Stay Granted for Tennessee Woman’s Execution
The first woman in Tennessee to be sentenced to death in over two centuries received a last-minute stay from a federal appeals court, just more than an hour before her scheduled execution, which had already drawn witnesses to a prison in Nashville.
Christa Pike, now 50, was set to be executed by lethal injection at 10 a.m. Central Time on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution for the murder and torture of a fellow University of Tennessee student back in 1995.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit intervened to temporarily halt her death sentence, allowing time to examine whether her claims of childhood sexual abuse were adequately considered during her sentencing, as reported by various news outlets.
The decision included a statement saying this “short stay of execution” would remain in place “until further order of this court.”
However, the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office communicated with the media that it has since requested the U.S. Supreme Court to “lift the stay.”
“We will continue to advocate for the lawfully-imposed sentence as the courts work through this technical issue,” a spokesperson mentioned.
The representative noted that last-minute objections are common in capital cases after extensive litigation. They are now urging the Supreme Court to lift the stay.
Pike was convicted of fatally attacking her classmate Colleen Slemmer, 19, out of jealousy in January 1995 when Pike was just 18. Prosecutors indicated that Pike believed Slemmer was trying to pursue a relationship with her boyfriend.
Together with her then 17-year-old boyfriend, Pike lured Slemmer to a secluded area on the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus, where she assaulted Slemmer, slashed her throat, and inscribed Satanic symbols on her body while Slemmer begged for her life. Reports from the trial indicated that the brutal act lasted about 30 minutes, ending with Pike killing Slemmer by using a large piece of asphalt to smash her head, later keeping a fragment of the skull as a memento.
Pike was sentenced to death in a trial that took place in 1996, while her boyfriend received a life sentence due to his age at the time.
In multiple attempts to halt the execution, Pike’s legal team has argued that she endured severe sexual and physical abuse throughout her childhood and had undiagnosed mental health issues at the time of Slemmer’s murder.
In line with this, Pike reportedly requested an all-female execution team to avoid potential trauma from male personnel during her final moments.
No evidence of the claimed childhood sexual assaults, which allegedly began when she was just two years old and continued into her later childhood, was presented to the jury during her trial.
Pike’s lengthy 32 years on death row has seen its share of incidents. She received 25 extra years added to her sentence after being found guilty of attempting to murder a fellow inmate in 2001. Additionally, in 2012, a plot to escape from prison was thwarted that involved a corrections officer and a New Jersey personal trainer she had formed a relationship with.
The last woman executed in Tennessee was Martin Eve, who was an accessory to murder and was hanged in 1820, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
