Tennessee to execute first girl in 200+ years, Christa Pike set for 2026

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Tennessee is making ready to execute a girl for the primary time in additional than two centuries, after the state’s Supreme Court docket set the execution date for Christa Gail Pike, the one girl on Tennessee’s dying row.

The State of Tennessee filed a movement on Sept. 30 to set an execution date for Pike, 49, per paperwork seen by Fox Information Digital. She is scheduled to be executed on Sept. 30, 2026.

If the execution goes forward, Pike seems to be the primary girl executed in Tennessee since 1820 and solely the fourth within the state’s historical past.

Information from the Dying Penalty Data Middle be aware that Martin Eve, listed as a girl, was executed by hanging in 1820 for accent to homicide.

TEXAS EXECUTES MAN WHO KILLED TODDLER DURING 30-HOUR ‘EXORCISM’

Christa Gail Pike is scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026, making her the primary girl executed in Tennessee since 1819 for the brutal 1995 homicide of Colleen Slemmer. (Tennessee Division of Correction through AP)

Pike was 18 years outdated when she carried out the 1995 torture and homicide of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Each girls have been on the Knoxville Job Corps, a career-training program, when Pike started relationship 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp and thought Slemmer was fascinated by him.

Pike, Shipp, and one other buddy lured Slemmer into the woods close to the College of Tennessee’s agricultural campus on Jan. 12, 1995,

Court docket data present Pike lower Slemmer's throat with a field cutter, struck her with a cleaver, carved a pentagram into her chest and crushed her cranium with a chunk of asphalt.

Pike later saved a fraction of Slemmer’s cranium as a trophy and confirmed it to classmates.

FLORIDA CONTINUES TO EXTEND RECORD EXECUTION YEAR WITH MAN PUT TO DEATH FOR KILLING WIFE'S FAMILY

The Riverbend Most Safety Establishment in Nashville, which homes a majority of Tennessee's dying row inmates. (Google Maps)

A jury convicted Pike of first-degree homicide in 1996 and sentenced her to dying.

Shipp obtained life with the opportunity of parole, whereas the third participant testified towards Pike and was given probation.

Pike’s violence continued behind bars and in 2004 she was convicted of trying to strangle an inmate which added one other 25 years to her sentence.

For almost three many years, her case has rolled by the appeals course of.

FLORIDA BREAKS 50-YEAR EXECUTION RECORD WITH NINTH DEATH SENTENCE CARRIED OUT THIS YEAR

Christa Gail Pike was 18 when she tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee. (Photograph by Wesley Hitt/Getty Photos)

Protection attorneys have argued that Pike’s younger age, historical past of abuse, and later diagnoses of bipolar dysfunction and post-traumatic stress dysfunction ought to exempt her from execution.

"Christa’s childhood was fraught with years of bodily and sexual abuse and neglect," her attorneys mentioned in a press release.

"With time and therapy, she has grow to be a considerate girl with deep regret for her crime," Wednesday's assertion learn.

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Tennessee not too long ago carried out an execution in 2025, after resuming capital punishment following a three-year pause to evaluate deadly injection drug testing.

Fox Information Digital has reached out to Christa Pike's legal professional for additional remark.

Emma Bussey is a breaking information author for Fox Information Digital. Earlier than becoming a member of Fox, she labored at The Telegraph with the U.S. in a single day crew, throughout desks together with overseas, politics, information, sport and tradition.