GOP Rep Shoots It Straight Regarding What Should Happen
In 1995, Christa Pike brutally tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer over fears that she was trying to steal her boyfriend. Pike was a student at the…
Christa Pike kept a piece of Colleen Slemmer’s skull. Not as evidence, not as some grisly accident. She kept it as a souvenir.
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In 1995, Christa Pike brutally tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer over fears that she was trying to steal her boyfriend. Pike was a student at the now-closed Knoxville Job Corps, located right next to the University of Tennessee. She lured Slemmer into a wooded area with the help of Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson and proceeded to slash and beat Slemmer. Pike killed her by bashing her head in with a rock, keeping a piece of her skull. Shipp was sentenced to life in prison with parole eligibility, Peterson pleaded guilty to being an accomplice and got six years’ probation, and Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.
Pike was supposed to be dead on September 30. Her execution was stayed and then lifted, but she was rushed to the hospital after the lethal injection attempt was botched. They tried twice. She’s reportedly on a ventilator, and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has suspended the only remaining execution on the docket over this fiasco. NewsNation’s Katie Pavlich had Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) on her show to discuss what should happen next, and it didn’t disappoint [emphasis mine]:
Katie Pavlich was not expecting this answer from Rep. Tim Burchett when she asked what Tennessee should do after botching the execution of Christa Pike. It was blunt, but it needed to be said. Pike survived TWO attempts at lethal injection this week after being convicted in… pic.twitter.com/nIwjk0iG5l
PAVLICH: “But what happens next? I mean, the state tried to kill her twice. She on death row and then they took her to the hospital for lifesaving care…”
“Now she’s alive at the hospital. So what is the state to do when she recovers?”
BURCHETT: “ They prop her up and bring her to a firing squad…”
“We can use the electric chair, it was used the last few years, and there’s a question whether it’s cruel and inhuman punishment, hear that all the time.”
“Well, the firing squad and hanging are 100% — never heard of them not being and let’s just let’s get to something that works and let’s do it.”
There is a chance that Pike’s execution order is stayed indefinitely. If it had been successful, Pike would’ve been the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
Christa Pike kept a piece of Colleen Slemmer’s skull. Not as evidence, not as some grisly accident. She kept it as a souvenir. That single detail tells you everything about the kind of cruelty we’re dealing with here. Pike tortured Slemmer for hours in a Knoxville woods, slashed her, beat her, and bragged about it. She was twenty years old. Old enough to know exactly what she was doing.
A Tennessee congressman has now said plainly what should happen next: carry out the sentence. Pike has been on death row since 1996. That is almost thirty years. The victim’s family has spent three decades waiting for a punishment a jury handed down after hearing all the evidence. Meanwhile, the lawyers shuffle papers, and the killer gets a comfortable routine. The most merciful thing for everyone is to end this.
We’re supposed to feel bad for her because of her troubled past, or because the death penalty is messy. But Pike wasn’t a confused kid. She lured another woman into the woods out of jealousy, then orchestrated a slow, brutal murder. She even asked her accomplices to help her destroy the evidence. This isn’t a case where the state got the wrong person. It’s a case where the state got the right one and then refused to finish the job.
Republicans are right to push back on the endless appeals and the moral posturing. Justice delayed is justice denied. If a death sentence means anything, it has to mean something for the worst of the worst. Pike qualifies. She has had more due process than she ever gave Colleen Slemmer. Let the sentence stand. Let it be done.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.