US5 min(s) read
Published 11:02 19 May 2026 GMT
A death row inmate set to become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years has issued an emotional plea in a handwritten letter ahead of her scheduled execution.
Christa Gail Pike was sentenced to death after being found guilty of brutally killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer on January 12, 1995.
The pair were both enrolled in the Knoxville Job Corps program when Pike, who was 18 at the time, became convinced Slemmer was interested in her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
According to court records, Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus and cut her with a box cutter.
She then struck the teen with a cleaver before crushing her skull using a piece of asphalt. A pentagram was also carved into Slemmer’s chest.
A groundskeeper later found the victim's body and recalled that she was "so badly beaten that he had first mistaken [her body] for the corpse of an animal," per CBS News.
After the brutal killing, Pike collected a fragment of Slemmer’s skull, showing it off to classmates and bragging about the killing.
She admitted to continuing the violence even when Slemmer "begged" her to stop.
A University of Tennessee police officer testified that the killer even returned to the scene after the body was discovered and "seemed amused," USA Today reported.
Pike, who turned 50 in March, wrote to local outlet The Tennessean reflecting on the horrific 1995 murder that shocked the country.
"Think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager," she wrote. "Well, mine happened to be huge, unforgettable and ruined countless lives. I was a mentally ill 18 yr old kid. It took me numerous years to even realise 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," she added.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. She is set to be executed by lethal injection about six months from now, on September 30.
If her execution is carried out, she will become the first woman executed in Tennessee since Martin Eve was hanged in 1820 for accessory to murder.
She is also expected to become just the 19th woman executed in modern US history and the youngest female offender sentenced to death since the Furman period, which followed the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 after executions were temporarily halted four years earlier.
For years, Pike’s legal team has argued that her abusive upbringing and mental health struggles should exempt her from execution.
"Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect," her legal team stated. "With time and treatment, she has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime."
Her lawyers have also contended that if she were tried today, she likely would not receive the death penalty.
In a separate lawsuit, her legal team claimed Tennessee’s execution procedures violate Pike’s Buddhist beliefs.
"The requirement that she plead an alternative method violates her sincerely held religious beliefs against participating in any process leading to her own death," the file reads.
They added that the state's "limitation on clergy presence during the execution excludes the plaintiff's spiritual advisor and restricts the practice of the plaintiff's sincerely held religious belief of Buddhism".
The lawsuit continues by claiming the restriction "burdens the plaintiff's right to free exercise of religion".
Pike’s attorneys have also raised concerns about her medical condition, thrombocytosis, and warned that it could complicate the lethal injection procedure.
They also questioned Tennessee’s revised execution procedures following previous cases in which inmates appeared to suffer during lethal injections.
State officials strongly rejected the claims in court filings, arguing: "The Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death" and that "some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution - no matter how humane."
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also said: "Pike has offered nothing but speculation that the well-established, constitutional lethal injection method poses any unique risk in her case... We wish Pike’s commitment to the sanctity of life had arrived in time to save Colleen Slemmer."
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