Christa Pike

Christa Gail Pike was born prematurely on March 10, 1976, to Carissa Hansen and Emil Glenn Pike in Beckley, West Virginia, where she and her elder half-sister were raised, initially. Both of them were frequently negligent. An aunt noted that, as an infant, Pike would be "crawling around through piles of dog feces all over the house," and that Hansen continued a lifestyle of drinking even after receiving news that her toddler was experiencing severe seizures. Pike's paternal grandmother would frequently help care for her. Pike's living situation continued to be unstable throughout her teenage years, and she was both the recipient and perpetrator of violence. One of her mother's boyfriends punched her in the face after Pike chased him with a butter knife; criminal charges were filed, In tenth grade, she was sent to a juvenile facility for a year, where she became interested in the Job Corps, a government program aimed at helping low-income youth by offering vocational training and career skills. Pike reportedly completed her GED program and aspired to train as a nursing assistant. == Killing ==

Christa became jealous of her Job Corps classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, who she believed was trying to "steal" her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Along with her friend 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, Pike planned to lure Slemmer to an isolated, abandoned steam plant near the University of Tennessee campus. Finally, Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, killing her. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer's skull. == Trial and appeals==

Trial Pike, Shipp, and Peterson were all charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Shipp, who had turned 17 two months before the murder, was tried as an adult. Peterson, who agreed to become a witness for the prosecution, received probation after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact. During Pike's trial, the prosecution was aided by evidence and Pike's confession. Pike was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On March 22, 1996, after only a few hours of deliberation, Pike was found guilty on both counts. On March 30, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder charge and 25 years in prison for the conspiracy charge. In January 1997, Shipp was also found guilty on both counts. However, after the jury could not unanimously agree whether he deserved to spend the rest of his natural life in prison, the judge sentenced him to life in prison with parole eligibility. Shipp was denied parole in October 2025. Appeals Following the guilty verdict, Pike "launched, cancelled and then re-launched" an appeal of her conviction in the Tennessee state courts. In June 2001, then again in June 2002, against the advice of her lawyers, Pike asked the courts to drop her appeal and sought to be executed via electrocution. Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz granted the request, and an execution date of August 19, 2002, was set. Pike soon thereafter changed her mind and on July 8, 2002, defense lawyers filed a motion to allow the appeal process to continue. This motion was denied. However, on August 2, 2002, a three-judge state appeals court panel ruled that the proceedings should be continued and the execution was not carried out. In December 2008, Pike's latest request for a new trial was turned down, and she was returned to death row. In May 2014, Pike's lawyers entered an appeal in the federal court system. Her lawyers sought a commutation of the sentence from death to prison on the following grounds: ineffective assistance of counsel; Pike suffered from mental illness; and capital punishment as administered in Tennessee is unconstitutional. In a 61-page ruling by US District Judge Harry Sandlin Mattice Jr. issued on March 11, 2016, all grounds were rejected, and the requested commutation was denied. On August 22, 2019, having heard the same appeal by Pike's lawyers on October 1, 2018, the three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit panel unanimously upheld the lower court ruling and denied relief. ==Attempted murder (2001)==

On August 24, 2001, Pike, with alleged assistance from inmate Natasha Cornett, attacked and attempted to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoestring, Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder on August 12, 2004. Although the Tennessee Department of Corrections maintained that Cornett assisted in this crime, their investigators concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike attack Jones. In 2003, Pike was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and received a 25-year sentence for the attack on Jones. == Attempted prison escape ==

In March 2012, it was revealed that Pike had made escape plans involving corrections officer Justin Heflin as well as Donald Kohut of New Jersey. Though it has never been determined how it exactly began, Kohut, who worked as a personal trainer and was then in his early thirties, entered into a letter-writing correspondence with Pike around the beginning of 2011. By July of that year, Kohut was making the nearly round trip from Flemington, New Jersey, to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit Pike in person on visiting days once or twice a month. Eventually, Kohut communicated a plan for her escape to Pike and enlisted the help of corrections officer Heflin, who agreed to participate in return for cash and gifts. Because of security concerns, the Tennessee Department of Corrections has not provided many details about the plan; however, the eventually unsealed indictment laid out a scenario where a prison key would be traced and then a duplicate created. Early in 2012, prison personnel received information about the escape plot. This led to the attempted prison break being thwarted by a joint investigation involving the Tennessee Department of Corrections, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and the New Jersey State Police. Pike was not charged and it was unclear to the investigators if she was a participant in the conspiracy other than being aware of it. Heflin, who cooperated with authorities after his arrest, served no prison time, but was terminated from his job with the Tennessee Department of Corrections. == Scheduled execution ==

On August 27, 2020, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery's office requested the Tennessee Supreme Court to set an execution date for Pike. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee and various other factors, Pike's attorneys were granted extensions by the court, allowing them more time to argue as to why Pike should not be executed. The state did not oppose the extensions. On June 7, 2021, Pike's attorneys filed a motion to oppose the execution date and request a Certificate of Commutation. The motion was denied. Before November 2022, Pike had completely exhausted all appeals processes. However, in November 2022, the state Supreme Court found that the state's law for juveniles automatically sentenced to life in prison without a chance at parole was unconstitutional. (See Knoxville case State v. Booker, for complete ruling). On August 30, 2023, lawyers for Pike used this ruling in an attempt to reopen her bid to have her 1996 conviction and sentence thrown out. Pike's lawyers argued her young age and damaged mental health at the time of the killing should spare her from facing execution. In October 2023, Knox County Criminal Court Judge Scott Green denied Pike's request, saying the November 2022 Supreme Court ruling did not apply to her. "The Booker case addressed only juvenile offenders in Tennessee," Judge Green noted. "The high court, in the opinion written by now retired Justice Sharon Lee, specifically addressed the question of juveniles, not adults. This ruling applies only to juvenile homicide offenders – not to adult offenders," the decision states, and Pike was legally an adult, Green wrote. On September 30, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a death warrant for Pike, scheduling her execution to take place exactly one year later, on September 30, 2026. If Pike is executed, she will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in roughly two centuries. == In popular culture ==

The murder of Colleen Slemmer was featured on the TV shows Deadly Women, For My Man, Killer Kids, Martinis and Murder, Snapped: Killer Couples, Mean Girl Murders. Christa Pike was also featured in season one episode of ''World's Most Dangerous Criminals. Patricia Springer wrote A Love To Die For'', a book about the murder. == See also ==