By: Snigdha Chakravarti
27 years ago, three Tennessee teenagers were convicted of murdering 19-year old Colleen Slemmer. Two of the teens included 18-year old Christa Pike and her boyfriend, 17-year old Tadaryl Shipp. Court documents from the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office revealed how Pike “sliced her [Slemmer’s] stomach with a box cutter,” repeatedly “kicking her in the face,” and then “cut Slemmer’s throat as she begged for mercy.” When Slemmer attempted to escape a final time, Pike smashed Slemmer’s head with a rock. Shipp carved a pentagram on Slemmer’s chest, while Pike took a piece of Slammer’s skull, later showing it off to a friend.
While Pike was sentenced to death, becoming both the first Tennessee woman to be executed since 1819 as well as the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the modern age, Shipp was sentenced to life in prison as he was still considered a minor, being 17 years old. However, recent medical research has questioned the decision to sentence Pike to death but Shipp to life in prison. A teen’s brain is not considered fully developed, and the difference between a 17-year old and 18-year old brain is negligible.
Coupled with the debate around the decision to sentence Pike to death but Shipp to life in prison despite their age gap being but a couple months apart, Pike’s mental state was not considered during the trial at the time of her crime. Pike had an abusive childhood, facing parental neglect and multiple rapes. In fact, a year prior to murdering Slemmer, Pike was violently raped by a stranger, though this stranger was never arrested. Hence, her mental state deteriorated throughout her teenage years. Research identified Pike’s Bipolar Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder years later, explaining the impulsivity with which she killed Slemmer along with racing thoughts, insomnia, and mood swings.
According to Dr. Bethany Brand, a clinical psychologist with over three decades of specializing in the assessment and treatment of trauma-related disorders, Pike “experienced more severe adverse events than 99% of the US population.” Moreover, Dr. Brand described Pike’s childhood and adolescence as “extraordinarily severe extreme trauma.”
In the trial following Slemmer’s murder, Pike’s lawyer was completely unprepared, failing to mention her fragile mental state, so Pike was simply sentenced to death. Consequently, Pike’s death penalty has also been debated—at the time of the trial, her mental illness and deterioration were never considered. Pike herself has expressed how she has changed between then and now, expressing how she had “more than my fair share of trauma growing up, and I realized that so many others have that didn’t commit violent crimes.” However, she still acknowledged how this is no excuse for her “crime and the damage it’s caused to so many lives ,” saying how she “could take it all back” if she could.
On September 30th, 2026, Pike was scheduled for lethal injection. After two doses, Pike still remained alive and was sent to an off-site medical facility for life-saving support. A statement by the Tennessee Department of Correction revealed how lethal injection has apparently been “consistently effective,” and legal protocol “does not allow for additional procedures beyond what was carried out during Pike’s execution.
Following her failed execution, Pike’s arms were blistered and swollen, almost like “ blown up surgical gloves,” according to Pike’s attorney. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has paused any planned executions, but the next legal steps to Pike’s case remain ambiguous. Judge I’Ashea Myles ordered the state to preserve all drug vials, logs, and communication records from the execution chamber. As the second execution in 2026 that Tennessee has been unable to carry out (the first being Tony Carruthers in May 2026), questions have arisen regarding the lethal injection itself along with the death penalty. The coming weeks and months will not only reveal the next steps in Pike’s case, but perhaps, scrutiny over Tennessee’s prison system.