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  1. #1
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    Christa Gail Pike - Tennessee Death Row


    Colleen Slemmer




    Christa Gail Pike during her trial


    Facts of the Crime:

    Christa Gail Pike was convicted in 1996 for the January 12, 1995, torture slaying of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, who was slashed and beaten by Pike and Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, for 30 minutes to an hour before Pike finally killed her by smashing Slemmer's skull with a chunk of asphalt. In letters literally splattered with blood, a Tennessee death row inmate reveals her passion for brutal pain to trusted "soul mate" and fellow convicted killer John Lee Fryman.

  2. #2
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Christa Pike back in court appealing death sentence

    Convicted murderer Christa Gail Pike was in court Monday, appealing the sentence that put her on death row.

    Monday's is the 1st of 3 days of hearings for Pike, who's asking for a new judge in the case.

    Criminal court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz has refused to take herself off the case.

    Pike was convicted of the 1995 murder of a fellow Job Corps student, Colleen Slemmer.

    In January, a neurologist testified in court that Pike has a damaged brain and suffered sexual and physical abuse in her childhood, as well as abusing drugs.

    The neurologist said it's like Pike's brakes aren't working because the frontal lobes of her brain aren't put together properly.

    The final day of the hearings is scheduled for December 10.

    In 2002, Pike attempted to stop her appeals before changing her mind later.

  3. #3
    Administrator Michael's Avatar
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    Defense attorneys are asking for a new trial in a 12-year-old death penalty case.

    Knoxville (WVLT) - Christa Gail Pike, now 31, is currently on death row.

    Pike was convicted back in 1996 of the 1995 torture and slaying of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

    This is the beginning of a very long hearing.

    Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz says she expects the petition for Pike's new trial to go through Wednesday of this week, and then they'll continue it in December, that's because the original attorneys involved in the trial won't be available until then.

    Leibowitz heard several different testimonies Monday.

    "At certain points she was responsible and just polite, but she went into rage, as well, not understanding,” Tiddell Shipp is describing his girlfriend 12 years ago, Christa Pike...Pike was 19 at the time. "She would snap off a lot more and quicker."

    Shipp was with Pike on February 12, 1995, "Christa thought of a plan and made a plan to do something to Colleen."

    That night, 19-year old Colleen Slemmer, the couple's fellow Job Corps training student, was tortured and murdered in Tyson Park.

    "Colleen was laying on the ground and Christa was talking about cutting her and stuff,” Shipp says.

    That's what Shipp told investigators days after the murder, but Monday he's changed his story about the pentagram he said Pike helped him carve in Slemmer's chest.

    "I carved it,” he says. “Every last bit of it."

    Shipp was sentenced to life in prison for Slemmer's murder, while Pike was put on death row. Twelve years later, Shipp tells the court he was mainly responsible for the murder and misinformed investigators. "I was drunk, I was tired, I wanted them to leave me alone."

    Shipp even says he would've testified during the 1996 trial, if given the chance.

    "I would've advised him not to testify,” says Chris Coffee, Shipp’s attorney.

    Tyrone Comfort then took the stand, a former Job Corps student who says he was best friends with Pike and saw that Shipp abused and controlled her. "Anytime she had a voice to do something, he'd change it real quick."

    Ex-girlfriend DeAndrea Gates says she was also controlled by Ship, but that's no excuse for what Pike did. "I don't believe an individual can make someone do something of that nature."

    Gates has letters from Ship he sent her from prison after the murder, "It's basically a murder confession of what happened the night Colleen was murdered."

    About a dozen witnesses for the defense alone are expected to eventually take the stand.

    We'll be back in court tomorrow for day two of the testimonies.

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Her looks are of no matter to her appeals process, but her physical attributes had much to do with her crime. If Pike looked like Aileen Wuornos she would have had a more difficult time convincing anyone to KILL for/with her. She has used her manipulation along with appearance to seduce other inmates as well. Headlines read, "Angels Face, Devil's Heart" I would bet when she looks in the mirror and sees the effects of gravity and the natural aging process, it wreaks havoc on her psyche. I for one, take solace in that notion.

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Raritan Township man charged in Tennessee prison break plot awaits transfer

    Flemington attorney William Deni had never heard of Donald Joseph Kohut Jr. until he got a call from the county jail in Flemington.

    Kohut, a 34-year-old personal trainer living in the township, needed help, and fast. He wanted to go quickly to Tennessee to face bizarre charges that he was involved in a scheme to help a female inmate on death row escape from the Tennessee Prison for Women.

    The woman, Christa Gail Pike, 36, became the youngest woman in the United States to receive the death sentence after she was convicted of killing a teenager in 1996 in a romance-fueled slaying in which she carved a pentagram into her victim's chest and pocketed a piece of her skull as a trophy.

    A friend of Kohut had suggested Deni. When the lawyer went to jail to meet with his new client, they didn’t talk much about the charges, but according to the lawyer, Kohut called it all “a misunderstanding.”

