Supreme Court rejects final bid to halt Tennessee woman’s execution

Tennessee Department of Corrections inmate photo of Christa Pike
If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike would be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to stop the execution of Tennessee inmate Christa Pike on the eve of the date appointed for her death by lethal injection.

Pike, 50, has been awaiting execution since she was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a teenage classmate.

Hoping for a last‑minute reprieve, her attorneys filed a petition with the high court ahead of her scheduled execution on Wednesday morning.

But after the court’s decision to deny that request, Pike will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Only 18 women have been executed in the U.S. since the 1970s, compared to 1,663 men.

On Monday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied a request for clemency from Pike, saying he would not intervene in her planned execution.

Pike was 18 when she and her then‑boyfriend beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19‑year‑old they met at a job training camp for troubled teens.

Student Colleen Slemmer was tortured and brutally killed in the 1995 murder
Colleen Slemmer

Slemmer’s murder created a media frenzy in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1995, when the teen was found with a pentagram — a symbol associated with some satanic groups — carved into her chest. Pike has denied carving the pentagram herself.

She had accused Slemmer of insulting her and trying to steal her boyfriend. Two other residents later testified that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after, and showed them a piece of Slemmer’s skull.

Her attorneys have argued that “an 18‑year‑old brain is not an adult brain” and that Pike was too young to be sentenced to death. At the time of her incarceration, Pike was the youngest person on death row according to the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

She is due to be executed at 11:00 EDT (15:00 GMT) on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

Additional reporting from Sareen Habeshian.

Clarification 29 September: This article originally referred to a pentagram as “a symbol of Satanic ritual.” We have amended the wording to clarify that the symbol was an inverted pentagram and that such symbols are associated with some satanic groups. The article has been updated accordingly.