…Tennessee Set for First Execution of a Woman in Over 200 Years
The United States Supreme Court has rejected a last-minute bid by death row inmate Christa Pike to halt her execution in Tennessee, clearing the way for her lethal injection on Wednesday, September 30, 2026.
CDA News Nigeria reports that Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed at 11:00 EDT at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
CDA News Nigeria gathered that Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and murdered Slemmer, a classmate at a Knoxville job training camp. The case drew national attention after a pentagram was carved into the victim’s chest.
Pike’s lawyers had petitioned the Supreme Court for a reprieve after Tennessee Governor Bill Lee rejected her clemency request on Monday. Lee said he would not intervene after reviewing her request to commute the sentence to life imprisonment.
Her attorneys argued that her age at the time of the crime should have been considered, citing a history of childhood sexual abuse and mental illness. “An 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain, and 18 is too young to face execution,” they said in a statement.
If the execution proceeds, Pike would become the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, and only the 19th woman executed in the US since 1976.
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