Youngest Woman on Death Row: Christa Pike | World’s Most Evil Prisoners | Forensic Files

[dramatic music] NARRATOR: In the heart of the state of Tennessee, hidden from sight off a busy highway,
is a prison that's home to one of the world's most notorious murderers, Christa Pike.
Christa Pike? I think she's not a human being. She's manipulative. She knows how to sort of be charming and sympathetic
and be somebody that you sort of could be wooed by. She's kind of almost like a chameleon.
Very sneaky, very sly. This gal? I seen nothing good, as a human being, about her.
She's pure evil. NARRATOR: Christa Pike committed a brutal killing. Her crime was particularly violent.
Her victims suffered for a very long time. MAY MARTINEZ: Christa kept a piece of her skull
and put it in her black leather jacket. That was her souvenir. NARRATOR: Pike was a satanist and believed
her victim to be a sacrifice. Her forehead was cut several places. Her throat was cut, and she had a massive circle with a star
upside down, the star called the pentagram. NARRATOR: Pike was one of the youngest women
ever to be sent to death row in the US. She tried to kill another girl in prison.
She's gotten two guards fired. INTERVIEWER: What do you think when you think about the electric chair?
CHRISTA PIKE: I don't really think about that because I don't think I'm ever gonna see it.
She is exactly where she belongs. [doors slam] Don't wait another 20 years. Put this girl to death right now.
[dramatic music] [siren wailing] [dramatic music] NARRATOR: The Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation
Center has held Christa Pike on death row since 1996. [tense music] JOHN NORTH: Here was this kind of cute,
innocent-looking girl with long, sort of reddish hair off and up. Little, petite.
And you would look at her and think, that's the person who did this? RANDY YORK: Now, when talking to Christa,
she sounded just like a 10, 11, 12-year-old little girl. And if you turned your back on her,
you would think she's just a kid, a little kid. [camera shutter snaps] [tense music]
JOHN NORTH: I would compare her to Hannibal Lecter in the sense that, here is a charming, intelligent person
that you think, oh, I like their company. They're thoughtful and well-spoken. And that might be the most dangerous kind.
Because before you realize it, it's too late. And you may be in great danger. KIM ILIOLO: I didn't realize that that little whimsical, fun
ball of fire that I was calling my best friend could do that, something so evil and so heinous
that there's no coming back from that. JOHN NORTH: This wasn't just an attack with them slicing
her back, cutting her neck, which they did, or stabbing her so many times that the medical examiner lost
count. NARRATOR: Christa Pike was sent to death row at the age of 18. But even with the toughest sentence possible hanging over
her, she refused to behave. RANDY YORK: There were two guards that she was having sex with in the prison,
and they caught one. And the other one was fixing to help her escape off of death row.
She's very dangerous. I think Christa Pike would do it again in a heartbeat. She likes blood.
She likes crime. She likes cutting. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike grew up in North Carolina, a state
of rolling hills and huge expanses of countryside, but her childhood was far from idyllic.
JOHN NORTH: I knew that she had an extremely rough childhood, tough growing up. Being bounced from parent to parent to grandparent,
it was hard. KIM ILIOLO: Her mom was never really there, never present. I mean, she was there long enough to be angry
and to yell at her. A lot of times, there was alcohol in the house, but there was no food.
NARRATOR: As she grew up, sexual abuse became a prominent feature in her life. RANDY YORK: She was molested by her mother's boyfriends.
Her and her mother smoked pot together when she was very young, and she just had a terrible childhood.
JOHN NORTH: Her mother had multiple husbands and multiple men, some of whom were abusive.
It was extreme for her. LINA HAJI: It's not just that the sexual abuse occurred to her.
It's that the sexual abuse occurred to her, and then there was no type of support, no type of care,
no type of treatment for her to address that trauma. And so that probably had a very long-standing, negative effect
on Christa Pike's psychological development and the way she viewed herself, as well as the world.
NARRATOR: At the age of 18, Pike dropped out of school and moved to Knoxville, Tennessee.
The original capital of Tennessee, Knoxville, lies in the east of the state, at the foothills
of the Smoky Mountains. Knoxville always has got this kind of strange news vein,
if you will. There's always something kind of odd going on. It's a smaller town.
