Filmmaker who interviewed ‘scared’ Christa Pike shares what she’s actually like in person

Nearly 30 years ago, documentary filmmaker Steve Payne interviewed Christa Pike, the woman whose execution failed earlier this year. He’s one of the few people who have spoken to her in the years since her conviction, with another example being journalist Helen Roberts.  

In 1998, two years after she was sentenced to death for the murder of Colleen Slemmer, Christa Pike sat down with Steve Payne at Nashville’s Debra K Johnson Centre. Thinking back in an interview with Crime World, Steve described the convicted killer, who was 20 when she was sentenced, as “ a scared young girl who, if you met her normally, she wouldn’t come across as being evil.”

Credit: Crime World/YouTube

“She just was like a normal girl. How she got wrapped up into all this, I don’t know,” he said. “She didn’t come across as an evil person at all. She also seemed very remorseful. She was just: ‘I didn’t mean to kill anybody. She has always said that she understands what she did. She’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve always been prepared to accept my punishment. I just don’t think I should have ended up on death row.'”

Even back then, Steve questioned the performance of her legal team and why they didn’t bring up her long history of trauma. 

“She had a terrible defence lawyer. He was a nice person, but he was a bad lawyer, and he didn’t bring up any of her childhood,” Steve said. “She had the most horrendous childhood. Everyone she came into contact with in her family just beat her.”

He doesn’t believe that Christa Pike should be executed 

30 years on, and one botched execution later, the filmmaker doesn’t believe that a second attempt should be made on Christa Pike’s life. He argued that she’s served her time, and that he’s against the death penalty in general. 

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He explained: “I don’t think she should be executed. I don’t think she’s a threat to society. I think she’s paid her penalty. Not only was she put in jail for 30 years, which is a life sentence as far as I’m concerned, she was in solitary confinement for 20 of those years.

“There’s this strange kind of dumb attitude that people won’t commit murder if they think they’re going to be executed and that’s just not true. I mean, I’ve been on death row. I’ve talked to people. None of them expected to get caught, you know? It’s not a deterrent.”

Of course, the fate of Christa Pike is still up in the air, with the State considering additional execution methods like the electric chair. 

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Featured image credit: YouTube/NewsChannel 5 and Crime World/YouTube