Tennessee is due to carry out the execution of death row inmate Christa Pike on Wednesday, almost three decades after she was convicted of murdering fellow student Colleen Slemmer.
Pike, 50, is expected to die by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, following the US Supreme Court’s rejection of an eleventh-hour request to stop the execution.
Her execution would make Pike the first woman to be put to death by Tennessee in more than two centuries.
Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, along with another accomplice, took 19-year-old Slemmer to a wooded location near the Knoxville Job Corps vocational centre where they were enrolled.
Slemmer was tortured and killed at the site. The brutality of the crime, including the carving of a pentagram into her chest and the removal of part of her skull, attracted significant media attention.
During the trial, prosecutors maintained that Pike regarded Slemmer as a competitor for Shipp’s affection. Pike and Shipp later admitted their involvement and were found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996.
While Pike received a death sentence, Shipp was handed a life term with the possibility of parole.
Peterson, the third person involved, was 18 at the time and served as a lookout. She later gave evidence for the prosecution and was sentenced to probation.
Pike remains the sole woman on Tennessee’s death row. In August 2001, she was also found guilty of attempted first-degree murder over an assault involving another prisoner, according to the Tennessee Department of Correction.
Her legal representatives appealed to Governor Bill Lee to reduce her capital sentence to life imprisonment without parole, pointing to a childhood marked by abuse, neglect and severe trauma.
The clemency application detailed Pike’s experiences of childhood violence and sexual abuse, including two rapes when she was 11 and 17. Her lawyers also cited diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder that she received while incarcerated.
They argued that her mother’s heavy drinking during pregnancy may have contributed to impaired brain development, which they said affected Pike’s ability to control her behaviour as a young person.
Lee declined to grant clemency. Following the decision, Pike’s lawyers said their client had changed significantly since the crime, describing her as a remorseful woman who understands her actions, receives mental health treatment and supports fellow prisoners.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has spoken in favour of Pike’s execution.
Executions involving women are rare in the United States. Data from the Death Penalty Information Center shows that 18 women have been executed out of 1,683 people put to death since capital punishment resumed in 1976.
Tennessee had conducted 17 executions before Pike’s scheduled death.
The case has received attention beyond the United States, with United Nations human rights experts recently urging authorities to replace Pike’s death sentence with another punishment.
Specialists in sexual violence and trauma have also raised concerns about the execution, arguing that the lethal injection procedure could trigger severe traumatic memories associated with Pike’s childhood abuse and rape.
The scheduled execution also follows an unsuccessful attempt by Tennessee authorities in May to put another convicted murderer to death. Prison officials halted the procedure after failing to find a suitable vein for the lethal injection.
Goodness Anunobi
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