Youngest woman to receive death sentence in the US is still alive three decades on
Mia Williams
Featured Image Credit: Tennessee Department of Corrections/WBIR/Channel 10
The youngest ever woman to receive the death sentence is still waiting on Death Row to be electrocuted, after committing a brutal murder in 1995.
Christa Pike, now 47, is waiting for the day of her death after being convicted for the first-degree murder of her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, on January 12, 1995, in Tennessee.
Pike was convinced that Slemmer was attempting to steal her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and so committed the murder when she was just 18.
She lured Slemmer into a forest, alongside Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, under the pretences of offering her some cannabis to say sorry.
Advert
According to testimonies that were read out in the court room, Slemmer, just 19 years old, was stabbed and slashed for 30 minutes.
Pike carved a pentagram into her chest, and smashed her skull with asphalt, ultimately killing her.
As well as these brutal actions, she kept a piece of Slemmer's skull to show to her classmates.
The three teenagers were swiftly arrested following the murder, and Pike confessed to the crime.
Despite admitting that she had killed Slemmer, she argued that she only ever planned to frighten her.
On March 22, 1996, she was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, becoming the younger woman in the US to receive the death penalty.
Three decades later, Pike has been waiting on Death Row as the only woman her entire life.
She has appealed her conviction multiple times, but hasn't exactly been the most well-behaved of inmates.
In 2001, she attempted to strangle her fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoelace.
As a result of this, she was charged with a conviction for attempted murder in 2004.
In 2012, a plot was found attempted to get Pike out of prison.
Despite the police being unable to work out what her involvement in the plot exactly was, if any, it involved two other men - Donald Kohut and Justin Heflin.
Kohut had been talking with Pike, and Heflin was the corrections officer.
Both were arrested, and Kohut received a seven-year prison sentence whilst Heflin was fired from his role.
On September 12 this year, Tennessee Supreme Court declined to hear Pike's latest appeal challenging her death sentence, which details her mental illnesses at the time the crime was committed.
Due to being the only woman on Death Row, Pike has lived in isolation for 30 years.
On September 16, officials came to an agreement to let her have more interactions, due to the 'irreparable' toll it was taking on her mental and physical health.