Christa Pike: US Supreme Court rejects last-minute bid to halt execution without any explanation

The United States Supreme Court has rejected a last-minute call to halt the execution of Christa Pike, Tennessee’s only woman inmate on death row. If carried out, she is going to be the State’s first woman inmate to be executed in 200 years.

The Supreme Court denied Pike’s request on Tuesday without any explanation, according to the reporting by The Hill. The decision came after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said earlier this week that he would not intervene, and the Tennessee Supreme Court also declined to issue a stay.

Pike, now 50, is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, September 30, by lethal injection at 10 a.m. local time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.


Also Read: Christa Pike, the lone Tennessee woman on death row, breaks silence ahead of rare execution; here’s what she said

Pike was convicted and sentenced to death in 1995 for the torture and killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. The two were participating in Job Corps, a federal job-training program for young people, in Knoxville at the time. Pike was 18 when Slemmer was killed.

Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend at the time, who was 17 at the time, was also convicted in connection with the killing and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Shadolla Peterson was convicted as an accessory and later received parole after becoming an informant in the case against Pike and Shipp.

Also Read: Christa Pike killed a 19-year-old girl in 1995 when she herself was 18 years old, now 31 years later she is set to become the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years; here are details of the gruesome crime

Pike’s execution would mark a historic moment for Tennessee. She would become the first woman executed by the state since 1819, according to WATE. She would also be the first person in Tennessee executed for a crime committed at age 18 since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1997.