Christa Pike’s lawyer has turned to a childhood photograph in a last-ditch bid to spare her from becoming Tennessee’s first executed woman in two centuries.
Randall J. Spivey, an attorney for Pike, 49, filed a clemency petition with Governor Bill Lee this month as her September 30 lethal injection date approaches. The filing centers on a picture of Pike as a young girl with curly red hair and big brown eyes, taken around the time her abuse began.
“There is a picture of Christa as a child that I often think about,” the petition states. “She is outside, her curly red hair is slightly blown by the wind. She has big brown eyes, and her mouth is drawn tight in a straight line.”
Spivey drew a direct parallel between the image and his own family. “I think about this picture for two reasons. First, it is a beautiful picture not unlike the pictures I have of my own daughter at the same age. I am sure you have similar pictures of your daughters,” he wrote. “Second, I think of this picture because I know that it was taken about the time Christa was first sexually abused.”
The petition traces a trajectory of physical and sexual abuse that Pike endured throughout her childhood, including at the hands of her grandmother’s boyfriend. Spivey framed the photograph as symbolic of a life derailed. “To me, this picture represents a devastatingly sad turning point, where the chaos that surrounded Christa began to leave marks on her that were too much to overcome,” he continued.
International human rights organizations have amplified the clemency push. UN representatives issued a statement warning that “Pike’s execution would mark the culmination of a trajectory of severe physical and psychological suffering marked by childhood abuse and nearly three decades of solitary confinement on death row.”
Justin Mazzola, Deputy Director of Research at Amnesty International, attacked the fairness of Pike’s original trial. “She endured profound abuse and trauma as a child and had serious mental disabilities that were never adequately addressed nor treated,” he said. Mazzola added that “due to inadequate legal representation, these issues were not fully presented to the jury. Knowing all that, it is unthinkable that Governor Lee would even consider moving forward with this execution.”
Pike was 18 when she and boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp killed fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer, 19, in 1995. The pair lured Slemmer to a remote spot in Knoxville, where they beat her, cut her throat, and carved satanic symbols into her body. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy. A judge called the slaying “brutal” and “horrific” at Pike’s 1996 sentencing, where the then-20-year-old was seen sobbing and asking to hug her mother. She received an initial execution date of January 12, 1997, by electrocution, but three decades of appeals followed before the September 30 date was set.
Tennessee has sentenced eight teenagers to death over the past half-century. Seven have since had their sentences reduced to life imprisonment. Pike alone remains condemned.
Governor Lee, 64, granted clemency to 34 people on August 27, including at least one convicted murderer, but took no action on Pike’s case at that time.
Pike’s execution by lethal injection is scheduled to proceed in Nashville.