
September 30th, 2026
A federal appeals court stopped an execution in Tennessee.
The state planned to execute Christa Gail Pike on Wednesday.
The court stopped it about one hour before.
The 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals voted 2-1.
The court will review Pike's case.
Pike says she was sexually abused as a child.
She says she was raped as a child.
The court will check if this was fully considered.
Pike is now 50 years old.
She was convicted in 1995.
She stabbed and beat Colleen Slemmer.
Colleen was 19 years old.
Colleen was a classmate in Knoxville.
Pike would be the first woman executed in Tennessee in at least 200 years.
Tennessee's attorney general appealed the stay.
He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Witnesses and media stayed at the prison.
They waited in case the high court allows the execution.
The attorney general's office argued the halt hurt Slemmer's family.
They said it rewarded "abusive delay tactics" by Pike's lawyers.
Pike's lawyers said ignoring her childhood is not fair.
They said it violates any fair view of executions.
Pike does not deny the killing.
Her supporters say the state should weigh her age at the time.
They say she has a mental illness.
They say she suffered severe sexual abuse.
They say she was raped from toddlerhood.
After the killing, Pike was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
She was also diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She said she was a mentally ill 18-year-old.
She said she only wanted to fight Slemmer.
She said she killed her in a frenzied attack.
Slemmer's mother is May Martinez.
She wants the lethal injection to go forward.
She said she has waited decades.
She thinks about Colleen every day.
Prosecutors said Pike feared Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend.
They said Pike lured her to a wooded area on Jan. 12, 1995.
Pike cut Slemmer with a box cutter.
She beat her with asphalt.
Pike's boyfriend was Shipp.
He admitted carving a pentagram into Slemmer's body.
He was 17 years old.
He received life in prison with possible parole.
Pike was the only one sentenced to death.
September 30th, 2026

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