A female death row inmate in Tennessee, Christa Gail Pike, is poised to become the first woman executed in the state in over two centuries. Pike, the sole woman on Tennessee’s death row, received a death sentence at the age of 18 for the brutal murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. The crime took place when Pike, along with her then boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer into the woods near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus.
During the attack, Pike viciously assaulted Slemmer by slashing her throat with a box cutter, striking her with a cleaver, carving a pentagram into her chest, and crushing her skull with a piece of asphalt. Pike even kept a piece of the victim’s skull as a memento. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and was subsequently sentenced to death, while Shipp received a life sentence with parole possibility. In 2004, Pike faced another conviction for attempting to strangle a fellow inmate, adding 25 more years to her sentence.
After nearly 30 years since her initial death sentence, the Tennessee Supreme Court has set an execution date for Pike, now aged 49, with the execution scheduled for September 30, 2026. If the execution proceeds as planned, Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 and only the fourth in the state’s history.
Despite arguments from Pike’s legal team citing her troubled past, including a history of abuse and mental health diagnoses, the motion for execution remains in place. Pike’s attorneys emphasized her remorse and personal growth since the crime. Pike herself expressed deep regret for her actions, acknowledging the immense impact on numerous lives and highlighting her own mental health struggles at the time of the crime.
Notably, the last woman executed in the US was Amber McLaughlin, who was put to death by lethal injection in Missouri in January 2023. Since the modern application of the death penalty in 1976, records show that 18 women have been executed in the US.