Christa Pike, the only woman currently on Tennessee’s death row, is scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026, as her legal team continues efforts to have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.
The Tennessee Department of Correction said the execution is scheduled for 10 a.m. at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, whom she knew from the Knoxville Job Corps. Pike was 18 when Slemmer was killed and was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996.
Her lawyers have filed a clemency petition with Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, asking that her death sentence be reduced to life imprisonment without parole. The petition cites circumstances surrounding Pike’s childhood and other factors her lawyers want the governor to consider.
Pike’s defence is also pursuing legal challenges to Tennessee’s execution procedures. Separately, international human rights experts have called on US and Tennessee authorities to halt the planned execution and commute her sentence.
If carried out, the execution would make Pike the first woman executed by Tennessee in more than 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Her clemency request and legal challenges remain pending ahead of the September 30 execution date.
