Christa Pike is a convicted murderer whose execution was halted just an hour before it was set to take place.

When Pike was 18 years old, she murdered her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, alongside her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and their friend Shadolla Peterson. The three friends reportedly lured Slemmer into the woods and proceeded to torture and kill her.

All three students were arrested and charged in connection with the murder shortly afterward. Pike subsequently confessed to her involvement, but she maintained that she had only been trying to scare Slemmer, according to court records.

Despite her claims, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in 1996 and sentenced to death — becoming the youngest woman to be placed on death row in U.S. history.

Three decades later, Pike was scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Sept. 30, 2026. However, around one hour before she was scheduled to be put to death, her execution was halted by a federal appeals court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted the indefinite pause amid filings that argue Pike’s history of child Sєxual abuse and rape was not considered in her trial or sentencing.

Here’s what to know about Christa Pike, her crimes and her death sentence.

Who is Christa Pike?

Pike was born in March 1976 in Beckley, W.V. She suffered a tumultuous childhood and was temporarily removed from her home by social services due to abuse, according to The Intercept.

Pike alleged that she was raped by a neighbor when she was 11 years old and said she was also physically and Sєxually abused by her mother’s boyfriend. Pike’s aunt later testified that she suffered from seizures and attempted suicide when she was 12 years old.

When Pike was 15 years old, in 1991, she was caught breaking into a community center to steal candy and was sent to a Juvenile Evaluation Center in North Carolina, which allegedly had a strict punishment structure. Pike remained at the center for over a year, earned her GED and became a teacher’s ᴀssistant.

“Christa responded well to the therapeutic approach I could offer,” one counselor who worked with Pike wrote in a clemency letter. “When I had conversations with Christa, I grew to understand her. Christa was open and willing to grow and improve. Though she had psychological struggles and resulting behavioral difficulties, I could see that Christa was a good child who was trying to find her place in the world. I never saw Christa act aggressively or violently. She was trying to figure out how to heal from her traumas. She was trying to figure out how to cope with the difficulties of her life when she lacked a support system.”

After leaving the center in 1993, she enrolled in a Job Corps program in Knoxville, Tenn.

What did Christa Pike do?

On the night of Jan. 12, 1995, Pike — along with her boyfriend Shipp and friend Peterson — lured 19-year-old Slemmer into a secluded part of campus. All four students signed out of their dorm at the same time and went to the woods.

Shortly after bringing Slemmer to an isolated area in the woods, Pike and Shipp brutally attacked her. Shipp further said that he carved a pentagram into her body, according to The New York Times.

Slemmer’s body was found the next morning, and police began investigating the murder. Within 36 hours, all three teenagers were arrested and charged.

Investigators made the arrest after Pike had taken a piece of Slemmer’s skull and showed at least one person not involved in the crime. At the time, investigators and the media connected the murder to the ongoing “Satanic Panic” because of the pentagram and the alleged presence of a satanic altar in Shipp’s room, according to the Discovery series Mean Girl Murders.

“The media painted me as being an evil person, as being a devil worshipper,” Pike said in the doc, while denying she was the one interested in satanic worship. “Tadaryl was into Satanism and demonology. That’s where that stems from. I was never into those things.”

Shortly after she was taken into custody, Pike confessed to the crime and reenacted the killing, according to WBIR. Pike claimed that she thought Slemmer was interested in Shipp, so she originally wanted only to threaten and fight her but was unable to “put on the brakes,” per court docs.