Inmate makes final plea as US prepares first female execution in 200 years

Christa Gail Pike, the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in Tennessee, is pleading for her life as her execution date nears — an event that would mark the first female execution in the United States in two centuries.

Pike was just 18 when she and two classmates at the Knoxville Job Corps Center lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville, Tennessee. Over the course of an hour, prosecutors said Pike tortured and murdered Slemmer in a jealous rage over a boyfriend.

The crime was described as one of the most gruesome in the state’s history. Pike reportedly stabbed, bludgeoned, and carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest. Investigators later found that she had kept a piece of the victim’s skull as a trophy.

The brutality of the murder — and Pike’s apparent lack of remorse at the time — stunned the public. In March 1996, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, breaking down in tears when sentenced to death.

Her accomplices, Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson, received lighter sentences. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, avoided the death penalty and will be eligible for parole in November, while Peterson cooperated with investigators and received probation.

Scheduled for execution in 2026

Now 49, Pike has spent more than three decades behind bars. In January 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled her execution for September 30, 2026, which would make her the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years — and one of fewer than 20 women executed in modern U.S. history.

Pike has publicly admitted her guilt but continues to appeal for mercy. “I know I don’t deserve to be out walking around with everybody else in normal society. I did something horrible,” she said in a documentary interview. “But I don’t believe I deserve to die.”

In recent appeals, Pike’s attorneys have argued that her death sentence fails to account for her traumatic childhood and severe mental health struggles. Court filings describe years of physical and sexual abuse, neglect, and documented diagnoses of bipolar disorder and PTSD.

Her defense argues that if she were tried today — under current understandings of youth and trauma — she would not face the death penalty. “She was one person in a group,” her legal team claims, suggesting that her punishment is disproportionate compared to her co-defendants.

In a letter from prison, Pike wrote:

“I think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager. Mine happened to be huge, unforgettable, and ruined countless lives. It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime.”

The victim’s family demands justice

For Colleen Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, the appeals bring back painful memories. “I just want Christa down so I can end it,” she told reporters. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Colleen — how she died and how rough it was.”

Unless a clemency petition or final appeal is granted, Pike will be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville — closing one of Tennessee’s most haunting criminal cases.