Death row inmate Christa Pike's haunting final words before she was taken away as her execution date looms
One of the youngest women on death row is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee at the end of this month, as her final words before being taken to her jail cell are revealed.
Christa Pike was just 20 years old when she stood trial in March 1996 in Knox County, Tennessee, after being charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
Just 18 when she killed fellow student Colleen Slemmer, she became the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in American history.
Now, 50, she is just weeks away from being executed by the state on September 30.
Advert
After pleading not guilty, but ultimately being found guilty on both charges by a jury, Pike's final words before being taken down to her cell were documented in court records.
"Can I please hug my mom before I go," she asked Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz.
The answer was, of course, no, before she further pleaded: "Please, let me just hug my mom."
Court documents state that Pike wailed as she was led away, as her mother reassured her.
What did Christa Pike do to be sentenced to death?
Slemmer, her victim, was a 19-year-old student at the Job Corps Center, where she knew Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
Pike grew extremely jealous of the young girl, and believed Slemmer was trying to 'steal' him from her.
It was on January 12, 1995, that Shipp, Pike, and another student lured Slemmer to an isolated area under the pretence of smoking marijuana and making up. And evidence suggests that Pike and her accomplices attacked the 19-year-old for around 30 minutes to an hour, while Slemmer allegedly begged them to stop.
According to court records, Pike repeatedly kicked and beat her, struck her head against concrete, and cut her stomach and back with a box cutter.
She then cut Slemmer's throat multiple times, and when Slemmer attempted to escape, Pike threw a large piece of asphalt at the back of her head and continued hitting her after she had fallen.
Pike later told a friend that she had brought back a piece of Slemmer's skull as a souvenir.
But the brutality of the crime didn't stop there.
It was noted by the court that satanic symbols had been engraved on her body.
A University of Tennessee employee later discovered her body the next day, January 13, and testified that it was so badly injured and beaten that he had 'first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal'.
Christa Pike's traumatic childhood explained as calls for her execution to be halted are made
Amnesty International has called for the execution to be stopped on the grounds of Pike's childhood and how the state failed to protect her.
The organization argues that when she committed the murder, she was 'barely out of a childhood in which she endured rape, sexual and physical violence, abuse, and neglect'.
"The state failed to protect her as a child despite having knowledge of what she was facing."
Cornell Law School outlines how when she was growing up, Pike suffered an 'almost unbearably abusive background', according to Dr. Jonathan Pincus, Professor of Neurology at Georgetown University.
She was a victim of child sexual abuse, multiple rapes, and parental abandonment and neglect, and without treatment or support, she was forced to navigate both the consequences of her child rapes and the symptoms of untreated mental illness.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues or want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.
Mia Williams