By Esinam Asima
In 1995, 18-year-old Christa Gail Pike murdered her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville Tennessee. Slemmer and Pike had met in in Knoxville Job Corps which was a vocational training program with the aim on training young adults in various trades. Pike was joined by two friends as they led her into the woods, where they tortured and killed Slemmer in an appalling manner.
30 years later, Pike is set to be executed via lethal injection on Wednesday 30th September 2026, in a case that is surrounded by controversy.
In an exclusive death row interview, we learned that Pike has what she describes as ‘the most horrible nightmares’ which have been worse since she was informed of her execution date a year ahead of time, leading her to ‘live that thought all day, every day, every waking moment’.
The controversy of this execution also surrounds her age at the time the crime was committed, mental health concerns, and of course the ethics surrounding her death sentence.
Pike was only 18 years old when the crime was committed, making her one of the youngest women ever sent to death row. Her main defence is based on now more-advanced neuroscience and the idea that her adolescent brain was not fully formed.
The frontal lobe only fully forms around 25 years of age. Therefore, according to the defence, affecting Pike’s ability to make a rational choice at the age of 18.
In addition, medical experts have testified that Pike’s childhood trauma could have had a role in her later actions. Pike suffered forms of abuse, neglect and was a victim of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, which left untreated could lead to the development of bipolar disorder or even PTSD.
Though the violent nature of the crime must not be ignored, Pike was not the only person who drew up the scheme. Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was 17 tears of age. Tennessee laws protected him because of his young age – he could not legally be on death row. Another accomplice, Shadolla Peterson avoided prison by cooperating with prosecutors leading to her pleading guilty to being an accessory.
We must remember that during the 30 years wait for the death penalty, the Slemmer family had lost a daughter, sister and friend. Colleen Slemmer had enrolled in a six-month computing course in the hope that by the end, she could work in an IT corporation. But her dream was cut short by this terrible crime.
Slemmer’s family is said to believe that the execution of Christa Pike may bring some form of justice, especially after 30 years with no clear answers of how the justice would be brought about.