It's not a big town like Atlanta or Nashville. RANDY YORK: Knoxville was growing in the 1990s.
It was growing fast. And so things were changing. KIM ILIOLO: There was colleges everywhere.
There were little outside cafes, and everybody was out walking and talking and meeting
people and eating dinner. And it was just fun. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike joined a nursing course
at the government-run Job Corps program, which had a base in Knoxville. JOE MODE: The actual Knoxville Job
Corps Center at Dell Avenue used to be an old hotel, a Holiday Inn. My mamaw actually worked there as a maid,
and there's about five floors. My name is Joe Mode. I worked at the Knoxville Job Corps
from 1992 up till April 1995. NARRATOR: Joe taught many subjects at Job Corps, including cultural awareness, reading, and parenting skills.
JOE MODE: You know, it was designed for kids that, you know, maybe had a difficult home life,
maybe had problems in school and, you know, typically kids maybe from 15 up to 20, 22 years of age
to get a second chance and to learn a job skill like nursing, you know, business, clerical, building trades.
I think the Knoxville Job Corps had maybe about 350 students at the time, you know,
that I was working there. NARRATOR: Although the program started off well, it soon began to attract a different type of student.
Somewhere along the line, the thoughts were to put troubled kids in the Job Corps Center
if they committed a criminal act rather than go to prison and let them join the Job Corps.
JOE MODE: A lot of the very good students often were harassed or beat up, you know, jumped, you know.
And they left. And things like that often happened. And we lost some, you know, very bright students, you know,
that really wanted to try. NARRATOR: Christa Pike became part of this troubled environment, but she quickly found
a good friend in Kim Iliolo. KIM ILIOLO (VOICEOVER): We had a lot of the same classes.
And Christa's room was probably five doors down. I was sitting outside, and she walked over.
And she said, can I sit here? I said, yep. And that was the end of it. We were kind of inseparable at that point.
Christa was very much my best friend. NARRATOR: The two friends hung out together, riding the free trolley bus around Knoxville.
KIM ILIOLO: From 4:00 until 10 o'clock, it was free time. So we would all just sign ourselves
out and head up to the strip. And that's where we stayed for hours. You know, hardly anybody had any money.
We just hung out with each other. It was a lot of fun. It was actually a lot of fun.
NARRATOR: Kim and Christa became so close, they came to depend on one another. KIM ILIOLO: She was always laughing.
And she would go out of her way to do things special just to make you feel better or to make you--
when I was sick, she went all the way up that huge hill and just-- she went and got me candy.
And she's like, just so you feel better. Love you. She was a ball of life. NARRATOR: Little did Kim know, that her fun
loving best friend would commit one of the most horrific murders Knoxville had ever witnessed.
[tense music] Another student at Job Corps was 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. JOHN NORTH: My impression of Colleen is,
here is a woman who was trying to do the best that she could, who had had some rough times as a girl.
Her parents were split. JOE MODE: Colleen was very sweet. She'd often come to my class, and, you know,
we'd talk about life and things going on, just in general. Colleen was just a very sweet, quiet, mild-mannered, you know,
young lady. You know, she was just sweet. NARRATOR: Colleen Slemmer was born and raised in Florida
and had come to Knoxville Job Corps to do a six-month course in computing. MAY MARTINEZ (VOICEOVER): My name
is May Martinez, the mother of Colleen Anne Slemmer. Colleen was a kid that loved to play outside, roller skating.
She'd do a lot of Special Olympics and stuff like that and helping others all the time.
Florida didn't have any Job Corps government program for her. What she wanted was to get closer to was Tennessee.
She had a mom who loved her dearly. She had sisters who loved her. Yeah, I think there was hope that she was gonna come out
of this having learned some skills and get on the road to a profession. NARRATOR: For Colleen, moving states
was an exciting opportunity. MAY MARTINEZ: My husband and her and me all taught, and we did not want her to go
because it's too far from home. I wanted her with me. Colleen has always been an independent person.
She always was a go-getter. So she said she felt good being on her own. She said, look, Mom.
I actually got out. I'm not living at home. [laughs] So it was nice. Colleen was 18 when she went.
