Victim's mother to sit front row as Christa Pike faces first Tennessee female execution in 200 years

From the Newshound archive · first published 27 September 2026 · last updated 28 September 2026.

May Martinez, mother of murdered teenager Colleen Slemmer, plans to sit in the front row of the execution chamber holding her daughter's photograph when Christa Pike is put to death on Wednesday. Pike is now 50; she was 18 at the time she, along with boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured and murdered Colleen — carving a pentagram into her chest — at a University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville in January 1995. The execution will mark the first time a woman has been put to death in Tennessee in more than two centuries, and only the 19th female execution in the US since the 1970s.

Pike wants the lethal injection carried out exclusively by female staff, arguing that male involvement could re-traumatise her — and has stated she would prefer to be hanged if that request is denied.

Martinez dismissed Pike's demands as 'complete baloney', saying: 'She didn't consider how my daughter felt — she's just playing the system.'

Pike's lawyers filed a 226-page clemency petition citing childhood sexual abuse from age two, and UN human rights experts have called for the execution to be halted.