DEATH ROW – Christa Pike (Part 1) From Jealousy to Murder: Youngest Woman on Death Row Explained
I know as a judge I’m not supposed to show emotion and in 22 years I never have. This is one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in my life. It is therefore ordered that you shall be put to death by electrocution… May god have mercy upon your soul. C
an I please hug my Mom?! Before I go… *crying* Can I please hug my Mom?! *crying* I love you! I love you too… You know um… I went through hell to be honest and it’s not right. There are so many people that love Christa and Christa wants to live for all of us. Christa Pike has tried on three separate occasions on both state and federal levels to get off of death row.
Open to consider that the death sentence was unconstitutional because of her age. I did something horrible that is unacceptable and I realize that. But I don’t deserve to die for the actions of three individuals. The Tennessee Supreme Court has set an execution date for Christa Pike. The only woman on death row in Tennessee is set to be executed late next year.
Christa Gail Pike is set to be executed September 30th of next year. Christa Pike, the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in the United States. Who is she? Was she born evil or built by the world around her? On the night before Friday the 13th in 1995, four teenage students went for a walk deep into the lonely woods near the University of Tennessee campus.
Three of them were rumored to be part of a strange local group, while the fourth, a girl visiting from Florida, simply joined them for the adventure. What happened in those woods that night would go on to capture people’s curiosity for more than three decades. 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer lay motionless on the cold ground. A passerby stumbled upon the scene, confused by what he saw, unsure at first if it was a person or something else entirely. As he looked closer, the truth became clear and terrible.
It was a young woman, lifeless, alone, and far from home. Shaken, the man fumbled for his phone and called the police, his voice trembling as he tried to explain what he had found. It was a discovery that would soon make headlines across the country. A case that shocked an entire community and led investigators to one of the most chilling names in Tennessee’s criminal history.
You know, it’s harder to hurt somebody when they’re talking to you and you have to see them as a person. And I told her, “Shut up.” And kept hitting her and she was still breathing. I said, “Colleen, do you know who’s doing this to you?” And she was just going, ‘Uhh… uh…’ And just talking like that, but I don’t know what she was saying.
Christa Gail Pike was born in West Virginia on March 10th, 1976. Today, she remains under strict supervision at the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center The youngest woman ever sentenced to death in the United States. But the story of Christa Pike is not defined by a single crime.
Her record reveals a troubled life, one marked by pain, instability, and loss. To understand what led her down such a dark path, we have to go back to the very beginning. Christa’s early years were filled with chaos. She grew up in a deeply unstable home where addiction and conflict were constant. Her mother, Carissa Hansen, struggled with alcohol and often left Christa to fend for herself.
Her father, Glenn Pike, walked out before she turned one, starting a new family and rarely allowing his daughter to visit. As her mother worked long hours and spent her free time drinking with friends. Christa was left alone in neglect. Her aunt, Carrie Ross, would later recall visiting the home and finding the little girl crawling on the floor in filth, ignored and forgotten.
Eventually, Christa went to live with her paternal grandmother, a woman who showed her real affection and care. For the first time, she felt safe and loved. But when her grandmother passed away in 1988, 12-year-old Christa was devastated. She fell into deep depression and began to harm herself in an effort to cope with the loss.
Yes, Christa’s childhood was hard, marked by pain, abuse, and deep loneliness. But where does trauma end and choice begin? How many people have lived through the same kind of hell and never turned to violence? There is nobody that’s going to take me out of this prison and send me to Disneyland to live.
*crying* It’s okay, mommy. Her mother later admitted in court that she bore much of the blame, acknowledging her drinking, drug use, and emotional neglect. Despite all of this, Christa was intelligent, scoring above average on an IQ test with a score of 111. Her psychologist, Dr.
Eric Engum, later remarked that she was “bright, energetic, but carried a coldness that was hard to miss”. By 17, Christa wanted to turn her life around. She joined Job Corps, a government program that helped disadvantaged youth learn professional skills and prepare for a better future. She moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, lived in the Job Corps dormitory, and planned to study nursing. It was there that she met another student, Colleen Slemmer.
The two young women were part of the same program, but their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different. Colleen, born in Pennsylvania in 1975, had grown up in a loving family. She dreamed of going to college but couldn’t afford tuition, so she joined Job Corps to study computer technology. While the two girls crossed paths often, they were never close.
