Tennessee Prepares for Rare Execution of Christa Gail Pike

Pike was 18 when she was convicted for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. The two were students at a Job Corps training center in Knoxville when prosecutors say Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area over a dispute involving a boyfriend. The brutality of the crime, which included carving a pentagram into the victim’s body, initially sparked national alarm during the era’s satanic panic. While Pike received a death sentence, her accomplice Tadaryl Shipp, then 17, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole.

Legal avenues for Pike have exhausted. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court denied her request for a stay, and Governor Bill Lee rejected her plea for clemency. In her petition, Pike cited her history of mental illness and childhood abuse, expressing remorse for the life she took. Conversely, Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has traveled from Florida to witness the execution, stating that she has waited decades to see the sentence carried out. The execution remains set for Wednesday at the Nashville facility.