For the first time in more than 200 years, Tennessee is set to execute a woman on Wednesday. Christa Pike, the only woman on the state’s death row, is scheduled to die by lethal injection for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
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Pike, now 50, was 18 at the time. She and two other teenagers lured Slemmer to a remote area in Knoxville, where she was tortured and killed.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.
Attorneys push to halt execution
In the decades since Pike’s conviction, her attorneys have pointed to evidence of severe childhood abuse, sexual assault and mental illness, arguing the jury did not hear the full extent of that history. They’ve pushed to stop her execution, but Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee denied her request for clemency on Monday.
Her lawyers have also asked the Supreme Court to halt Pike’s execution, saying she suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from her history of sexual abuse. They argue being restrained on a gurney could cause “severe mental suffering and superadded psychological terror under Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol.”
In a response Monday, the state acknowledged Pike suffered abuse but cited a judge’s conclusion last month that it is “speculative whether Pike would suffer” greater mental harm from the lethal injection protocol.
Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, Pike will be executed at 10 a.m. local time Wednesday.
Because executions of women are so rare, Tennessee corrections officials have agreed to accommodate Pike’s request for an all-female execution team as much as possible. Only female guards will take part in her transfer from the women’s prison in Nashville, where she’s been serving her sentence, to Riverbend Maximum Security Institution, where the execution will take place.
One expected exception is the physician participating in the execution, who is male. Dr. Mark Walton Fowler told NBC News he expects to participate in Pike’s execution.
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