It’s been nearly three decades since Christa Gail Pike brutally murdered 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee — and now, the state has set the date when she’ll pay the ultimate price.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled Pike’s execution for September 30, 2026. If carried out, she’ll become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years and only the 19th woman in modern U.S. history to face the death chamber.
Back in 1995, Pike was just 18 years old when prosecutors say jealousy drove her to lure Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps, into the woods.
Christa Pike believed that Colleen was trying to steal away her boyfriend.
Over the course of an hour, Pike beat, stabbed, and carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest. According to court records, she even bragged afterward — showing classmates a fragment of Slemmer’s skull she kept as a trophy.
When a groundskeeper discovered Slemmer’s body the next day, it was so badly beaten he first thought it belonged to an animal.
Showed up giggling at the crime scene
The brutal murder drew massive media attention and became known as the “Job Corps murder,” since both the victim and the killer were enrolled in the program.
Several hours after the body was discovered and the area taped off, Pike showed up again at the crime scene. She spoke with officers, asking if authorities had identified the victim and where Slemmer’s body had been found. According to one officer, Pike seemed almost thrilled by the situation.
“She was giggling and moving around,” an officer testified during the trial.
Pike was arrested the very next day.
In March 1996, she was sentenced to death. The seven-man, five-woman jury found her guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. According to news reports at the time, she broke down in uncontrollable sobs when the sentence was handed down in court.
“Can I please hug my mom before I go. Please let me just hug my mom,” Pike said, as her mother, Carissa Hansen, sat crying behind her in the courtroom.
Her mother’s tragic confession
Hansen had testified earlier in the trial, admitting she had been a poor mother who allowed Pike to have a live-in boyfriend at just 14 years old. In an effort to bond with her daughter, she confessed she had even shared drugs with her and smoked marijuana together.
“I should be the one in her seat,” Hansen said. “I should be punished for her crimes.”
Christa Gail Pike’s case is one of only 48 involving women currently on death row nationwide — compared to nearly 2,100 men.
Since 1976, just 18 women have been executed in the U.S., making Pike’s case extraordinarily rare.
Pike’s words from behind bars
Now 49, Pike has spent most of her 30 years in prison in near-solitary confinement as Tennessee’s only female death row inmate.
In a letter to The Tennessean, she admitted guilt but insisted she’s not the same person she was at 18.
“Think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager,” Pike wrote. “Mine happened to be huge, unforgettable and ruined countless lives… It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Her lawyers argue that today, given her youth and mental health diagnoses — including bipolar disorder and PTSD stemming from years of abuse — she never would have received a death sentence.
They’re pushing for life without parole instead.
Colleen Slemmer’s family
For Colleen Slemmer’s family, there is no sympathy. Her mother, May Martinez, has been outspoken in her demand that Pike’s death sentence be carried out.
“I just want Christa down so I can end it,” Martinez told local reporters.
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was.”
What happens now
Unless appeals or clemency petitions succeed, Pike will be executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville — the site of Tennessee’s death chamber.
Her execution would mark not only a historic moment for the state but also one of the rarest outcomes in America’s criminal justice system: a woman put to death.
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