Key facts
- Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied clemency for Christa Pike.
- Pike is scheduled for execution on Wednesday.
- She would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.
- Pike was 18 when she and her boyfriend murdered Colleen Slemmer in 1995.
- Pike's attorneys argue an 18-year-old's brain is not an adult brain and is too young for execution.
- Pike's legal team has filed a petition with the US Supreme Court.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee announced Monday that he would not grant clemency to Christa Pike, a death row inmate scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday. If the execution proceeds, Pike, now 50, would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, murdered 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death a year later. Her legal team has filed a petition with the US Supreme Court, seeking a last-minute reprieve. Attorneys for Pike argued that an 18-year-old's brain is not fully developed and that she is now a remorseful 50-year-old woman receiving treatment for mental illness. The murder of Slemmer, which involved a pentagram carved into her chest, generated significant media attention in Knoxville in 1995. Slemmer's mother has expressed a desire for the execution to move forward.