As questions remain as to what happens next for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike after a botched execution attempt last week, her accomplice and former boyfriend has at least another five years before his next parole hearing in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.Tadaryl Shipp, 49, was 17 years old when he, Pike and another person tortured and killed Slemmer, their classmate from a vocational school in a crime with "satanic elements" that still haunts investigators 31 years later.Prosecutors accused Shipp of holding Slemmer down when she tried to escape her attackers and of carving pentagrams into her chest and face.CHRISTA PIKE’S BOTCHED LETHAL INJECTION TAKES FOCUS OFF VICTIM, JEOPARDIZES EXECUTION: FORMER POLICE CHIEFTadaryl Shipp pictured in a June 2024 mugshot taken by the Tennessee Department of Correction.(TDOC)"It was a grotesque crime scene," former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith told Fox News Digital last week.
"It was one of the worst crime scenes I'd witnessed.and I was with the police department almost 34 years."Due to his age at the time, Shipp was not eligible for death penalty charges, Keith said.
He was sentenced to life in prison for first-degree murder, and 25 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and is currently incarcerated at Tennessee's Northwest Correctional Complex.University of Tennessee forensic anthropologist Dr.Murray Marks testifies about the wounds to Colleen A.
Slemmer's skull during Christa Gail Pike's murder trial in Knox County Criminal Court on March 25, 1996.(USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)According to court documents, Shipp had explored satanism as a child and investigators found "satanic paraphernalia" in his dorm room.
He and Pike were said to be wearing pentagram pendants at the time of their arrests.FOLLOW THE FOX TRUE CRIME TEAM ON XSIGN UP TO GET THE LATEST TRUE CRIME NEWSCLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE FOX TRUE CRIME HUBChrista Gail Pike appears remote...