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Thread: Christa Gail Pike - Tennessee Death Row

  1. #31
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    Judge ponders appeal motion after hearing

    A Nashville judge says he will issue a written decision on a motion by Tennessee's only woman on death row to overturn an attempted murder conviction.

    The inmate, Christa Gail Pike, is also at the center of a death row escape plot.

    On Thursday, Pike's attorney argued that his client's 2004 conviction for nearly strangling another prisoner with a shoestring should be thrown out because of ineffective counsel.

    The Tennessean (http://tnne.ws/Ixwiwp) reported Nashville Criminal Court Judge Randall Wyatt heard an hour of arguments by Pike's new attorney and a state prosecutor and then said he would issue a written ruling on the defense motion in two to three weeks.

    Pike was sentenced to die for the 1995 torture, murder and mutilation of fellow Job Corps student Coleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

    http://www.volunteertv.com/news/head...5.html?ref=935
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  2. #32
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    N.J. man accused in failed Tennessee jailbreak is arrested again

    The Raritan Township man accused of trying to mastermind the jailbreak of Tennesee’s lone female death row inmate earlier this year has been arrested again on theft and forgery charges, investigators said today.

    Donald Kohut Jr. allegedly used a fake mortgage document to receive $115,000 in cash earlier this month, and cops seized $24,000 in potentially ill-gotten gains from him over the weekend, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Anthony P. Kearns III said.

    On March 21, Kohut was one of two men arrested and charged with plotting a jailbreak for Christa Gail Pike, who became the youngest woman in the country to receive a death sentence when she was charged with the romance-fueled slaying of a teenager in 1996.

    Kohut posted his $250,000 bail, but Kearns said Hunterdon County investigators began to receive tips about "alleged financial crimes involving Kohut" a short time later. Prosecutors allege that Kohut took out a mortgage to purchase a home, created a fake document known as a "Discharge of Mortage" and then had it notarized.

    Kohut then secured a second mortgage on the property, visited the Hunterdon County Clerk’s office, and cashed out with $115,000 according to Kearns. He was arrested today without incident.

    Kohut was charged today with theft by deception, forgery, uttering a forged document and falsifying public records. Kearns would not say if the mortgage allegations were connected to Kohut’s alleged scheme to break Pike out of prison, and he declined to comment furhter on the jailbreak plot, citing the ongoing investigation.

    The 34-year-old remains at the Hunterdon County Correctional Facility in lieu of $115,000 bail. Kearns said additional charges are expected.

    http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/201...led_tenne.html
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  3. #33
    Passed away. Rob's Avatar
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    I bet Christa has dropped this guy like a hot potato. For sure if he's behind bars she can't use him for financial assistance or to try to bust her out of the joint.

    Trying to break someone out of DR? He's not the smartest cat is he?

  4. #34
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Pike's petition for writ of certiorari and motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis was DENIED.
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  5. #35
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    Story of the skull: Christa Gail Pike still on death row

    Pike still on death row, victim's skull still in storage

    Seventeen years after her death, Colleen Slemmer's skull still lies unburied.

    The skull, together with the shard taken by her killer as a souvenir, remains the key exhibit against Christa Gail Pike, Tennessee's only woman on death row.

    Pike was 18 when she killed Slemmer the night of Jan. 12, 1995, barely a year younger than her victim. She smiled on a police video as she described carving a pentagram into Slemmer's chest with a box cutter, bashing her skull with chunks of asphalt and taking a piece of bone as a trophy.

    Slemmer and Pike were fellow students at the Knoxville Job Corps Center, together with Tadaryl Shipp, 18. Pike and Shipp "dabbled" in the occult and claimed to worship Satan, but police ultimately concluded a love triangle led to Slemmer's death at the hands of Pike, Shipp and a third student, Shadolla Renee Peterson.

    Shipp and Peterson held Slemmer down while Pike carved the pentagram and bashed her skull, police said. The killing took about 30 minutes.

    The trio abandoned Slemmer's body at a remote corner of the University of Tennessee College of Agriculture campus, where they'd lured her with a ruse of smoking marijuana.

    Pike's lawyers argued at trial she suffered from various mental disorders and that Slemmer's death resulted from a fight gone out of control. Jurors weren't convinced.

    A Knox County jury on March 30, 1996, sentenced Pike to death for first-degree murder.

    Pike remains on death row as appeals continue in her case. She's drawn international attention, including from collectors who sell her letters on the Internet and from a former prison guard accused of organizing a failed plot to free her.

    Slemmer's mother, May Martinez, has asked that the skull be turned over for burial, to no avail. So long as the case persists, the skull remains evidence, courts have ruled.

    http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/oc...-on-death-row/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  6. #36
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    Killer Christa Gail Pike asks fed court to block her execution

    Convicted killer Christa Gail Pike is asking a federal court to bar the state from killing her.

    Having exhausted — for now, at least — state court appeals, Pike is now turning to U.S. District Court in what is proving an 18-year battle to escape death row for the 1995 slaying of romantic rival Colleen Slemmer at the now-defunct Job Corps training program for troubled youth, then in Fort Sanders.

    In a 123-page petition filed on Pike's behalf, Assistant Federal Defender Stephen A. Ferrell lists a host of reasons why Pike's constitutional rights were violated in both the 1996 trial in Knox County Criminal Court and penalty phase and those violations ignored by Tennessee's appellate courts.

    Among them is a claim that executing Pike via lethal injection would amount to "cruel and unusual punishment" because she was "a mentally ill, cognitively impaired, immature adolescent" at the time of the killing.

    Pike was 18 and infatuated with 17-year-old Job Corps paramour Tadaryl Shipp in January 1995 when Shipp tossed in her face that Slemmer, 19, had romantic designs on him.

