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Tennessee to execute a woman for the first time in 200 years. What did Christa Pike do?
Tennessee has set an execution date for Christa Gail Pike, the only woman on the state’s death row.
Tennessee has set an execution date for Christa Gail Pike, the only woman on the state’s death row. On Tuesday, the state Supreme Court ordered that Pike is to be executed on September 30, 2026. If carried out, Pike, 49, will become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, USA Today reported.
What did Christa Pike do?
Christa Gail Pike was just 18 when she tortured and murdered her classmate, Colleen Slemmer. Pike, along with two other boys, lured Slemmer into the woods in Knoxville, Tennessee where they attacked her brutally.
Slemmer was slashed, tortured and beaten in the attack that lasted 30 minutes. A pentagram was carved onto her chest. Pike eventually killed her by smashing a large piece of asphalt onto her head.
What was the motive for the attack?
The motive behind the brutal killing was romantic rivalry. Pike and Slemmer were both students at the Knoxville Job Corps, a career-training program, in 1995.
Christa Pike, 18 at the time, believed that 19-year-old Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. She lured Slemmer out of their dormitory under the pretext of a peace offering and killed her brutally.
How did the murder come to light?
Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull after killing her and began to show it around the school. She was arrested less than three days after the murder.
Pike was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. In March 1996, she was found guilty on both counts and sentenced to death.
What her attorneys say
Pike’s attorneys say she spent the first 27 years of her sentence in what was effectively solitary confinement, as she was the only woman on the death row. They argue that given her young age and mental health troubles at the time of the crime, she should not be given the death penalty.
Instead, they believe that she deserves life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect," her legal team said in a statement to USA TODAY. "With time and treatment for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, which were not diagnosed until years later, Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime."