She left October 31, in '94. The day she left for Job Corps, that's the last time
we had even seen each other. [tense music] [camera shutter snaps] NARRATOR: In Knoxville, Tennessee,
Christa Pike was enrolled on a nursing course at the Job Corps Center. 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer was also studying there,
but was not having the greatest time. Colleen said there were a couple of kids bothering her.
And they were going in her room, taking her jewelry, taking her clothes, and stuff like that.
She mentioned two girls and a guy. She didn't mention their names. She said there were these three kids just bothering her.
NARRATOR: These three kids were Christa Pike, her new boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and their friend,
Shadolla Peterson. All of them were studying at Job Corps. Pike's best friend, Kim, had introduced Tadaryl to Christa.
KIM ILIOLO: I had already known Tadaryl for a while. So when he got there, he was like, who is that?
And I was like, her name's Christa. And I left him sitting out there, and that was the end of that.
[laughs] Because they were inseparable after that. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: Pike began a relationship with Tadaryl,
but she also developed a vendetta against her boyfriend's previous crush, Colleen.
[tense music] KIM ILIOLO: I think at one point, Tadaryl liked Colleen. But then, like, when Christa got there,
his attention went straight to Christa. And he forgot everybody else. Like, anybody else, he just didn't care.
JOE MODE: I'd understood that there was a love triangle, you know, that maybe Colleen and Tadaryl had dated
and then Pike and Tadaryl. And Christa Pike was jealous. [camera shutter snaps] Christa was extremely possessive of Tadaryl.
Extremely. I didn't realize that that obsession was festering in Christa's head, that Colleen was after Tadaryl.
Christa saw her as a threat. And it was a threat that was so big in her mind that ultimately, she decided, I have to take her out.
[tense music] NARRATOR: Kim noticed Christa's hatred of Colleen had taken a violent turn.
KIM ILIOLO: So it was Saturday afternoon. There were probably 12 or 13 of us just kind of hanging out, just chatting about people they
like, people they didn't like. Colleen's name came up. And Christa said, oh, my god.
I'm gonna kill her. And I said, would you leave that girl alone? She didn't do anything to you.
And she smiled at me. She winked, and the next subject-- and that was all. NARRATOR: On January 12, 1995, Christa Pike
turned her words into actions. Pike, Shipp, and their friend, Shadolla Peterson,
decided to lure Colleen away from the Job Corps Center. KIM ILIOLO: I was in my room.
Christa comes in. And she says, well, we're getting ready to go to the park. And I was like, who's going to the park?
Me, Shadolla, and Tadaryl, and Colleen. I'm like, why? We're gonna go smoke in the park.
She winked at me, she smiled at me, then she left. And I watched them all from my balcony.
I watched them all sign out and all four of them leave together. And I probably should have known or should have said, hey,
please don't go to somebody. Because it was just like it was an impending doom kind of feeling in my stomach.
[dramatic music] [tense music] NARRATOR: At 8:50 PM, with the promise of smoking weed,
Colleen was taken through the streets of Knoxville to Tyson Park. And they would have walked down
Cumberland Avenue, toward Tyson Park, which is where we are right now. And they would have cut through right
through here, under the bridge. [tense music] You'll notice, as we keep walking, you begin to feel
like you're in a more remote location, that you're sort of leaving the city behind.
And it was perfect, because they're getting further removed, where nobody can hear them.
NARRATOR: Christa Pike had come armed. Christa Pike took with her a meat cleaver and a box cutter.
So it sounds like there was already some premeditation into what was going to happen in these woods.
[tense music] JOHN NORTH: And it would have been about at this point when Colleen is like, I'm in trouble.
Something's not right. [tense music] NARRATOR: They walked to the edge of the park
and on to the boundary of the University of Tennessee. JOHN NORTH: They get to this point, having walked.
And now, Colleen, Christa, and Tadaryl and-- we don't know-- perhaps Shadolla-- are now turning on Colleen.
And Christa begins to accuse Colleen of having aims on her boyfriend, Tadaryl. [tense music]
NARRATOR: The argument quickly turned violent. They stabbed her. They beat her. They chased her down.
They tortured her, essentially. They tormented her. They talked to her after she begged, let me go.
They wouldn't let her go. [tense music] LINA HAJI: Christa stabbed her over 300 times.
This was slow torture of a girl who was begging for her life and trying to leave, and that did not
seem to affect Christa Pike. MAY MARTINEZ: She fought for 45 minutes of her life.