    Deni, who was an assistant prosecutor for the county more than 30 years ago and over the years had handled countless criminal defense cases, left the jail and went to the Criminal Case Management office, where he arranged for Kohut to sign a waiver of extradition. That document allows a person charged with a crime in another state to waive the requirement that a hearing be held in the state the defendant is in, for a judge to decided that there is legal reason for the fugitive to be released to the state pressing charges.

    Kohut signed the waiver on Wednesday, March 21 and this week was waiting for Tennessee authorities to come to New Jersey and get him. Deni has been contacting attorneys in Tennessee about handling the case there.

    “He wants to get to Tennessee as soon as possible,” Deni said. As of Tuesday, Kohut was still in the Hunterdon jail.

    According to the lawyer, Kohut works as a personal trainer for people, going to their homes or offices to help them with exercise programs. He is not affiliated with a gym.

    He also has some other businesses, Deni said, but he did not know any details. During the jail visit, Kohut asked him for help in a civil case here, in which he is a defendant. It was filed by the lender of a mortgage loan. Kohut is supposed to be in court April 2 on that matter.

    Deni said he would be sending a letter to the judge, informing the court that Kohut will be unavailable.

    Officials haven’t said how Kohut met Pike, but despite the distance the friendship intensified. Last July, authorities say, Kohut began visiting Pike, sometimes making the 850-mile trek from New Jersey to Nashville twice a month.

    In January, authorities learned Kohut apparently wanted to take the relationship to another level and, with the help of a corrections officer, began hatching a plan to break Pike out of prison.

    Kohut was arrested at his home Tuesday, March 20 and charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit escape. After Tennessee authorities became aware of the escape plan, the investigation led police to Justin Heflin, a 23-year-old corrections officer who allegedly took bribes for helping with the plan, said Kristin Helm, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations.

    Heflin was indicted in February on charges of bribery, official misconduct and conspiracy.

    Heflin's father, Johnny Heflin, said his son told him that Kohut threatened him into helping with the plot. "From what I understand, the guy threatened him and said that he would kill him and his family," Johnny Heflin said.

    Kohut, a native of Belle Mead, once wrestled for Hillsborough High School, said his father, Donald Kohut Sr. The elder Kohut expressed shock at his son's alleged involvement.

    "There's got to be some kind of misunderstanding to this whole thing," he said in a telephone interview. "There's got to be more to this."

    http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-d...ed_in_ten.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
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    Final death-row appeal of Christa Gail Pike delayed again

    A years-long legal fight over whether convicted killer Christa Gail Pike's trial was fair just got longer.

    Knox County Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz was forced to grant another delay in a hearing to determine whether Pike received a fair trial when she was convicted and sentenced to death in March 1996 for the January 1995 torture slaying of fellow Job Corps student and romantic rival Colleen Slemmer.

    A final round of post-conviction appeals is aimed at convincing Leibowitz that her defense team at the time was so derelict as to violate her rights.

    Today's delay was prompted by the withdrawal from Pike's defense team of attorney Catherine Brockenborough, who cited problems with her law practice as the reason.

    The announcement appeared to upset Pike, who cried and attempted to hug Brockenborough. The move was blocked by guards because of prison security rules.

    Leibowitz has rescheduled the hearing, which will last 4 to 5 days, to begin April 7, 2008.

    Pike was 18 when she grew jealous of Slemmer over Tadaryl Shipp, 17.

    The three and another participant in the killing, Shadolla Peterson, 18, all were students at the now-defunct Job Corps training program for troubled youth.

    Court testimony showed that Pike hatched a plan to attack Slemmer, enlisting Shipp and Peterson.

    Slemmer, who was 19, was beaten, sliced with a box cutter and meat cleaver, and then bludgeoned to death. A pentagram was carved in her chest.

    In July of this year, however, Pike's new taxpayer-funded attorneys sought to show that her prior defenders failed to put on proof that Pike suffered bi-polar disorder and was under the sway of a manipulative, violent Shipp.

    Shipp, a defense witness, himself sought to portray Pike as an "edgy" woman who would sometimes "black out" with attacks of rage for which she always was remorseful. He also sought through his testimony to minimize her role in the slaying.

    "I carved every last bit of it," Shipp testified of the pentagram.

    He also testified that he was the one who brought the meat cleaver and box cutter.

    Because of his age, Shipp could not be sentenced to death. He is serving a life sentence.

    Peterson, a key witness in the case, walked away with probation.

  7. #7
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    Christa Gail Pike broke down in tears today as she listened to herself confess to killing Colleen Slemmer in 1995.

    Pike's lawyers played the tape of her confession to Knoxville Police Department Investigator Randy York claiming she was going through mood swings and a distraught emotional state at the time.

    York, now retired, said that's not the way he remembers it.

    Pike was emotional at times, he said, but acting "very jovial and very cooperative" at times as well. "She was not at all combative," York testified.

    Pike also sobs on the tape.

    "Where in this statement was the jovial part," her lawyer, post-conviction defender Donald Dawson asked. "We have a woman who seems to be struggling with her composure."

