Tennessee prepares to execute Christa Pike, the state's first female death row inmate in two centuries

Christa Pike, who was 18 when she participated in a 1995 murder in Tennessee, is scheduled for execution on Sept. 30, making her the first woman to face the death penalty in the state in 200 years. Pike and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer; Shipp, then 17, received a life sentence and is now eligible for parole, while a third teen was sentenced to probation.

Since the modern death-penalty era began in 1977, only 18 women have been executed nationwide, compared with 1,664 men. Experts attribute the disparity to lower rates of violent crime among women and to juries’ relative reluctance to impose capital punishment on female defendants. Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said, "> Oftentimes we are looking, when we think about the death penalty, at who is the most deserving of the worst penalty we can impose on an individual. And women don’t really fit that image a lot of us have."

Research indicates that 96% of women on death row have histories of sexual abuse, rape, or domestic violence, experiences that prosecutors often downplay, according to Sandra Babcock, founding director of the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. Women sentenced to death are also frequently isolated, as the small number of female inmates leads prisons to house them alone.

There are currently 45 women on death row across the United States, with California holding the largest share at 17, though the state has halted executions since 2019. Since 1900, 56 women have been executed nationwide, the highest numbers historically recorded in New York and Texas.