history and the first woman to be executed in the state in over 200 years, according to Tyla.
Her crime occurred thirty years ago in 1995, when she was found guilty of first-degree murder at the age of nineteen and given the death penalty for the killing of eighteen-year-old Knoxville coworker Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Jobs Corps employee. Both Pike and Slemmer participated in Job Corps, a residential career training program for youth.
Along with their friend Shadolla Peterson, Pike allegedly believed Slemmer was attempting to kidnap her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, who ultimately assisted her in carrying out the brutal crime. While Peterson served as a lookout, Pike and Shipp enticed Slemmer to a secluded section of the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural campus, where they viciously stabbed and beat her.
They took a chunk of the victim’s skull as a memento after the incredibly horrific slaying and carved a pentagram into her chest. One of the groundskeepers who found Slemmer testified that she was “so badly beaten that he had first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal.”
A jury found Pike guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced her to death. While Shipp was found guilty of first-degree murder, as well received a life sentence with the possibility of parole in November. Peterson, Pike’s companion, was placed on probation after supposedly testifying against Pike.
Everyone is asking the same question, though, as the case has returned to the spotlight after Pike’s execution date was announced: why is it just now? Pike is currently 49 years old and has been incarcerated on death row for thirty years.
Before being exonerated or put to death, death-sentenced inmates in the US usually spend more than ten years on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre. This is because, to avoid the irreparable mistake of killing an innocent person, the legal system necessitates numerous intricate and drawn-out appeals.
Errors or misconduct in death penalty cases would go unnoticed or remain hidden in the absence of strong appeals. In Pike’s case, her lawyers have long argued that her execution date should be postponed indefinitely. Because they think she should be imprisoned for life without the chance of parole. Setting a date has been delayed because of the COVID-19 epidemic and other protracted appeals and extensions in the case.
According to CBS News, Pike’s attorneys’ briefs mention a history of mental illness, including bipolar disorder and PTSD. There is also mention of congenital brain damage, childhood sexual abuse, abandonment, and neglect. None of these issues were brought up during Pike’s trial.
In a statement to Fox News, they said, “Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect. With time and treatment, she has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
