The State of Tennessee has set the execution date for Christa Pike, who was convicted of brutally stabbing and killing a fellow Knoxville Job Corps worker in 1995.
The now 49 year old Pike is scheduled for execution on Sept. 30, 2026, unless another court order intervenes. If Pike is executed by the state, she would be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819. She will also be the first person to be executed who was 18 at the time of the crime in Tennessee since the death penalty was reinstated in 1972.
In 1996, Pike was sentenced to death for the Jan. 12, 1995, murder of Colleen Slemmer. Two others were also convicted in the case.
Following her 1996 conviction, Pike was also convicted of attempted first-degree murder in 2004 after she was accused of strangling a fellow inmate and nearly choking her to death with a shoestring in 2001. Pike and Lillelid murderer Natasha Cornett allegedly attacked fellow prisoner Patricia Jones after Pike and Jones were placed in a holding cell with Cornett during a fire alarm. Although the Department of Correction believed that Cornett was involved, investigators found insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike.
