Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has denied a clemency request for Christa Pike, clearing the way for her scheduled execution on Wednesday. If the execution proceeds, the 50-year-old will be the first woman put to death in Tennessee in two centuries. Following the governor's decision on Monday, Pike's legal team has turned to the U.S. Supreme Court, filing an emergency petition to stay the execution.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1996 for her role in the brutal 1995 killing of her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, at the Knoxville Job Corps. At the time of the crime, Pike was 18 years old, making her the youngest woman placed on death row in modern U.S. history. The murder drew intense public attention due to the young ages of those involved, the extreme brutality of the crime, and the carving of a satanic symbol into Slemmer's body.
Governor Lee announced his decision to deny clemency in a brief statement on Monday. "After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene," Lee said. Civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International, had actively campaigned for Pike's life, urging the public to contact the governor's office to request that she be spared from death row.
Pike's defense attorneys expressed profound disappointment with the governor's refusal to intervene. "Throughout her childhood, Christa was failed by people and institutions that should have shown her care and meaningful intervention," her lawyers said in a statement. "The 18-year-old girl suffering from severe mental illness and near-debilitating trauma no longer exists. Christa is a 50-year-old remorseful woman who understands her actions, receives proper treatment for her mental illness, and provides for and guides fellow incarcerated women." They argued that the state's decision disregards decades of scientific research regarding the level of culpability that an 18-year-old, particularly one with a history of severe trauma, should bear for criminal behavior.
Assistant federal defender Stephen Ferrell highlighted the extensive trauma Pike endured during her youth, which was not presented to the jury during the penalty phase of her trial. Ferrell stated that Pike was sexually abused starting in toddlerhood and was raped at both 11 and 17 years old. He argued that her trial attorneys failed to present this critical background information or argue that her young age should have been a mitigating factor. Pike, who has never denied her involvement in Slemmer's death, was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
In her clemency petition, Pike expressed deep remorse for her past actions. "I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected," Pike said. "I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime."
Her legal team also pointed out that Pike's death sentence is an outlier compared to the punishments received by her co-defendants. Her boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 when the murder occurred, was spared the death penalty due to his age and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Shipp was denied parole last year. A third teenager involved in the incident admitted to being an accessory and was sentenced to probation.
For Slemmer's family, the pain of the loss remains deep. Her mother, May Martinez, told the Associated Press that her daughter was an easygoing person who loved roller skating, volunteered with the Special Olympics, and dreamed of working with computers. "She was a computer geek to begin with. She and my husband would build and tear apart the computers constantly," Martinez said. "She trusted everybody, and that was her downfall."
Executions of women remain rare in the United States. Most recently, Missouri executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, in 2023 for a 2003 murder, which is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the country. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first federal execution of a female inmate in nearly 70 years. Prior to that, Georgia executed a woman in 2015.
