The state of Tennessee may soon carry out its first execution of a woman in more than two centuries after the state Supreme Court agreed to move forward with the death sentence of Christa Gail Pike. Pike, now 49 and the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was just 18 when she committed one of the state’s most notorious murders.
In 1995, she lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus. Investigators said Pike believed Slemmer was pursuing her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp. That jealousy turned into a premeditated and exceptionally violent attack carried out with Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson.
Pike’s brutality shocked even seasoned detectives. She slashed Slemmer’s throat, carved a pentagram into her chest, and crushed her skull. She later showed investigators a fragment of Slemmer’s skull she had kept as a trophy, describing how it fit the wound “like a puzzle.”
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996, while Shipp received life without parole and Peterson received probation. Her execution is set for September 30, 2026, though her attorneys continue to argue that her youth, trauma, and mental illness should weigh against the sentence.
