A federal court stayed the execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee, the only woman on death row
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a stay of execution on Wednesday for Christa Pike “until further order of the court,” halting the procedure hours before its scheduled time.
Pike, 48, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 10:00 a.m. Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.
BREAKING: The execution of Christa Pike, Tennessee’s first of a woman in 200 years, was halted by a court an hour before it was set to take place. https://t.co/fi6Wqgobgz
— The Associated Press (@AP) September 30, 2026
“The court has issued a stay recognizing serious concerns regarding Christa’s scheduled execution,” confirmed Stephen Ferrell, an attorney with Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee, in an emailed statement to local outlet The Tennessean.
Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville. The defendant was 18 years old at the time of the crime, the legal minimum age to receive capital punishment in the United States.
Should the sentence ultimately be carried out following judicial review, Pike would become the first person executed in Tennessee for a crime committed at age 18 since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, in addition to being the state’s first female execution in more than two centuries.
