“I AM AT PEACE” — CHRISTa PIKE FACES HISTORIC EXECUTION AFTER LAST-DITCH CLEMENCY BID IS DENIED

Christa Pike says she is at peace with whatever happens next.

The 50-year-old Tennessee death row inmate is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 30, 2026, more than three decades after she was convicted of killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

If carried out as scheduled, Pike’s execution would make her the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

Pike was just 18 years old when Slemmer was killed in Knoxville in 1995.

Now, after more than 30 years on death row, she is facing the final hours of a case that has drawn renewed attention because of her age at the time of the crime, her history of severe childhood abuse and arguments surrounding her mental health.

“I AM NOT AFRAID TO DIE”

In a letter written before Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected her clemency request, Pike said she was not afraid of death.

“I am not afraid to die,” she wrote, adding that she was only nervous about the execution process.

She also said she was “at peace” regardless of whether clemency was granted.

On September 28, Gov. Lee announced that he would not intervene.

“After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” Lee said.

Pike’s attorneys have continued seeking judicial intervention, including asking the U.S. Supreme Court to halt the execution.

THE 1995 KILLING

Pike was convicted of the murder of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a Knoxville Job Corps training program.

Prosecutors said Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee in January 1995.

Slemmer was beaten and stabbed during the attack.

The case received intense national attention because a pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s body and prosecutors described other elements of the killing as having occult associations. The case unfolded during an era of widespread public anxiety over alleged Satanic activity.

Pike has not denied her role in Slemmer’s killing.

She was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996.

WHY HER CASE HAS DRAWN NEW ATTENTION

Pike’s supporters and attorneys have argued that circumstances surrounding her childhood and her condition at the time of the crime deserve consideration.

Her attorneys have pointed to a history of severe childhood sexual abuse, trauma and mental-health problems, arguing that Pike was only 18 when she committed the crime and that those circumstances were not adequately considered when she was sentenced.

The case has therefore become part of a broader discussion about whether someone who commits a capital crime at a very young age should face execution decades later.

At the same time, May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, has continued to support Pike’s execution after spending more than three decades mourning her daughter.

A HISTORIC EXECUTION

Tennessee’s Department of Correction has scheduled Pike’s execution for 10 a.m. Central Time on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

If the execution proceeds, Pike would become the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than two centuries.

She would also become the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row to have her sentence carried out.

For more than 30 years, Pike has lived with the knowledge that the state intended to execute her.

Now, with the scheduled date approaching, she has told supporters that she is prepared for what may come.

“I am at peace,” she said.

Her final legal efforts, however, were still continuing as the scheduled execution approached.