Somebody’s got to talk. They have forgotten her. They don’t care. It’s all about FA. And when you forget about everything and not even remember the victim and all these posts has been done, that’s wrong.  Month. We are hearing tonight from that grieving mother planning to attend the lethal injection of the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.

 That is Christa Pike.  It’s never about the victims. It’s like Colleen was never there. Those are the words of a mother named May Martinez. She said them about her daughter, Colleen Slimmer. Colleen was murdered in 1995. She was only 19 years old. Now, more than 30 years later, something is about to happen.

 On the 30th of September 2026, the state of Tennessee plans to execute the woman who killed her. Her name is Christa Pike. She is now 50 years old. May will not stay home for this. She plans to drive more than 8 and 1/2 hours all the way from Jacksonville, Florida to Nashville, Tennessee. She wants to watch it happen with her own eyes, and she has already decided what she will do inside that room.

 She will not speak. Instead, she will hold up a photo of her daughter’s face. She wants it to be the last thing Christa Pike ever sees. But this story has one more twist. Christa Pike’s lawyers have made a strange request. They are asking that no man be allowed to touch her during her final hours.

 Why would she ask for that? What does it say about her past? And what will May Martinez finally get to say after 30 long years of silence? Stay with us. What happens next is impossible to believe. Before we continue, hit that subscribe button and turn on notifications so you never miss a true crime story from us. Colleen SLMur was born and raised with a simple life ahead of her.

 By 1995, she was 19 years old and she was full of energy. People who knew her say she was playful and warm. She called herself a good nerd and she said it with pride. She loved roller skating on the weekends. She loved computers long before most people her age cared about them. She loved playing old games with her family, sitting around the table just laughing.

 To build a better future, Colleen joined the Knoxville Job Core program. It was a place for young people to learn skills and start a career. She was hopeful. She had her whole life in front of her. It was there inside that program that she crossed paths with a fellow student. Her name was Christa Pike. Colleen did not know it yet, but that meeting would cost her life.

 There was no romance between Colleen and Christa. There was no secret relationship between Colleen and Christa’s boyfriend, a young man named Tateral Ship. Court records show no proof that anything ever happened between them. But Christa believed something different. She believed without any real reason that Colleen was trying to take ship away from her. That belief was false.

 But false beliefs can still lead to real violence. Colleen had a mother who loved her deeply. Her name was May Martinez. In the years to come, May would fight to make sure the world remembered her daughter as more than just a name in a court file. But before that fight began, Colleen was simply a teenage girl, a daughter, a friend, a girl with a whole future waiting for her.

 That future would end in less than a year. Christa Pike was born in 1976 in West Virginia. From the very beginning, her life looked nothing like Colleen’s. Her childhood was marked by neglect. Court records describe a home filled with instability where she was moved from place to place. Those same records document something far darker.

 Christa was sexually abused, starting when she was still a very young child. By the time she reached the Knoxville JobCore program, she carried all of that pain with her. To staff and other students, she looked like a troubled but functioning young woman. She kept up appearances. She went to classes. On the surface, she seemed like she was managing, but underneath there were red flags.

 Her relationship with her boyfriend, Tateral Ship, was described as volatile. People around her noticed jealousy. They noticed possessiveness. She did not like the idea of losing him, even to a threat that did not exist. At the time, no one around her understood the full picture. Years later, she would be diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

 But in 1995, none of that had been treated. None of it had even been properly recognized. Court records would later reveal warning signs. No one acted on. Nobody stepped in. Nobody connected the pain of her past to the danger she was becoming. And so, a young woman carrying deep, untreated wounds was left to walk freely through the halls of JobCore next to a 19-year-old girl named Colleen Slmer, who had no idea what was coming.

 In the weeks before January 1995, the tension between Christa Pike and Colleen Slimmer began to grow. Christa’s jealousy did not fade. Instead, it built. She began accusing Colleen of pursuing Tatteril’s ship. Colleen denied it. There was nothing between them. But Christa did not let go of the idea. Court records and later testimony describe confrontations between the two young women in the days leading up to the murder.

 Christa’s anger was not a secret. She spoke about her suspicions openly to anyone who would listen. That is when two other names entered the story. One was Taterel Ship, Christa’s boyfriend, who stayed close to her through all of it. The other was a young woman named Shadola Peterson, another student at JobCore.

 Christa brought them both into her growing plan. Peers at JobCore noticed the shift. They saw the arguments. They heard the accusations. Some even heard talk of a plan forming. But in a place built for troubled teenagers trying to rebuild their lives, warning signs were easy to overlook. Nobody stepped in.

