Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday refused to grant clemency to Christa Pike, clearing the way for the Christa Pike execution to go ahead on Wednesday, September 30. If it does, Pike, 50, will become the first woman put to death by the state in more than 200 years.
Her legal team is still fighting. One of her lawyers has also given a rare account of what weighs on her most as the date approaches, and he says it is not dying.
The fear her lawyer describes
Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell told NewsChannel 9 that Pike has had trouble with blood draws in the past. What she dreads is the possibility that execution staff will struggle to find a usable vein and turn to a central line instead.
“Her biggest fear is not the fear of dying. It’s the fear of that process,” Ferrell said. He added that she could accept death if it came quickly and without pain.
That concern is central to her legal challenge. Pike has thrombocytosis, a blood-clotting disorder. Her attorneys argue that a lethal injection could be prolonged and agonizing for someone with her condition. They are also challenging how Tennessee’s protocol handles a situation where officials cannot quickly place an IV.
In January, Ferrell and fellow federal defender Luke Ihnen sued the state over its execution procedures. They included a warning from anesthesiologist Dr. Joel Zivot that her condition would very likely cause bloody froth to form in her lungs.
The courts have not accepted those arguments. Experts said Pike would lose consciousness within 20 to 30 seconds of the injection, before she could feel pain. The court also found she had not produced enough evidence that her veins were too small for an IV.
“My nerves are shredded”
Pike has spoken about the wait in a new YouTube documentary, Christa Pike’s Last Fight to Stop Her Execution. She said she once believed a date would never be set. Now that one has been, she compared her mind to a roulette wheel with her brain as the ball bouncing around inside it.
She has also described severe nightmares. “My nerves are shredded,” she said.
Why the Christa Pike execution draws national attention
The crime dates back to 1995 in Knoxville. Pike, then 18, was a student at the Job Corps center there, a career-training program for low-income young people. She was dating a fellow student, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp.
Pike came to see classmate Colleen Slemmer, 19, as a romantic rival. Pike and Shipp tortured and killed Slemmer on the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus. In March 1996, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to death.
Eighteen is the youngest age at which anyone in the US can receive a death sentence. Pike’s attorneys say she would be the first person Tennessee has executed in the modern death penalty era who was a teenager at the time of the crime. She is also the only woman on Tennessee’s death row.
Pike spent close to three decades in what her lawyers call solitary confinement. A settlement in September 2024 finally gave her more contact with other people, including work and shared meals with a small group of women.
Her 226-page clemency petition asked Lee to reduce her sentence to life without parole. It pointed to physical and sexual abuse she suffered as a child, her mental health diagnoses, her years in isolation and what her lawyers describe as her rehabilitation. Death penalty opponents have also argued that a teenager committing the same crime today would be unlikely to receive a death sentence.
A mother who has not changed her mind
Colleen Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has been clear about where she stands. Speaking to Knoxville station WBIR several years ago, she said: “She did the crime. I think she should pay for it.” She added that she would feel better if Pike felt the same pain her daughter had.
In a recent interview with the BBC, Martinez confirmed she still holds that view.
Opponents of the execution see the case differently. On Sunday, protesters marched from Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where Tennessee’s execution chamber is located, to the state Capitol in Nashville. Abraham Bonowitz of the group Death Penalty Action told reporters that Pike’s crime was monstrous but that she herself is not a monster.
What happens next
In his statement, Lee said he had reviewed the case thoroughly and would uphold the sentence. The Tennessee Supreme Court has also refused to halt the execution.
Pike’s last remaining option is a request to the US Supreme Court to stop the execution. That request is still pending. Unless the justices step in, she is scheduled to die by lethal injection at Riverbend on Wednesday.
