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Christa Pike, a woman who was convicted of murder 30 years ago, is set to be put to death on Wednesday after her request for clemency was denied by Tennessee’s governor, Bill Lee, on Monday. If the execution goes through, she will be the first woman executed in the US state in 200 years, NPR reported.
Christa Pike was 18 when she killed a classmate in a jealous rage and became one of the youngest women to be sent to death row.
Pike and her boyfriend were convicted in the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at Knoxville Job Corps. Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival and lured her to a secluded area where she and her boyfriend tortured and killed Slemmer. The case got widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing, the ages of the people involved and because a satanic symbol was carved into the victim’s body.
Pike, now 50, does not deny her guilt, but her attorneys and supporters argue a death sentence is not appropriate for a crime committed at that age by a teen with untreated mental illness after a childhood of brutal sexual abuse and neglect. Slemmer’s mother wants the execution to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out.