Christa Pike
American murderer (born 1976)
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Christa Gail Pike (born March 10, 1976) is an American convicted murderer on death row in Tennessee. In 1995, when she was 18, Pike and her boyfriend lured their 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville where they tortured and killed her. Over roughly thirty minutes, Slemmer was beaten, slashed, and had a pentagram carved in her chest before Pike killed her by crushing her skull with a chunk of asphalt. Pike was arrested within two days and sentenced to death in 1996 at the age of 20, making her one of the youngest women to receive a death sentence in the United States during the post-Furman period.
March 10, 1976
Christa Pike | |
|---|---|
A mugshot of Pike in 2023 | |
| Born | Christa Gail Pike March 10, 1976 Beckley, West Virginia, U.S. |
| Status | Incarcerated on death row (hospitalized) |
| Motive | Jealousy |
| Convictions | 3 counts[a] |
| Penalty | Death by lethal injection |
| Details | |
| Date | January 12, 1995 (Slemmer) August 24, 2001 (Jones) |
| Country | United States |
| State | Tennessee |
| Locations | |
| Killed | Colleen Slemmer |
| Injured | Patricia Jones |
| Weapons |
|
Date apprehended | January 14, 1995 |
Pike spent her prison time in solitary confinement at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville. She was scheduled to be executed via lethal injection on September 30, 2026, but she survived the attempt after two rounds of pentobarbital failed to kill her.[1] Pike was subsequently hospitalized in critical condition at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.[2][3] She lost conciousness and was intubated[4][5] for several days until regaining conciousness on October 6.[6] The failed execution was the second for Tennessee in 2026, prompting the state's Department of Corrections secretary to resign and governor Bill Lee to place a moratorium on executions for the remainder of the year.
Pike's sentence remains controversial, as some experts have stated that her legal defense failed to present mitigating evidence at trial, including the effect of her youth and childhood trauma on her decision-making abilities. Her lawyers alleged that this evidence would have been relevant for the jury to decide whether she should have been sentenced to death.[7] Several human rights advocacy groups and United Nations special rapporteurs have called on Tennessee to commute her sentence.
Early life
Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10, 1976, in Beckley, West Virginia. She was neglected by alcoholic parents,[8] and her attorneys said she was exposed to alcohol in the womb.[9] She was raped as a toddler and again at ages 11 and 17.[10][11] She attempted suicide at the age of 12 and in 1991 she was sent to a Juvenile Evaluation Center in Swannanoa, North Carolina after being placed on probation for breaking into a community center to steal candy.[10][12]
The center was designed to reform troubled youth. Children earned or lost points based on compliance with rules, and their progress through the program depended on those points. It was promoted as an alternative to more punitive forms of juvenile incarceration. By the 1990s, however, the center had become increasingly punitive, relying on a uniform points‑and‑punishment system rather than behavioral change.[12]
The program proved ineffective for Pike: she repeatedly violated rules, generally in minor ways, and remained there for more than a year, far longer than most children. In the months leading up to her arrest, North Carolina social services removed her from her home after her mother's live‑in boyfriend physically and sexually abused her.[12] During her time at Swannanoa, she became a teacher's assistant and earned her GED. She was released from the juvenile center in March 1993 and enrolled in a Job Corps program in Knoxville, Tennessee.[12]
Murder of Colleen Slemmer
Born September 20, 1975, in Orange Park, Florida,[13] Colleen Slemmer was studying computer technology at Job Corps at the suggestion of her grandfather, who noted her technical proficiency with computers.[14]
While living at the Job Corps training campus, Pike met and fell in love with another Job Corp student, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp. They began dabbling in the occult and devil worship. Pike became convinced that fellow student Colleen Slemmer was trying to steal Shipp.[15][16] Along with her friend, 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, Pike planned to lure Slemmer to an isolated, abandoned steam plant near the University of Tennessee campus.[15]
On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp,[16] Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dormitory and went to the woods, where Slemmer was told they wanted to make peace by offering her some cannabis.[15] Upon arrival at the secluded location, Slemmer was attacked by Pike and Shipp while Peterson acted as lookout. According to court testimony, for the next 30 minutes, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed. During the attack, Slemmer begged for her life.[17] Pike and Shipp held her down and used a box cutter[18] to carve a pentagram into her chest while she was still alive,[15][19][20][21] while Pike used a meat cleaver and sliced her across the stomach, ignoring the victim's pleas and cries to stop. She was stabbed and slashed hundreds of times.[15][22] Finally Pike repeatedly smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, killing her from brain injury. Pike dug through the gaping open hole in her head, fished a piece of her skull, and put the blood-soaked fragment in her jacket pocket. She would show it off and boast about how she got it.[15][23][24] All three were arrested within 36 hours. Shipp's room was searched, and a Satanic Bible and altar were found. A search of Pike's jacket turned up the piece of Slemmer's skull. Even so, Pike insisted she and her co-conspirators were merely trying to scare Slemmer and their plan got out of control.[15]
