The Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) on Monday announced it would take applications from news outlets seeking to serve as witnesses for the execution of Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be executed on September 30.
Pike was convicted in March 1996 of premeditated murder and conspiracy to kill Colleen Slemmer. Both students at the Knoxville Job Corps Center in January 1995, the killer lured her victim to a steam plant, where court documents state Pike beat Slemmer, repeatedly pelted her with loose asphalt, and cut her with a box cutter, in an attack that lasted between 30 minutes and one hour.
At some point during the attack, Pike (pictured above) carved a pentagram into her victim’s chest. Slemmer was identified using dental records.
While more than three decades have passed since Pike was sentenced, the killer only recently exhausted a lengthy series of appeals that culminated in a request for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear her case. The high court denied her certification in June 2020, and the Tennessee Supreme Court declined to reopen her post-conviction proceedings in 2024.
Pike’s execution date was first announced last year, after Tennessee resumed executions following changes to its lethal injection protocol.
While a lawsuit claims Tennessee inmates could experience extreme pain as a result of the new protocol, Pike was originally sentenced to execution via electrocution, and because her conviction occurred before 1998, Tennessee law would allow her to request this method in writing. There is no indication Pike made such a request, and Pike is not a plaintiff in the lawsuit.
Through court filings, Pike has stated that she will be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819. While TDOC notes that no official records of executions were kept by the Volunteer State until 1913, Pike’s filing cites a historian’s analysis of “The Espy File,” a book purportedly containing all executions in the United States between 1608 and 1987.
The Tennessee Star additionally located a record maintained by a genealogy project that claims an enslaved woman named Lucy was executed in Tennessee in 1844.
If Pike’s filing is accurate, then she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 207 years. If the record of Lucy’s execution is accurate, Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in 182 years.
Pike is the only woman serving a death row sentence in Tennessee’s prison system. While serving her sentence, Pike was additionally convicted of attempted first-degree murder after a fight involving another inmate.
The last woman executed in the United States was Lisa Montgomery, who was given a lethal injection at a federal correctional institution in Indiana in 2021. In 2023, a Missouri man who identified as a woman became the first transgender person to be executed in the United States after being given a death sentence for the 2003 murder of his ex-girlfriend.
Tennessee most recently executed Anthony Darrell Hines on August 13.
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Tom Pappert is a 2025 recipient of the Dao Prize and the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star. He also reports for the Star News Network. Follow Tom on X. Email tips to [email protected].
