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Lawyers for death row inmate Christa Pike have suggested an unusual alternative to lethal injection as they challenge the state’s planned method of execution.
Pike’s legal team is arguing that injecting the execution drugs through a smaller vein in her arm could cause unnecessary pain because she has difficult-to-access veins and a blood condition.
They have proposed using a central line placed in a larger vein, a procedure normally carried out by doctors, as well as another alternative not deployed in the state for over a century.
The arguments were presented during a hearing before Senior Judge Mark Ward, who has been tasked with examining Pike’s health and the possible methods of carrying out her execution before submitting a report to the Tennessee Supreme Court.
Pike’s lawyers argue the condition could make lethal injection more difficult and potentially worsen her experience.
Emergency medicine expert Dr. Scott Goldstein was also called by the defense to discuss the challenges of establishing an IV line.
Much of his nearly two hours on the stand, however, focused on the proposed use of hanging.
Pike and her lawyer have offered hanging as an alternative because Tennessee law requires her to identify an alternative execution method if she objects to lethal injection.
She has the option of electrocution but does not want to be executed that way. Other Tennessee death row inmates have selected the electric chair in recent years rather than lethal injection.
Goldstein acknowledged that he had never personally witnessed or participated in a "judicial hanging." He instead relied on medical knowledge about the effects of hanging, including cases involving attempted suicide.
He told the court that if a particular vertebra near the base of the neck were fractured, death could potentially occur immediately.
The judge and prosecutors questioned some of the medical literature Goldstein relied upon. Ward ultimately said he would give the testimony whatever weight he believed it deserved.
Pike was convicted for the January 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
According to the case against her, Pike and her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a secluded area of the University of Tennessee Agricultural Campus under the belief that Slemmer was interested in Shipp.
Pike, who was 18 at the time, and Shipp repeatedly stabbed Slemmer before carving a pentagram into her chest and beating her with a piece of asphalt.
Pike later took a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir and showed it to some acquaintances the following day. She eventually confessed to police after briefly returning to the scene.
She has been awaiting the death penalty for over 30 years.
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A Tennessee lawyer representing the state’s only female death row inmate has raised fresh concerns following a failed execution attempt just last week.
Christa Gail Pike is scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026, for her role in the 1995 torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer, a case widely known as the “Job Corps Murder.” Pike was one of three individuals involved in the incident.
However, complications during the state’s recent efforts to execute inmate Tony Carruthers have intensified the scrutiny.
The execution was halted after officials were unable to establish a backup IV line, prompting Pike’s lawyer to warn that she could face what he described as a “torturous execution.”
In a press statement, attorney Stephen Ferrell highlighted Pike’s medical vulnerabilities, including her “small veins” and a blood disorder, thrombocytopenia.
He explained that the condition can lead to “excessive bleeding” and added that her veins “make the insertion of a needle difficult, even for the most trained medical professionals.”
Ferrell further cautioned that “the difficulty establishing IV lines is a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions for years...”
He also claimed Pike’s condition could result in “a bloody froth in her lungs that would amount to drowning.”
Criticizing the state’s current procedures, he added: “Since the state released the 2025 execution protocol, defense counsel, medical experts, and advocates have warned that the lack of clarity on any number of issues would result in a torturous execution.”
His comments follow calls from federal defenders to temporarily halt executions in Tennessee, citing the same IV access problems seen during Carruthers’ failed execution.
The case is drawing heightened attention as Tennessee prepares to carry out its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.
Pike, now 49, would become the first woman executed in the state since 1820, and only the fourth in its history, if the sentence proceeds as scheduled.
The crime itself remains one of the most disturbing in the state’s history. In January 1995, Pike, then 18, lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
Both were enrolled in the Job Corps program. Prosecutors said Pike acted out of jealousy, believing Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend.
According to court records, Pike carried out a prolonged and brutal attack, including slashing Slemmer’s throat, striking her with a meat cleaver, carving a pentagram into her chest, and crushing her skull. She later kept part of the victim’s skull and showed it to others.
In 1996, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Her co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp, received life with the possibility of parole, while a third accomplice who testified against Pike was given probation.
Pike has also committed violent acts while incarcerated. In 2004, she was convicted of attempting to strangle another inmate, resulting in an additional 25-year sentence, Fox News claimed.
