Christa Pike Requests All-Female Execution Team Ahead of Historic Tennessee Execution

Christa Pike is set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in about 200 years after her request for clemency was rejected by Governor Bill Lee.

Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, after Lee declined to intervene in her death sentence.

According to Inside Edition, she has also requested that an all-female team carry out her execution.

Why Christa Pike was sentenced to death

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at Knoxville Job Corps, in 1995.

The killing attracted widespread attention because of its brutality and the young ages of those involved. A satanic symbol was also carved into Slemmer’s body after the attack.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death, becoming the youngest woman sentenced to death row in modern US history.

She has never denied her role in Slemmer’s death.

Over the years, however, details about Pike’s childhood trauma and mental health struggles have emerged. Her lawyers say she was sexually abused from a young age and suffered severe trauma before the killing.

Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Governor rejects Christa Pike’s clemency request

As Pike’s execution date approached, civil rights organizations, including the ACLU and Amnesty International, urged people to contact the governor’s office and ask him to stop the execution.

Lee, however, declined to grant clemency.

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, Lee said in a statement.

Pike’s attorneys said they were “deeply saddened and heartbroken” by the decision.

They argued that the state was overlooking decades of research into adolescent brain development and the impact of severe childhood trauma on young people’s actions.

Throughout her childhood, Christa was failed by people and institutions that should have shown her care and meaningful intervention, her attorneys said.

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They added that Pike had changed significantly since the crime, describing her as a 50-year-old woman who is remorseful, understands the consequences of her actions, receives treatment for her mental illness and supports other incarcerated women.

Her attorneys have also asked the US Supreme Court to stay the execution.

Lawyers highlight Pike’s childhood trauma

Assistant federal defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused beginning when she was a toddler and was raped at ages 11 and 17.

According to Ferrell, Pike’s trial lawyers failed to present the jury with important information about her childhood and did not adequately argue that her age should have been considered when she was sentenced.

Ferrell has also pointed to advances in understanding adolescent brain development since Pike was sentenced.

He noted that Shipp, who was 17 when Slemmer was killed, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole rather than the death penalty because of his age. Shipp was denied parole last year.

A third teenager involved in the case admitted to being an accessory and was placed on probation.

Pike expressed remorse for Slemmer’s death in a statement included in her clemency petition.

I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid,” Pike said. “It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done.

She acknowledged that Slemmer was someone’s daughter, sister, and friend and said thinking about her actions now “sickens” her.

Who was Colleen Slemmer?

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, described her daughter as an easygoing young woman who volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved roller skating, and had dreams of pursuing a career in computers.

She trusted everybody, and that was her downfall, Martinez told the Associated Press.

The family has continued to remember Slemmer decades after her death.

When was the last woman executed in Tennessee?

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the last woman executed in Tennessee was Martin Eve, who was hanged in 1820 after being convicted as an accessory to murder.

If Pike’s execution proceeds, she will therefore become the first woman executed by Tennessee in roughly two centuries.

Her case also comes amid continuing debate in the US over the death penalty, particularly when it involves people who committed crimes as teenagers and individuals with histories of severe trauma.

In 2023, Missouri executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman convicted of killing a former girlfriend in 2003.

The federal government executed Lisa Montgomery in 2021, marking the first federal execution of a woman in nearly seven decades.

Georgia last executed a woman in 2015.