Tennessee, Christa Pike, and an Execution Scheduled for Next Wednesday

***Show note: Robin is still insanely sick with COVID and this episode is not closely edited.

On January 12, 1995, 18-year-old Christa Pike lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to an abandoned steam plant on the University of Tennessee's agricultural campus and tortured her to death. She took a piece of Colleen's skull back to her dorm and showed it off at breakfast. She confessed. She has never denied any of it.

She was also sexually abused from the age of two. At five, she drew her abuser for a kindergarten teacher, and the school called her parents. At eleven, a neighbor raped her, pleaded down, and served no prison time. At seventeen, a stranger raped her, and nobody was ever arrested. She was born with brain damage and had bipolar disorder and PTSD, none of it diagnosed until years after a jury sentenced her to die. That jury never heard any of it.

Before trial, prosecutors offered her life without parole. Her lawyers spent about ninety minutes on it and didn't advise her to take it. Her co-defendant, who testified years later that he carved the pentagram, was seventeen. He got life with parole and is eligible now. The third participant got probation.

On Wednesday, September 30, Tennessee plans to execute her. It would be the first woman the state has executed since 1819. The physician overseeing it is the same one who spent over an hour failing to find a vein during Tony Carruthers' execution attempt in May. Her clemency petition sits on Governor Bill Lee's desk.

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