Mean Girl Murders is examining the case of Christa Pike, who tortured and murdered fellow teenager Colleen Slemmer because she believed Slemmer was trying to take her boyfriend.
Pike and Slemmer were enrolled at the Knoxville Job Corps in Tennessee, a government-funded program that helped disadvantaged youths find employment. However, 18-year-old Pike became violently jealous of Slemmer.
The killer enlisted the help of fellow students, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson, to lure Slemmer out of their dormitory and into some nearby woods, where they tortured her with a knife and a boxcutter before Pike bashed her skull in with a piece of asphalt.
Slemmer begged for the killers to stop, but the callous trio continued torturing her for about an hour before she was killed. Before killing Slemmer, Pike and Shipp carved a pentagram onto her chest.
The case garnered public interest because of the barbarity of the killing combined with the devil-worshipping elements of the killers. The cops later found a Satanic Bible and altar in Shipp’s room.
People were shocked by Pike’s unlikely appearance; her “sweet voice and childlike manner” did not seem to match her brutality. One juror said, “She has an angel’s face and a devil’s heart.”
Christa Pike and Tadaryl Shipp were easily caught for Colleen Slemmer murder
Pike and her two accomplices were arrested 36 hours after the murder. Pike had taken a piece of Slemmer’s skull as a twisted memento and was showing it to her classmates, bragging about what she’d done.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelThe cops noted that Slemmer and her killers had all checked out of the dormitory at the same time, but the victim was the only one not to check back in.
Peterson had mostly acted only as a lookout for Pike and Shipp, and she agreed to testify against the other two. She pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact and received a lenient six years probation.
Shipp was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole plus 25 years. He was only 17 at the time of the murder, which may be the reason he avoided the death penalty.
Pike was sentenced to death. She was the youngest woman to be sentenced to death since 1972, and she remains today the only woman on death row in Tennessee.
Christa Pike lost an appeal to have execution sentence changed
In November 2023, an appeal to reopen Pike’s case and examine her sentence was denied. Her legal team claimed she should not have been sentenced to death as there was little difference in the development of a brain between 17 and 18 years old. They also pointed to a troubled childhood where she suffered repeated physical and sexual abuse and had untreated mental illness.
However, a Knox County judge ruled that Pike was officially classed as an adult at the time of the murder, so the sentence should stand. An execution date has not been set.
In August 2001, Pike tried to kill fellow inmate Patricia Jones by strangling her with a shoelace. She was subsequently convicted of attempted murder and had 25 years added to her sentence.
Mean Girl Murders airs Mondays at 9/8c on Investigation Discovery.