Christa grew suspicious that Colleen was getting too friendly with her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp. Christa and Tadaryl met through the Job Corps program and quickly formed a connection. What drew them together wasn’t just youthful attraction. They shared a fascination with the occult, a dark interest that seemed to deepen their bond.
Tadaryl Shipp, a native of Memphis, had grown up in hardship. He dropped out of school early, spent time with local gangs, and later joined Job Corps, hoping to start fresh. There he trained to become a cook and dreamed of one day working as a professional chef. But Tadaryl liked to joke that his true passion was Hell’s Kitchen, and he meant it both literally and figuratively.
Outside the classroom, he immersed himself in books about the occult, the devil, and dark rituals. In his dorm room, he built a small altar where he and Christa held late-night sessions, lighting candles, murmuring chants, and feeding the strange world they were creating together. The noise from their room often drew complaints from neighbors who would pound on the walls, yelling for them to quiet down. But Christa and Tadaryl didn’t care.
They were inseparable, bound by obsession, rebellion, and a shared fascination with darkness. To him, she wasn’t just a girlfriend. She was, as he called her, “my little devil.” During the holidays, while Christa was away, Tadaryl and Colleen spent some time together, something that later fueled Christ’s jealousy.
Colleen’s friends denied that she had ever tried to come between them, but tension was clearly growing. What began as an ordinary teenage rivalry soon turned into something far more troubling. One night, Colleen called her mother, frightened. She said she had woken up to find Christa standing over her, holding a knife, accusing her of trying to take her boyfriend.
It was the kind of moment that leaves a mark, terrifying and impossible to forget. Yet, despite Colleen’s fear and her complaints, no action was taken. Still, Colleen tried to keep going, attending classes, focusing on her studies, hoping the tension would fade, but it didn’t. By early 1995, just after the Christmas break, Christa had reached a breaking point. On January 11th, she spoke with a friend named Kim and made a chilling remark.
Christa said very plainly that she planned to “get rid of Colleen.” Kim didn’t take her seriously. Christa laughed and added almost jokingly, “When I’m feeling mean, I, like, don’t replace the toilet paper.” A strange attempt at humor, but one that, in hindsight, carried a much darker edge. I wasn’t even thinking… I just, like, blacked out because she made me so mad! And I just kept h*tting her and h*tting her and h*tting her.
And she was just going “Please stop, please stop” I said, “Shut up, I don’t want to talk to you and I don’t want you to talk to me” I said “I just want to find some way to get out of this” I said “It’s gone too far, I didn’t mean to do what ’ve done so far!” On Thursday, January 12th, 1995, it seemed that Colleen Slemmer’s life was finally starting to look up.
Out of the blue, Christa approached her with what sounded like an olive branch, suggesting they go to Blockbuster, pick out a movie, and make peace. Colleen, relieved that her longtime rival was ready to move on, quickly agreed. Christa would later claim she only wanted to “scare her a little”, maybe rough her up enough to make her stay away from my boyfriend. Around 8 that evening, four students left the Job Corps dormitory together.
Christa Pike, Tadaryl Shipp, Colleen Slemmer, and their friend Shadolla Peterson. Colleen believed it was just a casual outing, a short walk to hang out, maybe smoke, maybe talk things through. So, she didn’t mind when the group decided to head toward the nearby Tyson Park near the agricultural campus of the University of Tennessee.
But as the night grew colder and the group wandered deeper into the trees, the mood began to shift. What started as small talk turned uneasy, and the silence that followed carried a sense of dread. In that isolated clearing, far from the lights of campus, Christa’s tone hardened. The air grew tense.
She confronted Colleen again, accusing her of trying to take her boyfriend with Tadaryl standing silently at her side. Shadolla lingered a few steps away, nervously keeping watch, unaware that what was about to unfold would become one of Tennessee’s most infamous crimes. In the next episode, we’ll uncover what truly happened after that walk. The violence that ended one young life and changed another forever.
We’ll follow the investigation that led police to Christa Pike. Hear the pain and strength in Colleen’s mother’s voice, and even Christa’s own cold reflections from behind bars. From courtroom battles and failed appeals to forbidden love and a daring escape attempt, part two will reveal how teenage obsession became a lifetime on death row.
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