Tennessee Set to Execute Christa Pike, First Woman in the State in 200 Years
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she helped torture and kill a classmate in 1995. Gov. Bill Lee refused clemency and her lawyers are turning to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Tennessee is scheduled to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. If the sentence is carried out, Pike will be the first woman the state has put to death in more than 200 years.
Pike, now 50, is the only woman on Tennessee's death row. She was 18 in 1995 when she, her then-boyfriend and another young woman tortured and killed Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old classmate, in what prosecutors described as a jealous rage. Pike is the only one of the three sentenced to death. Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was 17 at the time and ineligible for the death penalty. The third participant, Shadolla Peterson, testified against Pike and Shipp and received probation.
Gov. Bill Lee denied a last plea for clemency on Monday. He said that after "deliberate consideration" and a "thorough review," he was upholding the sentence and would not intervene. The Tennessee Supreme Court has also declined to stay the execution, rejecting Pike's appeal over the state's lethal injection protocol and the psychological harm she says she faces. Her attorneys have said they will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court and keep pressing the governor.
Her legal team argues that the state's protocol could cause her extreme pain. They say her small, compromised veins make standard peripheral IV access nearly impossible and highly painful, and they asked that a central line, an IV placed in a major vein, be used as a safer alternative. More than 100 women's advocacy groups have argued that executing Pike would be cruel and unusual punishment, pointing to her history of multiple rapes and child sexual abuse and neglect.
The case carries a distinction that death penalty researchers are watching. If it goes ahead, Pike would be the first person in the modern era of capital punishment executed for a crime committed at age 18, and the 19th woman executed in the United States since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Under Supreme Court rulings, offenders who were under 18 at the time of a crime cannot be executed, which is why Shipp escaped a death sentence.
Speaking ahead of the execution, Pike told NBC News she is "at peace." Demonstrators rallied in Tennessee against the execution this week. Under the state's procedures, female corrections officers will transport Pike to Riverbend no earlier than 24 hours before the scheduled time.
Tennessee resumed executions in 2025 after a pause that followed problems with its lethal injection process, and Wednesday's would be a rare moment in a state where women have almost never been put to death. Whether the U.S. Supreme Court steps in will likely be known in the hours before the appointed time.
