The US state of Tennessee may soon carry out its first execution of a woman in over 200 years after its Supreme Court gave the green light to enforce the sentence handed down to Christa Gail Pike.
Pike – currently the only woman on Tennessee’s death row – was 18 years old when she lured 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus in Knoxville on January 12, 1995.
According to Fox News, Pike and Slemmer were both enrolled in the Knoxville Job Corps, a career‑training program. Pike allegedly convinced herself that Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend, 17‑year‑old Tadaryl Shipp, and, in a fit of jealousy, became the ringleader of a shocking plan.
After arranging to get Slemmer into the wooded area with the help of Shipp and a third accomplice, Shadolla Peterson, Pike slashed the teenager’s throat with a box cutter, attacked her with a meat cleaver, carved a pentagram into her chest, and ultimately crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt.
Taking a piece of Slemmer’s broken skull as a grisly trophy, Pike reportedly flaunted it to classmates before her arrest.
Retired detective Randy York, who worked the case, said: “During the interview, she was very giddy, laughed, very cooperative. She wanted to tell us all about it.” He added: “She had a piece of the skull wrapped up in a napkin in her coat pocket. That’s a trophy. It showed that the piece she had fit exactly like a puzzle piece in the skull.”
Pike was convicted of first‑degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Shipp received life without the possibility of parole (a parole board denied his bid for release earlier this year), while Peterson, who testified against Pike and Shipp, was given probation.
In 2004, Pike had an additional 25 years added to her sentence after being convicted of attempting to strangle another inmate in prison.
For nearly thirty years, Pike’s case has been tied up in the appeals process, but according to court documents filed on September 30, the State of Tennessee has requested an execution date for Pike, now 49. That date has been set for September 30, 2026.
Pike’s legal team continues to fight her sentence, arguing that her age at the time of the crime should be considered, along with her history of childhood trauma, abuse, and untreated mental illness. Psychological evaluations conducted after the crime diagnosed Pike with bipolar disorder and post‑traumatic stress disorder.
“Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect,” the 49‑year‑old’s defense team said, via CBS News.
“With time and treatment, she has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
If her sentence is carried out, Pike will become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820, and only the fourth in the state’s history.
According to The Death Penalty Information Center, the last recorded execution of a woman in Tennessee occurred in 1820, when Martin Eve was hanged for being an accessory to murder.
In May 2022, Tennessee paused the death penalty after Governor Bill Lee ordered an independent review into the proper testing of lethal injection drugs. A revised lethal injection protocol was implemented, and executions resumed in May 2025.