Her legal team has long argued against her execution, citing her age at the time of the crime and a history of severe abuse and untreated mental illness.
“Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect,” her representatives and CBS News had claimed: “With time and treatment, she has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
Later psychological assessments diagnosed Pike with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, which her lawyers argue should be considered in determining her eligibility for capital punishment.
Tennessee has historically enforced the death penalty, but has carried out fewer executions in recent years, including a temporary pause to review lethal injection protocols.
With Pike’s execution now scheduled, the case has reignited debate: supporters point to the brutality of the crime, while opponents emphasize her mental health and background.
Unless her appeals are successful, Pike’s execution would be a rare and historic moment in the state’s use of capital punishment.
A warning has been issued over lethal injections, ahead of Christa Gail Pike's execution on September 30, 2026.
It's been over three decades since PIke was sentenced to death after she was found guilty of killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, aged just 18.
Pike is the only female on death row in the US state, and is set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee for over 200 years.
It's said that she had become jealous of her boyfriend at the time, believing that Slemmer was interested in him while they were part of the Knoxville Job Corps program.
She would respond by murdering her classmate, using a cleaver, a box cutter, and a piece of asphalt after luring her to the woods, beating and stabbing her before carving a pentagram into her chest.
Pike is also serving time for the attempted murder of an inmate in 2004.
Now, an expert has highlighted the risks of using lethal injections as a method of death, weeks before Pike is executed.
Pike is set to die by lethal injection, despite her protests, in a method which has been criticized over the years by experts.
Matt Wells, the Deputy Director of Reprieve US, a non-profit organization that fights for justice for marginalized people who are facing human rights abuses, claims that the method isn't clean-cut.
Speaking to UNILAD, Wells explained: "Two months ago, Tony Carruthers was strapped to a gurney for over an hour while prison staff stabbed him with needles more than a dozen times as they failed to establish an IV line."
Due to medics failing to find a vein, his execution had to be halted, with some describing the situation as "barbaric," with the inmate forced to endure intense pain for over an hour.
Wells claimed that this wasn't the only occasion, adding: "Our research showed that more than a quarter of botched lethal injections in the modern era lasted over an hour."
He said that Tennessee going ahead with the method after torturing Carruthers was "beyond belief," further adding: "There is a high risk that Christa Pike could suffer a prolonged and agonizing death."
He also claimed that US states go out of their way to "hide information about executions," to trick the American public into thinking that the lethal injection is humane.
Wells stated: "The reality is there is no such thing."
Her attorney, Stephen Ferrell, also raised concerns about Pike's blood condition, thrombocytopenia, which can lead to excessive bleeding, while pointing out her small veins.
"The difficulty establishing IV lines is a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions for years," Ferrell pointed out, while also making a special request to the state.
Shelby County Senior Judge Mark Ward has been appointed as special master by the Tennessee Supreme Court ahead of Pike's execution.
Ward's job will be to assess whether the execution is constitutional, as Pike's legal team has spoken at length about the 50-year-old's physical and mental health.
He will also decide whether Pike will undergo too much pain during execution, going through options alongside the inmate's Buddhist advisor with her.
But with Ward being appointed, the case has become the first of its kind in Tennessee to have a special master involved.
The only woman on death row in the state of Tennessee, Christa Gail Pike, is currently suing the state over the method of her upcoming execution.
Pike, convicted of a 1995 murder, alleges that the lethal injection violates her rights and religious beliefs.
In 1996, Pike was among three people convicted of the murder of Colleen Slemmer in an incident that became known locally as the ‘Jobs Corps Murder’.
Pike and her boyfriend Tiddell Shipp, as well as friend Shadolla Peterson, faced prosecution together.
Pike was convicted of smashing Slemmer’s head with a block of asphalt and accused of keeping a piece of the dead girl’s skull as a souvenir of the murder.
She was sentenced to death for her crimes, but her sentence has yet to be carried out and she remains on death row, from where she has now brought a lawsuit against the State of Tennessee.
The date for her execution was recently set for September 30.
She would become the first woman executed in Tennessee for over 200 years.
Pike's suit, filed on January 8, is against Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction Frank Strada, and the wardens of Riverbend Maximum Security Prison and Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike alleges that the method of execution used in the state, lethal injection, can bring on what is known as a flash pulmonary edema, which can cause a drowning sensation.
