00:00:03
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: In the heart of
the state of Tennessee, hidden from sight
off a busy highway,
00:00:11
is a prison that's home
to one of the world's most notorious murderers,
Christa Pike.
00:00:19
Christa Pike? I think she's not a human being. She's manipulative. She knows how to sort of
be charming and sympathetic
00:00:28
and be somebody that you
sort of could be wooed by. She's kind of almost
like a chameleon.
00:00:37
Very sneaky, very sly. This gal? I seen nothing good, as
a human being, about her.
00:00:45
She's pure evil. NARRATOR: Christa Pike
committed a brutal killing. Her crime was
particularly violent.
00:00:54
Her victims suffered
for a very long time. MAY MARTINEZ: Christa
kept a piece of her skull
00:01:00
and put it in her
black leather jacket. That was her souvenir. NARRATOR: Pike was a
satanist and believed
00:01:07
her victim to be a sacrifice. Her forehead was
cut several places. Her throat was cut, and she had
a massive circle with a star
00:01:17
upside down, the star
called the pentagram. NARRATOR: Pike was one
of the youngest women
00:01:21
ever to be sent to
death row in the US. She tried to kill
another girl in prison.
00:01:30
She's gotten two guards fired. INTERVIEWER: What do
you think when you think about the electric chair?
00:01:35
CHRISTA PIKE: I
don't really think about that because I don't
think I'm ever gonna see it.
00:01:39
She is exactly
where she belongs. [doors slam] Don't wait another 20 years. Put this girl to
death right now.
00:01:47
[dramatic music] [siren wailing] [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The Debra K.
Johnson Rehabilitation
00:02:18
Center has held Christa Pike
on death row since 1996. [tense music] JOHN NORTH: Here was
this kind of cute,
00:02:29
innocent-looking girl with
long, sort of reddish hair off and up. Little, petite.
00:02:35
And you would look
at her and think, that's the person who did this? RANDY YORK: Now, when
talking to Christa,
00:02:45
she sounded just like a 10,
11, 12-year-old little girl. And if you turned
your back on her,
00:02:52
you would think she's
just a kid, a little kid. [camera shutter snaps] [tense music]
00:03:04
JOHN NORTH: I would compare her
to Hannibal Lecter in the sense that, here is a charming,
intelligent person
00:03:11
that you think, oh,
I like their company. They're thoughtful
and well-spoken. And that might be the
most dangerous kind.
00:03:18
Because before you
realize it, it's too late. And you may be in great danger. KIM ILIOLO: I didn't realize
that that little whimsical, fun
00:03:29
ball of fire that I was
calling my best friend could do that, something
so evil and so heinous
00:03:36
that there's no
coming back from that. JOHN NORTH: This wasn't just
an attack with them slicing
00:03:46
her back, cutting her
neck, which they did, or stabbing her so many times
that the medical examiner lost
00:03:54
count. NARRATOR: Christa Pike was sent
to death row at the age of 18. But even with the toughest
sentence possible hanging over
00:04:04
her, she refused to behave. RANDY YORK: There
were two guards that she was having
sex with in the prison,
00:04:12
and they caught one. And the other one
was fixing to help her escape off of death row.
00:04:19
She's very dangerous. I think Christa Pike would
do it again in a heartbeat. She likes blood.
00:04:25
She likes crime. She likes cutting. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike grew
up in North Carolina, a state
00:04:35
of rolling hills and huge
expanses of countryside, but her childhood
was far from idyllic.
00:04:43
JOHN NORTH: I knew that
she had an extremely rough childhood, tough growing up. Being bounced from parent
to parent to grandparent,
00:04:53
it was hard. KIM ILIOLO: Her mom was never
really there, never present. I mean, she was there
long enough to be angry
00:05:07
and to yell at her. A lot of times, there
was alcohol in the house, but there was no food.
00:05:14
NARRATOR: As she
grew up, sexual abuse became a prominent
feature in her life. RANDY YORK: She was molested
by her mother's boyfriends.
00:05:23
Her and her mother
smoked pot together when she was very young, and she
just had a terrible childhood.
00:05:32
JOHN NORTH: Her mother had
multiple husbands and multiple men, some of whom were abusive.
00:05:38
It was extreme for her. LINA HAJI: It's not just
that the sexual abuse occurred to her.
00:05:45
It's that the sexual
abuse occurred to her, and then there was no type
of support, no type of care,
00:05:52
no type of treatment for
her to address that trauma. And so that probably had a very
long-standing, negative effect
00:06:00
on Christa Pike's
psychological development and the way she viewed
herself, as well as the world.
