Tennessee is set to execute a woman for the first time in 200 years. 50-year-old Christa Pike is set to be sent to death on Wednesday (September 30). More than three decades after her conviction.
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Pike and her boyfriend at the time, Tadaryll Shipp, were found guilty of killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Slemmer, Shipp, and Pike were all classmates at the Knoxville Job Corps.
Tennessee Set to Execute Woman For Role in 1995 Murder
Prosecutors believed that Slemmer's death was a crime of passion. Pike feared that Slemmer was a "romantic rival" who would eventually drive a wedge between her and her boyfriend. So she and Shipp conspired to lure the teen to a secluded area. There, they tortured and killed her.
Ahead of her execution, Pike has admitted her guilt. Still, her attorneys have argued that the crime she committed is not worthy of the death penalty. This is because she was still a teen at the time of the murder. Additionally, her attorneys cited that she was navigating through "untreated mental illness," due to a "childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect."
