Thirty years after being sentenced to death, Christa Pike, now 50, faces execution by lethal injection on September 30 in Tennessee. Her legal team has filed a 226-page clemency petition with Governor Bill Lee, seeking to halt the execution and advocating against her death penalty sentence.
Pike was convicted for the brutal 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Job Corps Centre in Knoxville, Tennessee. Court documents describe the murder as horrific and brutal, detailing how Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat Slemmer, slashed her throat, and carved satanic symbols onto her body. Pike, then 18, admitted to her involvement, telling authorities she killed Slemmer after hearing voices and fearing Slemmer would report her to the police.
According to court documents, Pike lured Slemmer to a Job Corps Center before the attack. A witness, Kim Iloilo, reported that Pike confessed to the murder, even bringing back a piece of Slemmer's skull as a souvenir and later claiming to have eaten breakfast with it. The victim's body was discovered the next day, so badly beaten that the initial finder mistook it for an animal corpse.
Pike's defense team argues that her history of severe childhood abuse, sexual abuse, and untreated psychological disorders, including bipolar disorder, should be considered. The clemency petition includes a photograph of Pike as a toddler, which her lawyers state represents a turning point in her life, marking the beginning of severe sexual abuse by her grandmother's boyfriend. They contend that her "almost unbearably abusive background" and her immature, traumatized brain at 18 made her vulnerable to impulses and poor decision-making.
The petition also highlights the difference in legal treatment between Pike and Shipp, her boyfriend and co-offender. Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the murder, was legally barred from execution because he had not yet reached 18. Pike's lawyers argue that the difference in brain development between an 18-year-old and a 17-year-old is insignificant, yet Pike faces execution.
If the execution proceeds as scheduled, Pike will follow a protocol that includes a final meal, family visits, and contact with a spiritual adviser before receiving a single dose of pentobarbital. She will be given an opportunity for final words before the blinds to the witness room are drawn. Pike is set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819, when Eve Martin was hanged for accessory to murder.