Christa Pike, 50, was set to be executed Wednesday morning in Tennessee for the 1995 murder of a classmate. (Photo: TN Department of Correction)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - A federal appeals court halted Tennessee’s scheduled execution of Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday, about an hour before it was set to begin, to review whether her claims of childhood sexual abuse and rape were fully considered during sentencing.
This would have been the state’s first execution of a woman in at least 200 years.
Dig deeper:
Pike, now 50, and her boyfriend were convicted of stabbing and beating 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville in 1995.
The case garnered widespread attention at the time in part because of a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the "satanic panic" of the 1980s and 1990s.
SHARED: Tennessee set to execute first woman in more than 200 years for 1995 murder of classmate
It wasn’t immediately clear if Tennessee’s attorney general was appealing the decision, or how long the execution might be delayed. A phone message and email were left with a spokesperson for the attorney general's office seeking comment.
Execution witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the order came down at around 9 a.m. CDT.
As the execution date drew near, it renewed debate over the death penalty for young offenders.
Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider Pike’s age at the time, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler. Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds sentenced to death in Tennessee have had their sentences vacated.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from Pike's attorneys to halt the execution. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee on Monday denied Pike clemency.
What they're saying:
"I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done," Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition. "Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime."
The other side:
Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.
"Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," May Martinez said in a telephone interview.
Martinez said a group helped raise money so she and her husband could travel from Florida to witness the execution.
The backstory:
The 1995 killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body.
Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Older records can be spotty, though, so it’s difficult to know precise details about the last woman who was put to death there.
Big picture view:
It's a rarity across the U.S. Since 1976, 18 women have been put to death in the country, representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.
Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government put a female inmate to death.
The Source: The Associated Press contributed to this report. The information came from the federal appeals court’s order halting Christa Gail Pike’s execution, court filings from her attorneys, statements included in her clemency petition, and comments from her attorney and Colleen Slemmer’s mother. Additional details about the 1995 murder, Pike’s conviction and Tennessee’s execution history came from prosecutors, prison officials and the Death Penalty Information Center. This story was reported from Los Angeles.