 Nobody reported it to staff. Nobody imagined it could go as far as it did. Colleen kept living her normal life. She had no idea she had become the center of someone else’s obsession. What Pike planned next would shock even seasoned investigators. By the second week of January, the pieces were already in place. A plan had been set, and in just a few days, that plan would turn deadly.

 By January 1995, Christa Pike had made up her mind. She was the one driving the plan forward. She was the primary instigator. Two other people stood beside her. The first was her boyfriend, Tateral Ship, who was 17 years old at the time. The second was Shadola Peterson, 18 years old, a fellow student at JobCore.

 Peterson’s role would later be described as smaller, mostly present rather than active. Together, they came up with a plan to lure Colleen away from campus. Court records described the excuse they used. They told her they wanted to settle things between them. To [clears throat] Colleen, it may have sounded like a chance to clear up a misunderstanding.

She had no reason to expect danger. Behind the scenes, a weapon was already in place. Court records describe a box cutter along with a second blade described in court documents as cleaverlike. These were not tools brought for a conversation. These were tools brought for violence. The location was chosen carefully.

 A wooded area near an old abandoned steam plant on the agricultural campus of the University of Tennessee. It was quiet. It was hidden. It was far from anyone who could hear what was about to happen. Everything was in place. The excuse, the weapon, the location. Before we go further, let us know in the comments what you think was going through Colleen’s mind that night.

And if you have not already, subscribe now because what happens next is the hardest part of this story to hear. On the evening of January the 12th, 1995, Colleen Slmer signed out of her dorm at JobCore. It was a normal action. Students signed out all the time. No one at the front desk had any reason to worry.

 She left with Christa Pike, Tateral Ship, and Shadola Peterson. To anyone watching, it may have looked like four young people going for an evening walk. They walked away from campus toward a wooded area near an old abandoned steam plant on the University of Tennessee’s agricultural grounds. It was dark, it was quiet, and it was far from help.

 Once they reached the woods, everything changed. Court records estimate that what happened next lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. In that time, Colleen was beaten. She was cut again and again with a box cutter and a second blade described in court documents as cleaver-like. At some point during the attack, a pentagram was carved into her chest.

 It was a detail so disturbing that it would later shock the entire courtroom and the whole country when the case became public. Then came the final blow. Christa Pike picked up a chunk of asphalt from the ground. She used it to strike Colleen’s skull. That blow ended her life. Colleen Slmer was 19 years old.

 What happened after the murder is almost harder to accept than the murder itself. Court records state that Christa Pike kept a piece of Colleen’s skull. She carried it with her. She later showed it to other students like it was some kind of prize. What Pike did with that skull fragment is impossible to believe.

 Colleen’s body was left behind in the woods near the steam plant. She was found the next day on January the 13th, 1995. What should have been an ordinary week at JobCore had turned into the discovery of a murder scene. For May Martinez, this was the day her world changed forever. Her daughter, the girl who loved roller skating and computers and family game nights, was gone.

 And the way she died was almost too brutal to put into words. But the story does not end there. In fact, this is only the beginning of how the truth came out. In the hours and days after the murder, Christa Pike did not hide what she had done. Instead, she carried a piece of Colleen’s skull with her and showed it to other students at JobCore.

 This was not a case built around money. There was no insurance policy. There was no financial motive at all. This was a killing driven by jealousy and by a mind already carrying deep, untreated pain. Christa’s actions afterward made that painfully clear. Some students who saw the skull fragment were disturbed.

 A few raised alarm. Court records described growing unease among peers as word began to spread about what Christa had been carrying and what she had said about that night in the woods. Staff at JobCore soon learned that something was seriously wrong. Colleen had not returned. Students were talking. The pieces were beginning to come together faster than Christa may have expected.

For a young woman who had just taken a life, her behavior was strangely open. She did not appear to hide her involvement. She did not seem to fear getting caught. That behavior would soon work against her. Word of what happened moved quickly through the JobCore campus. Rumors turned into real concern. Concern turned into reports to people in charge.

 And soon those reports would reach the people who mattered most, the police. Colleen’s disappearance was no longer just a missing person’s case. It was about to become one of the most talked about murder investigations Tennessee had seen in years. Once police were alerted, the investigation moved fast. There was no long manhunt, no weeks of searching for a suspect.

