Colleen Slemmer could take a computer apart and put it back together.
Given her aptitude, her grandfather suggested the Job Corps program in Knoxville, Tennessee, which offered computer courses.
Slemmer, who often wore a T-shirt that said "Computer Geek," jumped at the chance. It sounded perfect.
It was not.
On Jan. 12, 1995, Slemmer was beaten to death. She was 19. Christa Pike, then 18, and convicted of first-degree murder in Slemmer's death,is scheduled to die Sept. 30.
An online campaign raised funds to defray travel expenses so Slemmer's mother and stepfather, May and Raul Martinez, can be in Nashville when the state's penalty is carried out Sept. 30.
"After 30 years of carrying the loss of her daughter, she shouldn’t have to worry about whether
she can afford to be there," the GoFundMe page said.
"I have spoken with May and Raul Martinez. They are forever grateful for the help," the campaign organizer posted. "They were unaware of the love and support their family has right now."
May and Raul Martinez have spoken about the long wait for justice.
“Thirty-one years is long enough to wait,” May Martinez told First Coast News Television.
“I just want to see it happen,” Raul Martinez said. “That'll be the final chapter of this case closed.”
Slemmer was born Sept. 20, 1975, and raised in Orange Park, a suburb of Jacksonville, Florida.
May Martinez has always described Slemmer as a sweet, helpful child.
Slemmer helped paint her school building. She volunteered to help during Special Olympics competitions.
The Job Corps program in Knoxville was a training program funded by the U.S. government, designed to provide education, life skills and career training. Slemmer took computer courses, and Pike enrolled in nursing.
Lured to her death
Pike said her boyfriend, Shipp, was into Satanism. She says now she was not.
And Pike thought Slemmer was romantically interested in Shipp.
At 6 p.m. on Jan. 12, 1995, May Martinez said, she talked to Slemmer on the phone. Slemmer told her three students were bothering her. That was the last time she talked to her daughter.
Later that evening, Pike lied to Slemmer. She offered Slemmer marijuana and told her she wanted make peace. Pike lured Slemmer to Tyson Park, which includes a wooded area behind a steam plant on the University of Tennessee Agricultural Campus.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported Pike told investigators she grew angry when Slemmer cried out or spoke, repeatedly yelling at her to "Shut up" because she "didn't want to hear her talking."
According to court records, Pike said Slemmer was barely conscious when Pike asked her, "Colleen, do you know who's doing this to you?"
Slemmer could not respond.
Pike and Shipp tortured Slemmer for as much as a half hour before Pike delivered the fatal blow.
The next morning, two university employees discovered Colleen's body.
While the police were investigating, Pike bragged about the murder on showed Slemmer's skull fragment to Job Corps students as proof of what she had done.
Pike and Shipp were arrested three days after the murder. Shadolla Peterson was also arrested, but she agreed to testify against Pike and Shipp, so she was given six years probation.
"I think about Colleen every day, every minute, every year," May Martinez said in the documentary. "She's always on my mind."
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Remembering Colleen Slemmer, the teenager killed by Christa Pike
