Tennessee set to carry out execution of woman convicted of 1995 murder

Christa Pike, now 50, is slated for execution on Wednesday for the 1995 murder of classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. The execution would be Tennessee's first of a female inmate since 1820. Governor Bill Lee declined to intervene, and Pike's legal team has petitioned the state Supreme Court for a stay.

Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted of luring Slemmer to a secluded area, where they tortured and killed her. Pike has not contested her guilt, but her attorneys argue that her teenage age at the time, untreated mental illness, and a history of severe childhood abuse make the death penalty disproportionate. They cite diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder and contend that critical evidence about her background was not presented during sentencing.

"I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done," Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition.

Assistant federal defender Stephen Ferrell noted that contemporary research on adolescent brain development suggests Pike's sentence is an outlier, pointing out that Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received life imprisonment with parole eligibility.

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, expressed support for the execution, recalling her daughter’s involvement in the Special Olympics and her interest in computers.

The case attracted national attention due to the brutality of the crime, the involvement of teenage perpetrators, and the carving of a pentagram on the victim’s body, which prosecutors linked to the era’s “satanic panic.” Executions of women remain rare in the United States; since 1976, only 18 women have been put to death nationwide.