NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles! More than three decades after the torture, mutilation and murder of 19-year-old Tennessee Colleen Slemmer, former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith says he is still haunted by the “satanic” crime scene. “I will remember this case until the day I die,” he told Fox News Digital on Thursday. Keith had been the city’s police chief from 1988 to 2004 and spent decades working in law enforcement. Led by Christa Pike, then 18, three classmates from a vocational school for troubled youth, the Knoxville Job Corps Center, lured Slemmer to his death by claiming they wanted to go to a music store and pick up marijuana they had hidden in a park. CHRISTA PIKE’S LAWYERS SAY SHE IS IN CRITICAL CONDITION AFTER MISSED LETHAL INJECTIONS Christa Gail Pike is seen during her trial for the murder of Colleen A. Slemmer on March 18, 1996, in Knox County Criminal Court. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect) “She represents pure evil,” Keith said of Pike. They tortured Slemmer for nearly an hour, Keith said, beating, cutting and gagging her before smashing her skull into the ground with a piece of broken asphalt. When she tried to escape, they grabbed her. When she pleaded for her life, they cut her with blades. And when she cried, they gagged her with a hair tie. Pike, then 18 and now 50, kept a fragment of his skull as a trophy and showed it to his classmates before his arrest. Her boyfriend at the time, who was also convicted but did not face the death penalty because he was only 17, carved pentagrams into her chest and face. TENNESSEE DEATH ROW INMATE SURVIVES TWO DOSES OF LETHAL INJECTION IN FAILED EXECUTION ATTEMPT An undated portrait of Colleen Slemmer provided by her mother. (May Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel) At trial, an expert said the attack had “satanic elements” and also involved “the phenomenon of mob aggression, where a group of people become emotionally aroused and ‘the end result is that they engage in some type of violent, extremely violent activity,'” court records show. The University of Tennessee groundskeeper who found her remains testified at trial that he initially thought he had stumbled upon an animal carcass before seeing the victim’s clothing through the blood, according to court records. FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON[The images] “They are as vivid today as the day I saw them,” Keith said. “All I have to do is close my eyes and I can see everything.” Thirty-one years later, he said he wishes the Knoxville Police Department had used modern PTSD therapy at the time. Keith said. CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM FOX TRUE CRIME HUBPike was scheduled to run Wednesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a brief stay amid a last-minute appeal, but the Supreme Court lifted the stay and cleared the way for her to face lethal injection. SEND US A TIP After two doses, he remained alive Thursday at an undisclosed hospital in critical condition and receiving “life-saving care,” according to his lawyers, who later said Friday that. She was unconscious and connected to a ventilator. “Christa remains seriously ill and is receiving medical care for the devastating effects of Wednesday night’s events,” attorneys Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen said in a statement Friday. “As detailed in today’s filing, Christa remains hospitalized following Wednesday night’s failed execution attempt. “She is critically ill, unconscious, intubated and receiving respiratory support via a ventilator,” they added. “She is being treated for the severe effects of pentobarbital administered during the attempted execution, including significant injuries to both arms.” What she might face next remains unclear. She responded during a press conference Thursday revealing that Slemmer’s mother was on Pike’s mind in the hours before his scheduled execution. CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP “I can’t imagine what this was like for Ms. Slemmer’s family, or for anyone who loves that family or is close to that family, or for anyone who loves Christa or is close to Christa,” he said. “This is horrible and this type of thing should never happen again.”
