Christa Gail Pike (Image courtesy Pike’s legal team).
The Tennessee Supreme Court this week granted the state’s request to execute a female inmate for the first time in more than 200 years, ordering 49-year-old Christa Gail Pike to be put to death for the 1995 torture and murder of a fellow member of Job Corps, a training program for troubled teens.
The high court ordered Pike’s punishment to be carried out on Sept. 30, 2026, reasoning that she failed to show there were extenuating circumstances that warranted her being issued a certificate of commutation in accordance with state law. The execution will take place at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, where most of the state’s death row inmates are housed.
Pike was 18 when she, along with her two co-defendants, brutally murdered 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, with Pike keeping a piece of the victim’s skull as a “souvenir.” The trio on Jan. 12, 1995, lured Slemmer into a wooded area in Knoxville, where Pike proceeded to spend more than an hour using a box cutter to carve a pentagram into the victim’s chest.
The following day, a groundskeeper at the University of Tennessee who came across Slemmer’s body testified that when he first discovered the remains, they were so badly beaten that he did not even realize it was a human body.
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In court documents, prosecutors argued that Pike believed Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, a then-17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, who was also convicted in the murder and subsequently sentenced to life in prison. The third defendant, Shadolla Peterson, kept watch during the attack and cooperated with prosecutors. She was sentenced to probation.
Pike on Jan. 11, 1995, also told another Job Corps student, Kim Iloilo, that she was planning on killing one of their classmates, with Pike saying she “just felt mean that day,” court records show. Iloilo on Jan. 12, 1995, said she saw Pike, the two co-defendants, and Slemmer walk into the woods at about 8 p.m. and return a little over two hours later without Slemmer.
The Tennessee Supreme Court in 1998 penned a detailed summary of Pike’s gruesome behavior in the immediate aftermath of the murder.
Later that night, Pike went to Iloilo’s room and told Iloilo that she had just killed Slemmer and that she had brought back a piece of the victim’s skull as a souvenir. Pike showed Iloilo the piece of skull and told her that she had cut the victim’s throat six times, beaten her, and thrown asphalt at the victim’s head. Pike told Iloilo that the victim had begged “them” to stop cutting and beating her, but Pike did not stop because the victim continued to talk. Pike told Iloilo that she had thrown a large piece of asphalt at the victim’s head, and when it broke into smaller pieces, she had thrown those at the victim as well. Pike told Iloilo that a meat cleaver had been used to cut the victim’s back and a box cutter had been used to cut her throat. Finally, Pike said that a pentagram had been carved onto the victim’s forehead and chest. Iloilo said that Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing “la, la, la” while she related these details about the murder. When Iloilo saw Pike at breakfast the next morning she asked Pike what she had done with the piece of the victim’s skull. Pike replied that it was in her pocket and then said, “And, yes, I’m eating breakfast with it.”
The state is required to notify Pike about the method of execution by Aug. 28, 2026, per the Supreme Court’s order.