00:06:10
NARRATOR: At the age of 18,
Pike dropped out of school and moved to
Knoxville, Tennessee.
00:06:16
The original capital of
Tennessee, Knoxville, lies in the east of the
state, at the foothills
00:06:23
of the Smoky Mountains. Knoxville always has got
this kind of strange news vein,
00:06:31
if you will. There's always something
kind of odd going on. It's a smaller town.
00:06:35
It's not a big town like
Atlanta or Nashville. RANDY YORK: Knoxville
was growing in the 1990s.
00:06:42
It was growing fast. And so things were changing. KIM ILIOLO: There was
colleges everywhere.
00:06:52
There were little outside
cafes, and everybody was out walking and
talking and meeting
00:06:58
people and eating dinner. And it was just fun. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike
joined a nursing course
00:07:16
at the government-run
Job Corps program, which had a base in Knoxville. JOE MODE: The
actual Knoxville Job
00:07:23
Corps Center at Dell
Avenue used to be an old hotel, a Holiday Inn. My mamaw actually
worked there as a maid,
00:07:30
and there's about five floors. My name is Joe Mode. I worked at the
Knoxville Job Corps
00:07:36
from 1992 up till April 1995. NARRATOR: Joe taught many
subjects at Job Corps, including cultural awareness,
reading, and parenting skills.
00:07:52
JOE MODE: You know, it
was designed for kids that, you know, maybe had
a difficult home life,
00:07:57
maybe had problems in
school and, you know, typically kids maybe from
15 up to 20, 22 years of age
00:08:04
to get a second chance and to
learn a job skill like nursing, you know, business,
clerical, building trades.
00:08:10
I think the Knoxville
Job Corps had maybe about 350 students at
the time, you know,
00:08:15
that I was working there. NARRATOR: Although the
program started off well, it soon began to attract a
different type of student.
00:08:27
Somewhere along the
line, the thoughts were to put troubled kids
in the Job Corps Center
00:08:34
if they committed a criminal
act rather than go to prison and let them join the Job Corps.
00:08:41
JOE MODE: A lot of
the very good students often were harassed or beat
up, you know, jumped, you know.
00:08:48
And they left. And things like
that often happened. And we lost some, you know,
very bright students, you know,
00:08:55
that really wanted to try. NARRATOR: Christa Pike
became part of this troubled environment, but
she quickly found
00:09:05
a good friend in Kim Iliolo. KIM ILIOLO (VOICEOVER): We
had a lot of the same classes.
00:09:12
And Christa's room was
probably five doors down. I was sitting outside,
and she walked over.
00:09:22
And she said, can I sit here? I said, yep. And that was the end of it. We were kind of
inseparable at that point.
00:09:29
Christa was very
much my best friend. NARRATOR: The two
friends hung out together, riding the free
trolley bus around Knoxville.
00:09:39
KIM ILIOLO: From 4:00 until
10 o'clock, it was free time. So we would all
just sign ourselves
00:09:45
out and head up to the strip. And that's where we
stayed for hours. You know, hardly
anybody had any money.
00:09:52
We just hung out
with each other. It was a lot of fun. It was actually a lot of fun.
00:10:00
NARRATOR: Kim and
Christa became so close, they came to depend
on one another. KIM ILIOLO: She was
always laughing.
00:10:07
And she would go
out of her way to do things special just to make you
feel better or to make you--
00:10:13
when I was sick, she went
all the way up that huge hill and just-- she went
and got me candy.
00:10:20
And she's like, just
so you feel better. Love you. She was a ball of life. NARRATOR: Little did
Kim know, that her fun
00:10:33
loving best friend
would commit one of the most horrific murders
Knoxville had ever witnessed.
00:10:39
[tense music] Another student at Job Corps
was 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. JOHN NORTH: My
impression of Colleen is,
00:10:55
here is a woman who was trying
to do the best that she could, who had had some
rough times as a girl.
00:11:01
Her parents were split. JOE MODE: Colleen
was very sweet. She'd often come to my
class, and, you know,
00:11:09
we'd talk about life and things
going on, just in general. Colleen was just a very sweet,
quiet, mild-mannered, you know,
00:11:17
young lady. You know, she was just sweet. NARRATOR: Colleen Slemmer was
born and raised in Florida
00:11:28
and had come to
Knoxville Job Corps to do a six-month
course in computing. MAY MARTINEZ
(VOICEOVER): My name
00:11:36
is May Martinez, the mother
of Colleen Anne Slemmer. Colleen was a kid that loved to
play outside, roller skating.
