Appeals Court Grants Last-Minute Stay of Christa Pike Execution

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A panel of judges on the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals granted an 11th-hour stay of the planned execution of Christa Pike in Nashville Wednesday morning.

Advocates Plead for Christa Pike Death Sentence Commutation

The upcoming execution date looms for the only woman on Tennessee’s death row

Pike's appeals were mostly exhausted, including a late-Tuesday denial by the U.S. Supreme Court and earlier decisions by the Tennessee Supreme Court and Gov. Bill Lee allowing the execution to move forward.

Pike, who would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years, was sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing. Her co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp — 17 years old at the time of the murder — received a life sentence and is now eligible for parole. Advocates have asked the governor to commute Pike’s death sentence, saying that for years she experienced emotional, sexual and physical abuse that began when she was a toddler.

Read the appellate court decision here.

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