Tennessee is preparing to execute 50-year-old Christa Pike on September 30, which would make her the first woman put to death in the state in more than 200 years. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a crime that shocked Knoxville. Only 18 women have been executed in the US since the 1970s, compared to 1,663 men.

Pike's lawyers have filed a 226-page clemency petition seeking to commute her sentence to life in prison. They argue that Pike suffered severe childhood sexual abuse, abandonment, and neglect, and that if she were sentenced today as a teenager, she would not receive the death penalty. The defense team has uncovered details about her childhood that they say the jury never had the chance to consider, including diagnoses of bipolar disorder and PTSD.

In 1995, forensic psychologist Dr. Diana McCoy found that Pike was severely neglected by both parents and was physically and sexually abused by several of her mother's husbands and boyfriends. She was raped at 11 and again at 17, and later it was discovered she was repeatedly raped as a toddler by her grandmother's boyfriend. However, Pike's trial lawyer did not put McCoy on the stand or call many of the witnesses she recommended. In 2021, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in prison and has been medicated since.

Colleen's mother, May Martinez, supports the execution, saying she wants her daughter to "finally be resting." She told WBIR in 2021: "She did the crime. I think she should pay for it." Martinez added that she wants Pike to suffer before she dies, saying, "I would feel better that she felt the same pain that Colleen did." The Justice Coalition, a victims' rights advocacy group, has raised money to help Martinez travel to Tennessee to watch the execution.

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, who has never granted clemency in a death penalty case, is unlikely to make a decision until the last moment. The Tennessee Supreme Court this week denied Pike's request to halt the execution. Pike has requested an all-female team for her execution, saying being held down by men would exacerbate her trauma. The state has said the goal is for female guards to transfer Pike but hasn't guaranteed it.

Ashlee Sellars, a friend of Pike's who met her in prison while serving a 25-year sentence for a robbery-murder, grapples with conflicting beliefs: that Colleen's mother has a right to feel justice has been served and that everyone, including Pike, deserves a chance at redemption. "People want to know that everyone's life matters, right? They want to know that Colleen's life mattered," Sellars says. "Christa in this moment, I think she is fighting much more for her life to matter than she is to actually live."

Source: www.bbc.co.uk