A federal appeals court stepped in Wednesday and prevented the state of Tennessee from executing a woman who was convicted of a satanic ritualistic killing in 1995.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals granted a stay of execution for Christa Pike by a vote of 2-1, just an hour before she was scheduled to be killed, the Associated Press reported.
Pike, now 50, was 18 years old when she stabbed and beat fellow student Colleen Slemmer to death. She then took part of her skull as a trophy.
Pike worked with her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and friend Shadolla Peterson to lead Slemmer into a remote area so she could kill her.
Shipp admitted carving a pentagram on Slemmer’s chest, the AP reported.
Pike received the death penalty, while Shipp got life without parole and Peterson received six years’ probation after pleading guilty as an accessory.
The court said it needs to examine assertions from Pike’s legal team about her being able to reopen court proceedings due to sexual abuse she suffered as a minor, NBC News reported.
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“The interests of justice and the finality of Pike’s impending execution compel the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the parties’ fully briefed arguments and resolve the issues on the merits,” the court declared.
When Pike learned that GOP Gov. Bill Lee would not grant her clemency, she wrote a letter to NBC News, shared by her “spiritual adviser.”
“Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace,” she wrote. “I am not afraid to die. I’m only nervous about the process.”
Pike was also quoted by the United Kingdom newspaper The Times earlier this month as saying she felt a “kinship” with Lindsay Clancy, who killed her three children.
“I feel a kinship with Lindsay. We are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues.”
“One thing is different, however, is that times have changed a lot on awareness of women’s issues since I was put on trial,” she added.
Pike’s attorneys conducted the interview with her on behalf of The Times.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti filed an immediate appeal of the 6th Circuit ruling to the United States Supreme Court.
Pike also claimed she was mentally ill when she committed the crime and didn’t know what she was doing.
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done,” she said in a statement. “Even more to accept how many lives I affected. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. It sickens me now to think I had the ability to commit such a crime.”
Tennessee has not executed a female for at least 200 years, but Slemmer’s mother May Martinez maintained that Pike deserves a lethal injection for what she did to her daughter.
“Every time I think about it, I think about Colleen feeling that pain and trying to get up and run,” Martinez explained.
She also said a group helped raise money so that she and her husband could be present for the execution.
“Not a day goes by, or a minute goes by that I do not think about Colleen. Holidays are the worst,” Martinez lamented, adding that her daughter would have turned 51 this month.
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