Journalist Helen Roberts has shared five key moments from her 2006 interview with Christa Pike, the youngest woman on death row in the US, reflecting on the encounter as Pike's execution was carried out.
Meeting Christa Pike
Roberts met Pike at the then Tennessee's maximum-security Prison for Women, now known as Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, in Nashville. She described Pike as a vulnerable young woman, desperate to be liked, rather than the monster the public might imagine.
Pike and her boyfriend at the time were convicted over the 1995 killing of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer. Pike's execution was set to take place yesterday at 4pm UK time, but was paused temporarily and eventually took place at 1am this morning. However, it didn't go to plan and Pike was taken to hospital after her heart was still beating and she was heard snoring despite being given two doses of lethal injections.
Five moments that stayed with Roberts
Roberts noted how immaculate Pike's hair, make-up and nails were, even on death row. Pike explained she could order make-up and hair products from a prison catalogue with money in her prison account. 'I take care of my hair, it's the only thing that makes me feel feminine in here,' she said.
The smell of the maximum-security prison was pungent, a mix of barbecue turkey cooking and strong bleach. Roberts said she gagged a couple of times before adapting to it. She also felt pity for Pike, not because she forgot what she did, but because the terrible things that happened to her as a child could have been stopped if just one adult had helped her.
Pike was badly neglected by her parents and had been abused and raped multiple times. After the interview, she sent Roberts a card thanking her for being so nice to her and treating her like a woman.
Interview details and sentencing disparity
During the interview, Pike spoke about her routine: waking at 6.45am every morning, having three showers a week and eating her meals in her 8ft by 9ft cell. She was the only female on death row and didn't mix with other inmates. She found contentment in reading, watching TV and writing to pen pals.
Roberts highlighted the disturbing difference in sentences: Pike's boyfriend was 17 and got life imprisonment, while Pike, who had been 18 for just a few months, received the death sentence. It has since been reported that Pike was offered a plea deal of life without parole by the state before her trial in 1996, but her attorney apparently reassured her that a local jury would not sentence a 'pretty white girl' to death, leading her to decline the deal.
Pike admitted to Roberts that what she did was an absolutely terrible thing but said she couldn't turn back the clock. 'I had no intention of killing her, I was out of control, it was like something took over inside of me,' she said. She also said she didn't believe in the death sentence: 'How is killing me going to teach me a lesson? It's like beating a child for beating someone else – how does that teach right from wrong?'
Roberts said she has been thinking about the young girl Pike was before she became a criminal, especially as her execution process played out in the news.
