Supreme Court clears way for Christa Pike execution after vacating stay The U.S. Supreme Court vacated a last-minute stay, allowing Tennessee to execute Christa Pike, who would become the first woman executed in the state since 1819 for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. The U.S. Supreme Court late Wednesday vacated a last-minute stay that had temporarily spared Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike from becoming the first woman executed in the state since the early 1800s. Supreme Court Vacates Execution StayThe decision cleared the way for the state to carry out Pike's execution after the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a stay earlier Wednesday. In a 2-1 split decision, the Sixth Circuit issued a stay until further notice as the court weighed motions filed by Pike's attorneys and the Tennessee Attorney General's Office. The Supreme Court then granted Tennessee's application to vacate that stay, allowing the execution to proceed.Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the Supreme Court's decision and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor argued that the Sixth Circuit should have been given time to consider Pike's pending legal challenge before the execution proceeded. Sotomayor wrote that in capital cases, appreciation of our own fallibility, and respect for the judgment of an appellate tribunal, demand caution before acting irretrievably.She added that the Supreme Court chooses to overlook that principle precisely when it matters most. Pike was convicted of murdering her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer in a brutal satanic attack that Pike claimed took between 30 minutes and an hour, according to court documents. Pike and Slemmer knew each other through a vocational program in Knoxville called the Job Corps Center.Pike Convicted of Brutal MurderAccording to a Court of Appeals order, Pike had accused Slemmer of trying to get her boyfriend and running her mouth. A day before the killing, she told another classmate she wanted to kill Slemmer because she just felt mean that day, according to the records. Pike was armed with a box cutter and a meat cleaver.She and her accomplices lured Slemmer out, telling her they wanted to go to a music store and pick up some marijuana they had hidden in a park nearby. Pike attacked her, knocked her to the ground and hit her in the face with her knee and foot. At one point, Slemmer broke away from Pike and tried to flee, but Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, grabbed her and held her down while Pike slashed her with the box cutter.The victim begged for her life, but the attackers kept going. At some point, they gagged her with a hair tie. Pike kept a piece of Slemmer's skull as a trophy and later showed it off in school, recounting that Slemmer had begged the trio to stop, according to court records. Pike told the friend she had cut Slemmer's throat a half-dozen times and then smashed her head with a rock.Mental Health Evidence and Mitigating FactorsShe showed off her bloodstained sneakers to another classmate and brought Slemmer's skull fragment to breakfast the next morning. At trial, forensic psychiatrist Dr. William Bernet testified that the crime had satanic elements but also appeared to involve the phenomenon of collective aggression, in which a group of people become emotionally aroused and the end result is that they engage in some kind of violent act.Dr. Eric Engum testified that Pike had been diagnosed with very severe borderline personality disorder in addition to showing signs of cannabis dependence and depression. However, he said, she had no symptoms of brain damage or insanity. Pike's supporters counter that her defense did a poor job presenting mitigating factors before her sentencing, including untreated bipolar disorder and PTSD stemming from repeated domestic violence and sexual assaults. Just under 25,000 people had signed a petition to Gov.Bill Lee asking him to commute her death sentence to life in prison. Pike is set to face execution after the Supreme Court vacated the stay on Sept. 30, 2026. She would be the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1819. She had also requested an all-female execution squad and execution by hanging instead of lethal injection, citing childhood trauma involving men, a topic discussed by the Outnumbered panel.