Tennessee may be on the verge of carrying out its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, following a ruling by the Tennessee Supreme Court granting permission for the state to proceed with the death sentence of Christa Gail Pike. Pike, now 49 and the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was just 18 years old when she committed what remains one of the most notorious killings in the state’s history.

On January 12, 1995, Pike lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus. Both young women were enrolled in the Knoxville Job Corps program, but investigators later said Pike became convinced that Slemmer was pursuing her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp. What began as jealousy spiraled into a calculated and exceptionally violent attack.

With assistance from Shipp and fellow student Shadolla Peterson, Pike slashed Slemmer’s throat with a box cutter, struck her repeatedly with a meat cleaver, carved a pentagram into her chest, and crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt. The brutality of the crime shocked law enforcement and the community.

One of the most disturbing details emerged after Pike presented detectives with a fragment of Slemmer’s skull, which she had kept as a trophy. Retired detective Randy York later recalled that Pike appeared unusually cheerful as she spoke with officers and even demonstrated how the bone fragment fit into the wound “like a puzzle.”

In 1996, Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Shipp was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, while Peterson received probation in exchange for cooperation with authorities. Nearly 10 years later, Pike received another 25-year sentence after attempting to strangle a fellow inmate in 2004.

Following decades of appeals, the state has now secured a formal execution date: September 30, 2026. Pike’s attorneys argue that her youth at the time of the crime, her traumatic upbringing, and her mental health diagnoses — including bipolar disorder and PTSD — should spare her from execution.

Her lawyers say Pike endured severe abuse and neglect throughout her childhood and maintain she has since expressed genuine remorse. If the execution moves forward, it would be the first carried out on a woman in Tennessee since 1820 — underscoring both the rarity and the legal gravity of the case.