“IT IS LIKE COLLEEN NEVER EXISTED” — VICTIM’S MOTHER SPEAKS OUT AS CHRISTA PIKE’S EXECUTION NEARS

With days remaining before Tennessee is scheduled to execute Christa Pike, the mother of the woman Pike was convicted of murdering is speaking publicly about a pain she says has never truly left her.

May Martinez is the mother of Colleen Slemmer, the 19-year-old Job Corps student whose 1995 murder led to Pike receiving a death sentence.

Pike, now 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on September 30, 2026, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Tennessee Department of Correction has confirmed the execution date and has been preparing for the scheduled proceeding.

For Martinez, however, the approaching date is not simply about the woman on death row.

It is about the daughter she says has too often disappeared from the story.

“IT IS NEVER ABOUT THE VICTIMS”

Martinez has said that much of the attention surrounding the case has focused on Pike — her conviction, her decades on death row, her legal challenges and her recent clemency effort.

She fears that the woman at the center of the original tragedy, her daughter Colleen, has been forgotten.

“It is never about the victims,” Martinez said, according to recent reporting. “It is like Colleen never existed.”

For Martinez, being present at the scheduled execution is therefore deeply personal.

She is preparing to travel more than eight hours from Florida to Nashville so that she can witness the proceeding herself.

She has even said she would be willing to put off paying her mortgage for a month if that were what it took to make the journey.

Her determination reflects what she describes as a promise to remain her daughter’s voice more than three decades after Colleen’s death.

A 19-YEAR-OLD WHO NEVER GOT TO GROW OLDER

Colleen Slemmer was 19 when she was killed in January 1995.

She had been attending the Job Corps program in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she knew Pike and others involved in the case.

Pike was 18 at the time.

She was convicted of Slemmer’s murder and sentenced to death. Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was also convicted and received a life sentence. Another participant, Shadolla Peterson, testified against Pike and Shipp and received probation.

More than three decades later, the legal consequences of that crime have taken very different paths for those involved.

Pike remains on Tennessee’s death row.

Shipp is serving a life sentence and is now eligible for parole.

And Slemmer remains at the center of the tragedy for the family who lost her.

MARTINEZ WANTS HER DAUGHTER REMEMBERED

The scheduled execution has brought renewed attention to Pike’s own circumstances.

Her lawyers have filed a 226-page clemency petition asking Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her death sentence to life without parole.

The petition emphasizes Pike’s childhood abuse and neglect, as well as arguments about her psychological condition and the circumstances surrounding the crime.

Pike’s attorneys have also challenged aspects of Tennessee’s lethal-injection process.

But while those legal developments have generated headlines, Martinez wants people to remember that another family has lived with the consequences of the 1995 killing for 31 years.

Her daughter did not get decades of appeals.

She did not get the opportunity to grow older, build a career, form relationships or create a life beyond her teenage years.

Instead, Martinez has spent more than three decades living with her absence.

THE SEPTEMBER 30 COUNTDOWN

The Tennessee Supreme Court has set September 30 as Pike’s scheduled execution date, with the Department of Correction listing the time as 10 a.m. CDT.

The date remains subject to any further legal action or other intervention.

Pike’s legal team has pursued several avenues in an effort to stop or alter the execution, including a clemency request and litigation concerning the state’s lethal-injection protocol.

That means Martinez’s planned trip to Nashville comes with uncertainty.

But she says she intends to be there if the execution proceeds.

For her, the journey is not about forgetting what happened.

It is about making sure her daughter is remembered.

“I’M HER VOICE”

After 31 years, Martinez continues to speak about Colleen because she believes someone has to.

The approaching execution has once again placed Pike’s name in headlines around the world.

Martinez wants those headlines to carry another name too.

Colleen Slemmer.

She was 19 years old.

She was a daughter.

And to her mother, she was far more than the victim in a famous death-penalty case.

As Tennessee approaches September 30, Martinez is preparing to make the long journey to Nashville — carrying memories of a daughter who never had the chance to grow older.

For her, being there is about one final thing:

making sure Colleen is not forgotten.