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Christa Pike Faces Execution for a Murder Committed at 18 — Her Lawyers Say Other Tennessee Death Sentences From That Age Were Vacated

Posted by Team - September 29, 2026

Christa Pike Faces Execution for Murder at 18. Every Other Tenn. Death Sentence at That Age Was Vacated: Lawyers

Pike stabbed and beat fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer in January 1995

Christa Pike is scheduled to be executed Wednesday, Sept. 30, in Tennessee for a 1995 murder she committed at 18.

Her attorneys are asking Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole while also seeking relief from the U.S. Supreme Court, according to court documents obtained by PEOPLE.

The court documents state that, if Pike is executed, she would be the only person Tennessee has executed in the modern era for a crime committed at age 18. She would also be the first woman the state has executed in over 200 years.

“More than 3,100 people in Tennessee have been convicted of first-degree homicide,” the court documents read. “Of those thousands, only eight were 18 years old at the time of offense and death-sentenced. All seven male death sentences predated Ms. Pike’s, and all have subsequently been vacated.”

The seven men committed the offenses between 1981 and 1991, according to the court documents.

Pike stabbed and beat fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, 19, in January 1995 after luring her to a remote area of the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus with her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and their friend Shadolla Peterson, according to the ᴀssociated Press.

A pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s chest during the attack, and Pike removed part of her skull and took it as a souvenir.

Pike was subsequently convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, the AP reported. Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole because he was 17 and ineligible for the death penalty.

Peterson received six years of probation after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact, according to USA Today.

The Tennessee Supreme Court declined to stay Pike’s execution on Sept. 23.

Her attorneys are fighting the execution in part by pointing to Pike’s history of childhood trauma, abuse and undiagnosed mental health conditions. At 18, her “immature, traumatized brain made her exceptionally vulnerable to impulses and extremely poor decisions,” they wrote in the court documents.

In the documentary ᴅᴇᴀᴅ Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee, released earlier this month, Pike speaks about facing execution and the toll of having known for a year that her death date was approaching.

“I have the most horrible nightmares,” she says in the documentary. “But I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time. And so every day, I have woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment.”

Slemmer’s mother, May Slemmer Martinez, supports Pike’s execution and says her age and childhood trauma should not excuse the crime.

“Most kids do go through a lot of stuff, and they don’t go out and kill,” Martinez says in the documentary.

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Christa Pike Faces Execution for Murder at 18. Every Other Tenn. Death Sentence at That Age Was Vacated: Lawyers Pike stabbed and beat fellow Knoxville Job Corps…

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