    Pike, prior testimony has shown, enlisted the aid of Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson to exact revenge, luring Slemmer to a secluded spot at the University of Tennessee Agriculture campus. Once there, Slemmer was beaten, sliced with a box cutter and meat cleaver and then bludgeoned to death with a rock. A pentagram was carved on her chest while she was still alive. Pike saved a piece of her skull as a souvenir.

    Shipp, too young to be put to death, is serving a life sentence. Peterson, who turned crucial snitch, walked away with probation. Pike was sentenced to die.

    She lost a first round of state appeals and returned to Criminal Court for round two when she suddenly announced a change of heart, insisting she wanted to abandon her legal battle and die at the hands of the state. Less than a month later, she changed her mind again, prompting a new round of appeals over her flip-flop. Ultimately, the Tennessee Supreme Court sided with Pike's defenders. Back to Criminal Court she went.

    A year of hearings followed in which her new team of defense attorneys attacked her trial attorney as incompetent and mounted a legal campaign to show Pike suffered all manner of mental illness, including brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder. Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz rejected the arguments.

    In April 2011, the state Court of Criminal Appeals backed Leibowitz's ruling, and the state's high court refused to give her another bite at the judicial appeal.

    Armed with a third set of taxpayer-funded attorneys, Pike is now looking to East Tennessee's federal court system for help.

    Ferrell's petition contains all the claims previously raised in Pike's appeals but with a new twist, arguing state courts trampled on her constitutional rights. The state Attorney General's Office, in a 90-page response, repeatedly asserts state court rulings were legally correct.

    http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2013/fe...ourt-to-block/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  7. #37

  8. #38
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    Mother Of Victim Speaks Out About Christa Pike's Appeal

    She's the only woman on death row in Tennessee's prison system, but Christa Pike is asking a federal judge to prevent her execution.

    May Martinez's daugther, Colleen Slemmer, was brutally murdered by Pike, and she fears if Pike gets her way, other people's lives will be in danger.

    "My main thing is to keep her behind bars so she can't hurt anybody else," said Martinez.

    Pike's lawyer filed a petition claiming his client's constitutional rights were violated at the 1996 trial where she was convicted of torturing and killing Slemmer. Both Pike and Slemmer were students at a now-closed Job Corps training center in Knoxville. The murder is believed to be because of a love triangle involving another student, Tadaryl Shipp, who is serving a life prison sentence.

    Pike's petition described her as a "mentally ill, cognitively impaired, immature adolescent" at the time, but Martinez doesn't buy it and wants to see her daughter get the justice she deserves.

    "I am still fighting to keep her there," said Martinez. "I am still fighting to get Colleen buried again, and I want to make sure she gets her punishment for doing this because she will hurt another human being if she gets out again."

    http://www.newschannel5.com/story/21202456/christa-pike
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  9. #39
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    Somewhat related.

    Teen sociopaths: Girls almost got away with gruesome murder

    On May 25, 2013 numerous reports revealed secret transcripts related to the murder of missing teen Skylar Neese. She was brutally murdered by two of her friends -- teenage girls -- who then participated in searches for her while avoiding suspicion. One of the teens even comforted their victim's mother as the dear friend of her missing daughter. It was all a sham, a ploy carefully plotted by the two teens to get away with the murder of someone that trusted them. One of the two teens have already pleaded guilty in the slaying, the apparent mastermind Rachel Shoaf, but the other one has not. The teens' known involvement in this slaying has the town of Star City, W.Va. reeling in shock.

    How could teen girls plot, carry out and potentially get away with a brutal murder? This question (and others) is being asked by many in the town where this all took place. It's hard to imagine that teen girls could do such a thing. These are, after all, children. Nonetheless, children can and do commit heinous acts -- and it's not at all surprising to see such a crime be plotted and committed by two or more teen girls as opposed to one.

    It's also not surprising to see that one of the two is more dominant and forward in how she handles herself -- the alpha female of the two teens involved in this murder. Rachel Shoaf owned up to what she did, but the reason why she plotted to kill her friend -- and succeeded -- hasn't been revealed. With the other teen not pleading guilty immediately to this crime, it seems as though she might have somehow been coerced or pressured into the act by the other teen. This is something that has been displayed by other gruesome murders involving teenage girls.

    This is certainly not the first time teen girls have done such a heinous thing. The murder of Colleen Slemmer in 1995 involved multiple young women -- headed by ringleader Christa Pike, who is on death row in Tenn. The teens who worked with Pike in the gruesome slaying of Colleen Slemmer acted out of a pack mentality, but it was ultimately Christa Pike who took the other teen's life, even keeping a piece of her skull as a trophy. The motive for this grisly crime: Jealousy. Christa thought that Colleen was a threat to her relationship with a young man.

    Another horrible murder involving children that comes to mind is the murder of nine-year-old Elizabeth Olton. The person behind this senseless murder was 15-year-old Alyssa Bustamante (who is now an adult serving time in prison). Bustamente's motive for killing the little girl was just as cold as the act itself. She simply wanted to see what it was like to kill.

    Will Skylar Neese get justice for what happened to her?

    Judging by the stories shared above that are similar to hers, it's safe to say that there will be justice. Though, it's hard to say of what variety. These are teenage girls that are involved with the case, so it goes without saying that the death penalty is absolutely off the table. To some people, this isn't justice and all is already lost. But it's likely that the girls responsible for this will never see freedom again.

    http://www.examiner.com/article/teen...ruesome-murder
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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

  10. #40
    Senior Member CnCP Addict maybeacomedian's Avatar
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    Here's the segment on Christa Gail Pike, featured on the 'Women on Death Row' series:


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