Tennessee’s Only Female Death Row Inmate in 200 Years Fights 2026 Execution—What Happens Next?

Christa Gail Pike, the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row, is scheduled to be executed in September 30, 2026, for the 1995 murder of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer. Now, as her execution date approaches, Pike has filed a lawsuit against the state in an effort to halt the sentence.

Pike was just 18 when she lured Slemmer to a secluded area on the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus in Knoxville, where the killing took place. She was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and became the youngest person on death row in the United States at age 20.

On March 30, 1996, Pike was transferred to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center, where she remains incarcerated.

Her time in prison has also been marked by further violence. In 2001, she was convicted of attempted first-degree murder after assaulting fellow inmate Patricia Jones.

If Pike is executed on September 30, 2026, she would be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in roughly two centuries.

Pike reportedly became jealous of Colleen Slemmer, believing she was trying to “steal” her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.

Pike and her friend, 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, devised a plan to lure Slemmer to an isolated area.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of their dormitory and headed to a wooded area under the pretense of making peace and offering Slemmer marijuana.

Once they arrived at a secluded, abandoned steam plant, Slemmer was attacked by Pike and Shipp, while Peterson acted as a lookout.

According to court records, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed, and a pentagram was carved into her chest. Pike ultimately killed her by striking her skull with a large piece of asphalt. Authorities later said Pike kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull.

Investigators reported that Pike showed the fragment to others on campus, and all three suspects were arrested within 36 hours.

Following her arrest, Pike confessed to police, describing the prolonged assault but claiming the group had only intended to scare Slemmer and that the situation spiraled out of control.

Several disturbing details emerged in the case, including Pike dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing “la, la, la” while she bragged about the murder.

A Tennessee Grounds Department employee who found Slemmer’s body testified it was so badly beaten that he had first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal.

Shipp received a life sentence for Slemmer's murder as he was not eligible for the death penalty due to his age, while Peterson received probation after testifying against Pike, according to LADbible.

She is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. And as her execution date nears, legal challenges are intensifying.

Her legal team launched a lawsuit in the Davidson County Chancery Court claiming that this execution method “vio­lates her constitutional rights and con­flicts with her reli­gious beliefs.”

“First, given Christa’s unique medical conditions, we have serious reservations about the State of Tennessee’s ability to prevent a tortuous execution,” the attorneys said. “Second, the State’s protocol fails to make any contingency plans for when things go wrong. Finally, requiring a prisoner to select electrocution to avoid being isolated in the final two weeks of their life is particularly cruel and arbitrary — especially for a prisoner like Christa, who was forced to live in solitary confinement for over 25 years and suffers from severe mental illness,” reported the Nashville Banner.

The lawsuit claimed that Pike has a blood-clotting condition known as thrombocytopenia, which her lawyers say will leave her “drowning in her own blood” as her lungs will be overcome by a “bl*ody froth.”

Pike also suffers from bipolar disorder, PTSD and has “small veins that make insertion of a needle difficult,” according to her lawyers.

She wants a per­ma­nent injunc­tion against use of the new exe­cu­tion pro­to­col, the addi­tion of a con­tin­gency plan includ­ing life-sav­ing pro­ce­dures if the exe­cu­tion goes awry, and the removal of the 14-day iso­la­tion peri­od.

In a response to the lawsuit which was shared on March 19, it said that “the Eighth Amendment does not guarantee a prisoner a painless death” and that “some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution − no matter how humane”, USA Today reported.