The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday set execution dates for four people, including the only woman in the state on death row. Christa Pike received a death sentence at age 18 for the 1995 torture slaying of Colleen Slemmer, who was a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student. The Tennessean reports Pike is set to be put to death on Sept. 30, 2026.
Slemmer, 18, was stabbed and beaten by Pike and Tadaryl Shipp, Pike's boyfriend at the time, on the University of Tennessee's Agricultural campus. The AP reports they carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest, and investigators claimed Pike took a piece of the victim's skull for a souvenir. Shipp, of Memphis, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was also convicted in 2004 for trying to strangle a fellow inmate during a prison fight, which added 25 years to her sentence.
Pike's attorneys previously asked the state's high court to commute her sentence based on her youth and "severe mental illness at the time of her crime." Pike suffered physical and sexual abuse and neglect as a child, according to her attorneys. She also suffered from bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders that were not diagnosed until years after her arrest. "With time and treatment ... Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime," a Wednesday statement from her attorneys reads.
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Tennessee began a new round of executions in May after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency. The court also set execution dates on Tuesday for Tony Carruthers (May 21, 2026), Gary Sutton (Dec. 3, 2026), and Anthony Hines (Aug. 13, 2026). The AP delves into their crimes here.
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