In 1996, one year after her brutal slayingof then-19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, Christa Pike, who was 18 at the time of the crime, was sentenced to death. She was set to be the first woman killed by the State of Tennessee since the 1800s, a most disgraceful honor.
But for more than 30 years, Pike's attorneys fought for her life, recalling Pike's childhood filled with abuse and trauma, her age and the incompetence of her trial lawyers. No efforts were effective, neither was a last-ditch appeal to Gov. Bill Lee.
On the evening of Sept. 30, a vial of pentobarbital was pushed into Christa Pike's veins, then another. When she was still alive, groaning from pain as her skin burned and blistered at the injection site, a call was made to 911. Recent reports
reveal chaos as emergency responders struggled to gain the security clearancenecessary to enter Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. All the while, Pike inched closer to death – but not close enough.
After treatment at an area hospital, Pike was returned to state custody on Oct. 10. There is no word yet about her pending execution, but in the interim, the whole world watches. Below are a handful of letters from international Tennessean readers who have their own thoughts about Christa Pike and capital punishment in America.
Christa Pike should live
Christa Pike’s murder of Colleen Slemmer is appalling, and the victim and her family have already suffered for a lifetime. But keeping someone imprisoned for 31 years is also not as it should be. Furthermore, a court case yielding three different outcomes for the three perpetrators is a serious matter.
Tadaryl Shipp, the ex-boyfriend who was sentenced to life imprisonment, and who, according to Netherlands media, was involved in diabolical acts – such as the incisions made on Slemmer’s body – should have been considered for a harsher sentence if Pike was. (Shadolla Peterson, a classmate of Pike and Shipp, was sentenced to probation in exchange for her testimony.)
I sincerely hope the victim’s family can find closure in their grief, although I do not think the pain of missing a loved one ever fades. And I hope Christa Pike is allowed to continue living because, at the age of 18, the brain is not yet fully developed. She had been through a great deal in her young life and had at last found some stability with a boyfriend, who cheated on her.
There is no excuse for what she did, but in my view, there are several people who bear responsibility for her behavior. Imagine being a child and having to go through what she went through.
D. Schijf, Netherlands
America's 'civilizational erasure'
I've been watching events in the United States, in Tennessee and Texas, with astonishment and revulsion.
First the botched attempt to execute Christa Pike, then the planned livestream of the execution of Nidal Hasan. With Tennessee being the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan, do Tennessean readers realize, or even care, how barbaric this makes the U.S. look to the rest of the world?
I will not be lectured by your government about "civilizational erasure" happening here in Europe. It's already happening in America.
Jay Mandal, England
The opportunity to think again
I know Christa Pike committed a terrible crime. Colleen Slemmer was a young woman whose life was taken in a brutal and cruel way. Nothing can change that, and nothing I say is intended to minimize her suffering, or the lifelong grief experienced by those who loved her. But I do not believe that taking another life is the answer.
Before Pike’s scheduled execution, I prayed for her. I did not pray specifically that she would be spared. I prayed that God would look after her. I thought about the fear she must be experiencing, about the life she had lived and about the fact that, whatever she had done, she remained a human being.
When I learned that Pike had survived her execution, I found myself wondering what we should make of that. I don’t know whether God intervened; I would never claim to know something like that. But I cannot help wondering whether this extraordinary event might give us an opportunity to think again.
I have spent much of my working life supporting people who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect and considerable difficulties in their lives. I have seen the harm that human beings can do to one another, but I have also seen people’s capacity to change.
I have learned that understanding someone’s history does not mean excusing their behavior. It means recognizing that people are more than the worst thing they have ever done. I believe in accountability. I believe that serious crimes must have serious consequences. I believe that victims and their families deserve justice, protection and compassion.
But I struggle to understand how deliberately ending another human life makes us a more just or compassionate society.
As a Christian, I return again and again to the life and teachings of Jesus. He did not ask us to love only those who deserved our love. He challenged us to show mercy, to resist vengeance and to recognize the humanity of those whom society had condemned.
Life imprisonment is a grave punishment. It protects the public, acknowledges the seriousness of the crime and leaves open the possibility of remorse, repentance and change. Execution closes that possibility forever.
Kate Barnett, Scotland
Justice or vengeance?
Let it be clear: No one is questioning the horror of the crime Christa Pike committed. The guilt is established. However, your justice is deeply flawed and unequal. Forcing a human being to spend over 30 years on death row – enduring decades of psychological destruction – is already an exceptionally definitive punishment. To then subject her to a horrific, failed chemical torture under the pretense of "law" is nothing short of state-sponsored barbarism.
Your system does not seek justice; it feeds on pure vengeance. It is deeply disturbing to witness how even the victim's family, now elderly, remain consumed by hatred, preferring to wallow in a perpetual cycle of bloodlust sanctioned by the State.
As European legal tradition emphasizes, justice is the opposite of revenge. Revenge is emotional and destructive, whereas justice must be rational and humane. When the State kills out of retribution, it lowers itself to the criminal's level.
We watch your society lecture the world on freedom while maintaining a legal machinery that mirrors medieval torture. Tennessee must stop this grotesque spectacle, commute Christa Pike’s sentence and end this institutional hypocrisy.
Paolo Marzio, Padua, Italy
When an execution fails, humanity must not fail with it
The failed execution of Christa Pike raises a question that reaches far beyond one prisoner and one state: What limits should a government observe when exercising its ultimate power over a human life?
Public accounts and Tennessee court records confirm that Pike remained alive after the state administered its lethal-injection drugs. Subsequent reporting described a delay in emergency medical assistance. These events require independent investigation and a clear public explanation.
Nothing about this concern excuses the brutal murder of Colleen Slemmer. Her family’s suffering deserves respect and remembrance. Pike remains accountable for that crime. But the State also has obligations, especially toward a person who is restrained, imprisoned and completely in its custody.
A failed execution is not simply an engineering problem to be fixed before the next attempt. It is an ordeal imposed by the government itself. To consider repeating it without confronting the moral consequences risks confusing justice with the determination to complete a procedure at any cost.
I believe Gov. Bill Lee should reconsider clemency and pursue a lawful commutation to imprisonment instead of another execution. The state should also make the results of its investigation public, including what went wrong in the medical response.
Justice is essential. So are restraint, accountability and human dignity. A society’s character is revealed most clearly when it has absolute power over someone who cannot resist.
Laszlo Kiss Sandor Szeged, Hungary
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: What international readers think about Christa Pike case | Opinion
