Tennessee is preparing to carry out its first execution of a woman in more than two centuries after the state Supreme Court approved the request to proceed with the death sentence imposed on Christa Gail Pike. Pike, now 49 and the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, committed the crime at age 18. On January 12, 1995, she lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus in Knoxville. Both women were participants in the Knoxville Job Corps, a residential career-training program. Pike, convinced that Slemmer was romantically interested in her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, orchestrated a violent attack with Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson. Slemmer was brutally murdered, suffering multiple slashes, blunt force trauma, and having a pentagram carved into her chest. Pike also kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Shipp received life without parole, and Peterson, who testified against Pike and Shipp, received probation. In 2004, Pike attempted to strangle another inmate, earning an additional 25-year sentence. Her case has spent nearly three decades in the appeals process, but the state recently set an execution date of September 30, 2026. Pike’s attorneys continue to contest the sentence, citing her youth at the time of the crime, her history of trauma, and diagnosed mental health conditions including bipolar disorder and PTSD. They argue that chronic abuse and neglect throughout her childhood significantly influenced her actions and note that she has shown remorse and personal growth while incarcerated.

If carried out, Pike will become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 and only the fourth in the state’s recorded history. The last known execution of a woman involved Martin Eve, who was hanged as an accessory to murder. Tennessee’s executions had been temporarily halted in 2022 after Governor Bill Lee ordered a review of lethal injection protocols, but following updated standards and testing, executions resumed in May 2025.

Pike’s case is both historically rare and profoundly disturbing, raising complex questions about justice, accountability, and the extent to which trauma and mental health should influence sentencing decisions, especially for crimes committed as teenagers. As Tennessee moves toward an execution date, the nation will be watching a case that highlights the intersections of history, law, and human psychology.