A federal appeals court halted the execution of Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, an hour before it was scheduled to take place. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a last‑minute stay after Pike’s lawyers requested that the court review whether her claims of childhood sexual abuse and rape were fully considered in the death‑sentence decision. The stay was issued at about 9 a.m. CDT, just as witnesses had gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Pike, 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a job‑training facility in Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995, slashed her with a box cutter and beat her with a chunk of asphalt. The victim’s body bore a pentagram carved by Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 at the time and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. The case attracted attention during the era of the ‘satanic panic’ because of the satanic symbols and the alleged motives.
Pike does not deny the murder, but supporters argue that her age, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse—including repeated rape from early childhood—should have been weighed more heavily. Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell noted that other 18‑year‑olds sentenced to death in Tennessee had their sentences vacated. Pike’s attorneys sought a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court, which denied the request, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied her clemency petition.
The pause places Pike’s execution in a rare context. Tennessee has not executed a woman for at least 200 years, and across the United States only 18 women have been executed since 1976, about one per cent of all executions. Recent female executions include 2023 Missouri’s Amber McLaughlin, the first execution of a transgender woman, and the 2021 federal execution of Lisa Montgomery, the first female federal inmate executed in nearly seven decades.
