Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Monday that he will not halt the scheduled execution of Christa Gail Pike, the state's only woman on death row. Pike is set to be executed on September 30.
Pike's legal team had filed a clemency petition earlier this month, requesting her death sentence be commuted to life in prison. In a statement, Governor Lee stated, "After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike's request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene."
Pike's attorneys argued that her execution would place Tennessee in a unique position, as she would be the first person executed in the state in the modern death penalty era who was a teenager at the time of the offense. They also raised concerns about the state's execution protocol, asserting that an 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain and that 18 is too young to face execution.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1996 for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee. Slemmer was found with a pentagram carved into her chest. Testimony from two other residents at the scene indicated that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after the act and had shown them a piece of Slemmer's skull. Pike's then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the murder, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
At the time of her incarceration, the 21-year-old Pike was the youngest person on death row, according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections. If her execution proceeds, Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
Colleen Slemmer's mother has stated that she wants Pike's execution to move forward so her daughter "finally can be resting."