Every time she would run, they would punch her and cut her and grab her. And when they did that, they knocked her back down again.
They took her clothes off of her, her top and her jacket so she couldn't run anymore.
And then Christa held her down while Tadaryl carved a pentagram in her chest while she was alive.
[tense music] They told me that it was part of a satanic ritual. RANDY YORK: The victim told her that--
she said, if you'll let me go, I'll hitchhike out of here and go home tonight. And Christa said, you know it's too late for that.
You do know who's killing you. NARRATOR: The violence was relentless. JOHN NORTH: Christa picked up a piece of asphalt
and started smashing it against her skull. Because in Christa's words, Christa's words,
"The [bleep] wouldn't die." MAY MARTINEZ: Christa kept banging the rock on her head
and said, do you know who's doing this to you? And Colleen would gurgle blood and say yes.
And she kept doing it until Colleen couldn't talk anymore. [dramatic music] [thuds]
JOHN NORTH: Christa reaches down into this bloody mess and plucks out a piece of her victim's skull as a souvenir.
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: After the murder, Pike, Shipp, and Peterson returned to the Job Corps Center
and signed back in. KIM ILIOLO: She busted my door. And that's when she unfolded this horrendous story.
And I just stood there, just totally in shock. She's like, "The [bleep] wouldn't die."
And I was like, oh. Well, what do you mean? She's like, I cut her throat nine times.
She's like, I stabbed her in the back. It's sickened me and shocked me. But at the same time, it was just like this is not--
I don't even know what to say. NARRATOR: Pike then proudly showed Kim her murder trophy, the fragment of Colleen's skull.
KIM ILIOLO: She showed me the piece. And she said they had stopped at some gas station
to try to clean some of the blood off. And then she looked at me. And she said, but if you tell anybody, I'll kill you, too.
Smiled and winked at me, told me she loved me, then she'd see me in the morning.
[camera shutter snaps] [dramatic music] I tried to go to sleep, but it was like a horror movie.
It kept playing in my head. And so, like, every time I closed my eyes, I seen that.
I seen Colleen's face just, like, coming at me. I was a naive 16-year-old kid. I had no idea what to do or how to handle it.
LINA HAJI: What's interesting about Christa Pike is that she reportedly bragged about having
committed this crime to Piers. That points to this level of huge ego and grandiosity
that is seen often in psychopaths. [dramatic music] [tense music] NARRATOR: Colleen's body was discovered
the next morning, January 13. JOHN NORTH: The body was found sort of in a heap, partially
displayed, partially covered. The testimony was, it's hardly recognizable as a human being.
[somber music] JOE MODE: When they announced that the body had been found and what she was wearing, I told my wife--
I said, oddly enough, I think that might be a girl I know at Job Corps. And sure enough, it was.
NARRATOR: Colleen's mom, May Martinez, had spent the previous night trying to contact her daughter.
MAY MARTINEZ: I couldn't get a hold of Colleen. I kept trying, and they kept saying she wasn't in her room
and she's still out. And she didn't check back in again. And then I kept-- the next morning, I kept calling.
And I had to take my youngest daughter to the doctor's. So when I got home, there was a phone call
on my recording saying, please contact Detective York, homicide. Well, I was extremely upset, because I
kept saying it wasn't true. I said, no, that's not Colleen. KIM ILIOLO: I beat myself up still, because I
seen them all leaving. I could have said to somebody, you know, hey, they're going
to beat her up or something. But I didn't really think it would go that far. I honestly didn't.
[camera shutter snaps] [somber music] [tense music] NARRATOR: 18-year-old Christa Pike,
along with her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, and friend, Shadolla Peterson, had
just tortured and brutally murdered teenager Colleen Slemmer. Once her body was found, it was only a matter of time
before the trail led back to Christa Pike. RANDY YORK: I got the first call about the body
around 7:00, 7:30. My name is Randy York, and I was the criminal investigator assigned to the Job Corps murder.
I went to the scene and viewed the body and the evidence. She was clad only in blue jeans.
She had nothing up top. And she had a massive circle with a star, an upside-down star called a pentagram.
And her forehead was cut several places. Her throat was cut. [camera shutter snaps]
If you don't know what a pentagram is, that's the upside-down star in a circle. And it represents the goat head of Satan.