Slemmer's mother repeatedly asked Tennessee authorities to return the fragment of skull for proper burial, but it remained in the state's possession as evidence. Authorities stated it would not be returned while the case remained open, awaiting Pike's execution.[25] In a documentary that premiered September 2026 ahead of Pike's potential execution, Dead Woman Walking: Pike vs. Tennessee, Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, confirmed that after 16 years of fighting and writing letters, she had received the skull from the state of Tennessee but has still not received "the last piece of her daughter's skull".[26]
Trial and appeals
Trial
Pike rejected a deal offered by the prosecution to plead guilty in return for a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.[27]
Pike, Shipp, and Peterson were all charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Shipp, who had turned 17 two months before the murder, was tried as an adult. Peterson, who agreed to become a witness for the prosecution, received probation after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact.[20] The prosecution sought a death sentence for Pike and life in prison without parole for Shipp.[28]
The jury found Pike guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. During the sentencing phase of the trial, her mother, father and aunt had testified on her behalf.[27] On March 30, 1996, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder charge and 25 years in prison for the conspiracy charge.
In January 1997, Shipp was also found guilty on both counts. However, after the jury could not unanimously agree whether to sentence him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the judge sentenced him to life in prison with parole eligibility.[15] Describing Shipp as a dangerous individual, the judge imposed a consecutive 25-year sentence for his conspiracy conviction, ensuring that he would not become eligible for parole until he was in his late 40s or early 50s.[29] Shipp was denied parole in October 2025.[30]
Domestic appeals
On direct appeal, the Supreme Court of Tennessee affirmed the conviction and sentence of Pike in 1998.[31]
Pike then "launched, cancelled and then re-launched" an appeal of her conviction in the Tennessee state courts.[32] In June 2001, then again in June 2002, against the advice of her lawyers, Pike asked the courts to drop her appeal and sought to be executed via electrocution. Criminal Court judge Mary Beth Leibowitz granted the request, and an execution date of August 19, 2002, was set. Pike soon thereafter changed her mind, and on July 8, 2002, defense lawyers filed a motion to allow the appeal process to continue. This motion was denied. However, on August 2, 2002, a three-judge state appeals court panel ruled that the proceedings should be continued, and the execution was not carried out.[33] In December 2008, Pike's latest request for a new trial was turned down, and she was returned to death row.[32] This decision was affirmed in 2011 by the Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee.[27]
In May 2014, Pike's lawyers entered an appeal in the federal court system.[34] They sought a commutation of the sentence from death to prison on the following grounds: ineffective assistance of counsel; mental illness; and the unconstitutionality of the death penalty as administered in Tennessee. In a 61-page ruling issued on March 11, 2016, by U.S. District Judge Harry Sandlin Mattice Jr., all grounds were rejected, and the requested commutation was denied.[35][36]
On August 22, 2019, having heard the same appeal on October 1, 2018, the three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court ruling and denied relief.[37]
Life on death row
After Pike's trial, the Tennessee Department of Correction adopted a policy requiring death row inmates to be held in maximum-security conditions. As such, Pike has been held since 1996 at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville,[38][39] in solitary confinement until 2024.[39]
Pike was treated in prison with Prozac for obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was also diagnosed with bipolar disorder while in prison.[40]
Pike sued the Tennessee Department of Correction in 2022, alleging that her conditions of confinement were unequal to those of similarly-situated male inmates.[41] While male death row inmates were allowed to socialize and work together, Pike was subject to more restrictive conditions. The state settled the lawsuit in September 2024, agreeing to equalize Pike's treatment with men on death row.[41]
Attempted murder of Patricia Jones
