'My brain eats itself': Christa Pike set to be executed for brutal crime

Christa Pike, who was 18 years old when she tortured and murdered a 19-year-old classmate, is set to become the first woman in 200 years to be executed in Tennessee as her September 30 execution date approaches.

Pike, now 50, has said she does not want her family to be present at her execution.

She has also requested that her execution, to be done by lethal injection, be performed by an all-female team.

As the execution date approaches, Pike’s legal team continue to fight for it to be halted, with her legal representatives claiming she would not have received a death sentence had she been found guilty of the same crime as a teenager today.

Christa Pike at her trial in 1996. Photo / Supplied

They also argue that the abuse Pike suffered as a child was not something jurors in her case had the opportunity to take into account.

Pike was a victim of rape at the hands of her mother’s partners and husbands. She also has a history of childhood neglect.

These factors have also led UN human rights experts to call for the execution to be halted.

Pike, the only woman on death row in Tennessee, has expressed remorse for her crime. In a new documentary about the case, Dead Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee, she said she felt “remarkably remorseful” for what she did.

“I’ve always felt bad for her mother, that I took someone’s child, someone’s sister, someone’s friend away,” she said.

Pike was 18 when, along with then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, tortured and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

She accused Slemmer of insulting her and trying to steal her boyfriend.

Pike then bragged about the murder, according to residents of the camp for troubled teenagers where the tragedy took place. Some told authorities Pike showed them a piece of Slemmer’s skull.

Pike's victim Colleen Slemmer. Photo / family handout

The victim’s mother, May Martinez, told local media she wanted the execution to happen so her daughter can “finally be resting” and said she hoped Pike suffered before her death.

‘She did the crime. I think she should pay for it’, she told Knoxville radio station.

‘My brain eats itself’

Pike told documentary producers that she suffers from nightmares and rarely sleeps.

“I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it’s like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around,” she said.

“My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself.”

Pike said finding out about her execution date a year ahead has made it all worse.

“I have the most horrible nightmares, but I think what has been worse is that they told me a year ahead of time. And so, every day I’ve woken up and lived that thought all day, every day, every waking moment,” she said.

She said she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after her arrest and believes everything would have been different had she received the care she needed earlier in her life.

A total of 14 executions have taken place in Tennessee since 2000, and 40 people are currently on death row in the state. Pike is the only woman.

Her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, as he was a minor at the time.

He was denied parole last year and the board is scheduled to hear his case again in 2031.

A third person, Shadolla Peterson, who watched the murder, received six years of probation after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact.