Everyone is talking about Christa Pike’s failed execution. But why aren’t we talking about what she actually did to deserve death row?
On September 30, 2026, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. After receiving two doses of lethal-injection drugs, Pike survived. She was hospitalized, reportedly suffered serious medical complications, and her attorneys are now seeking clemency.
But before we start talking about showing Christa Pike mercy, let’s remember the mercy she never showed Colleen Slemmer.
The Murder That Put Her on Death Row
On January 12, 1995, 18-year-old Pike lured fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer into a secluded wooded area near the University of Tennessee campus, accompanied by her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and another student.
Prosecutors argued that Pike was motivated by jealousy, believing Colleen was interested in her boyfriend.
What followed was an unimaginably cruel attack.
For approximately 30 minutes to an hour, Colleen was beaten, kicked, slashed, and tortured as she begged for her life and tried to escape. The attack involved sharp weapons and chunks of asphalt. A pentagram was carved into her chest, and severe blunt-force injuries fractured her skull.
And somehow, the story gets even more disturbing.
Pike removed a piece of Colleen’s skull, kept it as a souvenir, and showed it to other students.
Investigators recovered physical evidence connecting Pike to the murder, and she provided a detailed confession.
In 1996, she was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. She received the death penalty and an additional 25-year sentence.
This wasn’t an accident or a momentary lapse in judgment. It was a deliberate, prolonged act of violence against a young woman who had her entire life ahead of her.
The Failed Execution and Calls for Clemency
Thirty-one years later, Pike survived Tennessee’s attempt to carry out her death sentence.
Witnesses reported that she remained alive more than an hour after the lethal-injection procedure began. She was transported to a hospital, and her attorneys subsequently reported severe medical complications.
Governor Bill Lee suspended the state’s remaining executions for 2026 and ordered an independent investigation into what went wrong.
Pike has since returned to prison, but her attorneys are seeking clemency, asking that her death sentence be reduced to life imprisonment.
Yes, the state should investigate the failed execution. Government officials have an obligation to follow the law, including the constitutional requirements surrounding capital punishment.
But a failed execution does not erase a murder conviction.
Pike’s attorneys have pointed to her traumatic childhood, mental health history, and now the suffering she experienced during the execution attempt.
Those circumstances deserve appropriate legal consideration. But they do not change what happened to Colleen Slemmer.
Pike had decades to live after committing this crime. Colleen never got that opportunity.
What About Justice for Colleen?
We keep coming back to one question: Why does so much of this conversation focus on the suffering of the convicted murderer rather than the suffering of her victim?
Colleen was only 19 years old. She was trying to build a future when she was lured into the woods and brutally murdered by people she knew.
Her family has lived with that loss for more than three decades.
Pike’s conviction and death sentence remain in place, although the courts must now address the legal consequences of the failed execution.
Her original sentence was justified by the calculated brutality of the crime, and it is an injustice to the victim, Colleen, granting clemency simply because the execution attempt failed.
We can demand accountability for what happened in Tennessee’s execution chamber without forgetting what happened in those woods in Knoxville.
Christa Pike survived her execution. Colleen Slemmer never survived Christa Pike.
And that is the part of this story we should never forget.
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