00:11:45
She'd do a lot of Special
Olympics and stuff like that and helping
others all the time.
00:11:51
Florida didn't
have any Job Corps government program for her. What she wanted was to get
closer to was Tennessee.
00:12:00
She had a mom who
loved her dearly. She had sisters who loved her. Yeah, I think there was hope
that she was gonna come out
00:12:08
of this having learned some
skills and get on the road to a profession. NARRATOR: For
Colleen, moving states
00:12:15
was an exciting opportunity. MAY MARTINEZ: My husband
and her and me all taught, and we did
not want her to go
00:12:23
because it's too far from home. I wanted her with me. Colleen has always been
an independent person.
00:12:31
She always was a go-getter. So she said she felt
good being on her own. She said, look, Mom.
00:12:37
I actually got out. I'm not living at home. [laughs] So it was nice. Colleen was 18 when she went.
00:12:47
She left October 31, in '94. The day she left for Job
Corps, that's the last time
00:12:55
we had even seen each other. [tense music] [camera shutter snaps] NARRATOR: In
Knoxville, Tennessee,
00:13:11
Christa Pike was enrolled
on a nursing course at the Job Corps Center. 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer
was also studying there,
00:13:20
but was not having
the greatest time. Colleen said there were a
couple of kids bothering her.
00:13:26
And they were going in her
room, taking her jewelry, taking her clothes,
and stuff like that.
00:13:32
She mentioned two
girls and a guy. She didn't mention their names. She said there were these
three kids just bothering her.
00:13:42
NARRATOR: These three
kids were Christa Pike, her new boyfriend, Tadaryl
Shipp, and their friend,
00:13:47
Shadolla Peterson. All of them were
studying at Job Corps. Pike's best friend, Kim, had
introduced Tadaryl to Christa.
00:13:55
KIM ILIOLO: I had already
known Tadaryl for a while. So when he got there, he
was like, who is that?
00:14:01
And I was like,
her name's Christa. And I left him
sitting out there, and that was the end of that.
00:14:11
[laughs] Because they were
inseparable after that. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: Pike began a
relationship with Tadaryl,
00:14:21
but she also
developed a vendetta against her boyfriend's
previous crush, Colleen.
00:14:27
[tense music] KIM ILIOLO: I think at one
point, Tadaryl liked Colleen. But then, like, when
Christa got there,
00:14:43
his attention went
straight to Christa. And he forgot everybody else. Like, anybody else,
he just didn't care.
00:14:51
JOE MODE: I'd understood that
there was a love triangle, you know, that maybe Colleen
and Tadaryl had dated
00:14:57
and then Pike and Tadaryl. And Christa Pike was jealous. [camera shutter snaps] Christa was extremely
possessive of Tadaryl.
00:15:08
Extremely. I didn't realize
that that obsession was festering in Christa's head,
that Colleen was after Tadaryl.
00:15:20
Christa saw her as a threat. And it was a threat that
was so big in her mind that ultimately, she decided,
I have to take her out.
00:15:27
[tense music] NARRATOR: Kim noticed
Christa's hatred of Colleen had taken a violent turn.
00:15:40
KIM ILIOLO: So it was
Saturday afternoon. There were probably
12 or 13 of us just kind of hanging out, just
chatting about people they
00:15:49
like, people they didn't like. Colleen's name came up. And Christa said, oh, my god.
00:15:55
I'm gonna kill her. And I said, would you
leave that girl alone? She didn't do anything to you.
00:16:01
And she smiled at me. She winked, and
the next subject-- and that was all. NARRATOR: On January
12, 1995, Christa Pike
00:16:15
turned her words into actions. Pike, Shipp, and their
friend, Shadolla Peterson,
00:16:20
decided to lure Colleen away
from the Job Corps Center. KIM ILIOLO: I was in my room.
00:16:27
Christa comes in. And she says,
well, we're getting ready to go to the park. And I was like, who's
going to the park?
00:16:33
Me, Shadolla, and
Tadaryl, and Colleen. I'm like, why? We're gonna go
smoke in the park.
00:16:38
She winked at me, she
smiled at me, then she left. And I watched them
all from my balcony.
00:16:47
I watched them all sign
out and all four of them leave together. And I probably should have
known or should have said, hey,
00:16:55
please don't go to somebody. Because it was just like
it was an impending doom kind of feeling in my stomach.
