Only woman on Tennessee death row asking for commutation of sentence | WATE 6 On Your Side
Updated: Jun 8, 2021
"Convicted murderer Christa Gail Pike is asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to commutate her death sentence on the grounds of mental illness ahead of the state’s motion to set an execution date.
According to Pike’s request to the court, “Her youth, her sexual victimization and traumatic upbringing, as well as her severe mental illness justify a commutation of the death sentence.”
Pike, 18 at the time, along with Tadaryl Shipp, 17, and Shadolla Peterson, 19, were charged in the 1995 death of Colleen Slemmer, 19, in Knox County. Pike became the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in the United States since 1972. There have only been 17 women executed in the U.S. in the last 49 years.
Shipp was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole plus 25 years. Peterson, who served as lookout, received probation after turning informant for the state’s case against Pike and Shipp."
