233 : The Murder of Colleen Slemmer & Christa Pike's BOTCHED Execution

On September 30, 2026, Tennessee tried to execute Christa Pike, the only woman on its death row, and failed. She survived two lethal injections of pentobarbital and was rushed to a hospital. This week on Mama Mystery, I'm breaking down the full Christa Pike case from the beginning. In January 1995, 18-year-old Christa lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps, into the woods on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus. With her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and friend Shadolla Peterson there, she tortured and killed Colleen, carved a pentagram into her chest, and kept a piece of her skull as a souvenir. We'll cover Christa's traumatic childhood, her confession, the 1996 trial that made her the youngest woman sentenced to death in modern U.S. history, her prison attack on another inmate, and the 2012 escape plot with a pen pal and a prison guard. Then I'll walk you through the last-minute court fight, the U.S. Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling, and the failed execution hour by hour. Most of all, we'll remember Colleen Slemmer, the girl at the center of this story.

TW: graphic violence, torture, sexual abuse of a child (discussed, not described in detail), and a botched execution.

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