The Woman Tennessee Prepared to Execute After More Than 200 Years — Christa Pike

The Woman Tennessee Prepared to Execute After More Than 200 Years — Christa Pike

Developing tonight, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row is suing the state. Christa Pike faces execution in September. The death row inmate is claiming her medical condition could make a lethal injection cruel and unusual punishment. A blood clotting diagnosis could lead to her lungs filling with fluid.

State leaders say like other people convicted prior to 1999, she too can opt for the electric chair. Pike says forcing her to pick a method goes against her Buddhist beliefs. She was convicted in the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Prosecutors say she led a brutal attack with her then boyfriend Tadaryl Ship on UT’s agriculture campus taunting Slemmer as she died.

You can read much more about that case right now at wbir.com. September 30th, 2026. The state of Tennessee has a date with history and not the kind anyone is proud of. On that day, a woman is scheduled to be strapped to a table, injected with a lethal drug, and put to death. Her name is Christa Pike, and if the state gets its way, she will become the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.

Let that land for a moment. 200 years. Christa Pike has been on death row since she was 18 years old, convicted of one of the most brutal murders the state has ever seen. She is not fighting her conviction. She is not claiming she is innocent. The crime happened. The courts decided. The sentence stands. What she is fighting is how they plan to kill her.

Her lawyers say her rare blood condition, her medical history, and the state’s own record of failed executions make this particular method a death sentence within a death sentence. Her Buddhist faith adds another layer, one that puts her religious rights directly in conflict with a Supreme Court ruling. Legal scholars who have zero sympathy for what she did are raising alarms.

And the question her lawyers put in front of the court is one Tennessee did not want to answer. Can the state execute Christa Pike without torturing her? Welcome back to the channel. If you are new here, make sure you subscribe and hit the notification bell because this is exactly the kind of story we cover.

Now, let’s go back to where this all began. Before we talk about the crime, we need to talk about Colleen Slemmer because behind every case like this, there is a real person, a life that was taken. And Colleen deserves to be remembered as more than just a name in a court file. Colleen Slemmer was 19 years old in January of 1995.

She was young, she was trying, and by all accounts, she was doing exactly what a young person is supposed to do. She was working towards something better. Colleen had enrolled at the Knoxville Job Corps in Tennessee. For those who don’t know, Job Corps is a federally funded program. It was built specifically for young people who needed a second chance, a place to learn a trade, earn a qualification, and get a real foothold in life.

It wasn’t easy to be there. It took effort. It took showing up. Colleen showed up. She was not there by accident. She made a choice to build something for herself, and that choice brought her to Knoxville. It brought her into contact with other students, students she got to know, students she trusted. One of those students was Christa Pike.

Another was Turl Ship. Colleen had no reason to fear them. They were familiar faces in a place that was supposed to be safe. There were no warning signs she could have acted on, no reason to look over her shoulder. That trust would cost Colleen Slemmer her life. In January of 1995, she walked into the woods with people she knew, and she never walked back out. She was 19 years old.

She never got the future she came to Knoxville to find. Now, let’s talk about the person who took Colleen’s life. Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10th, 1976. She was 18 years old when she committed one of the most disturbing murders Tennessee had ever seen. On the surface, she looked like any other teenager trying to find her footing.

She was enrolled at the Knoxville Job Corps. She had a boyfriend. She had a social circle. She blended in. But court filings tell a very different story about who Christa Pike really was beneath that surface. According to those records, by the time Pike arrived in Knoxville, she had already lived through a lifetime of trauma, sexual abuse, neglect, a childhood that, by any standard, had failed her completely.

These are not excuses. They are facts. Facts that her own legal team would later document in detail. At Job Corps, Pike met Tederel Ship. The two became romantically involved. And that relationship, the jealousy that came with it, the possessiveness that grew from it, would become the direct trigger for what happened to Colleen Slemmer.

Those who were around Pike at the time would later recall in court that her behavior towards Slemmer was noticeable. There was aggression. There was a fixation. People saw it. Nobody acted on it. Pike had also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Again, not offered here as an excuse, offered as context.

