Live: Tennessee to execute death row inmate Christa Gail Pike, witness statements to follow

Christa Pike is scheduled to become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819. She has been in custody since the killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. She was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996.  Pike was 18 when she, Slemmer, Shadolla Peterson and Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, went to a wooded, isolated area behind the University of Tennessee's agriculture campus steam plant, ostensibly to smoke marijuana. Pike was jealous of Slemmer, who she believed was trying to seduce Shipp. With Peterson serving as a lookout, Pike and Shipp tortured Slemmer for 30 minutes. The beating was so savage that a piece of Slemmer’s skull was dislodged. Pike kept it as a souvenir and carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest. Pike’s attorneys say she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after childhood abuse at the hands of men. The Tennessean covers Nashville with in-depth and updated local news, including the surrounding counties in Middle Tennessee. Subscribe to the Tennessean: http://bit.ly/3tF6tCV Stay up to date with the latest news in Nashville & Middle Tennessee by following the Tennessean on social media: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tennessean Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tennessean/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tennesseannews/