00:17:07
[dramatic music] [tense music] NARRATOR: At 8:50 PM, with
the promise of smoking weed,
00:17:16
Colleen was taken through
the streets of Knoxville to Tyson Park. And they would
have walked down
00:17:26
Cumberland Avenue,
toward Tyson Park, which is where we are right now. And they would have
cut through right
00:17:31
through here, under the bridge. [tense music] You'll notice, as we keep
walking, you begin to feel
00:17:40
like you're in a
more remote location, that you're sort of
leaving the city behind.
00:17:48
And it was perfect,
because they're getting further removed,
where nobody can hear them.
00:17:55
NARRATOR: Christa
Pike had come armed. Christa Pike took with her a
meat cleaver and a box cutter.
00:18:02
So it sounds like
there was already some premeditation into what was
going to happen in these woods.
00:18:07
[tense music] JOHN NORTH: And it would
have been about at this point when Colleen is
like, I'm in trouble.
00:18:19
Something's not right. [tense music] NARRATOR: They walked
to the edge of the park
00:18:29
and on to the boundary of
the University of Tennessee. JOHN NORTH: They get to
this point, having walked.
00:18:37
And now, Colleen,
Christa, and Tadaryl and-- we don't know--
perhaps Shadolla-- are now turning on Colleen.
00:18:45
And Christa begins to
accuse Colleen of having aims on her boyfriend, Tadaryl. [tense music]
00:18:57
NARRATOR: The argument
quickly turned violent. They stabbed her. They beat her. They chased her down.
00:19:05
They tortured her, essentially. They tormented her. They talked to her after
she begged, let me go.
00:19:11
They wouldn't let her go. [tense music] LINA HAJI: Christa stabbed
her over 300 times.
00:19:20
This was slow torture of a girl
who was begging for her life and trying to leave,
and that did not
00:19:27
seem to affect Christa Pike. MAY MARTINEZ: She fought
for 45 minutes of her life.
00:19:33
Every time she would
run, they would punch her and cut her and grab her. And when they did that, they
knocked her back down again.
00:19:42
They took her clothes off of
her, her top and her jacket so she couldn't run anymore.
00:19:47
And then Christa held
her down while Tadaryl carved a pentagram in her
chest while she was alive.
00:19:54
[tense music] They told me that it was
part of a satanic ritual. RANDY YORK: The
victim told her that--
00:20:06
she said, if you'll let me
go, I'll hitchhike out of here and go home tonight. And Christa said, you know
it's too late for that.
00:20:14
You do know who's killing you. NARRATOR: The violence
was relentless. JOHN NORTH: Christa picked
up a piece of asphalt
00:20:21
and started smashing
it against her skull. Because in Christa's
words, Christa's words,
00:20:26
"The [bleep] wouldn't die." MAY MARTINEZ: Christa kept
banging the rock on her head
00:20:31
and said, do you know
who's doing this to you? And Colleen would gurgle
blood and say yes.
00:20:37
And she kept doing it until
Colleen couldn't talk anymore. [dramatic music] [thuds]
00:20:47
JOHN NORTH: Christa reaches
down into this bloody mess and plucks out a piece of her
victim's skull as a souvenir.
00:20:56
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: After the
murder, Pike, Shipp, and Peterson returned
to the Job Corps Center
00:21:06
and signed back in. KIM ILIOLO: She busted my door. And that's when she unfolded
this horrendous story.
00:21:13
And I just stood there,
just totally in shock. She's like, "The
[bleep] wouldn't die."
00:21:23
And I was like, oh. Well, what do you mean? She's like, I cut her
throat nine times.
00:21:33
She's like, I stabbed
her in the back. It's sickened me and shocked me. But at the same time, it
was just like this is not--
00:21:47
I don't even know what to say. NARRATOR: Pike
then proudly showed Kim her murder trophy, the
fragment of Colleen's skull.
00:21:58
KIM ILIOLO: She
showed me the piece. And she said they had
stopped at some gas station
00:22:07
to try to clean some
of the blood off. And then she looked at me. And she said, but if you tell
anybody, I'll kill you, too.
00:22:17
Smiled and winked at me,
told me she loved me, then she'd see me
in the morning.
00:22:21
[camera shutter snaps] [dramatic music] I tried to go to sleep, but
it was like a horror movie.
00:22:32
It kept playing in my head. And so, like, every time I
closed my eyes, I seen that.
