Youngest woman on death row's haunting final words before she was taken away as her execution date looms

Warning: This article contains discussion of murder which some readers may find distressing.

The youngest woman on death row is scheduled to be executed in Tennessee at the end of September, 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.

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 mum 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 mum."

Court documents state that Pike wailed as she was led away, as her mother reassured her.

Pike became the youngest woman to ever be sentenced to death in America. (Tennessee Department of Correction)

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.

But 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 is now 50 and is scheduled to be executed in just a few weeks time. (Tennessee Department of Corrections)

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'.