Tennessee is preparing to carry out an execution that would mark a historic first in the modern era. Christa Gail Pike, now 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. If the execution proceeds, Pike would become the first woman executed by Tennessee since 1820.
She would also become the first person executed in the state in the modern death-penalty era for a crime committed at age 18, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
But the execution is not yet certain.
Pike’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the execution, and the application remains pending. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee also declined to intervene after reviewing Pike’s clemency request, leaving the execution on schedule unless a court intervenes or another legal development changes the timetable.
The case has drawn renewed national attention because of the age at which Pike committed the crime, the sentence imposed on her teenage co-defendant, her documented history of severe abuse and mental-health diagnoses, and the extraordinary length of time she has spent on death row.
Who is Christa Pike?
Pike was 18 when she killed Slemmer in January 1995.
The two were students at the Knoxville Job Corps Center in Tennessee and knew each other. Prosecutors argued that Pike viewed Slemmer as a romantic rival because of Pike’s relationship with Tadaryl Shipp.
Pike, Shipp and another teenager, Shadolla Peterson, were involved in the killing, according to the trial record.
Tennessee’s courts later upheld Pike’s first-degree murder and conspiracy convictions and her death sentence. The Tennessee Supreme Court concluded that the evidence supported the jury’s findings and that the punishment was not disproportionate under the state’s legal standards.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.
At the time, she was 20 and became the youngest person on Tennessee’s death row. She remains the only woman currently sentenced to death in the state.
What happened to Colleen Slemmer?
The murder took place on January 12, 1995, in a remote area of the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus.
According to the Tennessee Supreme Court’s account of the trial evidence, Pike and her co-defendants attacked Slemmer after Pike had lured her to an isolated location.
The court described a prolonged assault that involved repeated physical attacks and ultimately fatal head injuries. It also noted that a pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest during the attack.
The details of the crime were central to the prosecution’s case and to the jury’s decision to impose the death penalty. The Tennessee Supreme Court later found that the evidence supported the aggravating circumstances considered at sentencing.
Slemmer’s death left her family dealing with the consequences for decades.
Her mother, May Martinez, has continued to speak publicly about the loss and has opposed efforts to spare Pike’s life.
The long passage of time has not diminished the central reality of the case for Slemmer’s family: their daughter was 19 when she was killed and never had the opportunity to reach adulthood.
Why did Pike receive the death penalty while her co-defendant did not?
One of the central arguments in the case is the difference between Pike’s sentence and that of Tadaryl Shipp.
Shipp was 17 when Slemmer was killed.
Because he was under 18 at the time of the crime, he was constitutionally ineligible for the death penalty under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 decision in Roper v. Simmons.
He received a life sentence and later became eligible for parole.
The third participant, Shadolla Peterson, testified against Pike and Shipp and received probation, according to court and case records.
Pike’s lawyers have repeatedly pointed to that disparity.
Their argument is not that Pike should escape responsibility for the murder. Instead, they contend that sentencing someone to death for a crime committed at 18, while a 17-year-old participant received a sentence permitting parole, produces a disproportionate outcome.
They have also noted that Pike’s case is unusual because she is the only person in Tennessee’s modern death-penalty era facing execution for a crime committed at 18, 19 or 20.
What do Pike’s lawyers say about her childhood and mental health?
Pike’s defense has spent years arguing that her life before the murder should be considered when assessing whether the death sentence remains appropriate.
Court filings describe a childhood marked by severe neglect and abuse.
Her attorneys have also presented evidence concerning brain damage and mental-health problems. Court records and later filings discuss diagnoses including bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Those arguments were revisited in Pike’s latest clemency petition, which reportedly runs to 226 pages.
Her lawyers asked Gov. Bill Lee to commute the death sentence to life without parole, arguing that her age at the time of the crime, traumatic upbringing, abuse and mental-health history should be treated as mitigating circumstances.
These are mitigation arguments advanced by Pike’s legal team. They do not change the fact that Tennessee’s courts have repeatedly upheld her conviction and death sentence.
What has Gov. Bill Lee decided?
Pike’s legal team asked Gov. Bill Lee to intervene and commute her sentence.
On September 28, Lee said he would not do so.
“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, according to local reporting.
That decision removed one potential route to postponing the execution.
Pike’s attorneys nevertheless continue to pursue relief in federal court.
What is happening at the U.S. Supreme Court?
The final legal fight has moved to the nation’s highest court.
