Execution Set for Christa Pike After Supreme Court Lifts Delay

The U.S. Supreme Court has cleared the way for Christa Pike to be executed, lifting a stay that had temporarily prevented her execution. She could become the first woman executed in Tennessee since the early 1800s. The Supreme Court vacated the stay issued by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which had placed a hold earlier in the day.

The stay resulted from a legal challenge brought by Pike’s attorneys and the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office. The Sixth Circuit’s decision had been a 2-1 split. Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court’s action, expressing that the Sixth Circuit should have had time to consider Pike’s legal challenge. She emphasized the need for caution in irreversible capital cases.

Pike, now 50, was 18 years old in 1995 when she, her boyfriend, and another accomplice killed 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Court documents describe the brutal assault as involving beating, kicking, and stabbing. The attack occurred in Knoxville through a vocational program, the Job Corps Center, where Pike and Slemmer met.

According to case files, Pike accused Slemmer of pursuing her boyfriend. She reportedly expressed a desire to kill Slemmer, claiming she felt particularly mean on the day of the murder. After luring Slemmer with a pretense of visiting a music store and gathering marijuana, Pike attacked her.

During the assault, Slemmer attempted to escape, but Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, captured and restrained her. Pike then slashed the victim with a box cutter. Despite Slemmer’s pleas for her life, the attack continued, with Shipp carving pentagrams into her face and chest.

At her trial, Dr. William Bernet, a forensic psychiatrist, testified about the crime’s “satanic elements” and described “collective aggression,” where a group becomes emotionally intense, leading to severe violence. Another expert, Dr. Eric Engum, spoke about Pike’s severe borderline personality disorder and other mental health issues, while noting she was not insane.

Pike’s crime also included taking a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy, later showing it off to others and recounting details of the murder. She also displayed her bloodstained shoes and brought the skull fragment to school the next morning.

Shipp, a minor at the time of the crime, and the third accomplice, Shadolla Peterson, did not receive death sentences. Peterson testified for the prosecution.

Supporters of Pike argue that her defense failed to present mitigating factors, like untreated mental health issues and a history of abuse, during her sentencing. A petition asking Governor Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life in prison garnered nearly 25,000 signatures.