Lethal injection by all-female team slated for Tennessees 1st woman death row inmate in 200 years

A condemned Tennessee killer — the first woman sentenced to death in the state in 200 years — is demanding an all-female lethal injection team to carry out her execution, claiming she could be traumatized by having men involved in her final moments.Christa Pike, 50, was just 18 when she lured fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, 19, to an isolated spot on the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville and tortured her to death alongside her boyfriend on Jan.12, 1995.Now, decades after her conviction for the gruesome murder, the death row inmate, set to be executed on Sept.

30, is making the bizarre request for an all-female execution crew — citing past sexual abuse.If this request isn’t possible, then Pike will ask to be hanged instead.May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, said Pike’s request is complete baloney.“I don’t think she should be allowed to have any special treatment,” she told the Daily Mail, adding that “she didn’t consider how my daughter felt — she’s just playing the system … It’s all bullcrap.”Despite the last-ditch effort to have her execution of choice, her legal team is also asking Tennessee Gov.Bill Lee to grant her clemency and commute her sentence to life without parole, according to the newspaper. Lawyers claim that Pike’s horrific childhood trauma involving sexual and physical abuse, neglect and domestic violence was never addressed by the institutions and adults she depended on.The 226-page clemency petition, filed in September, claims Pike was sexually abused between the ages of 2 and 5.

At 11, she was allegedly raped by a 37-year-old neighbor who received a suspended sentence.Afterward, at 17 years old, Pike says she was dragged into the woods and raped by a stranger while walking to a store.The attacker was never identified, attorneys claim.After she was sentenced to death, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and PTSD.No evidence of past sexual abuse was considered when the jury was deliberating ...