U.S. appeals court halts convicted woman’s execution at the last minute

The execution of Krista Gail Pike in Tennessee, convicted of a murder she committed at the age of 18, was interrupted today by order of a federal appeals court only one hour before the planned execution.

The court asked to re-examine whether Pike’s allegations of sexual abuse and rape in her childhood were fully taken into consideration during sentencing, AP reports.

Pike, now 50, and her boyfriend were convicted of stabbing and beating to death in 1995 the 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, their schoolmate at a job-training center in Knoxville.

The case attracted wide attention at the time, partly because of the pentagram carved into Slemmer’s body and other elements of the crime that evoked fears of satanic-cult glorification in the 1980s and 1990s.

Execution witnesses had already gathered at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville when the order to halt the execution came at around 09:00 in the morning U.S. Central Time.

It was not immediately clear whether Tennessee’s attorney general would appeal the federal appeals court’s decision, or how long the execution might be delayed.

As the execution date approached, the debate over the death penalty for juvenile offenders was revived.

Pike does not deny that she committed the murder, but her supporters argue that the state should take into account her age at the time of the crime, her mental illness and her history of severe sexual abuse, including rape since she was a girl.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Ferrell said her death sentence was an exception, because other 18-year-olds on death row in Tennessee have had their sentences changed.

“I was an 18-year-old child with mental illness. It took me many years to understand the gravity of what I did, and even more to accept how many lives I destroyed. I took the life of someone’s child, sister, friend. Now I am tormented just by the thought that I was capable of committing such a crime”, Pike said in a statement that was part of her plea for mercy.

On the other hand, the mother of the murdered Colleen Slemmer wants the death sentence to be carried out and says she has waited for decades to see it implemented.