00:22:36
I seen Colleen's face
just, like, coming at me. I was a naive 16-year-old kid. I had no idea what to
do or how to handle it.
00:22:50
LINA HAJI: What's interesting
about Christa Pike is that she reportedly
bragged about having
00:22:54
committed this crime to Piers. That points to this level
of huge ego and grandiosity
00:23:02
that is seen often
in psychopaths. [dramatic music] [tense music] NARRATOR: Colleen's
body was discovered
00:23:10
the next morning, January 13. JOHN NORTH: The body was found
sort of in a heap, partially
00:23:20
displayed, partially covered. The testimony was, it's hardly
recognizable as a human being.
00:23:27
[somber music] JOE MODE: When they announced
that the body had been found and what she was
wearing, I told my wife--
00:23:35
I said, oddly enough,
I think that might be a girl I know at Job Corps. And sure enough, it was.
00:23:42
NARRATOR: Colleen's
mom, May Martinez, had spent the previous night
trying to contact her daughter.
00:23:49
MAY MARTINEZ: I couldn't
get a hold of Colleen. I kept trying, and they kept
saying she wasn't in her room
00:23:53
and she's still out. And she didn't
check back in again. And then I kept-- the next
morning, I kept calling.
00:24:00
And I had to take my youngest
daughter to the doctor's. So when I got home,
there was a phone call
00:24:07
on my recording saying,
please contact Detective York, homicide. Well, I was extremely
upset, because I
00:24:15
kept saying it wasn't true. I said, no, that's not Colleen. KIM ILIOLO: I beat myself
up still, because I
00:24:24
seen them all leaving. I could have said to somebody,
you know, hey, they're going
00:24:29
to beat her up or something. But I didn't really think
it would go that far. I honestly didn't.
00:24:37
[camera shutter snaps] [somber music] [tense music] NARRATOR: 18-year-old
Christa Pike,
00:24:48
along with her 17-year-old
boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and friend, Shadolla
Peterson, had
00:24:53
just tortured and
brutally murdered teenager Colleen Slemmer. Once her body was found, it
was only a matter of time
00:25:04
before the trail led
back to Christa Pike. RANDY YORK: I got the
first call about the body
00:25:11
around 7:00, 7:30. My name is Randy York, and I
was the criminal investigator assigned to the
Job Corps murder.
00:25:20
I went to the scene and viewed
the body and the evidence. She was clad only in blue jeans.
00:25:27
She had nothing up top. And she had a massive
circle with a star, an upside-down star
called a pentagram.
00:25:34
And her forehead was
cut several places. Her throat was cut. [camera shutter snaps]
00:25:41
If you don't know
what a pentagram is, that's the upside-down
star in a circle. And it represents the
goat head of Satan.
00:25:48
NARRATOR: It was an
open secret at Job Corps that there was a small
group of students
00:25:53
who practiced satanism. Two of those were Christa Pike
and her boyfriend, Tadaryl.
00:26:00
JOE MODE: I had her in class. And you know some students
better than others. But as far as her reputation
and Tadaryl's, you know,
00:26:07
we knew that, you know, they
were into satanic worship. [tense music] Knoxville, in Tennessee,
is the Bible Belt. You'll
00:26:18
find a church on every corner. So, you know, if there are
people that do that, you know,
00:26:23
they're an oddity. You know, it wasn't
something common at all. [tense music] NARRATOR: Randy talked
to the security officer
00:26:34
at the center to see
which student had left the building that night. RANDY YORK (VOICEOVER): I
looked at the sign-out sheet,
00:26:41
and I saw four people
had signed out, Colleen Slemmer, Shadolla
Peterson, Christa
00:26:47
Pike, and Tadaryl Shipp. [tense music] Tadaryl, Christa Pike,
and Shadolla Peterson
00:26:56
signed back in. There was no signature
of Colleen Slemmer. [tense music] I put an officer on
each of the rooms,
00:27:11
and I started from one
room to the next room, went in and interviewed them. And I found a satanic
altar and a Bible
00:27:22
in Tadaryl's room, a lot
of satanic literature. I found some in
Christa Pike's room.
00:27:30
The more we learned about
them, the more we realized they were deep into satanism.
00:27:34
They had tattoos. She had a little devil
tattoo on her left chest. [dramatic music]
00:27:42
NARRATOR: Randy now
had his suspects with Pike, the ringleader. [tense music] The police informed Colleen's
mother of their findings
00:27:54
so far. MAY MARTINEZ: All
they could tell me was, they had the three kids
in custody who killed Colleen.
