Tennessee prepares to carry out first execution of a woman in two centuries

Tennessee was scheduled on Wednesday to execute Christa Pike, marking the state’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer at a job-training camp for young people. Slemmer’s body was later found with a pentagram carved into her chest, a detail that brought national attention to the case.

Pike was the only woman on Tennessee’s death row. Her lawyers asked Governor Bill Lee to grant clemency, arguing that she was very young when she committed the crime and was suffering from serious mental-health problems. “She was 18 when she committed her crime, and she was deeply mentally ill,” the lawyers wrote in their petition, according to the supplied report.

Lee said he would not intervene. The US Supreme Court rejected a last-minute application for a stay of execution on Tuesday. The application argued that Pike’s history of sexual assault, post-traumatic stress disorder and a blood condition could make lethal injection cause needless suffering.

Pike was due to be executed by lethal injection at 10 a.m. local time at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. The supplied material does not report whether the execution was ultimately carried out.

The United Nations called on the US government and Tennessee authorities to stop the execution and commute Pike’s sentence. It said her case followed severe physical and psychological suffering, including childhood abuse and nearly three decades in solitary confinement on death row. The case has renewed debate over capital punishment for people who commit serious crimes when they are young.

The Death Penalty Information Center says 18 women have been executed in the United States since 1976.