re: Tennessee set to execute first woman in 200 years

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Christa Gail Pike (born March 10, 1976) is an American convicted murderer, and the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the United States during the post-Furman period. She was 20 when convicted of the torture murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer, which she committed at age 18.

Christa became jealous of her Job Corps classmate, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, who she thought was trying to "steal" her boyfriend from her; friends of Slemmer denied the accusations. Along with friend Shadolla Peterson, 18, Pike planned to lure Slemmer to an isolated, abandoned steam plant near the University of Tennessee campus.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dormitory and proceeded to the woods, where Slemmer was told they wanted to make peace by offering her some marijuana. Upon arrival at the secluded location, Slemmer was attacked by Pike and Shipp while Peterson acted as lookout. According to later court testimony, for the next thirty minutes Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed; and a pentagram was carved in her chest. Finally, Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, k*lling her. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer's skull.


Pike began to show off the piece of skull around the school, and within thirty-six hours the three were arrested. The log book showed that Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer left together and only three returned. Detectives found the piece of skull in Pike's jacket pocket. Soon after her arrest, Pike confessed to police of the torture and k*lling of Slemmer, but insisted they were merely trying to scare her and it got out of control.

During Pike's trial, the prosecution was aided by evidence and Pike's confession. Pike was charged with first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On March 22, 1996, after only a few hours of deliberation, Pike was found guilty on both counts. On March 30, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder charge and 25 years in prison for the conspiracy charge. Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole plus 25 years. Peterson, who had turned informant, received probation for pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

On August 24, 2001, Pike (with alleged assistance from inmate Natasha Cornett) attacked and attempted to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoe string, and nearly succeeded in choking her to death. Jones had been serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of 84-year-old Alberta Coker in Knoxville at the time of her attack. Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder on August 12, 2004. Although it is the position of the Tennessee Department of Corrections that Cornett assisted in this crime, their investigators concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike attack Jones.

In March 2012, it was revealed that Pike had made escape plans involving corrections officer Justin Heflin and a New Jersey man named Donald Kohut. Though it has never been determined how it exactly began, Kohut, who worked as a personal trainer and was then in his early thirties, entered into a letter-writing correspondence with Pike around the beginning of 2011. By July of that year, Kohut was making the nearly 1700-mile (by car) round trip from Flemington, New Jersey to Nashville, Tennessee to visit Pike in person on visiting days once or twice a month. Eventually Kohut communicated a plan for her escape to Pike and enlisted the help of corrections officer Heflin, who agreed to participate in return for cash and gifts.

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The Tennessee Karla Faye Tucker

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imagine the ignorance of risking prison to help her escape. you can pick up that quality of woman at any walmart or bar in the country without high risk of prison. with far less effort any man can get a better quality of woman.

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