Christa Pike does not want the people closest to her watching when she dies. The Christa Pike execution is set for Wednesday, September 30, in Tennessee, and the 50-year-old has told her loved ones to stay away from the viewing room, according to a woman who spent years on death row beside her.
If it goes ahead, Tennessee will put a woman to death for the first time in more than two centuries. Pike was 18 when she killed her classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, in 1995.
A friend from the cell next door
The detail comes from Ashlee Sellars, who shared it with the BBC. Sellars was once held on the same high-security unit as Pike while serving time for a robbery-murder. For years, the two women talked through the meal flaps in their cell doors.
Sellars now works in justice reform. She has spent a long time trying to reconcile the woman she got to know with the teenager who took a life, and she is careful not to minimize what happened to Slemmer. In her view, people need to hear that Slemmer’s life mattered. She also believes Pike’s fight right now is less about staying alive than about showing that her own life meant something.
What happened in Knoxville
Pike, Slemmer, and Pike’s boyfriend at the time, Tadaryl Shipp, all attended a job training program in Knoxville. Prosecutors argued that Pike believed Slemmer wanted to steal her boyfriend. CBS News
In January 1995, Pike, Shipp, and a third student, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to a secluded spot near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus and stabbed her to death.
The three received very different sentences. Pike was sentenced to death. Shipp was 17, too young by law for a death sentence, and received life with the possibility of parole. Peterson testified against both of them and walked away with six years’ probation.
Pike was 20 when she was sentenced in 1996, which made her the youngest person on death row at the time. She has spent roughly three decades there since. CBS News
A clemency bid turned down
Pike’s lawyers put their strongest case to Governor Bill Lee in a 226-page clemency petition. They argued that the jury never properly heard about her childhood, which they said involved abuse, rape, neglect, and abandonment.
While in prison, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Her legal team also pointed to post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of that early trauma.
The governor was not persuaded. Lee said he had considered the request and reviewed the case, and that he would uphold the sentence and not intervene. wsmv
The Tennessee Supreme Court has also rejected challenges to the execution. Her attorneys have since asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay. CNN
A request for female officers
Separately, Pike’s lawyers asked that only women carry out the execution. They argued that being handled by male officers could retraumatize her, given her history.
Tennessee met the request partway. The state agreed that female officers will transport her and said it will try to keep female staff present, but it has not promised that the whole process will be carried out by women.
Remorse on camera
Days before word emerged about her wishes for her family, Pike spoke on camera for a documentary, Dead Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee.
She said Slemmer’s mother is still on her mind and that she regrets taking away someone’s daughter, sister, and friend. “I feel remarkably remorseful for what I did,” Pike said.
Slemmer’s family has taken a different view of what should happen next. Her mother wants the execution to go forward. NPR
Why the Christa Pike execution is drawing national attention
Women make up a tiny share of the people executed in the United States. Pike would be the 19th woman executed nationwide since 1976. Tennessee last executed a woman in 1820, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. NewsweekNewsweek
Her age at the time of the crime has also shaped the debate. The group’s executive director, Robin Maher, has argued that a modern jury would likely weigh Pike’s youth, mental illness, and history of abuse differently. CBS News
Supporters and opponents have been out in public all week. Death penalty opponents marched to the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville on Sunday, and advocacy groups planned to deliver thousands of petitions and letters to the governor. NPRwsmv
Barring a last-minute ruling, Pike is due to be executed at 10 a.m. Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Her lawyers say they have not stopped fighting.
