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Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has upheld the decision to execute Krista Pike, a woman convicted of a brutal murder committed 30 years ago.
She is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday. If carried out, it would be the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in about 200 years.
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, killed their fellow student Colleen Slemmer in 1995. The brutality of the crime and the young age of those involved drew widespread attention at the time.
Pike was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to death, making her one of the youngest women sentenced to death in modern US history.
After her conviction, details emerged about Pike’s traumatic childhood, including severe sexual abuse and mental health problems. As her execution date approached, human rights organisations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Amnesty International urged Governor Lee to commute her sentence.
Lee rejected the appeals. In a statement, he said Pike’s clemency petition had been given “serious consideration” and that, after a thorough review of the case, he had decided to uphold the Tennessee courts’ ruling.
Pike’s lawyers expressed disappointment, arguing that the state had ignored decades of scientific research on adolescent brain development and the impact of severe childhood trauma on criminal responsibility.
They said Pike had been sexually abused from a young age, including being raped at ages 11 and 17. Her lawyers also argued that her trial attorneys had failed to present her traumatic history adequately to the jury.
In her clemency petition, Pike expressed remorse for the killing, writing that she had suffered from mental illness at the time and that it had taken her years to understand the gravity of her actions.
Her legal team has asked the US Supreme Court to halt the execution.
Attorney Stephen Ferrell, an assistant federal defender, also pointed to the different sentences received by Pike’s co-defendants. Shipp was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, while a third young man involved in the case was released after admitting to being an accomplice.
Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, remembered her daughter as someone who volunteered with the Special Olympics, loved skating and dreamed of working with computers.
The last woman executed in Tennessee was Martin Eve, who was hanged in 1820 for aiding in a crime.
In the United States, Lisa Montgomery became the first woman executed by the federal government in nearly seven decades when she was put to death in 2021. Amber McLaughlin, a transgender person, was executed in Missouri in 2023, while a woman was executed in Georgia in 2015.