Because the picture that emerges is of a deeply troubled teenager whose instability was visible, documented, and ignored. Behind the ordinary face of a Job Corps student was something far more dangerous, and Colleen Slemmer never saw it coming. What happened in January of 1995 did not come out of nowhere.

The tension had been building for weeks, and the people around Krista Pike watched it grow. At the center of it was jealousy. Pike was in a relationship with Tatteral Ship, and somewhere along the way Colleen Slemmer became a target of Pike’s anger. Whether it was something Slemmer said, something she did, or simply the fact that she existed in the same space as Ship, the hostility Pike directed toward her was real, and it was growing.

Other Job Corps students noticed. This was not something happening behind closed doors. The animosity was open. It was expressed out loud. It was witnessed by people who would later sit in a courtroom and recall exactly what they saw. Shadolla Peterson was also part of this social circle.

She was there as the tension grew. She saw what was happening between Pike and Slemmer, and she would eventually become the third person present on the night everything came to a head. At no point did any adult in authority step in. No intervention, no separation, no formal response to what was clearly an escalating situation. The conflict was allowed to grow until it had nowhere left to go.

What happens next is something that will stay with you long after this video ends, because the night of January 12th, 1995 was not spontaneous. It was decided. The pieces were in place. The intent was formed, and Colleen Slemmer had no idea. Three people walked into those woods with Colleen Slemmer that night. Let’s be clear about who they were and what role each one played.

First, Krista Pike, 18 years old. Court records identify her as the dominant actor in what happened. She was the only one of the three to be capitally charged and [clears throat] for good reason. The evidence pointed directly at her as the person driving the violence. Second, Tederel Ship, 17 years old, Pike’s boyfriend.

He was not a bystander. Court records confirm he was present and active in the killing. Third, Shadola Peterson, 18 years old. She was part of the same social circle. She was there that night and the decision she made afterward to cooperate with prosecutors is the reason she walked away with probation while the other two faced the rest of their lives behind bars.

Now, here is what is important to understand about how this happened. Colleen Slemmer was not attacked by strangers. She was lured. The three used their existing familiarity with her, faces she recognized, people she had no reason to fear, to get her away from the Job Corps campus and into an isolated wooded area. And they did not arrive empty-handed.

Court records confirm that a box cutter, a meat cleaver, and other tools were brought to that location. Their presence was not accidental. This was not a confrontation that turned deadly in the heat of the moment. The weapons were carried there deliberately. That single fact changes everything.

Before we go any further, if this story has you locked in, hit that like button right now. Drop a comment below and let us know your thoughts so far. And if you have not subscribed yet, do it now so you never miss a case like this one. Now, let’s get into what happened next. January 12th, 1995, Knoxville, Tennessee. It is night.

Colleen Slemmer leaves the Job Corps campus with three people she knows. There is nothing unusual about that. No alarm goes off. No one stops them. She has no reason to hesitate, no reason to pull back. These are familiar faces. This is a familiar place. She does not know she is walking to her death. The group moves away from campus into a wooded area, away from lights, away from people, away from anyone who could hear anything. And then it begins.

What happened in that clearing is not something pieced together by guesswork. Court records document it, and Krista Pike herself would later fill in the details. Not in a confession room, not under pressure, but willingly. Brazenly, she told people what she did, more than once. According to those accounts, Pike cut Colleen Slemmer’s throat six times with a box cutter. Six times.

She cut her back with a meat cleaver, and she carved a pentagram into Colleen’s chest. Read those words again and let them settle, because this was not a moment of rage that ended quickly. This was sustained. This was deliberate. Colleen Slemmer was conscious through parts of it.

She was aware of what was happening to her. Court records confirm that Colleen begged them to stop. She pleaded for her life, and they continued anyway, all three of them, in the dark, in the woods, with a 19-year-old girl who had done nothing more than exist in a space that Krista Pike had decided she did not belong in. At some point, it ended.

Not because anyone showed mercy, simply because there was nothing left to do. Colleen Slemmer’s body was found in that wooded area. The injuries confirmed everything. The crime scene told the full story of what had been done to her, and it was a story that left no room for doubt about the nature of the attack. This was not impulsive.

