Tennessee Set to Execute a Woman for First Time Since 1820

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee is scheduled to execute Christa Gail Pike by lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville — what would be the state’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years and only the 19th of a woman nationwide in the modern death penalty era.

Pike, 50, was 18 when she took part in the 1995 torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. Gov. Bill Lee denied her clemency request on September 28, declining to intervene, and her attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court for a stay.

According to NPR, Pike “does not deny her guilt, but her attorneys and supporters argue a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teen with untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect.” Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, wants the execution to proceed.

A Rare Event in American Capital Punishment

Executions of women are extraordinarily uncommon in the United States. Since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, only 18 women have been executed nationwide, representing roughly 1% of all executions, according to data cited by the Death Penalty Information Center.

If carried out, Pike’s execution would be Tennessee’s first of a woman since 1820. Recent exceptions to the national pattern include Missouri’s 2023 execution of Amber McLaughlin, a transgender woman, and the federal execution of Lisa Montgomery in 2021 — the first federal execution of a woman in nearly seven decades.

The case is also unusual in Tennessee for a different reason: no 18-year-old has been sentenced to death in the state since Pike, 30 years ago. Of the more than 200 people sentenced to death in Tennessee’s modern era, only eight — including Pike — were 18 at the time of their offense. The other seven, all men, later had their death sentences vacated.

Clemency Denied, and a Final Appeal

Gov. Lee announced his decision on September 28. “After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene,” he said in a statement, as reported by NewsChannel 5.

Pike’s attorneys — Stephen Ferrell, Kelly Gleason and Randy Spivey — said they were “deeply saddened and heartbroken” and warned that proceeding would place Tennessee “on singular footing.” In a statement, they argued that “an 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain, and 18 is too young to face execution.”

The Tennessee Supreme Court declined Pike’s request for a stay in an order dated September 23, finding she failed to demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits. Her legal team has since appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for a last-minute reprieve, according to the BBC.

The 1995 Killing

Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival. She and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a secluded area where they tortured and killed her. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt, and a pentagram — a symbol associated with Satanism — was carved into the victim’s chest, a detail that fueled the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.

Pike was the only defendant capitally charged. Shipp, 17 at the time, was ineligible for the death penalty and received a life sentence; he was denied parole in 2025. A third teenager, Shadolla Peterson, testified against the others and received probation.

The brutality of the crime and the ages of those involved drew intense media attention that has persisted for three decades. As the Nashville Banner reported, the case has been “grist for the voracious true crime entertainment mill,” generating books, documentaries and YouTube content.

A Childhood the Jury Never Heard

Pike’s clemency petition documented a childhood marked by repeated sexual abuse and neglect that, her attorneys say, the jury that sentenced her never learned about — and that the state has not disputed.

According to the petition, Pike was sexually assaulted repeatedly by her grandmother’s boyfriend between ages 2 and 5; she was raped by a neighbor at 11, reported the assault, and was not believed; and she was raped by a stranger at 17. The Tennessee Attorney General’s Office told a court in August that the state does not contest the abuse Pike suffered.

Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. In a statement included in her clemency petition, she said: “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. … It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”

“If Christa Pike was tried today, I do not believe a jury that knew about the documented sexual abuse and neglect she experienced as a child would sentence her to death,” said Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The Victim’s Family

Speaking by telephone from Florida, Slemmer’s mother pointed to what her daughter never got to do. “Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez told NPR. Colleen’s birthday was last week, Martinez said; she would have turned 51.

Martinez, who plans to witness the execution, told the Nashville Banner that she needs to be present “so I can remember that she is gone and I don’t have to fear that she’s going to pop up somewhere.” She has also said she is unsure the execution will bring her closure.

A Last Challenge to the Method

Separately from her clemency plea, Pike challenged the state’s lethal injection protocol, arguing that combined with her PTSD, being observed and moved by male prison staff would “sure or very likely” cause “serious illness and needless suffering” in violation of the Eighth Amendment. A group of trauma and sexual-violence experts filed a brief warning she is likely to “feel and believe that she is being raped to death.”

The Tennessee Department of Correction has said it will keep Pike at the women’s prison, the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, until the day before her execution and will attempt to staff her observation, extraction and transportation with female officers.

A Broader National Debate

The case arrives amid heightened national debate over capital punishment. Executions in the United States nearly doubled in 2025 — reaching 47 across 11 states, up from 25 the previous year, according to NPR. Florida led the country with 19 executions.

At the same time, public support for the death penalty has fallen to a five-decade low. New death sentences for crimes committed at ages 18 to 20 have become functionally nonexistent, according to the Death Penalty Information Center; only five U.S. counties sentenced anyone under 21 at the time of their offense to death between 2020 and 2025.

What’s Next

Unless the U.S. Supreme Court intervenes, Pike is to be moved to Riverbend on Tuesday and executed Wednesday morning. Ahead of the date, about two dozen demonstrators took part in a “March 4 Mercy” protest, a nine-mile trek from Riverbend to the Tennessee State Capitol, opposing the execution.

Whether Pike’s case changes how Tennessee — or the country — approaches the death penalty for juvenile offenders remains an open question. What is already clear is that her execution, if it proceeds, will mark a rarity in modern American capital punishment: the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than two centuries.