As Christa Pike’s scheduled execution approaches in Tennessee, attention has once again turned to the 19-year-old whose murder put Pike on death row more than three decades ago.
Colleen Slemmer was a young woman from Orange Park, Florida, who left home in 1994 to pursue career training at the Knoxville Job Corps. She was studying computing, and her family had hopes for a bright future when she was brutally killed. Christa Pike, who was 18 at the time, was convicted of Slemmer’s murder and sentenced to death.
Who was Christa Pike’s victim, Colleen Slemmer?
Born on September 20, 1975, Colleen Slemmer grew up in Florida in a family that remembers her as caring, independent, and eager to help others. Her mother, May Martinez, ran a daycare for decades, and she has said Colleen naturally developed a love for children.
Slemmer babysat and volunteered with the Special Olympics, where she spent time helping children with special needs. She also had a strong interest in computers, and that passion eventually led her to the Job Corps, where she met Christa Pike. Colleen’s family revealed that she left her Florida home for Knoxville in October 1994. She was enrolled at the Knoxville Job Corps with Pike and Pike’s then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.
On January 12, 1995, Slemmer was found in a gnarly state in a secluded, wooded area of the University of Tennessee campus. She had more than 300 slashes and lacerations across her body, with a pentagram deeply carved into her chest. Prosecutors said Pike viewed Slemmer as a romantic rival who wanted to steal Tadaryl from her.
Slemmer lay lifeless behind a steam plant on the university campus, near Tyson Park in Knoxville. Her skull was severely crushed by a huge asphalt rock that Pike had hit her with. She even took out the broken portion of Slemmer’s skull, physically carved it, and later showed it off as a souvenir to other students at the Job Corps.
What happened to Christa Pike’s accomplices?
Pike has never denied her role in Slemmer’s killing. In a statement included in her clemency petition, she expressed remorse and acknowledged the lasting impact of what she did. Pike wrote:
“I was a mentally ill 18-year-old kid. It took me numerous years to even realize the gravity of what I’d done. 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.”
Pike was the only one of the three to receive a death sentence. Her accomplice, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, was a minor at the time of the murder, so Tennessee law didn’t grant him a death penalty. He is now serving a life sentence in a Tennessee state prison after his first parole was denied recently.
The third participant, Shadolla Peterson, never served prison time and is out of custody because she acted as the lookout during the murder and turned state’s evidence. She cooperated fully with the prosecutors and testified against both Pike and Shipp.
Pike’s attorneys have argued in recent years that significant information about her severe childhood abuse, neglect, and mental health conditions was not adequately presented during the sentencing phase of her trial. However, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected Pike’s clemency request on September 28, 2026, saying he would uphold the state’s sentence.
The U.S. Supreme Court also rejected a last-minute request to halt the execution, according to current reporting. For Slemmer’s mother, however, the years of legal arguments surrounding Pike do not change what was lost in 1995.
Who are Colleen Slemmer’s parents?
Slemmer’s biological father was Michael Deacy, who attended Christa Pike’s 1996 trial. Since then, he has largely stayed out of the public eye. Her mother, May, has spent more than 30 years keeping her daughter’s memory alive. She later married Raul Martinez, who has been a constant presence by May’s side through the decades since the tragedy.
Now, as Pike’s execution date arrives, Colleen’s family is preparing to return to Tennessee once again. This time, May and Raul Martinez plan to be there as the state carries out the sentence imposed for the death of the young woman they never stopped mourning.
Days before Pike’s scheduled execution, Colleen’s mother made a big statement to the public. Speaking to WKRN, May Martinez said:
“Maybe now finally we have the justice…It may not bring my daughter back, but it might save another person from getting killed because she will do it again.”
Pike’s execution will be conducted on September 30, 2026, at 10 a.m. CDT, at Nashville’s Riverbend Maximum Security Institution. It will be strictly private, with only authorized witnesses allowed inside the execution chamber.
Days before her execution, Christa Pike said that she is now “at peace” and “not afraid to die.” She has also refused to have her final meal before the lethal injection.
For Colleen’s family, Christa Pike’s execution marks the end of a decades-long legal journey and a closure to the painful loss of their daughter.
Image courtesy: X Photos, NBC News
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