She argues that because of a ‘severe medical condition’ using this method will ‘very likely produce an even more severe pattern of bloody froth in the lungs.’
The suit alleges: “This is death by drowning on one’s own blood.”
The suit also claims that being unresponsive is not the same as being unconscious, and that the injection can cause extreme pain, as well as terror.
Pike’s suit claims that this method is ‘very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace in violation of the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution.’
She claims to have ‘unique medical conditions’ and the lack of a contingency plan for botched execution make her proposed killing unconstitutional.
The legal documents also claim that ‘any alternative method pleading requirement violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment’ as it ‘violates her rights to conscience and/or to the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment.’
This is because Pike is a practising Buddhist and - the suit claims - an ‘alternative method violates her sincerely held religious beliefs against participating in any process leading to her own death.’
In the lawsuit, she asks for the method of execution to be declared unconstitutional and a permanent injunction put in place on the use of lethal injection.
She also asks for a contingency plan in the result of an execution going wrong, as well as for life-saving medical procedures to be brought in if death has not occurred after five minutes.
She argues against a 14 day isolation period, as well as for a temporary injuction being put in place to stop her execution until the resolution of two other cases from 2018 and 2019 that she has asked for equal protection of the laws and orders over.
As for Slemmer’s family, they continue to be outspoken for justice.
Her mother May Martinez has frequently told reporters that she wants to see justice for her daughter, and her hopes that no parent has to endure what she has endured over the years.
If executed on September 30th, Pike would become the first woman killed by the state of Tennessee in over 200 years.
Christa Gail Pike is set to become the first woman to be executed in the US in over two centuries.
The felon is the only woman on death row in Tennessee, after being convicted of a murder so gruesome that it still sends chills down the spines of those familiar with the case.
Pike was sentenced to death after she was found guilty of killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer on January 12, 1995, when she was just 18.
The horrific murder took place in a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus, as the teenagers were part of the Knoxville Job Corps program.
Pike had become jealous of her boyfriend at the time, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, as she thought Slemmer was interested in him.
As a result, she would murder her classmate with a box cutter, a cleaver, and a piece of asphalt in an extremely disturbing crime.
Despite facing death in less than six months, Pike filed a lawsuit in the Davidson County Chancery Court, challenging the state's lethal injection protocol.
Her legal team has claimed that the method could cause excessive pain and violate her constitutional rights, while also arguing that her medical condition, thrombocytosis (a blood-clotting condition), could lead to complications.
They also add that her Buddhist beliefs prevent her from choosing electrocution as an alternative, though she pushed for this method back in 2002 before changing her mind.
Tennessee's new execution protocol relies on pentobarbital, which induces respiratory and cardiac arrest, instead of relying on the former three-drug cocktail.
Pike has argued that the state's limitation on clergy, which excludes her Buddhist spiritual advisor, limits her “sincerely held religious belief of Buddhism,” and violates her First Amendment rights as it “burdens” her right to free exercise of religion.
The counsel for Pike explained the three reasons behind her lawsuit to the Nashville Banner, saying: “First, given Christa’s unique medical conditions, we have serious reservations about the State of Tennessee’s ability to prevent a torturous execution.
"Second, the State’s protocol fails to make any contingency plans for when things go wrong.
"Finally, requiring a prisoner to select electrocution to avoid being isolated in the final weeks of their life is particularly cruel and arbitrary — especially for a prisoner like Christa, who was forced to live in solitary confinement for over 25 years and suffers from severe mental illness.”
Pike is set to be executed on September 30, 2026, becoming the only person executed in the state for a crime committed at age 18, 19, or 20 in the modern death penalty era.
The suit also details that Pike suffers from several conditions, including: "Bipolar disorder, PTSD, hyperlipidemia, and 'small veins that make insertion of a needle difficult'."
They claim that due to her conditions, "there is a substantial risk that [Pike] will experience unnecessary superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace."
Court records reveal that Pike killed Slemmer after suspecting that she had developed feelings for her boyfriend, using a box cutter to cut her, before striking the teen with a cleaver and crushing her skull with a piece of asphalt.
She wasn't alone, as Pike was joined by her boyfriend, Shipp, and her friend, 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, in carrying out the evil act.
A pentagram was also carved into Slemmer's chest, as Pike and boyfriend Shipp had developed an interest in the occult and devil worship.
