Woman Set for Execution After 200 Years : Who Is Christa Pike?

TDT | Manama  

Tennessee is preparing to execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years, but why did Pike receive death while her 17-year-old boyfriend received life?

Christa Pike was 18 when she took part in a brutal killing. Now 50, she is hours away from a scheduled execution that would make her the first woman put to death by Tennessee in more than 200 years.

WHO IS CHRISTA PIKE?

Pike was a student at the Knoxville Job Corps when she and two other teenagers became involved in the killing of 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in January 1995.

She has spent more than three decades on Tennessee’s death row.

WHY DID SHE KILL SLEMMER?

Prosecutors said Pike believed Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to an isolated area with her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and another teenager.

Slemmer was beaten and stabbed during the attack. A pentagram was carved into her body, details that made the case particularly notorious at the time.

WHY DID PIKE GET DEATH?

Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and sentenced to death in 1996.

The prosecution presented the killing as an aggravated murder involving extreme violence. Pike has not denied her role in Slemmer’s death.

But her lawyers now point to her age, severe childhood abuse and mental-health problems, arguing that those factors should have been given greater weight.

WHY IS THE AGE ISSUE IMPORTANT?

Pike was 18. Her boyfriend Shipp was 17.

Because Shipp was below Tennessee’s minimum age for the death penalty, he received life imprisonment and became eligible for parole. The third teenager, Shadolla Peterson, testified against them and received probation.

Pike’s lawyers argue that the one-year age difference resulted in a dramatically different punishment. They also say she would be the only person executed in modern Tennessee for a crime committed at 18.

WHAT HAPPENS NOW?

Governor Bill Lee denied Pike’s clemency request on September 28. Her lawyers have asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution.

Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 10 a.m. on September 30 at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

If carried out, it would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman since 1820.