Pike’s attorneys filed an application for a stay of execution with Justice Brett Kavanaugh on September 25. A related petition for a writ of certiorari was also filed with the Supreme Court. The case is docketed as Christa Gail Pike v. Tennessee.
As of September 29, the application remains pending.
That means Pike’s scheduled execution has not been canceled, but the Supreme Court has not yet completed its consideration of her request.
Her lawyers are challenging aspects of the case and have also raised concerns surrounding Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol.
Until the court acts, the execution remains scheduled.
Why is the execution method also being challenged?
Pike’s defense has separately challenged Tennessee’s lethal-injection procedure.
In June 2026, her lawyers argued that the state might not be able to carry out the execution without exposing Pike to an unconstitutional risk of unnecessary pain and suffering.
The challenge was considered in an evidentiary hearing before a special judge appointed by the Tennessee Supreme Court. The litigation followed an earlier botched execution attempt involving another Tennessee inmate and focused on the state’s execution procedures and personnel.
The issue adds another legal layer to an already lengthy death-penalty case.
Pike’s attorneys have argued that her particular physical and psychological circumstances make the execution protocol especially problematic.
The state has disputed those arguments.
Why is Tennessee’s 1820 history significant?
If Pike’s execution proceeds, Tennessee will carry out its first execution of a woman in more than two centuries.
The historical record before the modern era is not perfectly complete. The Tennessee Department of Correction has said that definitive records of executions carried out in the state before 1900 do not exist.
Independent historical research, however, is widely cited as showing that Tennessee last executed a woman in 1820.
That is why the state describes Pike’s scheduled execution as an event without a modern precedent.
The historical gap is extraordinary.
More than 200 years separate the last documented female execution in Tennessee and the one currently scheduled.
How rare are executions of women in the United States?
Female executions are rare nationwide.
Since the modern death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 18 women had been executed in the United States before Pike’s scheduled execution, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The last woman executed was Amber McLaughlin, who was put to death by lethal injection in Missouri in January 2023.
If Pike’s execution occurs as scheduled, she would become the 19th woman executed in the United States since 1976.
The figure illustrates how unusual capital punishment has been for women compared with men.
Pike is also unusual even within that small group because of the age at which the crime was committed.
Why does Pike’s age at the time of the murder matter?
Pike was 18 when she killed Slemmer.
That is legally significant because the Supreme Court has drawn a firm constitutional line at age 18 for purposes of the death penalty.
In Roper v. Simmons, the court ruled that executing people for crimes committed before their 18th birthdays violates the Eighth Amendment.
Pike was legally an adult when she committed the murder and therefore remained eligible for capital punishment under the law then in force.
Her lawyers nevertheless argue that modern understanding of adolescent brain development and the circumstances surrounding her childhood should influence how her sentence is viewed today.
The Tennessee courts have rejected previous efforts to overturn the sentence, while her current legal team is asking federal courts and the governor to reconsider it.
Thirty years on death row
Pike has spent roughly three decades in prison, much of that time under highly restrictive conditions.
The Death Penalty Information Center says she spent years in solitary confinement and that a 2024 settlement changed some aspects of her conditions, including opportunities for social interaction, work and time outside her cell.
Her long incarceration has become another element of the case.
Pike’s attorneys describe her later life as evidence of rehabilitation and remorse and have argued that the person she is today should be distinguished from the 18-year-old who committed the crime.
Those arguments have not changed the legal status of her sentence.
She remains on death row.
Where does the case stand now?
The execution is scheduled for 10 a.m. Central time on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Gov. Lee has declined to grant clemency.
Pike’s legal team has asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay, and that request remains unresolved as of September 29.
The case therefore enters its final stage with two possible immediate outcomes: the Supreme Court could allow the execution to proceed, or it could issue a stay while considering Pike’s appeal.
A stay would not necessarily end the case. It could instead provide additional time for the courts to consider her claims.
A case that has outlived an entire generation
The murder of Colleen Slemmer happened in 1995.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.
The Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 1998, and the U.S. Supreme Court later declined to review the case.
More than 30 years after the killing, the case is once again attracting national attention.
The reasons are unusually layered: a teenage offender who was legally an adult, a victim whose family continues to seek accountability, a co-defendant who was spared the death penalty because he was 17, a documented history of severe trauma and mental-health diagnoses, decades on death row and a legal challenge reaching the U.S. Supreme Court only days before a scheduled execution.
Whatever happens next, the immediate question is no longer whether Tennessee intends to execute Pike.
The state has set the date.
The remaining question is whether the courts will allow that date to stand.
