A female Tennessee death row inmate has asked that she be killed by an all-female execution squad after she was convicted for murdering her classmate more than 30 years ago.
Christa Pike was sentenced to death in March 1996 when she was just 18 years old. She learned her fate after she was found guilty of torturing and murdering fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer in 1995 alongside her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
Investigators said that the couple carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, and Pike, now 50, kept a piece of her skull.
Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the murder, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole because he was a minor. He remains in custody after he was most recently denied parole in October 2025.
Pike is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 30, making her the first woman in Tennessee to be executed in over 200 years. The only way she won’t be killed is if Governor Bill Lee stops the scheduled execution. Her lawyers previously filed a 226-page clemency petition, but have not gotten a response about the last-minute reprieve.
Her lawyers said she is “terrified” of dying a “painful” death by lethal injection, and she reportedly wants to be shot by an all-woman firing squad in front of witnesses that would include members of Slemmer’s family, according to the New York Post.
Pike’s legal team added that the lethal injection will be “prolonged and agonizing” because she has a rare blood disorder, which could make it difficult to find a vein and could affect how she reacts to the drug.
The request is not the first time Pike has tried to prevent being killed by lethal injection. Back in August, she took the state to court and asked to be hanged instead.
“(Lethal injection administered by men) will increase the likelihood that an 8th Amendment violation will occur,” Pike’s lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, of the execution method, per the outlet. “There is an increased risk of pain and suffering.”
While Pike’s ultimate goal is to be given a life sentence instead of death, the state has argued that she has not demonstrated a legitimate reason in order to have her sentence changed.
“It was Ms Pike’s burden to come forth with scientific evidence (to overturn execution); she has completely failed to do that,” the state said.
Pike opened up about fears for her execution in the September documentary, Christa Pike’s Last Fight to Stop Her Execution.
“I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it’s like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around,” she said of her execution. “My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself.”
She added that she had the “most horrible nightmares, but I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time.”
“And so, every day I’ve woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment,” Pike said.
