Nearly three decades after 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer was brutally murdered in Knoxville, Tennessee, the state has set an execution date for her killer. The Tennessee Supreme Court announced that Christa Gail Pike, now 49, is scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026. If carried out, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in two centuries and only the 19th woman executed in the United States in the modern era.
Pike was just 18 when she lured Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps, into nearby woods in 1995. Prosecutors said jealousy fueled the attack—Pike believed Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend. Over the next hour, Slemmer was tortured, beaten, and stabbed before a pentagram was carved into her chest. Pike later bragged about the killing and kept part of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy, leading to her swift arrest and conviction. She was sentenced to death in 1996.
Now the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, Pike has spent nearly 30 years in isolation. In recent statements, she has expressed remorse, describing her crime as “unforgivable” but arguing that her youth, trauma, and mental illness should have spared her a death sentence. Her attorneys are seeking clemency or a reduced sentence of life without parole, citing modern standards for sentencing young offenders.
For Colleen Slemmer’s family, the upcoming execution represents long-awaited justice. Her mother, May Martinez, has said she supports the decision, adding, “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Colleen or how she died.” Unless appeals succeed, Tennessee plans to carry out the execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville — marking a historic and somber moment in the state’s criminal justice history.