    York disagreed.

    "I don't detect any of that in here, and I don't think you do either," York said. "She never lost her composure. She was always able to keep talking."

    On Jan. 12, 1995, Pike and fellow Job Corps students Tadaryl Shipp and Shadolla Peterson beat and slashed classmate Colleen Slemmer and carved a pentagram on her chest with a box-cutter before killing her at a remote corner of the University of Tennessee's agricultural campus. Pike and Slemmer had competed for Shipp's affection.

    Pike was sentenced to death after a 1996 trial, a sentence she's appealing.

    A police video shot a few hours after her initial confession shows a calm, dry-eyed, occasionally smiling Pike leading police through the crime scene, pointing out the spot where Slemmer died and miming the motion of killing her.

    Testimony is expected to continue until at least 7 this evening.

    Prominent Knoxville defense attorney Herbert S. Moncier is expected to testify that he advised Diana McCoy, a defense psychologist who interviewed Pike but never testified at the 1996 trial, that a previous relationship she had with lead prosecutor Bill Crabtree wasn't a conflict of interest.

    McCoy testified today that she believes she could have helped convince jurors to spare Pike the death penalty had the defense allowed her to speak to her conclusions regarding Pike.

    McCoy put together a three-volume report on Pike's background, including a history of childhood rejection and physical, sexual and drug abuse.

    She discussed those findings at length today.

    She said her interviews with Pike and those who knew her painted a portrait of a troubled, scared girl of above-average intelligence who would do anything to hang on to a relationship.

    Pike reported sometimes she would suffer blackouts just before an angry or violent outburst, McCoy said.

    "Once Christa gets mad, it's all over," a friend of Pike's told her.

    Pike's current lawyers say that evidence might have saved her life, but Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price says none of McCoy's testimony - or anyone else's - could have overcome Pike's detailed confessions to Knoxville police.

    "I read that transcript (of the 1996 sentencing hearing)," McCoy testified Wednesday. "It was so puny I could hardly describe it. After the hearing, I was in shock. Here's this woman sentenced to death, and I had done all this work for her."

    Her former lawyers, Bill Talman and Julie Ann Martin Rice, testified earlier this week they didn't call McCoy to testify because her findings might shock the jury and didn't match another expert's diagnosis.

    Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, appeared in court Wednesday seeking to take her daughter's skull and the piece of it that Pike kept as a souvenir home to Florida for burial.

    Criminal Court Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz says she can't allow that because the skull and its shards remain evidence in the case while it's on appeal.

    "It really hurts," Martinez said afterward. "I know my daughter's not going home with me. The only thing I really wanted was to get my daughter's body back."

    The scene brought on an outburst of tears and apology from Pike, who's making a last bid to overturn her death sentence for the torture killing of Slemmer, 19.

    "She kept saying, 'May, I'm sorry,' " Martinez said. "The skull was right there on the table in front of her, so she couldn't get away from it. I guess she couldn't take that. I feel sorry for her."

    Regarding the psychologist's testimony, Pike's attorneys also said Wednesday they found out in the middle of the trial that she'd dated lead prosecutor Bill Crabtree.

    McCoy said none of that's true. She said she dated Crabtree briefly about two years before the trial and told the defense team early in the case. She said Talman told her not to worry and that Rice joked at the thought of the couple's sex life.

    "The day the guilty verdict came back, Bill Talman called me," McCoy testified. "He was in a total meltdown. He said Bill Crabtree was very upset because (the report) was all hearsay. He said, 'I can't have you testify.' "

    The jury sentenced Pike to death the next day. She asked at one point to be executed but later revived her appeals.

  8. #8
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    Physical appearance is certainly a debatable topic. From the legal aspect NO it isn't, justice should be blind, but the issue is still there. At the time of this crime Pike was a member of Job Corps..that was a dumping ground for all the bad kids. We can not ignore the fact that she used her looks, and other physical attributes to gain control.

    Pike is the epitome of pure evil. Amazingly she sits on TN death row. Pike is probably the most sought after female death row inmate, she must receive hundreds of letters a month.

    Moh, I understand Rob's comments. On another site you and I were equally defensive of Amanda Knox based on legal issues. Is Knox guilty..probably..is she cute yes...Will we still have the same convictions 15 years from now when Amanda isn't freshed faced?

  9. #9
    Nicole Price
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    Everyone deserves a second chance, and these troubled youths are no exception. These youths should be sent to some military boot camp to teach them discipline, manners, and respect for others. Military boot camps can aid in teaching youths discipline while giving them an education. They are great for those youths who do not have any major behavioral issues, but just require more structure in their lives.
    Last edited by Nicole Price; 07-04-2012 at 10:38 AM.

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    I agree that military boot camps are a wonderful educational alternative for misguided youth. Not sure the structure would have done much for the sociopath Christa Pike. Her crime was driven by jealously, and lust. She lacked respect for authority. No amount of push ups would have curbed Pike's sadistic behavior.

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