00:28:00
And they were pretty
sure it was Colleen. Asked me to get
her dental records. Sent it to them so they could
make a positive identification.
00:28:09
NARRATOR: While in
custody, Christa Pike confessed to Colleen's murder. RANDY YORK: She actually played
the part of the victim's role
00:28:18
and her role, what she did
and how the victim reacted. And she would actually get
down and show me how the victim
00:28:24
would beg for her life. I would describe
Christa as giddy. And what I mean by that
is, she was happy almost
00:28:34
to the point she
was silly acting, that she was so happy
that what she had done was something great.
00:28:41
And she didn't try to
hold anything back. LINA HAJI: The fact that she
bragged about this, didn't seem
00:28:46
to display any remorse
or any empathy, tells me that she likely
enjoyed engaging in this torture
00:28:54
of this poor young girl. [tense music] That's not something
you see often. NARRATOR: On January 15, 1995,
Randy charged Christa Pike,
00:29:07
Tadaryl Shipp, and
Shadolla Peterson with the murder of
Colleen Slemmer. [tense music]
00:29:24
JOHN NORTH: We're now in
the City County Building, which is the center
of government
00:29:28
here in Knoxville
and Knox County. And this is the courtroom where
Christa was tried for murder.
00:29:36
NARRATOR: When Christa
arrived at the court, her manner was unsettling. JOHN NORTH: She
would stick out to me
00:29:43
as one of the few that, I think,
probably enjoyed the attention. She would look
around the courtroom
00:29:48
to see who else was there. One time, I can
remember her as she was entering the courtroom,
waving at somebody
00:29:54
she knew in the audience. [camera shutter snaps] MAY MARTINEZ: She was
laughing and giggling
00:30:00
and writing notes to her mom
and laughing with the attorney. She wouldn't face me.
00:30:07
She never faced me,
never looked at me. Her parents never said anything. JOHN NORTH: I think
what she did gave
00:30:17
her sort of the
celebrity status, in a twisted way,
that she'd never had. It gave her some
kind of identity.
00:30:28
NARRATOR: Christa's friend,
Kim, took the stand against her. And her testimony was an
important part of the case
00:30:34
for the prosecution. JOHN NORTH: We needed
that witness there. Because Kim said Christa
came back from the murder
00:30:43
and talked about it and
celebrated it and danced around and was all happy about it.
00:30:49
And that was important
for the jury to hear. So I think what Kim
did was a service.
00:30:53
[somber music] NARRATOR: Controversially, the
jury was shown Colleen's skull with its missing fragment.
00:31:04
MAY MARTINEZ: You cannot
get emotional in the trials. You cannot say one
word, because you
00:31:09
get thrown out of the court. There is no emotion
on either side. But as they were
passing her skull around
00:31:15
to all the jurors and the
pieces just falling everywhere, it was very hard. JOHN NORTH: When Colleen's skull
was brought out for the jury
00:31:26
to look at, to show the
piece where she had bashed her skull in, Christa
sat at the table
00:31:32
and cried during those moments. [somber music] NARRATOR: Hearing the
horrifying details
00:31:40
of her daughter's murder took
its toll on Colleen's mother. I had quite a
bit of nightmares.
00:31:48
You don't sleep. I have to take
medication to sleep. It's all too real. Colleen's body, seeing it
and identifying it and seeing
00:32:00
her head off and seeing the body
parts that I had to deal with was not easy. You know?
00:32:06
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: March 29, 1996, the
jury found Christa Pike guilty of the murder of
Colleen Slemmer.
00:32:16
[dramatic music] In my career, I've
seen some bad things, a lot of horrific murders.
00:32:27
But if you'd have
told me that there was anybody like Christa Pike,
I'd have never believed it.
00:32:32
[tense music] NARRATOR: The next day,
18-year-old Christa Pike was sent to death row.
00:32:41
WOMAN: It is therefore
ordered that you shall be put to death by electrocution--
00:32:45
[sobs] WOMAN: --prescribed by law. And that you shall
be transferred to the custody of the warden.
00:32:51
The jury took, I think,
around 90 minutes to convict her on the death penalty. And that's unheard of,
to come back that quick.
00:32:59
But I think that included
an hour for lunch. [laughs] So they saw
no good in her, either.
