The only woman on Tennessee’s death row has been scheduled for execution more than 30 years after she brutally killed a teenage romantic rival and showed off a piece of the victim’s skull to schoolmates.
The Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled the execution of 49-year-old Christa Gail Pike on Sept. 30, 2026. Pike was just 18 years old when she and two others lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to the woods in Knoxville on Jan. 12, 1995, and carried out the attack that made national headlines for its brutality.
When a groundskeeper found Slemmer’s body the next day, the teen had been beaten, stabbed, and bludgeoned, and had a pentagram carved into her chest, court records say.
If Pike’s execution is carried out, she would become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years and just the 19th woman executed in modern U.S. history.
“That is a very, very small number,” said Robin Maher, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit that tracks the use of the death penalty in the U.S. without taking a position on it.
“Only 18 women have been executed since 1976,” Maher added. “It’s extremely rare.”
Pike’s execution date has been set amid a rise in executions in 2025 and an expansion of the execution methods used. So far this year, states have executed 34 inmates − a figure that hasn’t been seen in a decade − and another nine are scheduled to be put to death.
Here’s what to know the case, and women on death row in the U.S.
What was Christa Gail Pike convicted of?
Christa Gail Pike and Colleen Slemmer were both students at the Knoxville Job Corps, a career-training program, when Pike began dating a 17-year-old boy in the program and later came to fear that Slemmer was trying to steal him, prosecutors told jurors at trial.
Pike, a friend and the boyfriend lured Slemmer away from the Job Corps center and into the woods before the attack, largely carried out by Pike over an hour-long period on Jan. 12, 1995, according to court records.
Christa Gail Pike is pictured.
Pike later bragged about killing Slemmer, telling another student at the center that she had cut the teenager’s throat six times with a box cutter, cut her back with a meat cleaver, carved a pentagram into her forehead and chest, and continued the violence even though Slemmer “begged” her to stop, according to court records.
Pike said she had “thrown a large piece of asphalt at the victim’s head,” believed to be a fatal blow, and kept a skull fragment, later showing it off to fellow students, court records say.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was convicted of first-degree murder, sentenced to life in prison and will become eligible for parole in November, according to inmate records. Pike’s friend, Shadolla Peterson − who prosecutors say kept watch during the attack − testified against Pike and was sentenced to probation.
What does Christa Gail Pike say about the crime?
In a letter she wrote to The Tennessean − part of the USA TODAY Network − Pike said she takes responsibility for the murder and that she has “changed drastically” since she was a teenager.
“Think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager. Well, mine happened to be huge, unforgettable and ruined countless lives,” she wrote. “I was a mentally ill 18 yr. old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. Even more to accept how many lives I effected (sic). I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Pike spent 27 years in what her attorneys say was effectively solitary confinement as the only woman on Tennessee’s death row before she won the ability to interact with other inmates during meals, classes, and religious services.
Her attorneys argue that had Pike been tried today, she never would have gotten the death penalty given her young age and mental health struggles at the time of the crime. They believe she deserves life in prison without the possibility of parole instead of the death penalty.
Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was convicted in the 1995 torture death of fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, 19.
“Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of physical and sexual abuse and neglect,” her legal team said in a statement to USA TODAY. “With time and treatment for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, which were not diagnosed until years later, Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime.”
To learn more about Pike, including background about her childhood, visit here.
Clemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has been steadfast in her support of the death penalty for Pike.
“I just want Christa down so I can end it, relieve my daughter, so she finally can be resting,” Martinez told WBIR-TV in 2021. “There’s not a day goes by that I don’t think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was.”
How many women have been executed in the U.S.?
Just 18 women have been executed in the U.S. since 1976, compared to 1,623 men, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That means women represent just 1% of all modern U.S. executions.
Pike is not only the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, but she’s among just 48 female death row inmates in the nation. That’s compared to a male population just under 2,100 − roughly 2 percent.
The last execution of a woman in the U.S. was that of Amber McClaughlin in 2023. McClaughlin, who was the first transgender person execution in the nation, was convicted as a man of raping and fatally stabbing 45-year-old Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003. Guenther was McLaughlin’s ex-girlfriend.
The last execution in Tennessee was that of Byron Black on Aug. 5 for the 1988 murder of his girlfriend and her two young daughters.
How many women has Tennessee executed?
Citing the Death Penalty Information Center, Pike’s attorneys say that only three women have ever been executed in Tennessee, with all of them happening between 1807 and 1819.
They list the hangings of three Black women in 1807, 1808 and 1819, though didn’t identify their crimes. Only one of the women’s names is known: that of Molly Holcomb in 1807. Two of them are listed as slaves by deathpenaltyusa.org, which names the crimes as murder, though many slaves were unjustly killed themselves over false accusations or for no reason at all.
Contributing: Evan Mealins, The Tennessean
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers executions for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tennessee sets Christa Pike’s execution 30 years after rival’s murder
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