Christa Pike execution allowed after Supreme Court overturns last-minute halt to lethal injection for ‘Satanic’ killer

CHRISTA Pike’s execution has been allowed to proceed after the Supreme Court overturned a last-minute stay to put the “Satanic” killer to death. The state of Tennessee’s order is set to expire at midnight local time and if time runs out, a new execution date would need to be set. Pike’s execution was dramatically halted just one hour before she was due to be put to death by lethal injection on Wednesday morning. The now 50-year-old had been scheduled to die after she was sentenced to death for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when a federal appeals court stepped in and stopped it. But the Supreme Court has now allowed the execution to move forward in Tennessee, overturning the last-minute stay. The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals had initially voted 2-1 to issue a stay. That court said a delay was needed to consider whether Pike’s allegations of childhood sexual abuse were fully considered at her sentencing. But Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh granted the application to vacate the stay of execution. The Supreme Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the ruling. Most read in The Sun Sotomayor called the court’s decision stunning, as it clears the way for the execution to happen before her still-pending legal challenges to her conviction can be properly considered. The state’s execution order expires at midnight, according to Kelley Henry, a Nashville-based attorney experienced with Tennessee death penalty law. If time runs out, the state Supreme Court would need to set a new date. Pike, who was 18 at the time, and her boyfriend were convicted of the 1995 stabbing and beating of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. The case garnered widespread attention back then in part because a pentagram that was carved on Slemmer’s body. That stoked fears of Satan worship during the “satanic panic” of the 1980s and 1990s. But, if the execution goes ahead, it will make her the first woman put to death in Tennessee in at least 200 years. The US Supreme Court had rejected a bid to halt her death on Tuesday, while Tennessee Governor Bill Lee had already denied her request for clemency. Before the execution was halted, Pike had declined to choose a special last meal. She had also written that she was “at peace” as the execution approached, saying, “I am not afraid to die. I am only nervous about the process.” Her victim’s mom May Martinez says she has waited decades to see Pike’s sentence carried out. “Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” she added. She and her husband are understood to have traveled from Florida to witness the execution. Pike was just 18 when she killed Slemmer, a fellow student at a job-training program in Knoxville, on January 12, 1995. She is said to have lured Slemmer to a wooded area where she used a box cutter and large chunk of asphalt to attack her. Prosecutors said she feared Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend. Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend, has admitted that he was the one who carved a pentagram, a star-shaped symbol associated with Satanism, into her body. Shipp was 17 when the crime happened and received a sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was the only one sentenced to death – she was convicted of murder and conspiracy and sentenced to death in 1996. She has not denied the killing but said she was “a mentally ill 18-year-old kid”. Her supporters say her age and mental illness at the time should be mitigating factors. She also had a history of severe sexual abuse that included being raped from the time she was a toddler.