Tennessee is getting ready to execute the first woman in over 200 years, but she says it’s ‘cruel and unusual’

Tennessee is once again moving toward one of the most closely watched death penalty cases in the state’s modern history, and this time the legal fight is centered not only on whether Christa Gail Pike should die, but on how the state plans to do it.

As WBIR reporter Ellis Rold explained in his video report, Pike, now the only woman on death row in Tennessee, is suing state officials ahead of her scheduled September 2026 execution. According to Rold, Pike argues that the state’s lethal injection process could cause her severe suffering because of her health problems, and she also says her Buddhist faith prevents her from choosing the alternative of electrocution.

That legal fight is unfolding against a much larger and darker backdrop. If Tennessee carries out the sentence, Pike would become the first woman executed in the state in more than 200 years, a point The Tennessean’s Evan Mealins highlighted in his earlier reporting on the case.

The crime itself has haunted Knoxville for decades, and nothing about the facts makes this an easy case to discuss. Pike was convicted in the 1995 torture killing of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, a murder so brutal that it still shocks people who read even a basic summary of what happened.

A Case That Has Lingered For Three Decades

Ellis Rold told WBIR viewers that Pike’s case has captured headlines in East Tennessee for roughly 30 years, and that description does not feel exaggerated.

Pike was 18 when she, along with then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and another young person, lured Slemmer onto the University of Tennessee agricultural campus in Knoxville. According to both Rold’s report and Mealins’ earlier account in The Tennessean, Slemmer was tortured, slashed, beaten, and ultimately killed in an attack that lasted far longer than a sudden burst of violence.

Rold reported that Pike and the others carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest before smashing her head with a rock. He also noted one of the details that has long defined the public’s horror over the case: Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull and bragged about it the next day.

Mealins’ reporting filled in more of the background around the murder and why it remains so infamous. He wrote that Pike believed Slemmer was flirting with Shipp, and that jealousy drove the attack. His account described the trio luring Slemmer out under the promise of smoking marijuana before leading her onto the campus path where the torture and killing took place.

There are cases where time softens public memory. This is not one of them. The facts are so gruesome that even now, three decades later, the case still seems to carry a kind of lasting stain in Tennessee’s death penalty debate.

The New Fight Is About How She Would Die

The most immediate issue now is Pike’s challenge to the execution method itself.

Rold reported that death row inmates in Tennessee whose crimes were committed before Jan. 1, 1999, can choose between lethal injection and the electric chair. Pike, however, says she cannot make that choice because doing so would violate her religious beliefs as a Buddhist.

That claim gives the case an unusual twist. As Rold explained, Pike argues that participating in the decision about the manner of her own death is itself forbidden by her faith. In practical terms, that means she is not simply asking to swap one method for another. She is arguing that the state’s framework puts her in a position where her rights are being burdened either way.

Her lawsuit also claims that lethal injection, as Tennessee now performs it, could amount to cruel and unusual punishment because of her medical condition. According to the report, Pike says she has a clotting-related condition that, when combined with the use of pentobarbital, could cause her lungs to fill with bloody, frothy fluid.

That is not just a technical complaint about protocol. It goes to the core of the Eighth Amendment issue. If an execution method is likely to cause extreme and avoidable suffering, then courts are forced to examine whether the punishment crosses a constitutional line.

Why The “Cruel And Unusual” Claim Matters

Mealins’ earlier reporting helps explain why Pike’s legal team has kept trying to reopen or reshape her case even after years of failed attempts.

In his 2023 article, the Tennessean reporter wrote that Pike’s attorneys have repeatedly argued that her youth, severe mental illness, and long history of trauma should have been weighed more heavily. Their position is that she was not just 18 on paper, but an 18-year-old whose brain and emotional state were deeply damaged by years of abuse, neglect, sexual assault, substance abuse, and untreated psychiatric illness.

Mealins quoted Pike attorney Kelly Gleason saying, “Since 1996 both Christa and our state have changed,” and argued that if Pike were tried today, those factors would likely matter much more at sentencing.

That reporting matters here because Pike’s new method-of-execution lawsuit is not happening in isolation. It is part of a much longer legal effort to argue that this is not a simple case of a healthy adult offender being put to death after ordinary review. Her lawyers have been trying to show that her life story, mental health, and now her physical condition all complicate the state’s path forward.

None of that erases what happened to Colleen Slemmer. It does, however, show why the case has remained in court for so long. Death penalty cases often end up becoming battles over more than guilt. They turn into tests of what a state is willing to do, and under what conditions, in order to carry out the ultimate punishment.

The Age Question Still Hangs Over The Case

One of the most striking points in Mealins’ article was that Pike was the last person in Tennessee sentenced to death for a crime committed at age 18.

That distinction matters because her attorneys have tried to argue there is no meaningful bright line between a 17-year-old and an 18-year-old when it comes to adolescent brain development. Mealins reported that Pike’s counsel pointed to court decisions recognizing that juveniles are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes, and argued that the science behind those decisions should not suddenly stop mattering the moment someone turns 18.

Gleason told The Tennessean there is “no hard line of maturity” between those ages. It is an argument that has become more common in serious sentencing cases, especially as courts and experts have paid more attention to brain development and the lasting effects of trauma.

This does not make Pike a sympathetic figure in the ordinary sense. The crime was too savage for that to sit easily with most people. But it does make the case legally and morally complicated in a way that goes beyond the headline.

That is one reason this story remains so gripping. It is not just about punishment. It is about what the justice system does with people who committed monstrous acts while also being deeply damaged, unstable, and very young.

The Victim’s Family Has Waited Decades

The other side of that complexity is the family of Colleen Slemmer, which has lived with this case since January 1995.

Rold noted that Pike’s execution could still be delayed because appeals and lawsuits take time and money, and experts told WBIR a stay is possible while the courts consider the new arguments. For the victim’s family, that means more waiting in a case that has already stretched across 30 years.

Mealins reported that Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has repeatedly called for Pike’s execution. In his article, Martinez said she feared she might not even be alive when it finally happens. That quote says more than pages of legal briefing ever could. It captures the exhaustion and grief that long death penalty timelines create for families who believe justice has been postponed again and again.

There is no clean answer in that tension. On one side is a condemned prisoner arguing that the state’s method could inflict unconstitutional suffering. On the other is a mother who lost her daughter in one of the most horrifying crimes Tennessee has seen and has spent decades waiting for the sentence to be carried out.

That is what makes this case so difficult to look away from. It is not neat, and it is not emotionally simple.

A Historic Execution That May Still Be Delayed

For now, the state still has Pike set for a September execution date, but as Ellis Rold made clear in his report, no one should assume that date is firm.

The lawsuit over lethal injection, the religious objection to electrocution, and the broader history of appeals all mean Tennessee may once again find itself delayed in carrying out a sentence that has been hanging over this case since 1996.

If the execution does go forward, it will make history for Tennessee in more ways than one. As Mealins reported, Pike would be the first woman executed by the state in over two centuries. That fact alone guarantees national attention.

But the reason this case keeps resurfacing is not just its historical rarity. It is the collision of brutal facts, constitutional arguments, trauma history, and the long shadow of a crime that still feels raw even after 30 years.

Tennessee may be preparing for a landmark execution, but the courts are still being asked a question that has not gone away: whether the state can carry it out in a way that survives both legal scrutiny and the lingering moral unease that follows a case like this.