It was not accidental. It was carried out with weapons that were brought there for exactly this purpose. And what investigators found at that scene, and what Krista Pike would say about it afterward, is something that even seasoned prosecutors would describe as unlike anything they had encountered before.

Colleen’s last moments were spent pleading for her life in the dark. No one heard her. Most people who commit a crime like this go quiet afterward. Krista Pike did the opposite. In the days following Colleen Slemmer’s murder, Pike did not hide. She did not distance herself from what happened. She talked about it openly to multiple people, and she did not talk about it the way someone talks about something that weighs on them.

She bragged. Court records and witness testimony confirmed that Pike described the killing in detail to those around her. She told people she had cut Colleen’s throat six times with a box cutter. She talked about the meat cleaver. She talked about the pentagram carved into Colleen’s chest. She repeated these details more than once to more than one person.

The people who heard her were disturbed. These were not vague or exaggerated stories. The accounts were specific, detailed, credible. And eventually, they were reported. The Job Corps community was shaken because this was not a random act by a stranger. This was someone in their midst, someone they had eaten meals with, passed in hallways, shared space with every day.

That realization changed everything. And when Pike’s case went to trial, those witnesses took the stand. Her own words, spoken freely with apparent pride, became some of the most damaging evidence the prosecution had. She handed them the case herself. When Colleen Slemmer’s body was discovered, law enforcement in Knoxville knew immediately that this was no accident.

The crime scene made that clear. The nature of the injuries, the cuts, the markings, the evidence of a prolonged attack told investigators exactly what they were dealing with. This was deliberate. This was personal. And whoever did it had spent time in those woods with Colleen Slemmer. The Job Corps connection surfaced quickly.

Slemmer, Pike, and Ship were all students in the same program. They were known to each other. That narrowed the field fast. But here is what made this investigation move even faster. By the time law enforcement began conducting formal interviews, a witness trail already existed. Christa Pike had already been talking.

The people she bragged to were now being interviewed by investigators. And what they told law enforcement lined up directly with what the forensic evidence at the scene was showing. The accounts matched the injuries. The details were consistent. Shadolla Peterson was also in the picture. As someone who had been present that night and was now facing investigators, her willingness to cooperate would prove to be a turning point. The evidence was already there.

The witnesses were already there. This case was not going to take years to build. It did not take long. Christa Pike and Tedarrel Ship were arrested in connection with the murder of Colleen Slemmer. The case against them had been building from multiple directions at once. The crime scene, the forensic evidence, and the witness accounts that Pike herself had created by talking too freely to too many people.

Then came Shadolla Peterson. Peterson made the decision to cooperate with prosecutors. In exchange for her testimony, she received probation. No prison time. And what she brought to the table was something neither forensics nor second-hand witnesses could fully provide. She had been there. She was an eyewitness to the killing itself.

Her account corroborated everything. The forensic evidence, Pike’s own statements, it all lined up. With Peterson’s cooperation locked in, the prosecution had what it needed to move forward with the strongest possible case. The charging decision reflected exactly how the evidence read. Pike was capitally charged, the only one of the three to face the death penalty.

The prosecution’s position was straightforward. Pike was the one who drove the violence. She was the one who brought the weapons, directed the attack, and continued even as Colleen Slemmer begged for her life. Her actions met every legal threshold for a capital murder charge. Shipp was charged separately.

Peterson testified for the state. Now it was heading to a courtroom, a capital murder trial, an 18-year-old defendant, Knoxville, Tennessee. But the courtroom would reveal something even more disturbing. Not just about the night Colleen Slemmer died, but about what Christa Pike did after, and what she would do again while already facing execution.

The trial came in 1996. The state of Tennessee laid out its case methodically. Forensic evidence from the crime scene, the accounts of multiple witnesses who had heard Pike describe the killing in her own words, and the eyewitness testimony of Shadola Peterson, someone who had stood in those woods and watched it happen.

The jury did not take long. Christa Pike was convicted of first-degree murder. The death sentence was handed down, and she was transferred to the Tennessee Prison for Women. At 18 years old at the time of the crime, she became the youngest woman sentenced to death in the modern United States era.

