Tennessee Plans First Female Execution Since 1820

PHOTO CAPTION: Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be executed by Tennessee on Sept. 30, 2026. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19 year old Colleen Slemmer. A request to stay the execution remains pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Tennessee Department of Correction photo.

Tennessee is preparing to execute a woman for the first time in more than two centuries, while a last minute request to stop the execution remains before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday morning at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The Tennessee Department of Correction has set the execution for 10 a.m. CDT on Sept. 30. If it proceeds, Pike would become the first woman executed by Tennessee since 1820. Tennessee State Government AP News
Pike was 18 when she participated in the 1995 murder of 19 year old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps.
Prosecutors said Pike believed Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to an isolated area, where Slemmer was tortured and killed.
Pike was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996. Her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time of the murder, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole because of his age. AP News
Pike does not deny responsibility for Slemmer’s killing.
Her attorneys have instead argued that the death sentence should not be carried out, pointing to Pike’s age at the time of the crime, her history of childhood abuse and neglect, and later diagnoses that included bipolar disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.
They have also argued that modern understanding of adolescent brain development changes how conduct committed at age 18 should be considered in a death penalty case. AP News
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, supports carrying out the sentence and has emphasized that her daughter was also young when she was killed and never had the opportunity to live the life that was taken from her. AP News
The legal fight has continued into the final days before the scheduled execution.
On Sept. 23, the Tennessee Supreme Court denied Pike’s request for a stay. TN Courts
Two days later, her attorneys submitted an emergency application to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh seeking to stop the execution while the Court considers her case.
The application asks the Supreme Court to stay the execution while Pike pursues review of her constitutional claims and litigation challenging Tennessee’s lethal injection process. As of the latest docket update, the Court has not posted a ruling on that application. Supreme Court
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee also declined Monday to grant Pike clemency, leaving the death sentence in place while the Supreme Court request remains pending. AP News
Executions of women remain rare nationally.
According to data cited by the Associated Press, 18 women have been executed in the United States since 1976, accounting for roughly 1 percent of executions during the modern death penalty era. AP News
For now, Tennessee is moving forward with preparations for Wednesday morning.
Whether the execution actually takes place could still depend on action from the U.S. Supreme Court.