NARRATOR: It was an open secret at Job Corps that there was a small group of students
who practiced satanism. Two of those were Christa Pike and her boyfriend, Tadaryl.
JOE MODE: I had her in class. And you know some students better than others. But as far as her reputation and Tadaryl's, you know,
we knew that, you know, they were into satanic worship. [tense music] Knoxville, in Tennessee, is the Bible Belt. You'll
find a church on every corner. So, you know, if there are people that do that, you know,
they're an oddity. You know, it wasn't something common at all. [tense music] NARRATOR: Randy talked to the security officer
at the center to see which student had left the building that night. RANDY YORK (VOICEOVER): I looked at the sign-out sheet,
and I saw four people had signed out, Colleen Slemmer, Shadolla Peterson, Christa
Pike, and Tadaryl Shipp. [tense music] Tadaryl, Christa Pike, and Shadolla Peterson
signed back in. There was no signature of Colleen Slemmer. [tense music] I put an officer on each of the rooms,
and I started from one room to the next room, went in and interviewed them. And I found a satanic altar and a Bible
in Tadaryl's room, a lot of satanic literature. I found some in Christa Pike's room.
The more we learned about them, the more we realized they were deep into satanism.
They had tattoos. She had a little devil tattoo on her left chest. [dramatic music]
NARRATOR: Randy now had his suspects with Pike, the ringleader. [tense music] The police informed Colleen's mother of their findings
so far. MAY MARTINEZ: All they could tell me was, they had the three kids in custody who killed Colleen.
And they were pretty sure it was Colleen. Asked me to get her dental records. Sent it to them so they could make a positive identification.
NARRATOR: While in custody, Christa Pike confessed to Colleen's murder. RANDY YORK: She actually played the part of the victim's role
and her role, what she did and how the victim reacted. And she would actually get down and show me how the victim
would beg for her life. I would describe Christa as giddy. And what I mean by that is, she was happy almost
to the point she was silly acting, that she was so happy that what she had done was something great.
And she didn't try to hold anything back. LINA HAJI: The fact that she bragged about this, didn't seem
to display any remorse or any empathy, tells me that she likely enjoyed engaging in this torture
of this poor young girl. [tense music] That's not something you see often. NARRATOR: On January 15, 1995, Randy charged Christa Pike,
Tadaryl Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson with the murder of Colleen Slemmer. [tense music]
JOHN NORTH: We're now in the City County Building, which is the center of government
here in Knoxville and Knox County. And this is the courtroom where Christa was tried for murder.
NARRATOR: When Christa arrived at the court, her manner was unsettling. JOHN NORTH: She would stick out to me
as one of the few that, I think, probably enjoyed the attention. She would look around the courtroom
to see who else was there. One time, I can remember her as she was entering the courtroom, waving at somebody
she knew in the audience. [camera shutter snaps] MAY MARTINEZ: She was laughing and giggling
and writing notes to her mom and laughing with the attorney. She wouldn't face me.
She never faced me, never looked at me. Her parents never said anything. JOHN NORTH: I think what she did gave
her sort of the celebrity status, in a twisted way, that she'd never had. It gave her some kind of identity.
NARRATOR: Christa's friend, Kim, took the stand against her. And her testimony was an important part of the case
for the prosecution. JOHN NORTH: We needed that witness there. Because Kim said Christa came back from the murder
and talked about it and celebrated it and danced around and was all happy about it.
And that was important for the jury to hear. So I think what Kim did was a service.
[somber music] NARRATOR: Controversially, the jury was shown Colleen's skull with its missing fragment.
MAY MARTINEZ: You cannot get emotional in the trials. You cannot say one word, because you
get thrown out of the court. There is no emotion on either side. But as they were passing her skull around
to all the jurors and the pieces just falling everywhere, it was very hard. JOHN NORTH: When Colleen's skull was brought out for the jury
to look at, to show the piece where she had bashed her skull in, Christa sat at the table
and cried during those moments. [somber music] NARRATOR: Hearing the horrifying details
of her daughter's murder took its toll on Colleen's mother. I had quite a bit of nightmares.
