{"id":913535,"date":"2026-09-29T02:32:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913535\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T02:32:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T02:32:09","slug":"tennessee-to-execute-a-woman-for-first-time-in-200-years-after-governor-denies-clemency-tennessee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/913535\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee to execute a woman for first time in 200 years after governor denies clemency | Tennessee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christa Pike, a woman who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, is set to be put to death on Wednesday after her request for clemency was denied by Tennessee<\/a> governor Bill Lee on Monday. If the execution goes through, she will be the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.<\/p>\n

Pike, who is now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.<\/p>\n

The case received widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved, and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder the following year and sentenced to death, making her the youngest woman to be put on death row in modern US history. Since her sentence, her history as a victim of sexual abuse and mental health challenges has come to light.<\/p>\n

As her execution date approached, civil rights groups like the ACLU<\/a> and Amnesty International<\/a> have called on the public to reach out to the governor\u2019s office to ask that he take Pike off of death row.<\/p>\n

But Lee declined to halt her execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike\u2019s request for clemency and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,\u201d he said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In response to Lee\u2019s decision, Pike\u2019s attorneys said that they were \u201cdeeply saddened and heartbroken\u201d by the governor\u2019s decision and that through this choice the state is dismissing decades of research about the amount of responsibility an 18-year-old \u2013 especially one with severe trauma \u2013 should bear for their criminal actions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout her childhood, Christa was failed by people and institutions that should have shown her care and meaningful intervention,\u201d Pike\u2019s attorneys said in a statement. \u201cThe 18-year-old girl suffering from severe mental illness and near-debilitating trauma no longer exists. Christa is a 50-year-old remorseful woman who understands her actions, receives proper treatment for her mental illness, and provides for and guides fellow incarcerated women.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pike\u2019s attorneys have also asked the supreme court to stay the execution.<\/p>\n

Assistant federal defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike was sexually abused starting from when she was a toddler and that she was raped at 11 and 17. He said Pike\u2019s lawyers at the penalty phase of her trial did not present the jury with what he said was critical information about her past or argue that her age should be a consideration.<\/p>\n

Pike, who has never denied her role in Slemmer\u2019s killing, was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I\u2019d done. Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone\u2019s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime,\u201d Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition.<\/p>\n

Ferrell said more is known today about adolescent brain development and that Pike\u2019s death sentence is an outlier. He noted that Pike\u2019s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole because of his age. He was denied parole last year. A third teen admitted to being an accessory and received probation.<\/p>\n

May Martinez, Slemmer\u2019s mother, told the Associated press that her daughter volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved roller skating and wanted to pursue a career in computers.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was easygoing. She was a computer geek to begin with. She and my husband would build and tear apart the computers constantly,\u201d Martinez told the outlet. \u201cShe trusted everybody, and that was her downfall.\u201d<\/p>\n

The last woman executed in Tennessee was in 1820, according to the Death Penalty Information Center<\/a>. Martin Eve, charged with being an accessory to murder, was executed by hanging.<\/p>\n

Most recently, Missouri in 2023 executed Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, for a 2003 killing, in what is believed to be the first execution of a transgender woman in the US.<\/p>\n

In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, marking the first time in nearly seven decades that the US government has put a female inmate to death. Georgia executed a woman in 2015.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christa Pike, a woman who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, is set to be put to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":913536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-913535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/913536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}