Tennessee Set to Execute First Woman in 200 Years — Inside the Shocking Case of Christa Pike
Nearly 30 years after one of Tennessee’s most infamous murders, the state is preparing to carry out an execution unlike any in its modern history.
The Tennessee Supreme Court has set September 30, 2026 as the execution date for Christa Gail Pike, who was convicted in 1996 for the brutal killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. If the sentence is carried out, Pike will be the first woman executed in Tennessee in two centuries and only the 19th woman nationwide to face capital punishment since executions resumed in 1976.
A Teenaged Killer Driven by Jealousy
At the time of the crime, Pike was just 18 years old and a student at the Knoxville Job Corps Center. Prosecutors said she was convinced Slemmer was pursuing her boyfriend and, on a January night in 1995, lured the unsuspecting teenager into nearby woods.
What followed was an hour of terror. Court records reveal Pike beat, stabbed and carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest before taking a fragment of her skull as a grisly keepsake. She later bragged about the murder to classmates.
When a groundskeeper found Slemmer’s body the next morning, it was so disfigured he initially believed it belonged to an animal.
Returning to the Scene
The crime, dubbed the “Job Corps murder,” dominated headlines across the region. Hours after investigators cordoned off the area, Pike returned to the scene of the killing. Officers later testified she seemed excited, even giddy, as she asked about the victim’s identity and where the body had been located.
“She was giggling and moving around,” one officer recalled in court. Pike was arrested the following day.
A Death Sentence and a Mother’s Regret
In March 1996, a jury of seven men and five women convicted Pike of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, sentencing her to death. In court, she broke down sobbing and begged to hug her mother, Carissa Hansen, who sat crying behind her.
Hansen had taken the stand earlier in the trial with a stunning admission: she had been a neglectful parent who allowed her daughter to live with a boyfriend at 14 and even used drugs with her in an effort to bond. “I should be the one in her seat,” she said. “I should be punished for her crimes.”
One of the Rarest Cases on Death Row
Today, Pike remains Tennessee’s only female death row inmate. Nationwide, there are about 48 women facing death sentences compared to more than 2,000 men. Since 1976, only 18 women have been executed in the United States.
Now 49 years old, Pike has spent most of her three decades in prison in near-solitary confinement. In a letter to The Tennessean, she admitted responsibility but claimed she has changed.
“Think back to the worst mistake you made as a reckless teenager,” she wrote. “Mine happened to be huge, unforgettable and ruined countless lives… It sickens me now to think that someone as loving and compassionate as myself had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Her lawyers argue that her age at the time of the murder, along with documented mental health issues including bipolar disorder and PTSD from years of abuse, would likely prevent a death sentence if the case were tried today. They are asking the courts to commute her punishment to life without parole.
The Victim’s Family Seeks Closure
For Colleen Slemmer’s family, however, the plea for leniency brings little comfort. Her mother, May Martinez, has repeatedly said she wants Pike’s sentence carried out.
“I just want Christa down so I can end it,” she told local reporters. “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was.”
If the execution proceeds, it will mark a historic — and grim — moment in Tennessee’s justice system.