You don't sleep. I have to take medication to sleep. It's all too real. Colleen's body, seeing it and identifying it and seeing
her head off and seeing the body parts that I had to deal with was not easy. You know?
[dramatic music] NARRATOR: March 29, 1996, the jury found Christa Pike guilty of the murder of Colleen Slemmer.
[dramatic music] In my career, I've seen some bad things, a lot of horrific murders.
But if you'd have told me that there was anybody like Christa Pike, I'd have never believed it.
[tense music] NARRATOR: The next day, 18-year-old Christa Pike was sent to death row.
WOMAN: It is therefore ordered that you shall be put to death by electrocution--
[sobs] WOMAN: --prescribed by law. And that you shall be transferred to the custody of the warden.
The jury took, I think, around 90 minutes to convict her on the death penalty. And that's unheard of, to come back that quick.
But I think that included an hour for lunch. [laughs] So they saw no good in her, either.
[tense music] WOMAN: And further, that on the 12th day of January 1997, your body shall be subjected to shock by a sufficient current
of electricity. [sobbing] WOMAN: May god have mercy on you. [sobbing] And having just gotten a death sentence,
how would most people react? I might be catatonic, right? Within a matter of hours, she's taking a piece of paper and pen
and writing a letter to Tadaryl saying, hey, love. Can you believe they did this to me?
She writes that letter to Tadaryl completely unrepentant, as a matter of fact, sort of chuckling about it,
saying, huh. I tried to be nice to her, and look what they did to me. That sucks.
[camera shutter snaps] MAY MARTINEZ: I think she should have been put to death right there and then.
If you're going to do that to somebody and carve a pentagram for 45 minutes and take everything like that, why not do it to them?
NARRATOR: Christa Pike was sent straight to prison. But even on death row, she was still a danger to others.
LINA HAJI: Because she had such highly violent tendencies, she went on to attempt to murder another cellmate in her prison.
She was going to death row. She really had nothing to lose, which was just another risk factor for her
to engage in ongoing violence. [tense music] NARRATOR: After being found guilty of the murder of Colleen, Christa Pike
was sent to the Debra K. Johnson Rehabilitation Center in Nashville to await her execution.
[tense music] She's confined pretty much 23 hours a day. And she has said herself she gets an hour
outside for, like, exercise. She's a very unique prisoner in our state. She is the only woman who is facing execution in the state.
The only woman. So there's no one else like her. NARRATOR: When a fellow inmate, Patricia Jones, also in prison
for murder, dared to cross her, Christa Pike's murderous tendencies didn't lay dormant for long.
JOHN NORTH: I'm gonna tell you, Patricia Jones is not a woman I would mess with, and here's why.
She has a violent past. She is a very aggressive, angry person at times. You do not want to toy with Patricia Jones.
In the mid-'90s, about 1994, she was convicted of murdering an old lady in her house.
I think she stabbed her repeatedly. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike was not impressed
when Jones took a dislike to her alleged lover, Natasha Cornett. JOHN NORTH: I think Christa was in a relationship
with Natasha Cornett. And Patricia Jones was somebody who was a negative force in that relationship,
because Patricia didn't like Natasha. And so Christa would take up for Natasha, and that's where she and Patricia would clash.
[tense music] NARRATOR: On August 24, 2001, Pike saw an opportunity to get close to her rival
and went in for the kill. What happened is, there was a fire in the prison, one of several that had happened.
And the prison officials made the decision to take these three violent women, Patricia Jones, Natasha
Cornett, Christa Gail Pike, and put them all in the same space together. Bad move.
[tense music] NARRATOR: Christa and her friend, Natasha, turned on Patricia. Cornett takes a swing at Jones and misses.
And Christa has a shoe lace of some kind. She gets behind Patricia, and she wraps it around her neck.
And she is determined to choke her. They end up down on the floor, and this is Christa's opportunity to try and kill Patricia.
And Patricia's eyes bug out. I think she's choking. [tense music] NARRATOR: Prison officers managed to stop the attack
and pulled the women apart. Essentially, she wasn't breathing. And when they got to her, they jumpstarted her
and got her breathing again. JOHN NORTH: Christa talked freely, freely about the attack
and the attempted murder and said, basically, yeah, I was trying to do it. You should have heard her gurgling.
