Christa Pike, 50, says she is “at peace” as Tennessee prepares to execute its only female death row inmate for the first time in more than 200 years.
Pike, 50, is scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday morning at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed she declined to request a final meal, breaking with the tradition that allows condemned inmates a customized last supper.
In a letter sent to NBC News shortly before learning her clemency had been officially denied, Pike confronted her impending death directly.
“Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace,” Pike wrote. “I am not afraid to die. I’m only nervous about the process.”
Governor Bill Lee formally refused to intervene Monday, shutting down the clemency petition Pike’s legal team had spent years assembling. That petition highlighted severe trauma and abuse during Pike’s childhood as grounds for mercy.
The governor’s denial followed separate refusals from both the Tennessee Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a stay of execution, leaving Pike with no remaining legal avenues.
Pike’s path to death row began in January 1995, when she was an 18-year-old student. She joined her then-boyfriend and another female acquaintance in luring 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer to an isolated woodland area on the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus. There, the trio tortured and beat Slemmer to death in what became one of Tennessee’s most notorious capital murder cases.
Her violence continued behind bars. In August 2001, Pike was convicted of attempted murder after trying to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoestring, adding 25 years to her sentence. Eleven years later, in March 2012, law enforcement thwarted an elaborate escape conspiracy involving a rogue corrections officer and an outside personal trainer who had been in regular correspondence with Pike.
In recent interviews, Pike drew parallels between her case and other high-profile female defendants. She told the Times of London she felt a “kinship” with Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother whose trial on charges of killing her children ended in a mistrial, and said she was pleased by that outcome.
“We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues,” Pike told the outlet. “I was a mentally ill 18-year-old girl who committed a crime with two other individuals and I was the only one to receive this sentence. There are so many women who don’t get the help they need: me and others.”
Pike has also petitioned prison authorities for an all-female execution team to administer the lethal injection. She argued that the presence of men during the procedure could cause severe psychological trauma. State corrections officials confirmed they are considering the accommodation as final preparations move forward.
The last time Tennessee executed a woman was in 1820, making Pike’s scheduled lethal injection a historic event for the state regardless of the outcome of her request for female-only personnel in the death chamber.