Hold My Sweet Tea
Where True Crime collides with chilling ghost stories and Southern folklore. Join us, sip sweet tea, and uncover shocking tales of murder, mystery, and the supernatural, all with a healthy dose of Southern charm and a touch of sass!
Hold My Sweet Tea
Ep. 71-Christa Pike, Justice, Youth, and the Murder of Colleen Slemmer
A woman on Tennessee’s death row just received an execution date—and we can’t ignore the hard questions it raises. We walk through the murder of Colleen Slemmer with clear eyes: the planning, the prolonged violence, the chilling boasts afterward, and the evidence that convinced a jury to call it heinous, atrocious, and cruel. Then we challenge ourselves to grapple with context: an 18-year-old offender, a 17-year-old accomplice, adolescent dabbling in satanic imagery, and expert testimony on severe borderline personality disorder and group aggression. Justice demands we center the victim’s suffering; honesty demands we also weigh youth, trauma, and evolving standards of punishment.
We talk through the legal milestones—confessions, conflicting accounts, autopsy findings, aggravators, and the sentencing that made Christa Pike the state’s only female on death row. From there, we zoom out: how have juries changed in the way they treat 18–20-year-olds? What does neuroscience tell us about impulse control, susceptibility to peers, and late-maturing judgment? Does post-conviction conduct, years in confinement, or possible remorse alter the moral calculus when the state schedules a life’s end?
This is not a story that fits neatly into good and evil. It’s a hard look at accountability, mercy, mental health, and what a justice system should do with unimaginable cruelty committed by someone barely considered an adult. We invite you to listen closely, sit with the discomfort, and tell us where you land: Should the sentence stand, or has time and perspective shifted what justice requires?
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Source Material:
Czachor, Emily Mae, October 2, 2025, Tennessee set to execute only woman on state's death row. Here's what to know, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tennessee-christa-gail-pike-execution-woman-death-row/
Supreme Court Tennessee at Knoxville, October 5, 1998, State v. Pike, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/tn-supreme-court/1130311.html
Court of Criminal Appeals of Tennessee, May 1998 Session, filed September 11, 1998, State of Tennessee vs. Tadaryl Shipp, https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/OPINIONS/tcca/PDF/983/shippt.pdf
United States Court of Appeals, Argued: October 17, 2018, Decided and filed August 22, 2019, Christa Gale Pike vs. Gloria Gross, Warden, https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/19a0205p-06.pdf