Tennessee Death Row Inmate Christa Pike to Be Executed in 2026
Share
Christa Gail Pike was just 18 years old when she was sentenced to death by electrocution in 1996 – becoming the youngest woman on death row in the U.S. at that time.
At the time, she was a high school dropout studying computer programming at Job Corps- a government program for disadvantaged youth, in Tennessee.
Pike had a difficult home life and was living in a dorm on the program’s campus and dating a fellow student, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp.
Christa Pike was born in Beckley, West Virginia, in 1976. Her parents, Carissa Hansen and Emil Glenn Pike, had a volatile relationship, and Pike's aunt would later testify that Pike suffered seizures during childhood and would often be sent to her grandmother, who cared for her. She also moved home and changed schools frequently.
Pike attempted suicide after her grandmother’s death in 1988, and things started to escalate when she became a teenager. She was both accused of, and allegedly the perpetrator of, violence and sexual abuse. Documents state that those who knew her accused her of being a compulsive liar.
At some point during her time at the Job Corps program, Pike became convinced that another student, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, was interested in her boyfriend, despite others stating this was not the case.
Along with a friend, Shadolla Peterson, 18, Pike lured Colleen Slemmer out to an abandoned steam mill off campus with the intention of "teaching Slemmer a lesson."
On the night of January 12, 1995, under the guise of holding out an olive branch, Pike convinced Slemmer to go on a walk with her, along with Shipp and Peterson. They would walk along a jogging trail, she said, to talk and smoke weed together.
Before they left for the walk, all four of them signed out of campus.
Only three would return.
Slemmer had no idea that Pike had a box cutter and meat cleaver hidden on her person; but once alone, and far enough away from the dormitory for anyone to hear, Pike began berating Slemmer, accusing her of attempting to sleep with Tadaryl Shipp.
Pike, Shipp, and their friend then began attacking the victim with the cleaver, knives, and box cutters, slashing her across her entire body.
The attack lasted upwards of thirty minutes.
Shipp then held the victim down, carving a pentagram into her chest, before Pike bludgeoned her to death with a slab of nearby asphalt.
Before they left, Pike took a small piece of Slemmer’s broken skull and carried it away with her as a souvenir. Media outlets later reported that she showed it around at school.
It took less than 48 hours for the three suspects to be arrested and taken into custody.
When Pike's room in the dormitory was searched by police, they discovered what they described as a "satanic altar." They also recovered the fragment of the victim's skull that Pike had taken as a memento of the brutal murder.
At trial, it took a jury less than three hours to find Pike guilty of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. In March 1996, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for murder. Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, while Shadolla Peterson testified against Pike during the trial and received probation.
Colleen Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, later told Knox News in 2001 that she found out months after her daughter had been cremated that it was done so without her head. The victim's skull had been kept in a box as evidence in the Knox County Building. Martinez said:
"I don't feel that my daughter deserves to have most of her body here and part of her body there – and that's the only decent thing she'll be getting out of this."
Over a decade later, Pike's post-conviction lawyers stated that the teenager’s life may have been spared if the jury had known more about her history of childhood abuse, brain damage, and mental health issues. The prosecution argued otherwise.
Dr. William Kenner, a forensic psychiatrist, said Pike described herself as a "leopard" when in a depressive state, and a "puppy" when on lithium. He diagnosed her as having both bipolar disorder and PTSD.
In 2001, Pike, along with fellow inmate Natasha Cornett, attempted to strangle another inmate, Patricia Jones, to death with a shoelace. Jones was also serving life for murder.
Then in 2012, with the help of a male pen pal, Pike attempted to break out of prison. Donald Kohut, a personal trainer from New Jersey, had been writing to Pike for a while and managed to convince a corrections officer, Justin Heflin, to be in on the plot. According to The Star-Ledger, Heflin agreed with the promise of receiving cash and material items in return. The plan involved a copied key; however, it was intercepted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI), who had received information about the breakout.
Despite attempts to escape her fate, Pike has been given a date for her execution: September 30, 2026.
She will be the first woman in around 200 years to be executed in Tennessee.