A federal appeals court issued a temporary stay of execution for Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, approximately one hour before she was scheduled to die by lethal injection. The court halted the proceedings to review Pike’s claims that her history of childhood sexual abuse and rape were not fully considered during her original sentencing. Pike, 50, remains the only woman on Tennessee's death row and was 18 at the time of the crime.
Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a classmate at a job training facility in Knoxville. Prosecutors stated that Pike lured Slemmer to a wooded area, cut her with a box cutter, and beat her with asphalt, motivated by a belief that Slemmer was pursuing Pike's boyfriend. The case received attention due to a pentagram carved into the victim's body, which occurred during a period of public concern regarding Satanic practices.
Witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the order was issued at approximately 9:00 a.m. CDT. The stay follows a series of final legal attempts; the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request to halt the execution on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, and Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied Pike’s clemency petition on Monday, September 28, 2026. Pike’s boyfriend, who was 17 at the time of the murder, is currently serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
The stay of execution affects Christa Gail Pike, the sole female death row inmate in Tennessee, and postpones what would have been the state's first execution of a woman in at least 200 years. The decision also affects the family of the victim, Colleen Slemmer, including her mother, May Martinez, who traveled from Florida to witness the execution. Nationally, female executions represent about 1% of the more than 1,600 prisoners executed in the U.S. since the 1970s.
Pike's legal team, led by Assistant Federal Defender Stephen Ferrell, noted that other 18-year-olds sentenced to death in Tennessee have seen their sentences vacated. Supporters had urged the state to consider her history of being raped as a toddler and her mental state at the time of the offense, while the Tennessee Attorney General has sought to move forward with the execution.
The result of the stay is a delay of the execution while the federal appeals court conducts its review. It was not immediately reported if the Tennessee Attorney General intended to appeal the stay or how long the judicial review would take. The next steps depend on the appeals court's findings regarding the adequacy of the original sentencing hearing.