Christa Pike’s lawyers have revealed a disturbing childhood drawing she made years before she became the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in the United States.
Pike, 50, has spent three decades on Tennessee’s death row for the 1995 murder of her Job Corps Center classmate Colleen Slemmer, a crime she committed at age 18. Her execution by lethal injection is scheduled for September 30, though her legal team has filed a 226-page clemency petition with Governor Bill Lee seeking to commute her sentence to life without parole.
The petition details how teachers discovered Pike’s elementary school drawing of what her lawyers describe as “a man with a huge penis and demonic face to explain what happened in her home.” The attorneys write that this was Pike’s attempt to communicate the sexual violence she was experiencing. Alarmed teachers took her to the principal and contacted her parents, yet no further investigation followed.
Her lawyers state that Pike was “repeatedly raped as a toddler by Ernest Johnson, her grandmother’s boyfriend.” The sexual abuse continued when she was 11 years old, and again at 17, just one year before Slemmer’s murder. The petition notes that during the assault at 17, she was “thrown to the ground” with “her body bruised.”
The clemency filing also contends that Pike’s mother drank heavily during pregnancy, contributing to frontal lobe brain damage that experts later connected to her bipolar disorder diagnosis.
Kelly Gleason, Pike’s attorney, said in the petition: “The governor now has an opportunity to protect a victim of child rape and correct the mistakes of the adults, institutions and systems that consistently failed Christa as a child.”
The State does not dispute Pike’s history of sexual victimization. During an August hearing on her challenge to Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol, representatives from the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office told the courtroom that they “wish the abuse didn’t happen” and “that she was not on death row,” according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Pike’s legal team raised additional concerns about the execution method itself. They argued that being strapped to a gurney by male guards would retraumatize her given her abuse history, and that her small veins and blood disorder thrombocytosis would make lethal injection excessively painful.
Will Ayers, the state’s lawyer, pushed back during the hearing: “The standard is not a painless execution. The state does not dispute the things Ms. Pike has suffered.”
Ayers continued: “Psychological harm alone is not a violation. This is an attack on execution in general. Ms. Pike’s position seems to be that any execution protocol would violate the Eighth Amendment.”
Pike’s lawyers write in the petition that she does not expect freedom after more than 30 years imprisoned. “She doesn’t expect to walk free. Yet after over 30 years in prison, with consistent treatment, medication, and decades of reflection, she accepts responsibility, expresses sincere, deep remorse, and continues to work toward becoming someone who can help others.”
They added: “Through this petition, Christa respectfully asks Governor Bill Lee to grant her clemency by commuting her sentence to life without the possibility of parole.”
The attorneys emphasized her potential value even behind bars: “Christa can still be useful. Her story of growth from a traumatized teenager to a generous, empathetic woman has the power to help others choose a different path. It already has.”
Pike’s boyfriend at the time of the murder, Tadaryl Shipp, was also convicted. Because he was 17, he was ineligible for the death penalty and received a life sentence; he is now eligible for parole.
If carried out, Pike’s execution would mark the first time Tennessee has put a woman to death in over 200 years.
Pike’s clemency petition remains pending before Governor Lee as the September 30 execution date approaches.