Pike was accused of attacking and attempting to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoestring on August 24, 2001, during a fire-related evacuation.[42] At the time of the attack, Jones had been serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of 84-year-old Alberta Coker in Knoxville. Pike claimed she was trying to protect another inmate, Natasha Cornett.[43] Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder on August 12, 2004[44] and was sentenced to 25 years in prison.[42]
Jones later testified that Pike had intervened in a fight between Jones and another inmate and likely saved the other woman's life.[45] At Pike's appeal, Appellate Judge John Everett Williams said that "her stated intention was to protect" convicted killer Natasha Cornett, but also said that "there was ample evidence by her actions and [Pike's] own words that contradicted this position."[43]
Attempted prison escape
In March 2012, it was revealed Pike had made escape plans involving corrections officer Justin Heflin as well as Donald Kohut of New Jersey.[46] Kohut, a personal trainer in his 30s, had entered into a letter-writing correspondence with Pike around the beginning of 2011. By July of that year, Kohut was making the nearly 1,700 mi (2,700 km) round trip from Flemington, New Jersey, to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit Pike in person once or twice a month. Eventually, Kohut communicated an escape plan to Pike and enlisted the help of corrections officer Heflin, who agreed to participate in return for cash and gifts.[47]
Because of security concerns, the Tennessee Department of Corrections has not provided many details about the plan; however, the indictment laid out a scenario where a prison key would be traced and then a duplicate created.[48] Early in 2012, prison personnel received information about the escape plot.[47][49] This led to the attempted prison break being thwarted by a joint investigation involving the Tennessee Department of Corrections, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and the New Jersey State Police.[46] According to the TBI, the plan was not very far along when uncovered, and "the jailbreak was not imminent".[47]
In March 2012, Kohut was arrested and charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit escape, while Heflin was arrested and charged with bribery, official misconduct, and conspiracy to commit escape.[50] Pike was not charged in connection with the alleged conspiracy. Investigators said it was unclear whether she was a participant in the conspiracy beyond her awareness of the scheme.[47] On May 31, 2012, Kohut was sentenced to seven years in prison to be served at the Tennessee State Northeast Correctional Complex.[51] Heflin, who cooperated with authorities after his arrest, served no prison time, but was terminated from his job with the Tennessee Department of Corrections.[47]
2026 execution attempt
Death warrant
On August 27, 2020, the office of Tennessee attorney general Herbert Slatery asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an execution date for Pike. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee and other factors, Pike's attorneys received extensions from the court, giving them more time to argue why Pike should not be executed. The state did not oppose the extensions. On June 7, 2021, Pike's attorneys filed a motion opposing the execution date and requesting a Certificate of Commutation on the grounds of mental illness. The motion was denied.[52]
Before November 2022, Pike had exhausted all appeals. In November 2022, however, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state's law automatically sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole was unconstitutional. On August 30, 2023,[53] Pike's lawyers relied on this decision in an attempt to reopen her case and overturn her 1996 conviction and sentence. They argued that her young age and mental health struggles at the time of the killing should spare her from execution.[54]
In October 2023, Knox County Criminal Court judge Scott Green denied the request, stating that the November 2022 ruling did not apply to her. Green noted, "The Booker case addressed only juvenile offenders in Tennessee. The high court, in the opinion written by now retired Justice Sharon Lee, specifically addressed the question of juveniles, not adults. This ruling applies only to juvenile homicide offenders – not to adult offenders", and Pike was legally an adult.[54] On September 30, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a death warrant scheduling Pike's execution for September 30, 2026. Pike had the option between electrocution or lethal injection.[55]
Public response to scheduled execution
Her scheduled execution had received many criticisms due to Pike's mental state, brought to the public's attention by the highly publicized trial of Lindsay Clancy, with Pike saying she felt kinship with Lindsay Clancy: "We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues. One thing is different, however, is that times have changed a lot on awareness of women's issues since I was put on trial."[56][57][58] Several non-governmental organizations and human rights organizations have spoken out against Pike's execution. Cornell University's Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide has characterized Pike's request for commutation as "consistent with Tennessee's treatment of Tadaryl Shipp".[59] Amnesty International has also called for a halt to Pike's execution.[60] The Advocates for Human Rights have called Pike's sentence "unjust and unethical".[61]
