Tennessee to Execute A Woman for First Time in over 200 Years
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - The only woman on Tennessee's death row has been scheduled for execution more than 30 years after she brutally killed a teenage romantic rival and showed off a piece of the victim's skull to schoolmates.
The Tennessee Supreme Court scheduled the execution of 49-year-old Christa Gail Pike on September 30, 2026. Pike was just 18 years old when she and two others lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to the woods in Knoxville on January 12, 1995, and carried out the attack that made national headlines for its brutality.
When a groundskeeper found Slemmer's body the next day, the teen had been beaten, stabbed, and bludgeoned, and had a pentagram carved into her chest, court records say.
If Pike's execution is carried out, she would become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years and just the 19th woman executed in modern US history.
Pike's execution date has been set amid a rise in executions in 2025 and an expansion of the execution methods used. So far this year, states have executed 34 inmates − a figure that hasn't been seen in a decade − and another nine are scheduled to be put to death, USA Today reported.
Just 18 women have been executed in the US since 1976, compared to 1,623 men, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. That means women represent just 1% of all modern US executions.
The last execution of a woman in the US was that of Amber McClaughlin in 2023. McClaughlin, who was the first transgender person executed in the US, was convicted as a man of raping and fatally stabbing 45-year-old Beverly Guenther on Nov. 20, 2003.
