Tennessee Supreme Court Sets Pike, Three Others Execution Dates

The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday set execution dates for four people on the state's death row, including Christa Gail Pike, the only woman currently sentenced to death in Tennessee. The court scheduled Pike's execution for Sept. 30, 2026, and also set dates for Tony Carruthers, Gary Sutton and Anthony Hines. A separate order earlier this year set an execution date for Harold Nichols, while the execution of Donald Middlebrooks remains stayed pending resolution of a federal challenge to the state's execution protocols.

Pike was convicted in 1996 for the 1995 killing of 18-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps program. Court records say Slemmer was stabbed, beaten and had a pentagram carved into her chest during the attack on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. Investigators reported that Pike later admitted taking a fragment of the victim's skull. Two other people involved in the incident received different penalties. Tadaryl Shipp, Pike's boyfriend at the time, was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, and a third participant who testified against Pike received probation.

Pike, now in her late 40s, also received a...