A woman on death row in Tennessee, who is notably the first female inmate sentenced to death in the state in 200 years, is requesting that an all-female team administer her lethal injection. Christa Pike, now 50, argues that having male personnel present during her execution could be traumatizing.
Pike was only 18 when she committed a horrific crime. On January 12, 1995, she lured Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old fellow Job Corps student, to a secluded area on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville, where she, along with her boyfriend, tortured Slemmer to death.
As her execution date approaches on September 30, Pike is expressing this unusual preference for an all-female execution crew, citing a history of sexual abuse. If her request isn’t accommodated, she has stated that she would prefer hanging as an alternative method of execution.
May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, has dismissed Pike’s request as nonsense. She expressed her frustration, stating that Pike should not receive any special treatment and accused her of manipulating the system. “She didn’t consider how my daughter felt,” Martinez remarked, calling the situation “bullcrap.”
In addition to her unusual request, Pike’s legal team is appealing to Governor Bill Lee for clemency, seeking to change her sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The clemency petition, submitted in September, details Pike’s traumatic childhood, including instances of sexual and physical abuse that she endured without support from the adults in her life. It alleges that she was sexually abused between ages two and five, and at eleven, she was reportedly raped by a neighbor who received a lenient sentence. Furthermore, at the age of 17, Pike claims she was attacked and raped by a stranger, whose identity remains unknown.
After being sentenced to death, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD, issues that her attorneys argue were not adequately considered during her trial, especially regarding the death penalty decision. They claim that the jury did not realize the full extent of her troubled background, which, while not excusing the crime, might have influenced their verdict.
According to court documents from her trial, Pike had ominously told a friend that she planned to kill Slemmer simply because she “felt mean that day.” The next evening, she tricked Slemmer into thinking they were going to a video store and, along with her boyfriend and another individual, violently attacked Slemmer, inflicting numerous injuries including throat slashing and carving symbols into her body.
After their brutal act, Pike and her companions returned without Slemmer, and she reportedly celebrated the murder. Ultimately, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, receiving a death sentence on March 30, 1996, which made her one of the youngest women in the United States to be sentenced to death.
