Overview
- Christa Pike, convicted in 1996 for the 1995 torture and killing of a classmate, has been on death row for roughly 30 years and is scheduled for execution on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
- The Tennessee Department of Correction rejected Pike’s requests for alternative methods such as a female firing squad or hanging and kept lethal injection as the planned method.
- Pike’s lawyers say a rare blood disorder could make venous access difficult and could cause a prolonged and agonizing lethal-injection process, a medical claim central to recent court filings.
- The Tennessee Supreme Court recently denied Pike’s motions for a stay and to commute her sentence to life, leaving only the U.S. Supreme Court or the state governor able to halt the execution.
- Colleen Slemmer’s mother has said she will attend the execution and watch from the front row, and the case is drawing attention because executions of women in Tennessee are extremely rare and questions about execution methods remain contested.