What Did Christa Pike Do?
On January 13, 1995, a 19-year-old student’s body was found in a remote part of the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus. She had been beaten, stabbed and a pentagram had been carved into her chest with a boxcutter. Three people were implicated in the crime: Pike, her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and their friend, Shadolla Peterson, who was with Pike and Shipp the night they killed Slemmer.
Though reporting has claimed Pike carved a pentagram into the student’s chest, Shipp testified under oath that it was he who committed the act. The crime took 30 minutes to an hour, Pike told authorities at the time.
Peterson became a witness for the state, testifying against Pike and pleading guilty to being an accessory. Peterson ended up receiving six years of probation, while Shipp was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Shipp was not eligible for the death penalty because he was 17 at the time of the murder.
Pike was convicted of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder by a jury in 1996. She was sentenced to death and handed a consecutive 25 years in prison.
The jury said the aggravating circumstances of the crime—its heinousness beyond what is needed to “produce death” and that it was committed to prevent arrest or prosecution—outweighed the mitigating circumstances presented by her then legal team.
But according to a 226-page clemency petition filed by Pike’s present attorneys with the governor's office on September 2, 2026 and viewed by A&E Crime + Investigation, there was compelling mitigating evidence that attorneys failed to produce during her trial.
Christa Pike’s Case for Commutation
A member of her legal team tells A&E Crime + Investigation the jury heard nothing of Pike’s childhood sexual assault or rape, her post-traumatic stress disorder or bipolar disorder; they heard little about her neglect and emotional abuse and got no real information about her brain damage.
A neurologist examined an EEG from when Pike was 14 months old and an MRI post-trial, finding brain damage attributable to her mother’s alcohol consumption during pregnancy, the petition notes. A court appointed expert testified post-trial that the type of brain damage Pike had was associated with increased susceptibility to bipolar disorder. She was diagnosed with a seizure disorder at age 14 months but only formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder after her conviction, though she exhibited signs of it at age 13, the petition states.
Ohio and Kentucky banned the execution of people with severe mental illness, including bipolar disorder.
An evaluation of Pike post-trial revealed that she had been subjected to nine of 10 adverse childhood experiences, including physical and sexual assault and physical and emotional neglect. Her father beat her with a belt while she was naked from waist down as a child such that the neurologist could observe physical scars from the beatings after her conviction as an adult, according to her petition.
Pike was sexually assaulted and raped repeatedly as a child, the petition says, first as a toddler by her grandmother’s boyfriend, then as an 11 year-old where the perpetrator ultimately pled guilty to a lesser charge and a third time by a stranger at age 17.
“Research shows that at least 96% of women on death row experienced gender-based violence before incarceration, yet this history is often not considered at trial,” Death Penalty Information Center Executive Director Robin Maher tells A&E Crime + Investigation.
Pike’s legal team also says her sentence is disproportionate. While she faces death for the murder she committed at age 18, her equally culpable co-defendant, Shipp, went before a parole board in 2025 for the same murder he committed at age 17.
Modern adolescent brain development research says there is no difference between the brain of a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old, Pike’s team member says.
There are also questions about the constitutionality of using Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol given Pike’s medical condition and history of sexual assault and rape, as the protocol would be medically dangerous and re-traumatize her. Pike has sued the state over the use of this protocol in her case, saying it would violate the U.S. and state constitutions and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
Tennessee had such serious problems with their lethal injection protocol a couple of years ago that the governor of Tennessee put a pause on executions and commissioned a study of what was happening in Tennessee, Amherst College professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science Austin Sarat tells A&E Crime + Investigation.
“The review, led by former U.S. Attorney Edward Stanton, found the state had repeatedly failed to follow its own execution protocols between 2018 and 2022,” Maher says. In May 2026, Tennessee botched another execution by lethal injection.
Christa Pike’s Isolation
In 2022, Pike sued the Tennessee Department of Corrections. The department didn’t allow people on death row to interact with other incarcerated people, so as the only woman on death row in the state, she was effectively living in isolation, Angela Bergman, an attorney who represented her in the suit, explains to A&E Crime + Investigation.
Her confinement led to weakening eyesight, chronic migraines and hypersensitivity to external stimuli, among other issues, Bergman says. It also worsened her bipolar disorder, depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, and she developed new conditions; this led to self-harm and repeated suicide attempts.
Pike settled with the state in 2024, leading to changes in her living situation, interactions with others and work and educational opportunities, Bergman says.
Christa Pike's Legal Appeals
Pike’s conviction and sentence were upheld on appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear it. In 1999, she filed a petition for post-conviction relief, which was also denied. But her legal fight continued.
She has also asked governor Bill Lee to have her sentence commuted to life in prison.
On September 23, the Tennessee Supreme Court decided not to halt Pike’s execution. "We will press forward, seeking relief from the U.S. Supreme Court while also continuing our request that Governor Lee grant Christa clemency," her attorneys said in a statement to A&E Crime + Investigation. "We remain hopeful that he will.”
