Christa Pike’s final message is one of acceptance ahead of her planned execution, which takes place later today.
The 50-year-old was sentenced to die all the way back in 1996, but it has taken 30 years for her date with justice to come around. Her punishment for the murder of Colleen Slemmer will be carried out in just a few hours.
Pike was 18 in 1995 when she lured 19-year-old Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps Center, to an isolated spot and killed her together with her then-boyfriend and other friend. Slemmer was beaten and stabbed to death, while a pentagram was reportedly carved into her chest.
Pike’s boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, was 17 and couldn’t be sentenced to death. He’s serving a life sentence instead.
Pike, now 50, is the only woman on death row in Tennessee. If her sentence is carried out, it will make her the first female to be put to death by the US state in over 200 years.
At the time of writing, that seems all but sure to come to fruition.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has turned down Pike’s final legal challenge, clearing the way for the state to carry out her execution, while Governor Bill Lee made it clear he would not be intervening to grant her clemency. Meanwhile, the US Supreme Court declined yesterday to stop the execution, effectively exhausting Pike’s appeal options.
In the days leading up to today’s execution, much has been made of the 30 year old case. Pike has contested both her conviction and the method in which she is set to be executed, but now claims to be “at peace”.
In a letter to NBC News, Pike wrote: “Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace.”
She added: “I am not afraid to die. I’m only nervous about the process.”
In a 226-page document, Pike’s lawyers had argued that the death sentence ruling should be overturned in favor of life imprisonment without parole for Pike.
Pike has thrombocytosis, a condition that causes unusually high platelet counts, and her lawyers said going ahead with lethal injection anyway could count as cruel and unusual punishment.
They also referred to her extremely chaotic and traumatic upbringing. Pike was sexually abused throughout her childhood by her grandmother’s boyfriend and raped several times as an adult in addition to surviving other forms of abuse and neglects.
Pike has requested that she be taken to the gurney by female prison staff, as well as female officers to preside over the execution itself.
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