Tennessee executes woman for first time in 200 years

In the US state of Tennessee, on September 30, the execution of 50-year-old Christa Pike, convicted of the murder of a classmate in 1995, will take place. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee on September 28 rejected the woman's request for clemency. If the Supreme Court does not suspend the execution, Christa Pike will become the first woman executed in the state in 200 years.

Krista Pike committed the crime at age 18 when she and her boyfriend, then 17, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. The case was widely publicized due to the brutality of the murder, the age of the persons involved, and the fact that a satanic symbol was carved on the victim’s body (“the international movement of Satanism” is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia). In 1996, Pike was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death, becoming the youngest woman to be sentenced to death in modern U.S. history.

Executions of female prisoners in the United States are rare. In 2021, the federal government executed Lisa Montgomery, the first time in nearly 70 years that the U.S. government executed a woman. A woman was executed in Georgia in 2015. In 2023, a transgender woman was executed in Missouri for the first time in the United States (the international LGBT movement is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) for a murder committed in 2003.

Vlad Nikiforov