 Court records show that Christa Pike was taken into custody within 48 hours of the murder. Investigators recovered strong physical evidence early on. Blood was found at the scene. Colleen’s wounds matched the weapons described by witnesses. The box cutter and the second blade, the one described in court records as cleaver-like, were both recovered and tied directly to the attack.

 What stood out to investigators most was Christa’s behavior. She did not act like someone hiding from the police. Her demeanor was described as casual. She had already shown the skull fragment to other students, almost like she wanted people to know. That openness became a problem for her. Witness statements from job core students helped investigators quickly connect the other two people involved.

 Tadel Ship and Shadola Peterson were both implicated through those same statements. Neither of them had managed to stay out of the picture. Court records establish a clear and fast timeline. The murder happened on January the 12th, 1995. Colleen’s body was found on January the 13th. And within 2 days of that, all three suspects were in custody.

 For a crime this brutal, the arrests came quickly. But for May Martinez, the fast investigation offered no comfort. Her daughter was still gone. And the hardest part, watching the case move through the courts, was only just beginning. The real turning point in the investigation came from witnesses.

 Multiple students at JobCore reported seeing the skull fragment Christa Pike had been carrying. Once that information reached police, the case moved quickly. Forensic evidence backed up what witnesses were saying. The wounds on Colleen’s body matched the weapons recovered by investigators. The box cutter and the second blade lined up directly with the cuts described in the medical examiner’s findings.

 With witness statements and forensic evidence pointing in the same direction, police made their move. Christa Pike, Tateral Ship, and Shadola Peterson were all arrested within the same short window of time. Once in custody, the three gave differing accounts of what happened that night. Each one described their own role differently.

 Some tried to minimize their involvement. Others pointed to who struck which blow. Court records show inconsistencies between their statements. But one thing remained clear across all of them. Colleen SL had been lured into those woods, and she had not walked out. The arrests marked the end of the search for answers, but they marked the beginning of something far longer.

 a legal process that would stretch on for decades and a mother who would spend the rest of her life fighting to make sure the world remembered her daughter’s name. In 1996, the case went to trial. A jury heard the details of what happened in those woods, and the verdict came back clear. Christa Pike was convicted of first-degree murder. She was sentenced to death.

 At the time she was 20 years old, making her one of the youngest women in the modern era to receive that sentence. Tadel Ship faced trial as well. He was convicted for his role in the murder, but because he was only 17 years old at the time of the crime, he was not eligible for the death penalty. Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

 Shadola Peterson’s outcome looked nothing like the other two. She pled to a lesser charge. In the end, she received probation. Three young people had walked into those woods that night. Only one of them, Christa Pike, was sentenced to die for what happened there. The contrast in outcomes was stark, and it left many people, including Colleen’s family, questioning how justice had been measured for each of them.

 Christa’s time behind bars was not without further trouble. In 2004, she was convicted of assaulting a fellow inmate while on death row. That conviction added 25 more years to a sentence she was never expected to serve out in full. The courtroom chapter of this case had closed. But for Christa Pike, decades on death row were just beginning.

 And for May Martinez, the fight to keep her daughter’s memory alive was far from over. For 30 years, Christa Pike sat on death row in Tennessee. She was the only woman in the state under a sentence of death, held apart even from the male inmates around her. As her execution date approached, her legal team filed a clemency petition.

 It pointed to her childhood abuse, her diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, and her diagnosis of bipolar disorder. They asked the governor to change her sentence to life without parole. At the same time, her lawyers fought over how the execution itself would happen. They argued that a blood condition called thrombocytosis could make lethal injection especially painful.

 They asked for a different method to be used instead. A special judge reviewed the claim and rejected it, ruling that Christa would lose consciousness within 20 to 30 seconds after the injection began. Her legal team made one more request. They asked that no male staff be allowed to touch her during her final hours, citing her history of sexual abuse.

 The state agreed to involve female staff in parts of the process, but did not guarantee this fully. As for the others involved that night in 1995, Tadel Ship remains in prison. His request for parole has already been denied. Shadola Peterson, who received probation decades earlier, has stayed out of the public eye ever since. This was never a story about money.

 There was no insurance payout, no financial gain. It was always about obsession, jealousy, and violence that should never have happened. For May Martinez, the fight lasted far longer than the trial itself. It took 16 years just to recover the piece of her daughter’s skull that Christa Pike had once carried like a trophy.

 Two families were forever changed by one night in the woods. What moment in this story hit hardest for you? Tell us in the comments below. If you want more true crime coverage like this, subscribe to the channel now and turn on notifications so you never miss the next case.