Pike even kept a piece of Slemmer's skull, showing it off around school before the three were arrested in just 36 hours.
According to CBS News, a groundskeeper found Slemmer's body and said that she was "so badly beaten that he had first mistaken [her body] for the corpse of an animal."
Pike admitted that she continued to be violent even when Slemmer "begged" her to stop.
A University of Tennessee police officer testified that Pike returned to the scene after the body was found and "seemed amused", noting that "she was giggling," according to a report from USA Today.
Despite their involvement in the crime, Shipp was handed a life sentence, while Peterson was given probation for testifying against Pike and Shipp.
Pike was the only one who was capitally charged, with her legal team continuing to argue that her age at the time, history of abuse, and mental health conditions should exempt her from execution.
"Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect," her defense team said.
"With time and treatment, she has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime."
Pike even apologised in a letter, saying: "I was a mentally ill 18 yr. old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I'd done. Even more to accept how many lives I effected [sic].
"I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime."
Her team claims that if she were tried today, she would not be sentenced to death.
The only woman on Tennessee’s death row is challenging the state’s execution protocol.
In January, Christa Gail Pike, who was convicted of a brutal 1995 murder, filed a lawsuit against Tennessee officials arguing that the state’s planned use of lethal injection violates her constitutional rights and religious beliefs.
Pike is suing Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, and the wardens of Riverbend Maximum Security Prison and Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center.
Pike was convicted in 1996 alongside her boyfriend, Tiddell Shipp, and friend Shadolla Peterson for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in a case that became known locally as the "Job Corps Murder".
Both Pike and Slemmer were participants in a Knoxville job-training program for troubled teens. Prosecutors argued that Pike believed Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend.
According to court filings and trial testimony, Pike struck Slemmer with a piece of asphalt, dragged her into the woods, tortured her, and slit her throat with a box cutter.
Pike was also accused of keeping a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir after the killing.
She was sentenced to death and remains on death row nearly three decades later.
At the center of Pike’s lawsuit is Tennessee’s revised lethal injection protocol, which took effect in December 2024.
The state now uses a single drug, pentobarbital, to induce respiratory and cardiac arrest rather than the three-drug cocktail previously used between 2018 and 2020, per Nashville Banner.
The prisoner argues the protocol is unconstitutional and particularly dangerous because of what the lawsuit describes as her "unique medical conditions".
The filing claims lethal injection can trigger flash pulmonary edema, a condition that may create the sensation of drowning.
Per the document, Pike suffers from thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder, along with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and veins that make needle insertion difficult.
Her attorneys argue that the use of pentobarbital could cause an especially severe reaction.
The lawsuit alleges: "This is death by drowning on one's own blood," and that the execution method is "very likely to result in unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace in violation of the United States Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution."
The death row inmate's attorneys also slammed what they describe as a lack of transparency surrounding the protocol.
The lawsuit claims the state's protocol is "plagued with the same issues that have marked botched executions for decades: secrecy, intentional omission, inattention to detail, and untrained and unlicensed prison personnel attempting to fill a medical role."
The filing further argues that Tennessee should have a plan in place and that life-saving medical procedures should be administered if death has not occurred within five minutes.
The challenge comes less than a year after Tennessee executed Byron Black in August 2025. Black, who had an implanted defibrillator, also challenged the state's protocol before his execution.
According to witnesses, Black reportedly groaned: "Oh, it's hurting so bad."
His attorney later claimed he had been "tortured" during the execution.
Pike's lawsuit also raises objections based on her faith.
Per the filing, the inmate is a practicing Buddhist, and an alternative-method requirement "violates her rights to conscience and/or to the free exercise of religion under the First Amendment."
The suit also states that proposing another method of execution conflicts with her "sincerely held religious beliefs against participating in any process leading to her own death."
In addition to this, the film claims restrictions on spiritual advisers during executions interfere with her ability to practice her religion.
As Pike's legal challenge moves through the courts, Slemmer's family has continued to call for the sentence to be carried out.
Her mother, May Martinez, has repeatedly said she wants justice for her daughter and hopes that no other parent experiences the pain her family has endured.
If Tennessee proceeds with the execution on September 30, Pike will become the first woman executed by the state since 1820, marking the first such execution in Tennessee in more than two centuries.
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