The raven-haired killer and Shipp then tortured and beat Slemmer for 45 harrowing minutes and then cut a pentagram in her chest. Cops say the devastated mom will not get it back until Pike is executed. When I interviewed, Pike outlined an extremely brutal childhood complete with physical, sexual and emotional abuse.
She was unloved in a way few children are. The Supreme Court refused to review the case in June During her long incarceration, Pike tried to murder a fellow jailbird and plotted to escape her cage.
Tennessee is a southern state and there is very little hesitation in applying the death penalty. The electric chair awaits.
From our newsroom to your inbox at noon, the latest headlines, stories, opinion and photos from the Toronto Sun. In Christa Gail Pike 's case, her lawyers say, the difference is a death sentence. The state wants to set an execution date for Pike, now 45 and the only woman on Tennessee's death row. She was 18 years old when she and two other participants in a Knoxville job program for troubled teens killed Colleen Slemmer in a remote spot on the University of Tennessee's agriculture campus.
Once there, Slemmer was beaten, cut and bludgeoned to death with a rock. Pike kept a piece of her skull as a souvenir. Investigators identified a love triangle between Pike, Shipp and Slemmer as the motive for the crime. Other stories: The case of death row inmate Pervis Payne.
Only Pike received a death sentence for her role in the killing. Peterson cooperated with investigators and walked away with probation. Shipp was 17 — too young to be put to death. He's serving a life sentence and will be eligible for parole in Pike's legal team cites that difference in a new court filing asking the Tennessee Supreme Court to delay her execution — or recommend it be stopped altogether.
Otherwise, nobody will see justice. Her comments come after Pike's attorneys last week asked the Tennessee Supreme Court to recommend Gov. Bill Lee commute their client's sentence to life imprisonment , citing her age at the time of the crime, her "severe" mental illness, and "horrific" childhood.
The court filing came in response to the Tennessee Attorney General's Office asking the high court to set an execution date for Pike, contending she has exhausted her appeals. Pike's attorneys argued that Shipp was the ringleader in the crime, but was ineligible for the death penalty because he was On Aug.
The state did not oppose the extensions, the last of which was granted on March 5. The filing clears the way for the court to decide on the matter, and if it schedules a date for Pike, Tennessee will be set to execute a woman for the first time in roughly years. Tennessee came within months of executing a woman a little more than a decade ago.
Gaile Owens had been sentenced to death for hiring a hitman to murder her brutally abusive husband. In July , then-Gov. Phil Bredesen commuted her sentence. She was released on parole a little more than a year later.
Owens died in at age Pike was sentenced to death in for the murder of Colleen Slemmer while the two were attending a youth job-training program in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time and had reportedly come to believe that the year-old Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, thenyear-old Tadaryl Shipp.
0コメント