Tennessee schedules execution of Christa Pike

Christa Pike is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. This event marks the first time in over 200 years that a woman will face the death penalty in the state, and makes her the only person in the modern US capital punishment era to be executed in Tennessee for a crime committed as a teenager.

Now 50 years old, Pike was 18 in January 1995 when she and two accomplices murdered 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer at a vocational center in Knoxville. The victim was tortured, and the attackers carved a pentagram into her chest. Pike’s clemency petition, which cited childhood trauma and abuse, was denied by Governor Bill Lee. The US Supreme Court rejected an emergency request for a stay of execution on Tuesday, allowing the state to proceed with the sentence.