Federal Court Halts Execution At Last Minute For Woman Who Kept Piece Of Victim’s Skull

A federal appeals court halted Christa Pike’s execution shortly before 9 a.m. CDT Wednesday, less than two hours before she was scheduled to die by lethal injection.

A divided panel of the 6th Circuit issued a temporary stay to review claims that the jury that sentenced Pike to death never heard about her childhood sexual abuse. The panel split 2-1. Judge Richard Griffin dissented, calling the bid a “last-ditch meritless effort to delay a lawful execution.”

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti has asked the Supreme Court to lift the stay, which could allow the execution to proceed Wednesday. The Supreme Court had denied Pike’s own request for a stay on Tuesday.

If executed, Pike, 50, would be the first woman put to death in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Demonstrators supporting and opposing the execution had gathered outside Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville in the days leading up to it.

Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, 19, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps Center.

Pike suspected Slemmer was romantically interested in her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Pike, Shipp, and a friend, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to a secluded area. Over roughly 30 minutes, Pike tortured Slemmer and beat her to death with a chunk of asphalt. University employees later found Slemmer’s body with a pentagram carved into her chest. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy and bragged about the killing to friends.

Pike, who was 18 at the time, was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and has spent 30 years on death row. Shipp, who was 17, was also convicted of first-degree murder but received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Peterson testified against them and received probation.

“I literally thought I was going crazy cause I’d never seen myself act like that before in my life,” Pike said at the time. 

While incarcerated, Pike nearly strangled fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoelace in 2001. She was convicted of attempted first-degree murder in 2004. 

Pike’s attorneys argue that she suffered lasting trauma from childhood sexual assaults and that her trial attorneys failed to adequately present that history to the jury. Court records describe abuse by a family member, including rape and assault that began when Pike was two years old. She was later raped by a neighbor at the age of 11 and again by her mother’s “live-in” boyfriend. Social services removed Pike from her home. Shortly after the state removed her from her home, Pike wrote a letter to her friend saying that she wanted to kill herself.

Her attorneys laid out their case to Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee, who said Monday that he would not intervene. Pike’s attorneys said they were “deeply saddened and heartbroken” by his decision.

Pike says she now feels remorse.

“I’m very remorseful now; I wasn’t in the beginning when I first caught this charge,” Pike said. “I didn’t care what I had done.”

Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, says Pike does not deserve to be spared. She has struggled with grief and anger since her daughter’s murder and does not believe Pike has changed. Martinez and her husband scrambled to raise enough money to drive to Nashville to witness the execution.

“Nobody,” she said, “remembers Colleen.”