Christa Pike

Christa Gail Pike (born March 10, 1976) is an American convicted murderer who is incarcerated on death row in Tennessee. In 1995, at the age of 18, Pike murdered her 19-year-old Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Pike and two friends lured Slemmer into the woods where they beat, tortured, and killed her. Pike was sentenced to death at 20 years old in 1996, one of the youngest women to be sentenced to death in the United States during the post-Furman period. She is scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026. If carried out, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in over two centuries. An aunt reported how Pike would be found crawling on floors that were littered with "piles of dog stool", and the aunt also said she often fed Pike and her sister due to neglect from Carissa and Emil. Pike also says she created sexualized drawings in elementary school which were influenced by the abuse she experienced. On another occasion, one of her mother's boyfriends punched her in the face after Pike chased him with a butter knife; criminal charges were filed, then settled. Pike escaped after hitting the assailant with a rock Pike acted out frequently; she skipped school and ran away from home on occasion. During her junior year, she began dating a boy named Tadaryl Shipp. Shipp was obsessed with witchcraft, and he taught Pike about the occult and satanism. On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dormitory and proceeded to the woods, where Slemmer was told they wanted to make peace by offering her some marijuana.

Trial and appeals Trial Pike, Shipp, and Peterson were all charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Shipp, who had turned 17 two months before the murder, was tried as an adult. Peterson, who agreed to become a witness for the prosecution, received probation after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

During Pike's trial, the prosecution was aided by evidence and Pike's confession. Pike was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On March 22, 1996, after only a few hours of deliberation, Pike was found guilty on both counts. On March 30, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder charge and 25 years in prison for the conspiracy charge. In January 1997, Shipp was also found guilty on both counts. However, after the jury could not unanimously agree whether to sentence him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, the judge sentenced him to life in prison with parole eligibility. Shipp was denied parole in October 2025 and remains incarcerated at Northwest Correctional Complex under minimum supervision.

Appeals Following the guilty verdict, Pike "launched, cancelled and then re-launched" an appeal of her conviction in the Tennessee state courts. In June 2001, then again in June 2002, against the advice of her lawyers, Pike asked the courts to drop her appeal and sought to be executed via electrocution. Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz granted the request, and an execution date of August 19, 2002, was set. Pike soon thereafter changed her mind and on July 8, 2002, defense lawyers filed a motion to allow the appeal process to continue. This motion was denied. However, on August 2, 2002, a three-judge state appeals court panel ruled that the proceedings should be continued and the execution was not carried out. In December 2008, Pike's latest request for a new trial was turned down, and she was returned to death row.

In May 2014, Pike's lawyers entered an appeal in the federal court system. Her lawyers sought a commutation of the sentence from death to prison on the following grounds: ineffective assistance of counsel; mental illness; and the unconstitutionality of the death penalty as administered in Tennessee. In a 61-page ruling by US District Judge Harry Sandlin Mattice Jr. issued on March 11, 2016, all grounds were rejected, and the requested commutation was denied. On August 22, 2019, having heard the same appeal by Pike's lawyers on October 1, 2018, the three-judge panel on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court ruling and denied relief. Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder on August 12, 2004. Although the Tennessee Department of Corrections maintained that Cornett assisted in this crime, their investigators concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike attack Jones. In 2003, Pike was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and received a 25-year sentence for the attack on Jones.

Attempted prison escape In March 2012, it was revealed Pike had made escape plans involving corrections officer Justin Heflin as well as Donald Kohut of New Jersey. Kohut, a personal trainer in his 30s, had entered into a letter-writing correspondence with Pike around the beginning of 2011. By July of that year, Kohut was making the nearly round trip from Flemington, New Jersey, to Nashville, Tennessee, to visit Pike in person once or twice a month. Eventually, Kohut communicated an escape plan to Pike and enlisted the help of corrections officer Heflin, who agreed to participate in return for cash and gifts.

Because of security concerns, the Tennessee Department of Corrections has not provided many details about the plan. However, the indictment laid out a scenario where a prison key would be traced and then a duplicate created. Early in 2012, prison personnel received information about the escape plot. This led to the attempted prison break being thwarted by a joint investigation involving the Tennessee Department of Corrections, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation (TBI) and the New Jersey State Police. Pike was not charged and it was unclear to the investigators if she was a participant in the conspiracy beyond her awareness of the scheme. Heflin, who cooperated with authorities after his arrest, served no prison time, but was terminated from his job with the Tennessee Department of Corrections.

On September 30, 2025, the Tennessee Supreme Court issued a death warrant for Pike, scheduling her execution to take place exactly one year later, on September 30, 2026. Pike can choose between electrocution and lethal injection.

In popular culture The murder of Colleen Slemmer was featured on the TV shows Deadly Women, For My Man, Killer Kids, Martinis and Murder, Death by Gossip with Wendy Williams, Snapped: Killer Couples, and Mean Girl Murders. Christa Pike was also featured in a season one episode of World's Most Dangerous Criminals. Patricia Springer wrote A Love To Die For, a book about the murder.