A story from Tennessee is drawing national attention — the state is preparing to execute its only female inmate on death row. If carried out, it would mark the first time in more than a century that a woman has been executed in Tennessee.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has scheduled the execution of 49-year-old Christa Gail Pike for September 30th, 2026, at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

The decision comes after decades of failed appeals by Pike’s attorneys. Under the order, prison officials must inform Pike by August 28th which method will be used — either lethal injection, Tennessee’s standard method, or electrocution, which remains an option for inmates convicted before 1999.

Between 2018 and 2019, five Tennessee inmates chose electrocution, citing concerns over reports of botched lethal injections both in the state and across the country. Pike was convicted in 1996 for the brutal 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Court records show both women were students at a youth job training program when Pike, then 18, lured Slemmer into a wooded area near the University of Tennessee campus. Assisted by her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and friend Shadolla Peterson, Pike tortured and killed Slemmer in a violent attack that prosecutors said was fueled by jealousy.

Slemmer’s body was discovered by a groundskeeper, who initially mistook it for an animal carcass due to the severity of the injuries.

Shipp, who was 17 at the time and too young for the death penalty, received a life sentence and could be eligible for parole next year. Peterson cooperated with prosecutors and was granted probation.

At just 20 years old, Pike became the youngest person on Tennessee’s death row, and for nearly three decades, she has been its only female inmate — a situation her lawyers described as “virtual isolation.”

Last year, that claim led to a settlement allowing Pike more social contact within the prison system. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, fewer than 50 women are currently on death row nationwide — out of about 2,100 total inmates.

The United States has executed only 18 women since the modern death penalty was reinstated in 1976. The last was Amber McLaughlin in Missouri in early 2023.

Researchers note that most women sentenced to death had histories of gender-based violence or trauma — factors that have increasingly influenced how courts and juries view capital punishment. In Tennessee, there’s no record of a woman being executed since 1820.

Attorneys for Pike continue to seek clemency, arguing that if her crime were tried today, her age, mental illness, and history of abuse would likely spare her from a death sentence.

They’ve pointed to diagnoses of PTSD, bipolar disorder, congenital brain damage, and evidence of severe childhood abuse — none of which were presented to the jury in the 1990s.

Robin Maher, Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told CBS News — “Society’s view of who deserves a death sentence has changed. Her young age and mental illness would likely persuade a jury today, she is not someone who should be executed.”

If the execution proceeds next year, Christa Gail Pike will become the first woman in Tennessee’s modern history to face the death penalty — a rare and controversial milestone in the state’s long and complicated record with capital punishment.

Reporting by Katy Moore.