The Murder of Colleen Slemmer

Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10, 1976 in West Virginia. She is the youngest woman ever sentenced to death in the United States, and the only woman on Tennessee’s Death Row.

She committed the crime in 1995 at age 18 and she was 20 when she was convicted of the torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer, her classmate.

Also charged in Slemmer's murder were Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl D. Shipp, 18, and friend, Shadolla R. Peterson, 19.

Pike had a troubled and difficult life as a child, and she dropped out of high school. She joined the Job Corps, a government jobs program that offers vocational training, and attended the Job Corps center in Knoxville, Tennessee which closed soon after the killing.

Dr. Engum, a psychiatrist who testified at her trial, described Pike as an "extremely bright young woman," and said that Pike had an IQ score of 111. According to Dr. Engum, tests showed Pike had no symptoms of brain damage and that she was not insane. However, Dr. Engum concluded that she suffers from very severe borderline personality disorder.

Christa became jealous of university student 19 year old Colleen Slemmer, who she thought was trying to steal her boyfriend from her; friends of Slemmer denied the accusations.

Pike began dating Tadaryl Shipp, who was a year younger than she, after they met in the Job Corps program. They developed interest in the occult and devil worship together. Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer were all students at the Knoxville Job Corps Center together.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dormitory and walked together to the woods, where Slemmer was told they wanted to make peace by offering her some marijuana to smoke together. When they arrived at the secluded location, Slemmer was attacked by Pike and Shipp while Peterson acted as a lookout.

The State presented the testimony of Harold James Underwood, Jr., a police officer who worked the crime scene. Underwood testified that the defendant came to the scene with several other females. Pike asked Underwood why the area had been marked off, and asked him about the identity of the victim, and whether or not the police had any suspects. None of the other females spoke during the fifteen minutes the group was there. Underwood said Pike appeared amused and giggled and moved around.

Underwood noticed that Pike was wearing a necklace in the shape of a pentagram. After learning that the victim had a pentagram carved on her chest, he reported Pike's behavior and necklace to his superiors.

Soon after her arrest, Pike confessed to the torture and murder of Slemmer, but insisted to police that they were just trying to scare her. According to court testimony, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed for the next thirty minutes, and a pentagram was carved on her chest. Then Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of broken asphalt, killing her.

Pike kept a piece of Slemmer's skull and began to show it off at school. Within thirty-six hours the three were arrested. The log book showed that Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer left together and Slemmer never returned.

Pike was charged with first degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Knoxville Police Department Investigator York testified that Pike submitted to a statement a day after Slemmer's body was found.

In her statement to investigators, Pike described enticing Slemmer with false promises of smoking marijuana, walking from the Job Corps Center on Dale Avenue to Tyson Park. In a secluded area of the park, Pike suddenly turned on Slemmer.

Pike said she and an accomplice stabbed and slashed Slemmer, and she threw a rock that struck the victim in the head. When Slemmer tried to run, Pike made a long cut in her back.

She told York she decided she couldn't let Slemmer go because Pike would be cut from the program when the Job Corps found out about the assault on Slemmer.

“She wouldn't shut up,'' murder suspect Christa Gail Pike told police in a taped confession played in Knox County Criminal Court. “She kept talking and talking. She would start talking again, and I would say, `Shut up.' I didn't want to hear her talking.”

After her attackers struck her on the head with large chunks of broken asphalt, Slemmer’s body began jerking in the dirt.

“I said, ‘Colleen, do you know who's doing this to you?’ ” Pike recalled in the taped statement, given Jan. 14, 1995, the day after Slemmer's body was discovered. Slemmer did not speak, Pike told Investigator Randy York. “She only moaned”, Pike said.

Pike denied carving the pentagram or keeping a piece of Slemmer's skull. The Prosecution called two former Job Corps students to the stand who said Pike not only spoke of killing Slemmer but that she told them she had kept a piece of skull as a souvenir. Detectives found the piece of skull in Pike's jacket pocket.

Kim Iloilo of Shelby, NC, remembered Pike from breakfast the morning after the murder.

“I asked her what she had done with the piece of skull,” Iloilo said. “She said it was in her pocket. She said, ‘And, yes, I'm eating breakfast with it.’ ” 

Dr. Engum testified that the defendant is not so dysfunctional that she needs to be institutionalized, but that she has a collection of problems in interpersonal relationships, in behavioral self control, and in achieving goals.

During direct examination, Dr. Engum shared his opinion that Pike had not acted with deliberation or premeditation but had acted in a manner consistent with his diagnosis of borderline personality disorder; she simply lost control.

On cross-examination, Dr. Engum stated that there was no question that the defendant had killed Slemmer, and agreed that Pike deliberately enticed Slemmer to the park, carved a pentagram onto Slemmer's chest, bashed Slemmer's head against the concrete, and had smashed Slemmer's head with asphalt.

On March 22, 1996, after only a few hours of deliberation, Pike was found guilty on both counts and on March 30, Pike was sentenced to death by electrocution for the murder charge, and 25 years in prison for the conspiracy charge.

Shipp received a life sentence with the possibility of parole plus 25 years. Peterson received probation for pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact, and for turning State’s evidence against Pike and Shipp.

This is an excerpt from a letter Slemmer’s mother wrote the News Sentinel following the verdict.

We are, however, outraged and extremely angry with the fact that one year after her death, we find out from other sources that Colleen Slemmer was buried without her head, the piece of skin from her chest that had the pentagram carved and her genitals.

It seems that the coroner and the district attorney's office feel that families do not have to be informed of the fact that the state intends to use the victims' body parts as evidence.

We had been under the impression for the past year that we buried our daughter as an entire human being.

We are also angry at the fact that the state allowed co-defendant Shadolla Peterson to walk with just time served and probation for her participation in the crime.

This was allowed even though her name is splattered all over the statement co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp gave to investigator York of the Knoxville Police Department.

The reason given to us was that Shipp's statement was insufficient evidence and could not be used against her.

Shadolla R Peterson maintains a LinkedIn account where, as of 12/28/2022, she states that she has a decade of experience as a professional stylist. She lists her specialties as Chemical Services, Skin care, Hair texturizing, Fashion, Hair Coloring, Team Building, Motivational Speaking, and Life-Style consulting.

She describes her occupation as being an “entrepreneur/visionary”.

Watch out for part 2!