🚨 CHRISTA PIKE’S FINAL DAYS: HER ATTORNEYS MAKE AN EXTRAORDINARY REQUEST BEFORE EXECUTION

With less than a week before her scheduled execution, Christa Pike’s attorneys are asking Tennessee to make an unusual change to the execution team.

They want an all-female team.

Pike’s attorneys say the 50-year-old is “terrified” of being restrained or handled by male correctional officers during the execution process.

Her lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, argues that involving male staff could increase the risk of psychological retraumatization and, in the defense’s view, could contribute to an unconstitutional risk of pain or suffering. These are arguments made by Pike’s legal team, not findings that have been established by a court.

The request is closely tied to Pike’s documented history of childhood sexual abuse.

Her attorneys have argued that placing her in a situation where male officers physically restrain or handle her could trigger severe trauma connected to those experiences.

The issue comes as Pike’s execution date approaches rapidly.

Tennessee has scheduled her execution for 10 a.m. on September 30, 2026, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The Tennessee Department of Correction has already begun preparations for media witnesses and coverage of the scheduled execution.

Pike was 18 years old when 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow Job Corps student, was killed in Knoxville in 1995.

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. She has now spent nearly three decades on Tennessee’s death row.

Her attorneys do not dispute the seriousness of the crime. Instead, they are asking authorities to consider who Pike was at 18, her history of abuse and trauma, and how those circumstances should factor into the decision over her sentence and execution.

But the all-female execution-team request is only one part of Pike’s current legal fight.

Her lawyers have also challenged Tennessee’s lethal-injection protocol, arguing that her medical circumstances could create an increased risk of complications and pain.

A three-day evidentiary hearing was held in August. The proceedings examined issues including Pike’s medical condition, the accessibility of her veins, potential complications during lethal injection and the possibility of psychological retraumatization connected to the execution process.

The state has disputed those concerns.

According to reporting on the hearing, Tennessee argued that Pike’s veins are accessible, that her medical condition does not create the level of risk claimed by the defense, and that pentobarbital would render her unconscious before serious pain could be experienced.

Meanwhile, Pike’s attorneys have submitted a 226-page clemency petition to Gov. Bill Lee, asking him to commute her death sentence to life imprisonment without parole.

The petition emphasizes Pike’s childhood abuse, trauma and other circumstances that her attorneys say were not adequately considered when she was sentenced as a teenager.

If the execution proceeds as scheduled, Pike would become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

That historical significance has brought renewed attention to a case that has remained in the courts for nearly three decades.

Now, with September 30 approaching, Pike’s legal team is fighting on multiple fronts — challenging the execution procedure, seeking accommodations based on her trauma, and asking the governor to replace the death sentence with life without parole.

For Pike, the countdown is no longer measured in years.

It is measured in days.

And whether those days end with an execution or another legal intervention remains unresolved.