Tennessee Death Row Inmate Christa Pike Scheduled for September 2026 Execution

Christa Pike, who is the sole woman on Tennessee's death row, is scheduled to become the first woman put to death by the state in over 200 years. Her execution is set for September 30, 2026, for the 1995 torture and killing of Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps center. Pike received a death sentence in March 1996, when she was 18. The planned September 30, 2026 execution would make her the first female executed in Tennessee in more than two centuries. Her attorneys submitted a 226-page clemency request, but as of publication they had not received word about any possible late reprieve. The sole official able to stop the execution was Gov. Bill Lee, and he ruled that out on September 28, 2026. "After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike's request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene," Lee said in a statement at the time. The Death Penalty Information Center notes that Pike would also be the only person in Tennessee to receive the death penalty "for a crime committed at age 18, 19 or 20 in the modern death penalty era." She is among just 42 people on the state's death row and the only woman. Pike was 18 in January 1995, when she was accused of killing Slemmer, 19, at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville. At that time, Pike was in a relationship with 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, and prosecutors argued that this led her to see Slemmer as a "romantic rival," according to USA Today. Court records say that before the killing, Pike told a friend about her plan and afterward showed that same friend a fragment of Slemmer's skull. On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp and a friend brought Slemmer into the woods, where Pike attacked her. According to court records, Pike cut Slemmer's throat, struck her and threw chunks of asphalt at her. Pike also told her friend that she used a meat cleaver on Slemmer's back and carved a pentagram into her forehead and chest. Investigators said Pike retained a piece of Slemmer's skull after the murder. Pike and Shipp eventually confessed to the killing. Pike was convicted in March 1996 and sentenced to death that same month.