Appeals court stays Christa Pike execution hour before lethal injection

A federal appeals court paused Christa Pike's execution in Tennessee about an hour before it was scheduled to begin on 30 September 2026, at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Pike, now 50, had been set to receive a lethal injection at 10 a.m. local time. She would have been the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least 200 years.abc.net.au+1

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a "short stay of execution" to give itself time to consider Pike's claims that her history of severe sexual abuse had not been taken into account during sentencing. Execution witnesses had already gathered at the Nashville prison when the order came down at around 9am CDT.

What the appeals court ordered

The court is reviewing whether Pike's allegations of childhood sexual abuse and rape were fully considered at her sentencing. Her legal team argues that counsel in her initial criminal case failed to properly introduce her extensive childhood experiences with abuse into their defence, and was therefore ineffective. The Sixth Circuit ruled that a short pause was needed to resolve these new claims.

Pike's lawyers also pointed to evidence that Pike's mother drank heavily during pregnancy, contributing to faulty brain development that made it difficult for their client to control her impulses as a young person. Pike does not deny the killing. Her supporters argue the state should weigh her age at the time, mental illness, and a history of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler.

Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell said Pike's death sentence is an outlier because other 18-year-olds sentenced to death in Tennessee have had their sentences vacated. Pike and her boyfriend were convicted of stabbing and beating 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville, in 1995. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing.france24.com

The claims the court will review

Prosecutors said Pike, fearing Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend, lured her to a wooded area on January 12, 1995. Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and beat her with a large chunk of asphalt. Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, admitted he carved a pentagram into Slemmer's body. Shipp was 17 and received life in prison with parole possibility; Pike was the only one sentenced to death.

Co-defendant Shadolla Peterson, 18 at the time, acted as a lookout, testified for the prosecution, and received probation. The killing drew wide attention because the pentagram and other elements stoked fears of Satan worship during the "satanic panic" of the 1980s and 1990s. Pike's trial records show Slemmer was beaten and cut over 30 minutes to an hour in a wooded section of the University of Tennessee's campus.

The 1995 killing and sentences

Before the stay, the US Supreme Court on Tuesday denied a request from Pike's attorneys to halt the execution, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on Monday denied Pike clemency. The Tennessee attorney general's office immediately asked the US Supreme Court to vacate the stay order. Spokesperson Phil Buehler said the state would continue to advocate for the lawfully imposed sentence.

Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, wants the lethal injection to go forward, saying she has waited decades to see Pike's sentence carried out. "Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run," Martinez said in a telephone interview. It was not immediately clear how long the execution might be delayed.

What happens next

Since 1976, 18 women have been executed in the United States, about 1 percent of all executions, according to Robin M. Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. The next step is the US Supreme Court's response to Tennessee's request to vacate the stay, filed after the Sixth Circuit's order on 30 September 2026.