00:33:06
[tense music] WOMAN: And further, that on
the 12th day of January 1997, your body shall be subjected to
shock by a sufficient current
00:33:15
of electricity. [sobbing] WOMAN: May god
have mercy on you. [sobbing] And having just
gotten a death sentence,
00:33:27
how would most people react? I might be catatonic, right? Within a matter of hours, she's
taking a piece of paper and pen
00:33:35
and writing a letter to
Tadaryl saying, hey, love. Can you believe
they did this to me?
00:33:43
She writes that letter to
Tadaryl completely unrepentant, as a matter of fact, sort
of chuckling about it,
00:33:52
saying, huh. I tried to be nice to her,
and look what they did to me. That sucks.
00:33:56
[camera shutter snaps] MAY MARTINEZ: I think
she should have been put to death right there and then.
00:34:02
If you're going to
do that to somebody and carve a pentagram
for 45 minutes and take everything like
that, why not do it to them?
00:34:09
NARRATOR: Christa Pike was
sent straight to prison. But even on death row, she
was still a danger to others.
00:34:16
LINA HAJI: Because she had
such highly violent tendencies, she went on to attempt to murder
another cellmate in her prison.
00:34:28
She was going to death row. She really had
nothing to lose, which was just another
risk factor for her
00:34:35
to engage in ongoing violence. [tense music] NARRATOR: After
being found guilty of the murder of
Colleen, Christa Pike
00:34:49
was sent to the Debra K.
Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville to
await her execution.
00:34:55
[tense music] She's confined pretty
much 23 hours a day. And she has said
herself she gets an hour
00:35:05
outside for, like, exercise. She's a very unique
prisoner in our state. She is the only woman who is
facing execution in the state.
00:35:15
The only woman. So there's no one else like her. NARRATOR: When a fellow inmate,
Patricia Jones, also in prison
00:35:24
for murder, dared to
cross her, Christa Pike's murderous tendencies
didn't lay dormant for long.
00:35:32
JOHN NORTH: I'm gonna
tell you, Patricia Jones is not a woman I would
mess with, and here's why.
00:35:37
She has a violent past. She is a very aggressive,
angry person at times. You do not want to toy
with Patricia Jones.
00:35:49
In the mid-'90s, about 1994,
she was convicted of murdering an old lady in her house.
00:35:57
I think she stabbed
her repeatedly. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa
Pike was not impressed
00:36:05
when Jones took a dislike to her
alleged lover, Natasha Cornett. JOHN NORTH: I think Christa
was in a relationship
00:36:13
with Natasha Cornett. And Patricia Jones
was somebody who was a negative force
in that relationship,
00:36:23
because Patricia
didn't like Natasha. And so Christa would
take up for Natasha, and that's where she and
Patricia would clash.
00:36:31
[tense music] NARRATOR: On August
24, 2001, Pike saw an opportunity to
get close to her rival
00:36:44
and went in for the kill. What happened is, there
was a fire in the prison, one of several that had happened.
00:36:54
And the prison officials
made the decision to take these three violent
women, Patricia Jones, Natasha
00:37:03
Cornett, Christa Gail Pike, and
put them all in the same space together. Bad move.
00:37:10
[tense music] NARRATOR: Christa
and her friend, Natasha, turned on Patricia. Cornett takes a swing
at Jones and misses.
00:37:23
And Christa has a shoe
lace of some kind. She gets behind Patricia, and
she wraps it around her neck.
00:37:38
And she is determined
to choke her. They end up down on
the floor, and this is Christa's opportunity
to try and kill Patricia.
00:37:47
And Patricia's eyes bug out. I think she's choking. [tense music] NARRATOR: Prison officers
managed to stop the attack
00:38:00
and pulled the women apart. Essentially, she
wasn't breathing. And when they got to
her, they jumpstarted her
00:38:07
and got her breathing again. JOHN NORTH: Christa talked
freely, freely about the attack
00:38:16
and the attempted
murder and said, basically, yeah, I
was trying to do it. You should have
heard her gurgling.
00:38:24
LINA HAJI: What's
interesting in people who are high on psychopathy
or who are psychopaths is,
00:38:29
they tend to be
very manipulative. They tend to have a lot
of superficial charm.
00:38:33
They tend to be very glib. They tend to be
very self-serving. NARRATOR: On August 12, 2004,
Christa Pike was put on trial
00:38:43
and convicted of attempted
first-degree murder, receiving another 25 years
on top of her death sentence.
00:38:51
LINA HAJI: She went on to serve
her prison time with this idea that she was going
to die, regardless.
00:38:57
And so she seems
to have developed this idea that it doesn't
really matter what I do.
