The execution of Christa Gail Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was halted on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, less than an hour before she was scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a temporary stay in the case.
Pike, 50, had been scheduled to die at 10:00 a.m. Central Daylight Time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Tennessee. The execution would have made her the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years. However, the Sixth Circuit’s intervention means the lethal injection did not take place as scheduled.
The court ordered that the execution be stayed “until further order of this court,” giving the judges additional time to consider the latest legal issues raised by Pike’s defence. Reporting on the order indicates that the court wants to examine arguments concerning whether evidence of severe childhood abuse and trauma was adequately considered when Pike was sentenced to death.
The development came after Pike had exhausted a series of last-minute efforts to stop the execution. On Tuesday, September 29, the United States Supreme Court rejected her application for a stay of execution and also denied her petition for a writ of certiorari. The Supreme Court’s order left the Tennessee execution scheduled to proceed on Wednesday morning.
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee had also rejected Pike’s clemency request earlier in the week. The governor’s decision meant that Pike’s death sentence remained in force and that she could be executed unless a court intervened.
The Sixth Circuit intervention therefore represents a major change in the case within hours of the scheduled execution.
Pike was convicted in 1996 for the January 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow participant in the Job Corps programme in Knoxville. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing.
Prosecutors said Pike, her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and another young woman lured Slemmer into a wooded area on the University of Tennessee campus after Pike became suspicious that Slemmer was interested in Shipp. Slemmer was subsequently attacked and killed.
Prosecutors said Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter and struck her with a large piece of asphalt. A pentagram was carved into Slemmer’s body during the attack. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole, while Pike received the death penalty.
The brutality of the killing attracted widespread attention at the time, particularly because of the pentagram and the association of the crime with the so-called “satanic panic” that had become prominent in the United States during the 1980s and 1990s.
Pike has not denied responsibility for Slemmer’s killing. Her legal team has instead focused its recent efforts on the circumstances surrounding Pike’s childhood, her mental health, her age when the crime occurred and the question of whether those factors were properly presented and considered when she was sentenced to death.
Her lawyers have pointed to evidence of severe childhood sexual abuse, neglect and trauma. They have also cited mental-health diagnoses Pike received while incarcerated, including bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. Reuters reported that her lawyers argued that the 18-year-old who committed the crime and the 50-year-old woman who now sits on death row are substantially different people.
Pike’s supporters have also argued that her age at the time of the murder should receive greater consideration. Although the United States Supreme Court prohibits the execution of people who were under 18 when they committed capital crimes, Pike was legally an adult at 18 and therefore did not fall within that categorical constitutional prohibition.
The latest court intervention does not mean that Pike’s conviction has been overturned, nor does it mean that her death sentence has been permanently cancelled. The Sixth Circuit has instead temporarily stopped the execution while it considers the legal issues before it.
Stephen Ferrell of the Federal Defenders Services of Eastern Tennessee, who represents Pike, welcomed the development.
“The court has stayed this recognizing the serious concerns about Christa’s scheduled execution,” Ferrell said in a statement cited by WVLT and other outlets.
The wording is significant because the statement is from Pike’s attorney and should not be presented as a finding that the appeals court has already determined that her death sentence is unlawful. The court’s immediate action is a stay that gives it time to consider the pending legal arguments.
Pike had been preparing for the possibility that she would die on Wednesday. In a letter written before the governor rejected her clemency application and before the federal court issued the stay, she said she was not afraid of dying but was nervous about the execution process.
“Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace,” Pike wrote in the letter, according to reporting by WVLT/Gray News. “I am not afraid to die. I am only nervous about the process.”
She also expressed gratitude to people who had supported her during the final days leading up to the scheduled execution.
The case had attracted significant attention from death-penalty opponents and human-rights advocates, who argued that Pike’s history of abuse, her age when she committed the crime and her decades in prison warranted further consideration.
The case has also generated opposing views from Slemmer’s family. Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, has publicly supported Pike’s execution and said she has spent decades waiting for the sentence imposed following her daughter’s murder to be carried out.
Pike has spent approximately three decades in prison since her conviction. She is the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row. Tennessee Department of Correction records had listed her September 30 execution date and had already selected media witnesses in preparation for the procedure.
The scheduled execution would have been historic because Tennessee had not executed a woman since 1820. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, only 18 women had been executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed nationally in 1976, making executions of female prisoners extremely uncommon.
The timing of Wednesday’s intervention was particularly notable. Pike’s execution was scheduled for 10:00 a.m. CDT, and the Sixth Circuit issued its stay roughly an hour before the lethal injection was due to take place. The court’s order therefore prevented Tennessee from carrying out the execution while the new legal proceedings continue.
For now, there is no execution to confirm. Christa Pike remains alive on Tennessee’s death row, and the execution has been stayed pending further action by the Sixth Circuit.
The next major development will be the appeals court’s consideration of Pike’s latest legal claims and any response from Tennessee officials. Her lawyers have indicated that the state may seek to have the stay lifted, meaning the case could return to the federal appellate courts and potentially the Supreme Court.
For the moment, however, a death sentence that appeared set to be carried out after three decades in prison has been put on hold at the final hour.