Special rapporteurs from the United Nations, including Reem Alsalem (violence against women and girls), Pau Pérez-Sales (torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment), Morris Tidball-Binz (extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions), and Mariângela Batista Galvão Simão (right to physical and mental health) have called on the governments of the United States and Tennessee to prevent Pike's execution.[62] Several members of the United Nations Working Group on discrimination against women and girls (Claudia Flores, Ivana Kostić, Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, and Laura Nyirinkindi) have also called on authorities not to execute Pike.[62] In September 2026, Slemmer's mother expressed support for Pike's execution, saying: "She did the crime. I think she should pay for it ... I would feel better that she felt the same pain that Colleen did" and "I just want [Pike] down so I can end it, relieve my daughter, so she [Slemmer] finally can be resting."[63]
Final appeals
In June 2026, after the attempted execution of Tony Carruthers, Pike challenged the execution protocol, alleging that the state could not guarantee a constitutionally compliant execution.[64] She argued that her thrombocytosis would complicate intravenous (IV) cannula placement and increase her risk of suffering, and that an all‑male execution team would force her to relive past sexual assault trauma.[65]
In August 2026, a special master for the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to intervene, stating that Pike's legal team had not convinced him of the alleged risks related to her PTSD and blood-clotting disorder. Her attorneys argued that these conditions could complicate the execution and cause pain and suffering, violating her constitutional rights.[66] Pike also asked to be executed by hanging, believing a botched hanging would be less painful than a botched lethal injection. The state denied the request because hanging is not an approved execution method in Tennessee and the death chamber is not equipped for it.[67]
Pike's attorneys subsequently challenged Tennessee's lethal injection protocol in the Tennessee Supreme Court arguing that executing her via lethal injection with her thrombocytosis condition constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Pike also further argued that being subjected to observation by male guards in her final hours, being physically restrained to a gurney, and having intravenous lines established near her chest and groin areas would subject her to psychological harm due to her underlying bipolar disorder and PTSD from past sexual abuse. The Tennessee Supreme Court rejected this constitutional challenge on September 23, 2026, a week prior to Pike's scheduled execution.[68][69] Pike's attorneys also filed a 226-page clemency petition with Tennessee governor Bill Lee asking him to commute her sentence to life imprisonment.[68][70] On September 28, 2026, Lee denied Pike's clemency petition.[71] Additionally, Pike sought constitutional relief from her death sentence in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,[69] but on September 29 the court rejected Pike's request, leaving her without any appeals.[72]
As Pike had requested an all‑female execution team,[70] Tennessee allowed certain accommodations. Female corrections officers would transport Pike to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution one day prior to the execution. While on death watch, the state would attempt to have only female corrections officers observe her, and she would receive privacy screens for dressing, showering, and using the restroom. Pike would also be allowed to meet with a spiritual adviser in the 12 hours before the execution, and the adviser would be permitted to accompany her in the death chamber.[68] On September 29, Pike declined to select a last meal.[73]
If executed, Pike would be the 19th woman executed nationwide since 1976 and the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in roughly 200 years.[74][70][75][76] On September 30, 2026, approximately one hour before the scheduled execution, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit stayed her execution;[77] her attorney said the court had "serious concerns" about the execution.[78] Later that day, the United States Supreme Court overturned the stay order and allowed the execution to move forward.[79][80][81]
Botched execution attempt
The execution attempt was conducted at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee, using Tennessee's single-drug lethal-injection protocol using pentobarbital. Pike, aged 50, would have been the first woman executed by Tennessee since at least 1820.[82][b]
Witnesses were led into the execution room at 6:41 pm CDT. The blinds opened at 7:26 pm, revealing Pike on the gurney with the IV cannula already placed in her arm. Pike made what was expected to be her final statement, saying "I just want to say that I'm going to leave this world the way I spent most of my life, and that is with love." She said that she loved both her supporters and those who hated her and stated, "I'm at peace and I'm ready to go." Pike then sang "I Love You So Much" with her spiritual adviser.[84] At 7:34 pm, Pike complained of pain in her arm: "The vein in my arm feels like it's about to bust." She later blinked, smiled, and laughed, and lifted her head and looked toward her left arm.[85] Around 7:39 pm, she kicked off the sheet that covered her.[84] At 7:41 pm, according to Molly Davis of The Tennessean, a "small white rock appeared in a window in the wall," believed to be "a signal that a round of deadly drugs has been pushed through the IV lines." The blinds closed at 7:46 pm.[86][87]
