As Tennessee prepares to execute Christa Pike, the convicted killer is making an extraordinary last-minute request over how she will die, insisting that her death will not “teach” her “that killing someone is wrong.”
During Christa Pike’s murder trial, prosecutors held up the broken skull of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, passing it around the courtroom as the teenager’s mother watched the remains of her daughter become evidence in the case against her killer.
“That was the hardest thing in the world – to watch your daughter’s skull be passed around,” Slemmer’s mom, May Martinez told the New York Times.
It would take more than a decade before a court ordered the skull returned to Slemmer’s family, but for Martinez, the damage from what happened to her daughter never went away.
“I’m not the same person I used to be,” she said.
Colleen Slemmer’s death
More than 31 years after Slemmer was murdered, the woman convicted of killing her is now approaching what could be the final days of her own life.
Pike, now 50, is Tennessee’s only female death-row prisoner and is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on Sept. 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. If the execution proceeds, she will become the first woman put to death by the state in more than 200 years.
The crime that brought Pike to this point happened on Jan. 12, 1995, when she was 18 and attending the Knoxville Job Corps alongside Slemmer.
Pike had become convinced that Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and the teenager was lured to a secluded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus in Knoxville.
There, Slemmer was subjected to a prolonged attack in which she was beaten and cut before she was killed. Shipp carved a pentagram into her chest, while Pike took a piece of Slemmer’s skull from the scene and later showed it to other students, according to USA Today.
Another teenager, Shadolla Peterson, was also present, but the three would ultimately face very different consequences.
Shipp – 17 when Slemmer was killed and ineligible for the death penalty – received a life sentence, while Peterson testified against the pair and received probation.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1996, making her the youngest woman sent to Tennessee’s death row.
‘Will not be my hell anymore’
Now, as the date on that sentence finally approaches, Pike says the execution already consumes her thoughts.
“I run through this execution every day in my heart,” she said in an audio recording that was shared with the New York Times. “Whatever happens on Sept. 30, this will not be my hell anymore.”
Pike has also questioned what her execution is meant to accomplish after more than three decades behind bars.
“I don’t think that someone should kill me to teach me that killing someone is wrong,” she said. “I’m not going to be the one here left to suffer anymore after they do this.”
Her attorneys are still fighting to prevent that from happening, asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison without parole.
Their argument reaches back long before Slemmer’s murder.
‘Christa was broken, not evil’
According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), Pike endured sexual abuse starting when she was about 5 years old. At 11, she was raped by a neighbor who did not receive prison time and later returned to live nearby, while another rape followed when Pike was 17, about a year before Slemmer was killed.
Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and her attorneys argue that her mental health was not considered during sentencing.
“She was broken by a mental health system, juvenile system, and a criminal justice system that ignored, misdiagnosed, and mistreated her at every turn,” her attorneys wrote in the petition, adding, “Christa was broken, not evil.”
But as the execution date closes in, her legal team is also confronting the possibility that those arguments may not save her.
Unusual requests for final moments
Pike has asked to be hanged rather than face Tennessee’s lethal-injection procedure under circumstances her attorneys argue could force her to relive past sexual trauma.
Hanging, however, is not an execution method currently available in Tennessee. The state has no protocol, training or equipment to carry it out, creating an obvious obstacle to Pike’s request.
Her attorneys have also asked that only women be involved in carrying out her lethal injection, arguing that being physically restrained and handled by male corrections officers could retraumatize Pike because of her history of sexual violence.
Tennessee has made some concessions, including plans to keep Pike at the women’s Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center until roughly 24 hours before the execution, and an all-female transport staff.
But the state stopped short of guaranteeing that only women will be in the chamber as she prepares to die.
‘She didn’t consider how my daughter felt’
“I don’t think she should be allowed to have any special treatment,” Martinez told the Daily Mail, explaining she, and her husband Raul, will be front row as Pike is killed. “She didn’t consider how my daughter felt – she’s just playing the system.”
“It’s all bullcrap,” she added.
In her interview with the New York Times, she explained that “Nobody could ever, ever convince me she’s changed.”
And as Sept. 30 approaches, both of Slemmer’s parents say they are ready for the sentence imposed decades ago to finally be carried out.
“We will be there the morning of the 30th of September to ensure that her punishment is carried out,” Raul shared in a Facebook post.
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