Christa Gail Pike was just 18 years old when she beat 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to death in a vacant lot in Knoxville.
It was January 1995, and both were enrolled in the same job training program. Pike, along with a juvenile accomplice, tortured and murdered her classmate in an attack that prosecutors described as one of the most brutal in Tennessee’s recent history. Because the accomplice was a minor, he could not receive the death penalty and is now serving life with the possibility of parole. Another person involved testified against her and was released after six years.
Today, Christa is 50 years old and remains the only woman on the state’s death row, where she has spent 27 years in near-total isolation. The Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled her execution for September 30, 2026, at Riverbend Prison in Nashville. If it takes place, she would be the first woman executed there since 1819. In January 2026, her defense filed a religious-freedom lawsuit challenging the lethal injection method, and the state has already responded. For now, the date remains in place.
