Christa Pike scheduled for Tennessee execution

Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee on September 30, which would make her the first woman executed in the state in over 200 years. Pike is currently the only woman on death row in Tennessee.

The case stems from the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville. Pike, who was 18 at the time, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder after luring Slemmer to a secluded area where she was beaten and slashed. Court records indicate Pike kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a “souvenir” following the attack.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996. Her legal team has submitted a plea for clemency to Governor Bill Lee, requesting that her sentence be commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The defense argues that Pike’s traumatic upbringing should be considered, stating that commuting the sentence would still hold her accountable for the remainder of her natural life.