Tennessee is set to execute Christa Pike on Wednesday, 30 September, for a murder committed more than three decades ago, when she was 18. If carried out, the lethal injection would make Pike the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years.
Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps. The case drew national attention because of the brutality of the killing and the ages of those involved.
But what exactly happened, and why has Pike’s case returned to national attention after 30 years?
What happened to Colleen Slemmer?
On 12 January 1995, Pike and two other teenagers, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus in Knoxville.
According to evidence presented at trial, Pike believed Slemmer was interested in Shipp and viewed her as a romantic rival.
The attack turned into a prolonged assault. Court records say Slemmer was beaten and cut before she was killed. A piece of her skull was later found in a jacket belonging to Pike.
The case also became associated with the “Satanic panic” that surrounded some high-profile crimes in the US during the 1980s and 1990s. A pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s body during the attack, a detail that received extensive attention at the time. Shipp later acknowledged that he was responsible for that part of the crime.
Pike and Shipp were subsequently convicted of first-degree murder. Pike was also convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Why was Pike sentenced to death?
The prosecution argued that the killing was premeditated and exceptionally cruel.
In its review of the case, the Tennessee Supreme Court noted that the jury found two aggravating circumstances. It determined that the murder involved torture or serious physical abuse beyond what was necessary to cause death, and that the killing was connected to an attempt to avoid or interfere with prosecution.
The jury therefore imposed a death sentence on Pike in 1996.
Her co-defendants received different punishments. Shipp was 17 when the murder occurred and therefore could not receive the death penalty. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Peterson, who cooperated with prosecutors and testified against Pike and Shipp, received probation.
Why is her age now central to the case?
Pike’s lawyers have argued that the person who committed the crime at 18 should be considered separately from the woman who has spent more than 30 years in prison.
A clemency petition filed on her behalf detailed a childhood marked by severe neglect and repeated sexual abuse. Her lawyers say she was sexually assaulted as a young child and raped again at 11 and 17. They also point to mental-health and neurological issues that they argue were not adequately presented to the jury during the original sentencing process.
Pike’s supporters are not arguing that these circumstances erase responsibility for Slemmer’s death. Instead, they say they provide context for her actions and should have been considered when deciding whether she should be executed.
Pike herself has acknowledged responsibility for the killing. In her clemency petition, she described herself as a mentally ill 18-year-old at the time and expressed remorse for taking Slemmer’s life.
“It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected,” Pike wrote. “I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend.”
In a separate letter to NBC News ahead of her scheduled execution, Pike wrote: “Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace. I am not afraid to die; I’m only nervous about the process.”
The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office has not disputed the core claims about Pike’s childhood abuse, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
What happened to her appeals?
Pike has spent more than 30 years challenging her conviction and death sentence.
The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected her latest request to stop the execution in September. Her lawyers also challenged the state’s lethal-injection procedure, arguing that her medical conditions and history of trauma could expose her to severe suffering.
A Tennessee judge ultimately allowed the execution to proceed.
Governor Bill Lee rejected Pike’s clemency petition on 28 September, saying he had reviewed the case and would not intervene. The US Supreme Court then rejected a final request to halt the execution on 29 September.
Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Why is the execution historically significant?
Tennessee’s last execution of a woman was in 1820, meaning more than two centuries will have passed between female executions if Pike’s execution goes ahead.
Her case is also unusual because she was 18 when she committed the crime. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Pike is the only person in Tennessee’s modern death-penalty era who was 18 at the time of the offence and still faces execution.
Female executions are rare across the US as well. Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 18 women have been executed nationwide. Pike would become the 19th if Tennessee carries out the sentence.
The last execution in the US before Pike’s scheduled execution was that of Curtis Beasley in Florida on 29 September 2026. Tennessee itself last carried out an execution on 13 August 2026, when Anthony Darrell Hines was put to death.