More than 30 years after Christa Pike brutally killed her 19-year-old classmate, she is set to become the first woman executed in the state in more than 200 years. Now, as her execution nears, her attorney has submitted a special request to state officials.
On Jan. 12, 1995, Christa Pike was an 18-year-old student at the Job Corps career-training center in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she was dating fellow student Tadaryl Shipp, 17.
As the relationship continued, Pike grew increasingly jealous of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer, believing she was trying to steal her boyfriend.
Her suspicions, prosecutors say, ultimately led to a deadly plan.
According to court records, Pike, Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville. Prosecutors said Peterson kept watch while Pike and Shipp attacked Slemmer.
The next day, a groundskeeper found Slemmer’s body, beaten, stabbed and bludgeoned, with a pentagram carved into her chest.
‘Wanted a human sacrifice’
According to court records cited by USA Today, Pike later boasted about the killing to another student, claiming she slashed Slemmer’s throat six times with a box cutter, struck her with a meat cleaver and continued the assault even as the teenager “begged” her to stop.
Investigators also alleged Pike threw a large piece of asphalt at Slemmer’s head, a blow believed to have killed her.
Afterward, prosecutors said she kept a fragment of the victim’s skull as a souvenir and later showed it to other students.
For Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, the details have never faded.
“Christa Pike wanted a human sacrifice and my daughter was it,” Martinez told WBIR, referencing Pike’s growing interest in the occult. “They basically cut her over 300 times and carved a pentagram on her chest.”
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, becoming the youngest woman ever placed on Tennessee’s death row.
Shipp was also convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. According to inmate records, he will become eligible for parole in November, while Peterson testified for the prosecution and received probation.
‘Reckless teenager’
Over the years, Pike has acknowledged responsibility for the killing while describing herself as a very different person than the teenager convicted in 1995.
In a letter to The Tennessean, part of the USA Today network, she wrote: “Think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager. Well, mine happened to be huge, unforgettable and ruined countless lives,” she started in the 2023 statement.
“I was a mentally ill 18 yr. old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I effected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Appeals kept case alive for decades
Now 49, Pike remains Tennessee’s only female death row inmate “and the only person executed in the state for a crime committed at age 18, 19, or 20 in the modern death penalty era,” the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC) reports.
If her execution proceeds on Sept. 30, 2026, she will become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 and only the fourth woman ever put to death by the state. The last woman executed in Tennessee, according to the DPIC, was Martin Eve (also documented as Eve Martin), who was hanged in 1820 after being convicted as an accessory to murder.
Alleged ‘deep remorse’
For years, Pike’s attorneys have pointed to her age at the time of the crime, along with years of abuse and mental illness they say jurors never fully understood.
“Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect,” her legal team said in a statement to USA Today. “With time and treatment for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, which were not diagnosed until years later, Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
Victim’s mother wants Pike ‘put down’
Despite the arguments, the victim’s mother has never changed her position and wants to see Pike “put down.”
“What I want to see from the judge right now would be to get a date and put her down, instead of waiting another year or another day,” she told WBIR-TV in 2021.
“There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was. Honestly, my heart breaks every single day because…I keep reliving it and reliving it and I can’t anymore. And I want this to happen before I die. Otherwise, nobody will see justice.”
‘Torturous execution’”’
With Pike’s execution date approaching, her attorney, Stephen Ferrell, is asking Tennessee officials to reconsider moving forward under the state’s current lethal injection protocol.
The request follows the failed May 21 execution attempt of death row inmate Tony Carruthers, whose execution was halted after prison staff were unable to establish the required backup IV line, WSMV reports. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee later granted Carruthers – sentenced to death for a 1994 triple murder – a one-year reprieve.
Ferrell argues Pike faces similar risks because of her medical condition.
According to a statement, Pike has unusually small veins and thrombocytopenia, a blood disorder that can cause excessive bleeding, conditions her attorney says could make inserting an IV exceptionally difficult.
He warned that her veins “make the insertion of a needle difficult, even for the most trained medical professionals,” adding that “the difficulty establishing IV lines is a known complication that has caused prolonged and botched executions for years.”
Ferrell also argued Pike’s medical condition could leave her with “a bloody froth in her lungs that would amount to drowning.”
“Since the state released the 2025 execution protocol, defense counsel, medical experts, and advocates have warned that the lack of clarity on any number of issues would result in a torturous execution,” he concluded.
What do you think of Pike’s attorneys arguing that her age, along with her mental illness, should be considered? Please let us know your thoughts and then share this story so we can get the conversation going!
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