Christa Pike’s Execution Is Near — Colleen Slemmer’s Mother Speaks Out

SEO Title: Christa Pike Execution: Colleen Slemmer’s Mother Speaks Before Tennessee Execution

Meta Description: As Christa Pike’s scheduled execution approaches, Colleen Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, speaks about her daughter and the decades of grief that followed.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — More than three decades after her daughter was killed, May Martinez is preparing to face one of the most painful moments of her life.

Christa Pike, now 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Tennessee on September 30 for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 when the crime occurred.

For Martinez, however, the story has never been about Pike alone.

It has always been about Colleen.

Martinez has spoken publicly in recent weeks about the daughter she lost and why she supports carrying out Pike’s sentence. She plans to travel from Florida to Nashville to witness the execution.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Martinez remembered Colleen as a quiet, compassionate young woman who loved computers, roller skating and spending time with her family.

She also spoke about the pain of seeing so much attention surrounding Pike in the final weeks before the scheduled execution.

For Martinez, that attention can feel as though her daughter has disappeared from the story.

Colleen was 19 when she was killed in Knoxville in January 1995. Prosecutors said Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a wooded area. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received life in prison with the possibility of parole.

Pike has acknowledged responsibility for Slemmer’s killing. Her attorneys have spent recent years asking Tennessee officials to consider her age at the time of the crime, along with evidence of severe childhood abuse and mental-health problems presented as mitigating circumstances.

Those efforts have not stopped the scheduled execution.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee denied Pike’s clemency request on September 28, saying he would uphold the state’s sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court then rejected an emergency request seeking to halt the execution.

If the execution proceeds, Tennessee would carry out its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, according to state and national reporting. Pike would also be the only person executed in Tennessee’s modern death-penalty era for a crime committed at age 18.

But as the scheduled execution approaches, Martinez continues to bring the focus back to the person at the center of her grief.

Her daughter was 19.

She had a family who loved her.

And more than 30 years later, her mother is still carrying the loss.

For Martinez, witnessing the execution may bring a sense of finality — but she has also acknowledged that she cannot know whether it will truly bring closure.

The scheduled execution is set for 10 a.m. CDT at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.