After more than 30 years following her murder conviction, Christa Pike, the only woman on death row in the state of Tennessee, had her execution date set on Tuesday, September 30th. While that date is not yet public knowledge, if carried out, Pike will be among the fewer than 20 women who have been executed in the United States since 1976.
On January 12, 1995, in Knoxville, TN, then 18-year-old Christa Pike and two others (including Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp) coerced 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into going into the woods with them. There she was brutally murdered, with her body being found the next morning with evidence of beatings, multiple stabbings, slicing with a meat cleaver, and a pentagram carved into her chest and forehead.
The brutality of the crime, coupled with the gender of both the murderer and victim, made waves and shocked the nation. Reverberations of the “Satanic Panic” in the 1980s were still felt in the country, and the carved pentagram signs were especially notable. The crime followed the highly publicized West Memphis Three case by less than two years, which also intensified interest. There, three Arkansas teens were accused of the ritualistic murders of three young boys. Their case spawned documentaries, further investigations, and, as of today, remains unresolved, although there are hopes that an update in the use of DNA in the case will finally bring clarity to the tragic and long-standing case.
After receiving her death sentence at the age of 18, Christa Pike has remained in prison since awaiting final sentencing. Only recently has Pike been allowed to attend classes and religious services with other prisoners after spending 27 years of what her attorneys considered solitary confinement, as her sex effectively separated her from most of the death row prison population.
Pike’s legal team maintains that mental illness and her abuse as a youth, paired with her young age at the time, should make her eligible for life in prison rather than a death sentence.
Currently, there are over 2,000 men on death row in the country, while the number of women is less than 50. Only three women have been executed in Tennessee, all of which took place in the 1800s. The women were Black, with two of them registered slaves, making their convictions dubious, especially with no recorded evidence of their crimes.
Margie Velma Barfield was the first woman executed in the United States following the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976 following her murder conviction. Her execution took place on November 2, 1984.
In 2004, Christa Pike had 25 years added to her sentencing after attempting to strangle a fellow inmate during a fight.
