Teen killer avoids states first female execution in over 200 years for now
Convicted Tennessee killer Christa Pike has been spared at the last minute from becoming the first woman executed in the state since the early 1800s after the U.S.Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Wednesday morning.In a 2-1 split decision, the court issued a stay "until further notice" as the court weighs motions filed by Pike's attorneys and the Tennessee Attorney General's Office.The state immediately appealed to the U.S.
Supreme Court, seeking to have the stay lifted.Pike, 50, was 18 in 1995 when she, her boyfriend and another pal beat, kicked and stabbed their 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer to death in a brutal "satanic" attack that Pike claimed took between 30 minutes and an hour, according to court documents.MULTIPLE DEATH SENTENCES IN DIFFERENT STATES ARE SET TO BE CARRIED OUT WITHIN 24 HOURS: 'NOT VERY COMMON'An undated portrait photograph of Colleen Slemmer provided by her mother.(May Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel)Pike and Slemmer knew each other through a vocational program in Knoxville called the Job Corps Center, the documents state.Read the Court of Appeals order:Pike had accused Slemmer of "trying to get [her] boyfriend" and "running her mouth," the case file shows.
A day before the killing, she told another classmate she wanted to kill Slemmer because she "just felt mean that day," according to the records.She was armed with a box cutter and a meat cleaver.Pike and her accomplices lured Slemmer out, telling her they wanted to go to a music store and pick up some marijuana they'd hidden in a park nearby.Pike attacked her, knocked her to the ground and hit her in the face with her knee and foot, according to court documents.Christa Gail Pike is seen during her trial for the murder of Colleen A.
Slemmer March 18, 1996, in Knox County Criminal Court.(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON XAt one point, Slemmer broke away from Pike and tried to flee, but Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, grabbe...