Christa Gail Pike is taking place as per the procedure. US Supreme Court has allowed Tennessee execution of Christa Gail Pike to go forward, overturning a last-minute stay. Earlier, Tennessee's execution of Christa Gail Pike for a murder she committed at age 18 was halted on Wednesday about an hour before it was set to begin, as a federal appeals court sought to review whether her allegations of childhood sexual abuse and rape were fully considered at her sentencing.
Pike, now 50, and her boyfriend were convicted of the 1995 stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least 200 years.
Why was Christa Gail Pike Execution Halted?
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals halted the execution on a 2-1 vote after execution witnesses and others gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The case garnered widespread attention at the time of the killing in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
After the stay was granted, Tennessee’s attorney general immediately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Witnesses and media remained at the prison in case the high court allows the execution to proceed.
Halting the execution at the last moment traumatized Slemmer's family and rewarded “abusive delay tactics” by Pike's attorneys, the attorney general's office wrote in its appeal to the Supreme Court.
Pike's lawyers said not considering what happened to her growing up violates any view of fairness with executions.
Debate on Death Penalty
As the execution date drew near, it renewed debate over the death penalty for young offenders.
Pike does not deny committing the killing, but her supporters argue the state should consider Pike’s age at the time, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler. Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike’s death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds in Tennessee have had such sentences vacated.
After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In her clemency petition, she said she only wanted to fight Slemmer but killed her in a frenzied attack when she couldn’t “put the brakes on.”
Victim's mother waits for death sentence
Slemmer’s mother wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out. Martinez said a group helped raise money so she and her husband could travel from Florida to witness the execution. She didn't respond to a message Wednesday after the execution was halted.
Martinez said her daughter's age also should matter in deciding Pike's fate.
The killing rocked the city of Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satan, into her body.
Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
Executions of Women in U.S
Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. Older records can be spotty, though, so it’s difficult to know precise details about the last woman who was put to death there.
Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, 18 women have been put to death in the U.S., representing about 1% of all executions, according to the center.
Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the U.S. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the U.S. government put a female inmate to death.
Pike would be the 30th person executed in the U.S. this year after Florida carried out an execution on Tuesday.
