Tennessee court sets execution date for the state’s only woman on death row and 3 male inmates

This undated photo released by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows Christa Pike. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP)

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Tennessee Supreme Court on Tuesday set execution dates for four people, including the only woman in the state on death row.

Christa Pike received the death sentence at age 18 for the 1995 torture slaying of Colleen Slemmer, who was a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student. Slemmer, 18, was stabbed and beaten by Pike and Tadaryl Shipp, Pike’s boyfriend at the time, on the University of Tennessee’s Agricultural campus.

They carved a pentagram into Slemmer’s chest, and investigators claimed Pike took a piece of the victim’s skull for a souvenir. Shipp, of Memphis, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was also convicted in 2004 for trying to strangle a fellow inmate during a prison fight, which added 25 years to her sentence.

Pike’s attorneys previously asked the state’s high court to commute her sentence based on her youth and “severe mental illness at the time of her crime.”

Pike suffered physical and sexual abuse and neglect as a child, according to her attorneys. She also suffered from bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders that were not diagnosed until years after her arrest.

“With time and treatment ... Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime,” a Wednesday statement from her attorneys reads.

Tennessee began a new round of executions in May after a three-year pause following the discovery that the state was not properly testing lethal injection drugs for purity and potency.

An independent review later found that none of the drugs prepared for the seven inmates executed in Tennessee since 2018 had been fully tested. The state Attorney General’s Office also conceded in court that two of the people most responsible for overseeing Tennessee’s lethal injection drugs " incorrectly testified " under oath that officials were testing the chemicals as required.

Kelley Henry, a federal public defender who represents several death row inmates, said on Wednesday that the state still has not answered many questions about the last execution where Byron Black said he was “hurting so bad” while he lay on the gurney. Black’s autopsy found pulmonary edema, a condition of fluid in the lungs his attorneys have said would feel like drowning or suffocating.

“We will continue to fight to bring the truth of what happened to light before these executions move forward to protect our clients from being tortured the way Byron was,” Henry said.

The court on Tuesday also set execution dates for Tony Carruthers, Gary Sutton and Anthony Hines.

Carruthers was convicted in 1996 of robbing and killing Marcellos Anderson, 21, Frederick Tucker, 17, and Anderson’s mother, Delois Anderson, 43, in 1994. Authorities said Marcellos Anderson was a drug dealer, and Carruthers was trying to take over the illegal drug trade in their Memphis neighborhood. Carruthers was forced to represent himself at trial after repeatedly complaining about court-appointed attorneys and threatening to harm several of them.

Hines was convicted of the fatal stabbing of Katherine Jean Jenkins, 54, a motel maid in Kingston Springs in 1985.

Sutton was sentenced to death for the 1992 shotgun slaying of Tommy Griffin, 24, after he had already been convicted of the murder of Griffin’s sister, Connie Branam, whose body was discovered in her burned vehicle.

Sutton continues to plead his innocence. A statement from his attorneys notes that, “The scientific evidence linking Gary to the case is from disgraced state medical examiner Charles Harlan who was later stripped of his licence.”

Griffin was Sutton’s friend, and “there is no motive for the crime and no direct evidence linking Gary to the murder,” according to the statement.

Harold Nichols, 64, is also scheduled to be executed in Tennessee by an order from earlier this year. Nichols was convicted of rape and first-degree felony murder in the 1988 death of Karen Pulley in Hamilton County.

The execution of Donald Middlebrooks is stayed pending the resolution of a federal court case challenging Tennessee’s execution protocols.

Travis Loller, The Associated Press