Is putting somebody to death really more expensive than life in prison? Christa Pike's execution raises cost questions.
- On Wednesday, September 30, 2026, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay of execution for death row inmate Christa Pike, halting her lethal injection scheduled at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution just hours before the procedure.
- Pike, now 50, was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer after luring her into a wooded area with then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp near the Knoxville Job Corps Center.
- The appeals court granted the stay to evaluate legal arguments that courts failed to adequately consider Pike's history of childhood sexual abuse and trauma during her original sentencing proceedings.
- Tennessee's attorney general immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to vacate the stay, while May Martinez, Slemmer's mother, expressed her desire to see the sentence carried out after waiting decades.
- Had the execution proceeded, Pike would have become the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years; she remains incarcerated on death row while the legal case moves forward.
42 Articles
42 Articles
A state court in Tennessee suspended the death by lethal injection of a woman accused of murdering a colleague at the age of 18 in 1995. It would be the first execution of a woman in 200 years in the state.
Christa Pike, 50, was convicted of the murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, committed in 1995
Tennessee was about an hour from executing Christa Pike. Then a federal court stepped in
A federal appeals court halted Christa Pike's execution about an hour before it was set to begin. She would have been Tennessee's first woman executed in at least 200 years.
A U.S. federal appeals court temporarily suspended the 50-year-old execution of Christa Pike for less than two hours before the lethal injection. For now, the decision prevents Tennessee from executing a woman for the first time in more than two centuries, but does not overturn the sentence or guarantee that the death penalty will be commuted. The future of the case will depend on judicial review and possible subsequent court decisions.
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