Living with a death date: Inside the final days of death row killer Christa Pike
Christa Pike, the only woman sitting on death row in Tennessee, has described the grueling psychological torment of facing an active execution date, detailing how the constant countdown has left her nerves completely "shredded."
Speaking in a new YouTube documentary titled Christa Pike's Last Fight to Stop Her Execution, the 50-year-old opened up about the daily reality of awaiting lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Pike was condemned to death in 1996 for the torturous 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville—a crime committed when Pike was just 18.
Describing the relentless mental toll of knowing the state has set a definitive timeline to end her life, Pike shared the visceral panic that consumes her every waking moment.
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"I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it's like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around," Pike said. "My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself."
She added: "I have the most horrible nightmares, but I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time. And so, every day I’ve woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment."
Pike and her defense team are currently mounting a push for clemency, seeking to commute her death sentence to life in prison without parole.
The film revisits Pike’s severe childhood physical and sexual abuse, documented brain damage, and an undiagnosed bipolar disorder that she claims severely impaired her capacity at the time of the killing.
"You take a problem, give it to a teenager who is suffering with bipolar disorder and who has been awake for three days and it's come to a boiling head," Pike recalled. "I felt as if I was walking around with no skin on my body. My nerves were so raw. And that is the explosion that occurred on the night that I committed my crime."
However, the victim's family remains adamant that Pike must face the ultimate penalty. Colleen’s mother, May Martinez, forcefully rejected attempts to excuse the murder through childhood trauma.
"Most kids do go through a lot of stuff and they don't go out and kill," Martinez stated. "Christa committed and admittedly committed—and that's a big thing in this case is admittedly committed—a heinous, vile, disgusting, cruel murder. So, does she deserve any different?"
Martinez, who described the decades of agony she has endured since losing her teenage daughter, has no sympathy for Pike's bid to remain behind bars for life.
"I don't think Christa should have any kind of privilege. She do something like that to somebody, you need to pay the price," Martinez said. "I want to see Christa look at Colleen’s picture lasting in her mind when she dies."
Her mother also recalled the lingering pain of the trial, alleging that Pike showed little remorse in the courtroom: "She never said sorry, nothing. This is how she came in every day in court, laughing and smiling." (Pike countered in the film that she was simply smiling at her mother after being isolated for a year).
Pike's attorneys continue to argue systemic disparity, noting co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp received a life sentence because he was 17, and that every male offender sentenced to death at 18 in modern Tennessee history has had their sentence set aside.
Pike, who also voiced fears over recent botched lethal injections in the state, insisted her plea to Governor Bill Lee is not a bid to walk out of prison.
"I am asking the state of Tennessee to allow me to live out the rest of my natural life inside of their penal facilities doing the things that I can do and help other people," Pike said.
Phoebe Tonks