Christa Pike, the first woman on death row in the United States, described the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer with a disturbing lack of remorse, according to Phil Keith, the former Knoxville chief of police.
"I heard somebody that was ruthless, without any remorse, almost giddy," Keith said in a new documentary by The Post, recalling Pike's demeanor during her interrogation. "She was describing what took place, like, almost the sense that she was bragging about it."
Pike, 50, lured her 19-year-old Job Corps classmate, Slemmer, to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee's Knoxville campus. Driven by jealousy over her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, Pike, with an accomplice acting as a lookout, tortured Slemmer with a meat cleaver and box cutter, then cut a pentagram into her chest. The ordeal concluded when Pike bludgeoned Slemmer with a chunk of asphalt and kept a piece of her skull as a souvenir.
Keith described the crime scene as exceptionally horrific, even for seasoned detectives. "The brutality was different," he stated. "You know, the visual scene of it, it was so shocking, and I could tell... that they were disgusted with what they saw."
Pike became the first inmate in the U.S. to survive a lethal injection on September 30, after receiving two doses of pentobarbital. She was rushed to the hospital and, after days of uncertainty about her condition, was discharged and returned to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center. Her legal team has reported that she is now speaking in full sentences.
The botched execution led Tennessee Governor Bill Lee to pause all remaining executions for the year and order an independent review. The state's prison commissioner, Frank Strada, resigned following the incident. Pike's lawyers are seeking a commutation of her sentence, arguing she has endured excessive punishment.