Execution of Christa Pike and the Ongoing Impact on a Victim’s Family

Christa Pike, the sole woman sentenced to death for the 1993 killing of Colleen Slemmer, was executed in Tennessee in 2026. The execution took place at the state prison where Pike had spent decades on death row. On the day of the execution, May Martinez, Slemmer’s mother, waited on the prison grounds after having fund-raised the money needed to travel from Jacksonville, Fla., to witness the event.

New York Times

In 1993, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a student in a Knoxville education program, was lured into the woods by three classmates, tortured, and killed. Pike was the only participant in the crime who received a death sentence; the other three were sentenced to prison terms.

New York Times

During her years of isolation on death row, Pike said she moved from an initial lack of remorse to a deep sense of regret. She described a process of “deep contemplation and reflection” that led her to recognize the value of the life she had taken and the broader effects of that loss.

New York Times

Martinez, who described the loss of her daughter as “devastating,” told The New York Times that she is “not the same person” she was before the murder. She and her husband, Raul, have remained firmly supportive of the execution, maintaining that justice must be carried out despite the passage of time.

New York Times

• “I’m not the same person I used to be,” — Ms. Martinez, who fund-raised the money to drive to witness the execution

New York Times

• “Over years of sitting in here with deep contemplation and reflection, I know and understand the life that I have taken and how much it matters, how much it means, how many effects she could have had on the world, just like the effects I could have on the world,” — Ms. Pike

New York Times