That alone would have been enough to define her case for history, but it was not the end of the story. In 2004, while already sitting on death row, and already facing execution, Christa Pike was put on trial again. This [clears throat] time for attempting to strangle a fellow inmate, a woman named Patricia Jones, 33 years old, who was serving a life sentence at the same prison.

On June 30th, 2004, a jury found Pike guilty of attempted first-degree murder. This was not a rumor, not an allegation. It was a verdict, and it mattered enormously. Any future argument for clemency would now have to contend with the fact that Pike had committed a second act of serious violence while already condemned for the first. She pursued appeals at both the state and federal levels over the years that followed.

Every avenue was ultimately closed. By the time Tennessee set an execution date, Christa Pike carried two violent felony convictions and had run out of standard legal roads to travel. Christa Pike has spent nearly 30 years on death row. For most of that time, she lived in a cell described in court filings as no bigger than a parking space. Minimal human contact.

Almost total isolation. 28 years of that, day after day, in a space barely large enough to pace across. In September of 2024, her legal team reached a settlement with the state. For the first time in nearly three decades, Pike was allowed limited access to general population, a job, shared meals, more time outside her cell.

It was a significant change, and it came less than two years before her scheduled execution date. Then, in December of 2024, Tennessee adopted a new execution protocol, a single drug, pentobarbital, replacing the previous three-drug method. And that protocol is now at the center of Pike’s final legal battle. Her lawyers filed a challenge in Davidson County Chancery Court, raising three separate concerns.

The first is her health. Court records document that Pike suffers from a blood clotting condition called thrombocytopenia, small veins that make needle insertion difficult, hyperlipidemia, bipolar disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Her attorneys argue that pentobarbital, given those conditions, would cause her lungs to fill with fluid.

Their words, not speculation, but based on medical evidence, describe it as drowning in one’s own blood. Those concerns are not without basis. During Byron Black’s execution in 2025, media witnesses reported that he moaned and expressed pain. His autopsy confirmed pulmonary edema. His lungs had filled with fluid. Weeks later, during Harold Nichols execution, witnesses again reported heavy sighs and groans.

Then came the failed execution of Tony Carruthers. Medics could not establish an intravenous line at all. Pike’s attorneys pointed to that directly. Their client has small veins and a bleeding condition. What happened with Carruthers, they argued, was a preview of what could happen to her. The second concern is religious.

Pike is a practicing Buddhist. Tennessee’s protocol bars her Buddhist spiritual adviser from the execution chamber and cuts off all contact in the final 12 hours before death. Three male inmates executed in 2025 were not subjected to that same restriction. Pike’s legal team argues that is a violation of her First Amendment rights.

The third concern is the requirement under the Supreme Court’s Glossip versus Gross decision that she name an available alternative method of execution in order to challenge the current one. Her attorneys argue that asking her to do so forces her to participate in planning her own death, something her Buddhist beliefs strictly forbid.

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti disagrees with all of it. His position is that Pike’s medical claims are speculative, that the protocol is constitutional, and that her failure to name an alternative method under Glossip versus Gross means her challenge cannot succeed. Pike herself has stated, in her own words, that she has taken full responsibility for the murder of Colleen Slemmer.

She has said she has changed drastically since 1995. The state of Tennessee has a scheduled date on the calendar, September 30th, 2026. Colleen Slemmer was 19 years old. She did not come from a perfect life, but she went to Job Corps because she wanted something better. She was trying. And on a cold January night in 1995, that chance was taken from her in the woods by people she knew.

No debate about lethal injection protocols changes that. No appeals court ruling changes that. No argument, legal, moral, or religious, reaches back into those woods and undoes what was done to her. That is the weight this case carries. A teenage girl who deserved justice. A killer whose execution has raised real constitutional questions.

And a system that has struggled on both ends to get any of it right. Here is where things stand. Christa Pike is scheduled to die on September 30th, 2026. Whether that happens and how remains unresolved. But, Colleen Slemmer has been gone for over 30 years, and that part of this story will never change.

So, tell me, which moment in this case hit you the hardest? Drop it in the comments below. If this story moved you, please like and subscribe. And stay close because the next case we are covering is just as haunting.