Tennessee Woman Set to Become State’s First Female Execution in More Than 200 Years Refuses Last Meal

Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, has declined to request a special last meal ahead of her scheduled execution on Wednesday, Sept. 30.

The 50-year-old is set to be executed by lethal injection at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Death row prisoners are typically permitted to request a customized final meal, but the Tennessee Department of Corrections confirmed that Pike had not submitted one.

Her decision comes after Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee rejected her request for clemency on Monday, leaving the execution scheduled to proceed.

“I am not afraid to die”

Before learning that her clemency request had been denied, Pike wrote in a letter to NBC News that she had reached a sense of peace regardless of the governor’s decision.

“Whether my clemency is granted or not, I am at peace,” she wrote.

Pike also said she was not frightened by death itself, although she remained anxious about how the execution would be carried out.

“I am not afraid to die,” she wrote. “I’m only nervous about the process.”

Her attorneys had asked the governor to spare her life, arguing that Pike suffered abuse during childhood and pointing to her mental health history.

Lee ultimately declined to intervene.

Murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer

Pike was 18 years old when Slemmer was killed on Jan. 12, 1995.

Pike, her then-boyfriend and another female friend lured the 19-year-old to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee’s Knoxville campus, where Slemmer was tortured and murdered.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996.

Her time in prison later brought further legal trouble. In 2001, she was convicted of attempting to murder fellow inmate Patricia Jones by trying to strangle her with a shoestring. An additional 25 years was added to her sentence.

Authorities also thwarted a 2012 plan to help Pike escape from the Tennessee Prison for Women. The plot involved a corrections officer and a New Jersey personal trainer with whom Pike had been corresponding.

Unusual request ahead of execution

This undated family handout photo shows student Colleen Slemmer, who was tortured and brutally killed by Pike in 1995.Family handout

In the final days before her scheduled execution, Pike has also requested that the lethal injection team be made up entirely of women.

She has argued that having men involved in the process could be traumatic for her. Tennessee corrections officials have indicated that her request may be accommodated.

Pike has also spoken publicly about her mental health and the circumstances surrounding the crime she committed as a teenager.

She described herself as a “mentally ill 18-year-old girl” at the time of the killing and argued that women with mental health problems do not always receive the help they need.

Unless there is another legal intervention, Pike is expected to be put to death by lethal injection Wednesday morning.

Her execution would mark an extraordinary moment in Tennessee history: according to the report, she would become the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years.