Tennessee may carry out its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years after<\/p>\n
the state supreme court approved moving forward with the death sentence of 49-year-old<\/p>\n
Christa Gail Pike. Pike, the only woman on Tennessee\u2019s death row,<\/p>\n
was 18 when she was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors said Pike believed Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend,<\/p>\n
leading to a planned attack in a wooded area near Knoxville.<\/p>\n
Slemmer was killed with the assistance of Pike\u2019s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp,<\/p>\n
and another student, Shadolla Peterson. The crime shocked the public due to its brutality.<\/p>\n
Investigators were further disturbed when Pike showed them a fragment of Slemmer\u2019s<\/p>\n
skull that she had kept. Retired detective Randy York recalled that<\/p>\n
Pike demonstrated how it fit into the wound \u201clike a puzzle.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death.<\/p>\n Shipp received life without parole, while Peterson received probation after cooperating with authorities.<\/p>\n Pike later received an additional 25-year sentence for attacking another inmate.<\/p>\n Her execution is scheduled for September 30, 2026. Defense attorneys argue that her history of severe<\/p>\n childhood abuse, mental health conditions, and remorse should be considered. If carried out,<\/p>\n the execution would mark Tennessee\u2019s first execution of a woman since 1820.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tennessee may carry out its first execution of a woman in more than 200 years after the state supreme court approved moving forward with the death sentence of 49-year-old Christa Gail Pike. Pike, the only woman on Tennessee\u2019s death row, was 18 when she was convicted of murdering 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Prosecutors said…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7646,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7644\/revisions\/7646"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usanews1.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}