The governor of Tennessee has denied a request for clemency from death‑row inmate Christa Gail Pike, who is slated for lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30.
Pike, 50, was 18 when she and her then‑boyfriend beat, tortured and killed 19‑year‑old Colleen Slemmer at a job‑training camp for troubled teens. She was convicted of first‑degree murder and sentenced to death, making her the state’s only woman on death row and the youngest person sentenced to death at the time.
Following a decision by Governor Bill Lee, Pike’s lawyers have filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court hoping for a last‑minute reprieve, while they argue that an 18‑year‑old’s brain is not adult and that Pike’s history of abuse and severe mental illness warrants a life sentence instead.
“The State of Tennessee is ignoring what science and the legal system have decided: an 18‑year‑old brain is not an adult brain, and 18 is too young to face execution,” attorneys Stephen Ferrell, Kelly Gleason and Randy Spivey said in a statement.
Pike’s execution would be the first of a woman in Tennessee in over 200 years and would also mark the first time the state has carried out a death sentence on someone who was a teenager during the offence.
Her ex‑boyfriend, 17 at the time of the murder, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. At the time of her conviction she was 21 and the youngest person on death row in Tennessee.
She is scheduled for execution on September 30 after years of failed appeals, while the victim’s mother has said she wants Pike’s execution to move forward so that her daughter can finally rest.
