Death row inmate Christa Pike, 50, is set to be executed today (September 30), becoming the first woman put to death in Tennessee in over 200 years. Pike has refused her last meal and requested an all-female lethal injection team, the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1995 for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. In 2001, she was also convicted of attempting to strangle another prisoner to death with a shoestring.
Execution details and final requests
Death row inmates typically request a customized last meal before execution, but Pike has not asked for one. She has requested an all-female execution team, saying she might be traumatized if men are involved.
Earlier this month, Pike's lawyers issued a clemency plea to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, citing childhood abuse. Lee declined to intervene in the execution.
“Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace,” Pike wrote in a letter this week. “I am not afraid to die. I’m only nervous about the process.”
Background of the case
Pike is set to be executed by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. She was 18 when she, her then-boyfriend, and a female friend lured Slemmer to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee's Knoxville campus and tortured her to death on January 12, 1995.
In August 2001, Pike had 25 years added to her sentence after being convicted of attempting to murder fellow inmate Patricia Jones.
Pike's recent statements
Pike said this week she felt a “kinship” with accused child murderer Lindsay Clancy and was “pleased” that Clancy received a mistrial. “We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues,” Pike told the Times. “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old girl who committed a crime with two other individuals and I was the only one to receive this sentence. There are so many women who don’t get the help they need: me and others.”