Under the Tennessee Department of Correction's lethal injection protocol, if the person remains alive five minutes after receiving a first dose of the pentobarbital injection, a second injection is to be administered.[10]
The blinds were soon reopened and Pike was still seen moving, according to her attorney. Her attorneys told the district court that she did not appear to lose consciousness.[88] The curtains were drawn a second time at 8:05/8:06 pm.[86][89] Media witnesses, escorted out of the building at 8:53 pm, stated that she was snoring.[90][89]
The execution protocol does not say what should happen if the person remains alive after the second injection.[10] Pike's lawyer, Kelly Gleason, stated that she "needs immediate medical care".[86] Public defender Amy Harwell, unable to reach emergency contacts at the Tennessee Supreme Court, drove to the court with an emergency motion.[91] Motions were also filed in the Sixth Circuit and the Eastern District of Tennessee district court.[92]
Pike was taken in an ambulance to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.[90][93] The next day, her lawyer said she was in critical condition in the hospital,[94][95] and the following day, her lawyers further revealed that she was unconscious, intubated on a ventilator and that both of her arms were swollen, blistered and burned.[93][96][97][98] On October 6, her lawyers announced that Pike had regained consciousness and was speaking while receiving critical care.[6] Pike may be the first person to have survived a lethal injection.[99][100][101]
Aftermath
This was the second failed execution in 2026 in Tennessee.[102] The same doctor in both cases, Mark Fowler, had previously failed to secure a central line for the execution of Tony Carruthers,[103] who was granted a one-year reprieve.[102]
Immediately following the failed execution attempt of Pike, Tennessee governor Bill Lee halted the December 3, 2026, scheduled execution of Gary Wayne Sutton, the only remaining execution for the remainder of 2026.[104] Lee also stated that he had ordered a "comprehensive, third-party review to determine exactly what occurred".[105] He added that "a lawfully imposed sentence is among that State's most serious responsibilities, and the people of Tennessee expect it to be done in a manner that is not only legal and constitutional, but is effective."[106]
On October 3, 2026, three days after the failed execution, Lee announced that Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada, the head of the state's prison system, had submitted his resignation and would leave office later that month.[107] Strada had headed the department since January 2023 and had overseen both unsuccessful execution attempts in Tennessee during 2026.[108][109]
In announcing his resignation, Strada said that stepping aside was "in the best interests" of Tennessee while the independent review proceeded and said that he intended to cooperate with the investigation.[110] He maintained that the department had carried out its responsibilities in accordance with the established execution protocol.[108] Immediately after the execution attempt, the Department of Correction had similarly stated that it had followed every step of Tennessee's approved execution protocol and that the protocol did not authorize additional procedures beyond those performed that evening.[111]
The failed execution sparked international reactions. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for the cancellation of Pike's execution, stating that "the death penalty has no place in any society".[112] Maya Foa, CEO of UK–based anti-death penalty organization Reprieve, said: "We cannot know exactly what went wrong, because so much happened behind a curtain – lethal injection relies on secrecy at every stage, to hide the violence of the state taking a human life."[113] Amnesty International called on Lee to commute the death sentences of Pike and all other prisoners on death row in Tennessee.[114]
In popular culture
The murder of Colleen Slemmer was featured on the TV shows Deadly Women, For My Man, Killer Kids, Martinis and Murder, Death by Gossip with Wendy Williams, Snapped: Killer Couples, and Mean Girl Murders.[115] Pike was also featured in a season one episode of World's Most Dangerous Criminals. Patricia Springer wrote A Love To Die For, a book about the murder.[116]
See also
Notes
- Christa Pike's three convictions are:
First degree murder - Colleen Slemmer
Conspiracy to commit first degree murder - Colleen Slemmer
Attempted first degree murder - Patricia Jones - The year 1820 is referring to the alleged execution of Eve Martin. Other sources give the execution of an unnamed black woman in 1819 as the last execution of a woman in Tennessee. Pike's attorneys have argued that the alleged 1820 execution was a case of mistaken identity. A 2008 study found that Martin was the victim of the murder, not the perpetrator.[83]