00:39:04
I have nothing to
lose at this point. She was a sick puppy. And I wouldn't say
crazy, because she knew
00:39:11
exactly what she was doing. She knew it. She knew what she was doing. NARRATOR: Over the years,
Christa Pike's behavior has
00:39:20
shown no sign of improvement. I think Christa has
always had this ability to manipulate people.
00:39:27
I think she's a
very smart person, so let's make that very clear. [dramatic music]
00:39:35
[tense music] LINA HAJI: She wrote to a lot
of men while she was in prison. She even managed to convince
two men, one from another state
00:39:48
and one correctional
officer, to potentially help her escape from prison. KIM ILIOLO: He had a key.
00:39:57
He took the key to the cells
and had a copy made and brought it back and put it
back on the key ring
00:40:00
and had this extra one. And he was gonna get
her out, and they were going to escape and live
happily ever after, on the run.
00:40:11
LINA HAJI: To me,
that just points more to the high
level of psychopathy that she likely had.
00:40:16
Because even though she's
engaged in this horrific crime, she still has not taken
any accountability.
00:40:24
And her thought process is
still to think about her. How can I escape prison? How can I get people to
do what I want them to do?
00:40:34
NARRATOR: Her attempted
jailbreak was unsuccessful. They were caught, and
the correctional officer
00:40:40
was immediately fired. But the warning signs had
been there for all to see. JOHN NORTH: This man
had been visiting
00:40:49
her frequently in prison,
and they knew who he was. It has to set off alarms
if you have somebody
00:40:58
who's coming
frequently to prison to visit this notorious inmate. That has to be
somebody you begin
00:41:07
to pay close
attention to, simply because of the why factor. Why are you here? You're not related to her.
00:41:13
You're not family. Why are you here? So eventually, I would
imagine-- and there may have been
something that happened
00:41:20
that tipped them off, where
they were like, wait a minute. We need to pay attention.
00:41:26
For her, it's just
part of the celebrity. It's part of the
attention that she gets.
00:41:32
And I'd be willing to bet,
in Christa Pike's mind, she thinks, well,
this is my status.
00:41:39
I deserve this. I deserve this attention,
and it's part of who I am. And so men are going to
be drawn to me because I'm
00:41:49
an interesting person. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa
Pike's attorneys had tried at least
three times, both
00:41:57
in federal and state court,
to get her off death row, but failed. [tense music] INTERVIEWER: What do
you think when you
00:42:07
think about the electric chair? CHRISTA PIKE: I
don't really think about that because I don't
think I'm ever going to see it.
00:42:15
I still have a lot of hope. And I know that I don't
deserve to be where I'm at. I've seen no remorse in
Christa at any time, ever.
00:42:26
I saw TV interviews
and stuff with her, and she doesn't say I'm
sorry about anything.
00:42:32
She's happy. NARRATOR: A date for Christa
Pike's death by electrocution was supposed to have
been set in 2020,
00:42:40
but the COVID pandemic
delayed the date. [tense music] I will never
forgive Christa Pike.
00:42:49
Never. I cannot wait to hold
Colleen's picture up when she's executed to see
her hurt like she did mine.
00:42:59
If it was up to me, I
would have did to her what she did to Colleen, because
I think that she deserves that.
00:43:07
[camera shutter snaps] LINA HAJI: When
we look at people who are psychopaths or
high on psychopathy,
00:43:13
it's a combination
of, what we would say, nature versus nurture. So Ms. Pike may have
had a predisposition
00:43:20
to engage in criminal acts,
but the abusive and neglectful childhood certainly added
to that and sped it up.
00:43:28
All of that trauma, combined
with a probable predisposition to engage in violence, was
just a perfect storm for her
00:43:37
to go on and commit
this heinous crime, where she took 45
minutes, if not more, to murder an innocent girl.
00:43:47
MAY MARTINEZ: I am Colleen's
voice, and I always will be. And once I'm gone and it
still hasn't been settled,
00:43:52
Colleen's baby sister
will be my voice. And it will continue
until we get satisfaction through the state.
00:43:59
Now, Christa, when it gets
down to the nitty-gritty and she's days away
from being put to death,
00:44:07
if that ever happens,
she might have a tendency to go out with a bang. I still think she thinks
it's the greatest thing
00:44:15
she's ever done in her life. [tense music] It's something no mother or
father ever has to go through.
00:44:46
And I think what I lived,
this story with Colleen, has been the worst
nightmare of my life.
00:44:51
[dramatic music]