Christa Gail Pike’s execution in Tennessee was halted by a federal appeals court on Wednesday, about an hour before she was due to receive a lethal injection for the 1995 murder of a fellow student.
The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered that the execution remain suspended until further notice while it considers whether claims about Pike’s childhood sexual abuse and rape were properly examined during her sentencing. ([kptv.com](https://www.kptv.com/2026/09/30/christa-gail-pike-says-i-am-not-afraid-die-letter-written-before-execution-was-halted-by-federal-court/?outputType=amp&utm_source=openai))
Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die at 10am local time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The Tennessee Department of Correction had selected official media witnesses and set out arrangements for the execution, which would have made Pike the first woman put to death by the state in at least two centuries. ([tn.gov](https://www.tn.gov/correction/news/2026/8/31/media-advisory–execution-witness-applications—christa-pike–261368.html?utm_source=openai))
Witnesses had gathered at the prison when the court’s order was issued. It was not immediately clear how long the stay would last or whether Tennessee’s attorney general would seek to challenge it.
Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death for killing 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a job-training facility in Knoxville. Prosecutors said Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area on January 12, 1995, before attacking her with a box cutter and a piece of asphalt.
Pike’s boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted. He was 17 at the time of the killing and received a life sentence with the possibility of parole, while Pike was the only defendant sentenced to death. Tennessee records identify Pike as the sole woman on the state’s death row. ([tn.gov](https://www.tn.gov/correction/about-us/executions/women-on-death-row.html?utm_source=openai))
The case attracted intense attention because a pentagram had been carved into Slemmer’s body, amid widespread fears about Satanism during the so-called “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s.
Pike does not dispute that she took part in the killing. Her lawyers have argued that her sentence should be reconsidered in light of her age at the time, mental illness and a history of severe sexual abuse, including allegations that she was raped from early childhood.
In court filings, her lawyers said Pike’s death sentence was an outlier because the sentences of other people who were 18 when they committed capital offences in Tennessee had been overturned.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid,” Pike said in a statement included in her clemency petition. “It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done.”
The US Supreme Court rejected Pike’s request for a stay on Tuesday, September 29, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied clemency on Monday. The Supreme Court’s order stated that the application to halt the execution had been denied. ([supremecourt.gov](https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/092926zr4_2dp3.pdf?utm_source=openai))
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, had supported the execution and travelled from Florida with her husband after relatives and supporters helped raise money for the trip.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez said in a telephone interview.
The death penalty has rarely been carried out against women in the United States. Since 1976, 18 women have been executed nationwide, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre, including Amber McLaughlin in Missouri in 2023 and Lisa Montgomery, who was executed by the federal government in 2021. ([deathpenaltyinfo.org](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/tennessees-execution-of-christa-pike-would-make-her-the-first-woman-to-be-executed-in-the-state-in-over-200-years?utm_source=openai))
