Christa Pike was convicted of another serious violent crime while serving on death row

A very violent crime landed Christa Pike on death row, and while she was serving her time she committed yet another one. Ahead of her failed lethal injection, Christa Pike was convicted of another offence. 

Everyone knows about killer Christa Pike now, after she was given the lethal injection, but survived. The details of the crime she initially committed are horrific, but not many know that her violence didn’t end there. She was sentenced to death on March 30th 1996, after torturing and killing her classmate, who she believed was attempting to “steal” her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. 

Pike was 18 at the time, and alongside a then 17-year-old Shipp, she lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a woods. They beat her for 30 minutes, carved a pentagram into her chest and forehead and killed her by hitting her head with a large piece of asphalt. They both confessed to the killing, and were convicted of first-degree murder.

Pike was then sent to death row. According to the Tennessee Department of Correction, while she was incarcerated at Debra K Johnson Rehabilitation Center, Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder in the assault on inmate Patricia Jones. This incident happened on August 24th 2001. 

Pike was accused of attacking and attempting to strangle fellow inmate Patricia Jones with a shoestring, during a fire-related evacuation. At the time of the attack, Jones had been serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of 84-year-old Alberta Coker. Pike claimed she was trying to protect another inmate, Natasha Cornett.

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Patricia Jones, via Tennessee Department of Correction

Pike, Jones and Cornett had been placed together in a “recreation cell or cage” after a fire-related evacuation of prison cells, when an argument broke out. Jones testified that Cornett attempted to hit her but missed. As Jones prepared to fight Cornett, Pike then came up behind Jones and began choking her.

After the incident, Pike was convicted of attempted first degree murder, and was sentenced to a further 25 years in prison, to run concurrently with her death sentence. It’s been reported that Jones later testified that Pike had intervened in a fight between her and another inmate, and likely saved the other woman’s life.

At Pike’s appeal, it was said “her stated intention was to protect” convicted killer Natasha Cornett, but “there was ample evidence by her actions and [Pike’s] own words that contradicted this position.” In one recorded telephone conversation with her mother, that was used as eveidence in the appeal, Pike said that she had “premeditated the hell out of this”.

For more, like The Tab on Facebook. Featured image via Tennessee Department of Correction.