Gov. Lee Makes Statement On Christa Gail Pike Execution
September 29, 2026, 12:33 p.m.

NASHVILLE, TN – Tennessee Governor Bill Lee released the following statement regarding death row inmate Christa Gail Pike:

“After deliberate consideration of Christa Gail Pike’s request for clemency, and after a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and do not plan to intervene.”

Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, September 30, for the 1995 murder of her friend, Colleen Slemmer. If carried out, the execution would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years.

Pike was 18 when the crime occurred. Her childhood had been marked by rape, sexual and physical violence, abuse, and neglect—circumstances known to the state, which nevertheless failed to protect her. At trial, her court-appointed attorneys presented little evidence regarding her extensive trauma or its psychological effects.

The case drew national attention because of the killing’s brutality, the youth of those involved, and the carving of a satanic symbol into Slemmer’s body. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death, becoming the youngest woman placed on death row in modern U.S. history.

In the years since her conviction, additional information about Pike’s history of sexual abuse and mental-health challenges has emerged, raising renewed questions about the fairness of her trial, the adequacy of her legal representation, and whether her traumatic background and psychological condition were properly considered in imposing a death sentence.