Court Halts Christa Pike Execution Just One Hour Before Scheduled Death

Pike, 50, was due to be executed at 10am local time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Witnesses had already gathered at the prison when the Sixth US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay at about 9am.

The court said it needed additional time to consider whether Pike's latest legal filing should be treated as a request to reopen her federal case or as a new habeas appeal. The order temporarily prevents Tennessee from carrying out the execution but does not overturn her conviction or death sentence.

Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at the Knoxville Job Corps. Pike was 18 at the time of the killing.

Prosecutors said Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, lured Slemmer to a wooded area in Knoxville, where she was stabbed and beaten. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Pike was sentenced to death.

The case attracted widespread attention because of the brutality of the killing and a pentagram carved into Slemmer's body, details that became associated with the period of heightened fears over alleged Satanic activity in the United States.

Pike's lawyers have argued that her history of severe childhood sexual abuse, mental illness and trauma should be considered in determining whether her death sentence should be carried out. Pike has also expressed remorse for killing Slemmer.

The latest intervention came after several previous attempts to stop the execution failed. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee rejected Pike's request for clemency on Monday, while the US Supreme Court declined to grant an earlier request for a stay on Tuesday.

If it had gone ahead, Pike's execution would have been the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than 200 years.

The decision to halt the execution came as witnesses were already waiting at the prison, bringing an extraordinary last-minute development to a case that has remained in the courts for more than three decades.

It remains unclear how long the stay will last or whether Tennessee prosecutors will challenge the appeals court's decision.

For now, Pike remains on death row, while the federal appeals court considers the latest legal challenge.