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If Christa Gail Pike is executed, she would become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years and the 19th woman executed in modern U.S. history.
The only woman on Tennessee’s death row has been scheduled for execution more than three decades after she killed Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old student at the Knoxville Job Corps center. Pike and her two accomplices lured Slemmer into the woods, where Slemmer was brutally beaten, stabbed, bludgeoned, and had a pentagram carved into her chest.
The Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled Pike’s execution for Sept. 30, 2026. At 18 years old when she committed the crime, Pike bragged about her actions to fellow students, describing how she cut Slemmer’s throat six times with a box cutter and carved a pentagram into her forehead.
Robin Maher of the Death Penalty Information Center notes that only 18 women have been executed in the U.S. since 1976. If Pike is executed, it would be the first woman to do so in Tennessee in 200 years.
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Pike’s execution comes amid a rise in executions and an expansion of execution methods used in 2025. So far this year, states have executed 34 inmates — a figure not seen in a decade — with another nine scheduled for execution.
In her letter to The Tennessean, Pike takes responsibility for the murder and claims to have “changed drastically” since she was a teenager. She expressed deep remorse for her actions: “I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now.”
Pike spent 27 years in solitary confinement before being allowed to interact with other inmates during meals, classes, and religious services. Her attorneys argue that had Pike been tried today, she would not have received the death penalty due to her young age and mental health issues at the time of the crime. They advocate for life in prison without parole instead.
The last execution of a woman in the U.S. was Amber McClaughlin in 2023, and the last execution in Tennessee was Byron Black on Aug. 5, 1988.
Pike’s attorneys point out that only three women have been executed in Tennessee: Molly Holcomb in 1807 and two unnamed slaves between 1808 and 1819.
