Barring an improbable, last minute stay of execution, Christa Pike will become the first woman executed by the state of Tennessee in over 200 years when she receives the lethal injection at 10:00AM local time today (Wednesday, September 30) at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The 50-year-old was sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps Center.
Pike’s relationship with fellow student Tadaryl Shipp, 17, led to her involvement in the brutal torture and murder of Slemmer, whom she reportedly viewed as a romantic rival.
Pike, Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to an isolated spot near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus, where she was stabbed to death. Pike was accused of torturing the teenager and cutting her throat with a box cutter.
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 certain 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 claimed earlier this week to be “at peace” whether she was granted clemency or not.
Given the circumstances, there has been particular scrutiny placed on Pike’s pending execution, on top of the usual morbid curiosity as to how it will be carried out.
