Christa Pike Execution Stayed by Court Less Than 2 Hours Before Lethal Injection

A federal court has stayed the execution of Christa Pike less than two hours before it was set to be carried out. The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued an order the morning of September 30 staying Pike's execution "until further order of this court," citing new arguments relating to Pike's traumatic childhood, which was marked by years of s*xual assaults. The 2-1 decision pauses what would have been the first execution of a female inmate in Tennessee in more than two centuries.

"The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyse the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merit," the court wrote in the order obtained by USA TODAY. It was not immediately clear what the court meant by a "short stay" and whether Pike's execution could still be carried out later on Sept. 30, with her execution having been set for 10 a.m. ET at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. If Pike's execution does proceed, she would become the first woman put to death in the state in more than 200 years and only the third woman to be executed in the US in the past decade. Pike, 50, was convicted of the prolonged and brutal 1995 murder of her romantic rival, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Sixth Circuit Intervenes Following State's Concession on Child Abuse

The stay, issued in a 2-1 decision, pauses Pike’s execution until the court issues another order. "To adequately address and resolve the issues now presented to this court and in carefully balancing the equities, we find that a stay of Pike’s execution is necessary,” wrote Judge Jane Branstetter Stranch, an Obama appointee, joined in the majority by Judge Karen Nelson Moore, a Clinton appointee. The dissenting judge, Richard Allen Griffin, is a George W. Bush appointee.

The issue before the court is whether to allow Pike to reopen a proceeding called a habeas petition. Pike’s habeas proceedings ended years ago, but her defense attorneys argue she should be permitted to reopen them following the state's recent admission that Pike was subjected to childhood s*xual abuse, according to court filings.

"She states that the State recently reversed its litigation position that she is a liar who fabricated s*xual abuse," the 6th Circuit panel wrote. "Pike contends that the State’s concession of her history of child s*xual abuse and rape 'erodes the foundation' of her state court proceedings. Pike ties this erosion to defects in the federal court proceedings." Pike's lawyers previously raised the issue with a federal judge in Eastern Tennessee, but that judge declined to let her reopen the proceedings.

Defense Cites Childhood Trauma and Risk of Psychological Agony

Pike's attorneys, women's advocacy groups, s*x assault experts and Amnesty International have been vigorously fighting for her life in recent months. They presented a novel argument in the annals of death row: that Pike was so traumatized from years of s*xual assault as a girl that her execution would cause her to relive those moments and experience an unconstitutional level of cruel and unusual punishment.

"She will relive the sounds, the smells, and the pain," wrote a dozen women's advocacy organizations in what's known as a friend-of-the court brief filed in the Tennessee Supreme Court on Sept. 10. "She will feel it now as she did then. And it will be as horrific for her now as it was then," they wrote. "(We) have very little doubt that Christa Pike will go to her death believing and feeling that she is being raped yet again."

Prosecutors acknowledge Pike's harrowing childhood but they maintain that her punishment fits the brutal crime. "Pike’s prior abuse and mental struggles are tragic to say the least," the Tennessee Attorney General's Office wrote in arguments to the Supreme Court this week. "But they are no cause to insulate her from a lawfully imposed and exhaustively reviewed death sentence that a jury of her peers imposed purely because of her own horrific conduct." At every turn, courts and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected Pike's arguments, culminating in the Supreme Court declining to take up the case less than 24 hours before the execution, before the Sixth Circuit stepped in.

The 1995 Murder of Colleen Slemmer

On Jan. 12, 1995, 18-year-old Pike, her boyfriend, and another young woman lured Slemmer to the woods in Knoxville. Pike and her boyfriend, then-17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and murdered Slemmer in a crime that made international headlines both for its brutality and because of Pike's gender and youth.

"Armed with a box cutter and meat cleaver, Pike and two accomplices lured Slemmer to an isolated area. There, Pike kneed Slemmer’s head, threw her to the ground, and repeatedly kicked her," the Tennessee Attorney General's Office wrote in court documents. "When Slemmer tried to flee, Pike sliced her stomach with the box cutter. ... As Slemmer begged for her life, Pike repeatedly kicked her in the face. Pike then cut Slemmer’s throat as she begged for mercy."

After Slemmer made one final attempt to escape, Pike smashed the back of her head with a rock, they wrote. Shipp also carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest, and Pike later showed off a piece of Slemmer's skull to a friend. Pike was sentenced to death and Shipp received a life sentence because at 17, he wasn't eligible for the death penalty.

Victim's Family Continues Wait for Finality

For Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, Pike's execution more than 30 years after her daughter's murder would represent long-awaited justice.

"I just want Christa down so I can end it, relieve my daughter, so she finally can be resting," Martinez told WBIR-TV in 2021. "There's not a day goes by that I don't think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was". Martinez recently told that she was planning to witness Pike's execution.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 30, 2026 08:57 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).