{"id":866635,"date":"2026-10-01T03:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866635\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T03:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T03:54:12","slug":"tennessee-inmate-still-alive-after-being-administered-two-lethal-injections-her-lawyer-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/866635\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee inmate still alive after being administered two lethal injections, her lawyer says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pike does not dispute her role in the grisly killing. But details about her upbringing, marked by years of sexual and physical abuse and neglect, were not shared with the jury that sentenced her to death. Her lawyers believe that if such evidence of abuse were presented at a trial now, a death sentence would not be guaranteed.<\/p>\n

They had asked the Supreme Court to halt Pike\u2019s execution, saying she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from being molested and raped beginning when she was a toddler. Being held down and strapped to a gurney, they wrote, was likely to create \u201csevere mental suffering and superadded psychological terror under Tennessee\u2019s lethal injection protocol.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state has not denied that Pike has suffered from abuse. But in a response filed Monday, the attorney general\u2019s office said a judge already concluded last month that it was \u201cspeculative whether Pike would suffer\u201d greater mental harm from how the lethal injection protocol is carried out.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court appeared to be Pike\u2019s remaining chance for a reprieve after Lee said he was upholding her death sentence \u201cafter deliberate consideration.\u201d The high court denied her petition Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

Pike\u2019s lawyers said Monday they were \u201csaddened and heartbroken\u201d that the governor would not be granting clemency.<\/p>\n

Another woman, Gaile Owens<\/a>, was on Tennessee\u2019s death row with Pike until 2010, when Gov. Phil Bredesen changed her sentence to life in prison.<\/p>\n

\"ChristaA letter Pike wrote before she learned Gov. Bill Lee denied clemency.via Rev. Mikey Noechel<\/p>\n

In her letter, Pike wrote that people have seen a \u201climited public persona that has been the only narrative\u201d about her. Her lawyers had tried to convince Lee that she was a product of a tumultuous childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cStepping into the chaos of Christa\u2019s life that led her to that moment will not justify her actions that night,\u201d one of her lawyers, Randall Spivey, said of the time when she committed her crime. \u201cBut the chaos will show you that Christa was broken, not evil.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different sentences<\/p>\n

Pike\u2019s lawyers also pointed to her age and how it led to such a different outcome in her case.<\/p>\n

While she faced a death sentence because of her first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder conviction in Slemmer\u2019s death, another conspirator was spared: Pike\u2019s boyfriend, who was 17 at the time. <\/p>\n

Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life in prison because he was a juvenile and remains eligible for parole. Shipp testified at his post-conviction hearing that he was the one who carved a pentagram into Slemmer\u2019s chest.<\/p>\n

The third accomplice \u2014 Shadolla Peterson, then 18 \u2014 served as a lookout in the crime and was sentenced to probation in exchange for her cooperation.<\/p>\n

\"ColleenColleen Slemmer. May Martinez via News Sentinel \/ USA Today Network via Reuters file<\/p>\n

Pike told police that she \u201cwasn\u2019t even thinking\u201d when she assaulted Slemmer and that she had been jealous, believing the victim was trying to steal Shipp\u2019s attention. Pike\u2019s lawyers said her age would have been more of a factor today, given how scientific research has evolved in understanding that young people\u2019s brains are still developing<\/a> well beyond their teen years.<\/p>\n

In addition, her lawyers said her legal representatives at the time could have accepted a deal from prosecutors who were offering a life sentence without parole in return for a guilty plea.<\/p>\n

Pike sobbed as the judge told her she would die by electrocution, then the only form of execution in Tennessee before the state moved to lethal injection as its primary method.<\/p>\n

\"ChristaPike and her mother after the jury read the guilty verdict in 1996. Byron Small \/ Knoxville News Sentinel \/ USA Today Network via Reuters file<\/p>\n

She pleaded through tears<\/a>: \u201cCan I please hug my mom?\u201d <\/p>\n

Pike entered prison, where she was placed into solitary confinement for up to 23 hours a day and prescribed Prozac to treat her obsessive-compulsive disorder. Early on, she struggled to express remorse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I\u2019d done,\u201d Pike said in her clemency petition.<\/p>\n

Lingering trauma<\/p>\n

Three years ago, Pike\u2019s lawyers asked Bethany Brand, a psychologist specializing in trauma, to assess whether she suffers from psychological disorders and consider whether any contributed to the crime.<\/p>\n

She sat with Pike at her Nashville prison and reviewed police reports, past medical examinations and other files in her case detailing physical and sexual abuse. <\/p>\n

Brand learned that Pike\u2019s parents were not stable figures in her life. Her mother\u2019s boyfriends and other men had molested her from a young age, the files said. She did poorly in school, living with other family members in West Virginia and North Carolina. At 17 \u2014 one year before she would take part in Slemmer\u2019s murder \u2014 Pike reported to North Carolina police that she was walking to the store when a man threw her to the ground and raped her. No one was ever arrested.<\/p>\n

In her final report, Brand wrote that the adults in Pike\u2019s life failed her. Doctors only diagnosed a bipolar disorder a few years after she was already in prison.<\/p>\n

The level of trauma Pike was subjected to \u201cis almost impossible to grasp because it is so severe,\u201d Brand wrote.<\/p>\n

She told NBC News that medications in prison have helped Pike tremendously and that she now has \u201cempathy and great regret\u201d for what she did. Pike\u2019s case, she added, is a lesson in the need for greater awareness surrounding women\u2019s mental health and recognizing trauma and untreated mental illness.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Christa\u2019s case, nobody was trying to get her help,\u201d Brand said.<\/p>\n

May Martinez is unconvinced that the person responsible for mutilating her daughter\u2019s body and leaving her nude from the waist up could change.<\/p>\n

Martinez recalled that, after the investigation ended, she did not realize all of her daughter\u2019s body parts were not buried with her remains, as some had been retained as trial evidence. She had to pick up Slemmer\u2019s skull from the courthouse, and she remembers that the medical examiner\u2019s office mailed her other parts later. (The office said it rarely retains human remains as it did 30 years ago because of better technology, enhanced photography and lab work.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pike does not dispute her role in the grisly killing. But details about her upbringing, marked by years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":866636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-866635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/866636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}