People gather during a March 4 Mercy protest against the death penalty at the Tennessee State Capitol, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn., ahead of the scheduled Sept. 30 execution of Christa Pike. George Walker IV/AP hide caption toggle caption George Walker IV/AP NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Christa Pike was 18 when she killed a classmate in a jealous rage and became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row. Now 50, she is scheduled to be executed Wednesday in what would be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in 200 years. Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, her Knoxville Job Corps classmate. Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer. The case received widespread attention due to the brutality of the murder, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body. Pike does not deny his guilt, but his lawyers and supporters argue that a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teenager with untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect. Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to be carried out, saying she has waited decades for Pike’s sentence to be carried out. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Monday that he would not grant clemency. Pike’s lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to stay the execution. The clemency request points to Pike’s traumatic past. Pike’s attorneys said she experienced an exceptionally traumatic and abusive childhood. FILE – This undated photo provided by the Tennessee Department of Corrections shows Christa Pike. Tennessee Department of Corrections/via AP hide caption toggle caption Tennessee Department of Corrections/via AP Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused since she was a small child and was raped when she was 11 and 17 years old. He said Pike’s attorneys in the penalty phase of his trial did not present the jury with what he said was critical information about his past or argue that his age should be a consideration. Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Pike told police he initially just wanted to fight Slemmer, but ended up killing her in a frenzied attack. In their petition for clemency, Pike’s attorneys said his untreated mental illness and background prevented him from “putting on the brakes.” “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old boy. It took me many years to even realize the severity of what I had done. Even longer to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s son, sister or friend. It sickens me now to think that I had the ability to commit such a crime,” Pike said in a statement included in his clemency petition. Ferrell said more is known today about adolescent brain development and that Pike’s death sentence is an outlier. He noted that Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole because of his age. He was denied parole last year. A third teen admitted being an accomplice and received probation. In the modern era of the death penalty, Ferrell said, other 18-year-olds who were sentenced to death in Tennessee have had their sentences reduced. The Death Penalty Information Center said 275 people nationwide have been executed for crimes they committed when they were 18, 19 or 20 in the modern era of the death penalty, but that death sentences for those in that age group have become increasingly rare. “If Christa Pike were tried today, I do not believe that a jury aware of the documented sexual abuse and neglect she experienced as a child would sentence her to death,” said Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Victim’s mother wants execution to happen Speaking by phone from Florida, Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, also noted her daughter’s age and said Slemmer never had a chance to grow up. “Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez said. Martinez said her daughter volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved skating and wanted to pursue a career in computer science. “She was quiet. To begin with, she was a computer geek. She and my husband were constantly building and taking apart computers,” Martínez said. “She trusted everyone and that was her downfall.” She said her daughter called her from Job Corps the night of the murder, but the call was disconnected due to poor reception. When Martínez called again, his daughter had already left. “Not a day goes by, not a minute goes by, that I don’t think about Colleen. The holidays are the worst. Colleen’s birthday was last week. She would have turned 51,” Martinez said. The murder shook the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike slashed Slemmer with a box cutter and hit her with a large piece of asphalt. Elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body. Executions of female inmates are rare in Tennessee and across the country. If Pike’s execution goes ahead as planned, it would be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee since 1820, Maher said. Executions of female inmates are also rare in the United States. Since 1976, 18 women have been executed in the country, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center. Most recently, Missouri executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, in 2023 for a murder committed in 2003, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government has executed an inmate. Georgia executed a woman in 2015.
