Christa Pike, the only woman in Tennessee sentenced to death, has been adapting to increased levels of socialization after being removed from de facto solitary confinement last year, according to her attorneys.
Pike, 49, was convicted and sentenced for the brutal killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville in 1995.
While Pike’s previous attempts to challenge her death sentence have been unsuccessful, her attorneys said they will pursue other legal avenues to avoid her execution. Pike has not yet filed for clemency.
Christa Pike was moved out of ‘solitary confinement’ in 2024
In Tennessee, those sentenced to death are kept in areas of prison separate from others. While men are grouped with other men sentenced to death, Pike had lived in de facto solitary confinement at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville for more than 25 years, her attorneys argued.
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.
Pike’s attorneys secured a settlement with state officials on Sept. 16 to allow Pike more privileges and “increasing interaction with others.”
A spokesperson for her attorneys Kelly Gleason and Randy Spivey said in an email that Pike “is adapting to her new terms of incarceration.”
“After nearly three decades of solitary confinement, Christa enjoys being able to work and share some meals with a small group of women,” the spokesperson, Abby Trotter, said. “However, she is still very isolated as the only woman on death row in Tennessee.”
Courts have denied Pike’s challenge to her sentence
The Tennessee Supreme Court on Sept. 12 ruled it would not hear Pike’s case challenging her death sentence, which hinged on the claim that she was too young at the time of the crime to be fairly sentenced to be executed and also that she was suffering from the effects of severe childhood abuse.
If Pike is put to death, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Trotter said the governor generally does not review clemency petitions until after a person’s execution date has been set.
Facts of Christa Pike’s case
In January 1995, Pike, with her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and friend Shadolla Peterson, brutally killed and tortured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
Pike, age 18 at the time of the crime, and Slemmer were both students at the Knoxville Job Corps, a program for low-income youth, and Pike had felt Slemmer was flirting with Shipp.
The group of teenagers lured Slemmer into a remote area of the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. The killing involved a lengthy beating and torture.
Peterson pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and received a six-year probationary sentence, while Shipp was convicted of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life.
Shipp goes up for parole June 2026.
Have questions about the justice system? Evan Mealins is the justice reporter for The Tennessean. Contact him with questions, tips or story ideas at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What to know about Christa Pike, Tennessee’s only woman on death row
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