Tennessee governor rejects clemency bid for Christa Pike as execution looms
If the execution proceeds, Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years.
If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike would be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years
Tennessee Governor Bill Lee has denied a clemency request from death row inmate Christa Pike, who is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday.
Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old they met at a job training camp for troubled teens.
"With this decision, the State of Tennessee is ignoring what both science and our legal system have decided: an 18-year-old brain is not an adult brain, and 18 is too young to face execution," they said in a statement on Monday.