Christa Pike, Tennessee's only woman on death row, was scheduled to be executed the morning of Sept. 30, yet a federal court issued a last-minute stay of execution Wednesday, less than two hours before it was set to begin.
The Tennessee Attorney General's Office is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the lower court's stay that pauses the execution, The Tennessean reported.
Pike was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection at 10 a.m. at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. She was sentenced to death for the 1995 killing of Jacksonville, Florida, nativeColleen Slemmer in Knoxville.
Colleen Slemmer, who grew up in Orange Park, a Jacksonville suburb, was only 19.
for Christa Pike
Here's what we know.
Who was Colleen Slemmer, Jacksonville woman killed in 1995?
Colleen Slemmer, 19, died Jan. 12, 1995.
Slemmer grew up in Orange Park, a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida. She helped paint her school building and volunteered to help during Special Olympics competitions.
A wiz with computers, her grandfather suggested she enroll in the Job Corps program in Knoxville to take computer courses.
That's where she crossed paths with Pike, who was enrolled in nursing.
Who is Christa Pike, Tennessee's only woman on death row?
Pike was a student at the Knoxville Job Corps when she killed Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
Born in West Virginia, Pike had a traumatic upbringing marked by violence, and sexual and substance abuse.
Pike began dating Tadaryl Shipp.
Prosecutors said Pike and friend Shadolla Peterson plotted to lure Slemmer to a wooded area and kill her. Pike suspected Slemmer was interested in Shipp.
Pike, Peterson and Shipp gathered at an isolated area behind the University of Tennessee's agriculture campus steam plant. With Peterson as lookout, Pike and Shipp tortured Slemmerbefore bludgeoning her to death.
The beating was so savage that Pike took a fragment of Slemmer's skull.
Pike ultimately confessed to the crime. Peterson turned state witness and pleaded guilty to being an accessory. She was sentenced to six years of probation.
Shipp, only 17 at the time of the killing, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.
What is a stay of execution? How long will it last?
The federal appeals court ruling puts in place a "short stay of execution" so three judges, who are Clinton, W. Bush and Obama appointees, can "properly analyze the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits."
A stay temporarily stops the execution from happening until the court issues a further decision. It is like a pause button.
So how long is a "short stay"? A representative of Pike's attorneys, Abby Trotter, said they don't know how long it will be until a decision is made.
For what it's worth: The judges are tasked with deciding the issue — whether to let Pike reopen a court proceeding in the Eastern District of Tennessee — based on filings that have come in just over 12 hours.
The first filings hit the docket of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit at 7:21 p.m. Sept. 29. Since then, 171 pages of documents have been filed.
What method of execution did Christa Pike select?
Tennessee death row inmates whose crimes occurred before 1999 are given the option to choose the electric chair or lethal injection.
Christa Pike declined to pick a method of execution.
Per Tennessee state law, when an inmate declines to pick an execution method, it defaults to lethal injection.
How many women are on death row in the US?
There are currently 45 women on death row in the United States, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
In Florida, there are two including a transgender woman, but the state includes that individual in the list of men:
- Tina Brown: Convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and sentenced to death after she and two other people ambushed 19-year-old Audreanna Zimmerman, attacked her repeatedly with a stun gun, gagged her, stuffed her in the trunk of a car, drove her into the woods, beat her with a crowbar, doused her with gasoline, set her on fire and left her to die.
- Jenna Rodgers: One of the people the state lists as a man is Jenna Rodgers, a trans woman who transitioned after she was sentenced to death for killing Julie Robinson in Santa Rosa County in 1998, cutting off and saving the victim's calf muscle. In 2018, Rodgers filed appeals claiming the mental health effects of undiagnosed gender dysphoria led to a series of major decisions in her trial.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Christa Pike execution halted in 1995 murder of Jacksonville woman
