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Tennessee Is Set to Execute a Woman for the First Time in 200 Years – WTOP News

  • On Monday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied clemency for Christa Gail Pike, upholding her death sentence. Pike remains scheduled for execution by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution on Wednesday, September 30.
  • Pike was convicted for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike, then 18, and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer, carving a pentagram into the victim's chest.
  • Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell argued Pike's death sentence is an outlier, citing her childhood sexual abuse and neglect. Unlike co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp, who received life in prison, Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
  • While advocates with Death Penalty Action delivered thousands of petitions to the State Capitol on Monday seeking a stay, victim's mother May Martinez said she wants the execution to go forward.
  • If the execution proceeds, Pike will become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in 200 years. Executions of female inmates are rare nationwide, representing about 1% of all executions since 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
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Center

The US state of Tennessee will execute a woman for the first time in more than 200 years after the governor rejected her request for clemency. Today, 50-year-old Christa Pike, who brutally murdered a classmate with her boyfriend 31 years ago, emphasizes that she regrets her actions. "I was a mentally ill 18-year-old. It took me many years to even understand the gravity of what I did," she wrote.

·Ljubljana, Slovenia
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For the first time in 200 years, a woman will be executed in the U.S. state of Tennessee.

Center

This article was first published by Cedarnews.net. To follow up on more news and exclusive reports, they visited us on our website. Pike's lawyers, who killed her student partner in 1995, say that she deserves a pardon and would not have been sentenced to death if the crime had occurred today.

Lean Right

The U.S. judicial authorities in Tennessee have decided to execute a woman who killed a female student more than 30 years ago as the first case of execution of a woman in the state since 1820, transmitting to ABC News. Convicted Christe Pike was 18 years old in 1995, when she and her companion tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike feared that the victim was claiming to be a young man, TASS noted. On the body of the victim, a Sata…

Lean Right

Thirty years ago, a woman in the U.S. is sentenced to death for the murder of an acquaintance. At the time of the crime, she is 18 years old. This week, she is to be executed. Several campaigns are trying to prevent this.

Lean Right

Krista Pike, a 50-year-old death row inmate, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on September 30th after the Tennessee governor rejected her clemency request for the murder of a 19-year-old classmate in 1995.

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vt.co broke the news on Wednesday, September 23, 2026.
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