LINA HAJI: What's interesting in people who are high on psychopathy or who are psychopaths is,
they tend to be very manipulative. They tend to have a lot of superficial charm.
They tend to be very glib. They tend to be very self-serving. NARRATOR: On August 12, 2004, Christa Pike was put on trial
and convicted of attempted first-degree murder, receiving another 25 years on top of her death sentence.
LINA HAJI: She went on to serve her prison time with this idea that she was going to die, regardless.
And so she seems to have developed this idea that it doesn't really matter what I do.
I have nothing to lose at this point. She was a sick puppy. And I wouldn't say crazy, because she knew
exactly what she was doing. She knew it. She knew what she was doing. NARRATOR: Over the years, Christa Pike's behavior has
shown no sign of improvement. I think Christa has always had this ability to manipulate people.
I think she's a very smart person, so let's make that very clear. [dramatic music]
[tense music] LINA HAJI: She wrote to a lot of men while she was in prison. She even managed to convince two men, one from another state
and one correctional officer, to potentially help her escape from prison. KIM ILIOLO: He had a key.
He took the key to the cells and had a copy made and brought it back and put it back on the key ring
and had this extra one. And he was gonna get her out, and they were going to escape and live happily ever after, on the run.
LINA HAJI: To me, that just points more to the high level of psychopathy that she likely had.
Because even though she's engaged in this horrific crime, she still has not taken any accountability.
And her thought process is still to think about her. How can I escape prison? How can I get people to do what I want them to do?
NARRATOR: Her attempted jailbreak was unsuccessful. They were caught, and the correctional officer
was immediately fired. But the warning signs had been there for all to see. JOHN NORTH: This man had been visiting
her frequently in prison, and they knew who he was. It has to set off alarms if you have somebody
who's coming frequently to prison to visit this notorious inmate. That has to be somebody you begin
to pay close attention to, simply because of the why factor. Why are you here? You're not related to her.
You're not family. Why are you here? So eventually, I would imagine-- and there may have been something that happened
that tipped them off, where they were like, wait a minute. We need to pay attention.
For her, it's just part of the celebrity. It's part of the attention that she gets.
And I'd be willing to bet, in Christa Pike's mind, she thinks, well, this is my status.
I deserve this. I deserve this attention, and it's part of who I am. And so men are going to be drawn to me because I'm
an interesting person. [tense music] NARRATOR: Christa Pike's attorneys had tried at least three times, both
in federal and state court, to get her off death row, but failed. [tense music] INTERVIEWER: What do you think when you
think about the electric chair? CHRISTA PIKE: I don't really think about that because I don't think I'm ever going to see it.
I still have a lot of hope. And I know that I don't deserve to be where I'm at. I've seen no remorse in Christa at any time, ever.
I saw TV interviews and stuff with her, and she doesn't say I'm sorry about anything.
She's happy. NARRATOR: A date for Christa Pike's death by electrocution was supposed to have been set in 2020,
but the COVID pandemic delayed the date. [tense music] I will never forgive Christa Pike.
Never. I cannot wait to hold Colleen's picture up when she's executed to see her hurt like she did mine.
If it was up to me, I would have did to her what she did to Colleen, because I think that she deserves that.
[camera shutter snaps] LINA HAJI: When we look at people who are psychopaths or high on psychopathy,
it's a combination of, what we would say, nature versus nurture. So Ms. Pike may have had a predisposition
to engage in criminal acts, but the abusive and neglectful childhood certainly added to that and sped it up.
All of that trauma, combined with a probable predisposition to engage in violence, was just a perfect storm for her
to go on and commit this heinous crime, where she took 45 minutes, if not more, to murder an innocent girl.
MAY MARTINEZ: I am Colleen's voice, and I always will be. And once I'm gone and it still hasn't been settled,
Colleen's baby sister will be my voice. And it will continue until we get satisfaction through the state.
Now, Christa, when it gets down to the nitty-gritty and she's days away from being put to death,
if that ever happens, she might have a tendency to go out with a bang. I still think she thinks it's the greatest thing
she's ever done in her life. [tense music] It's something no mother or father ever has to go through.
And I think what I lived, this story with Colleen, has been the worst nightmare of my life.
[dramatic music]

At 18, Christa Pike commits a brutal murder and becomes one of the youngest women ever sent to death row.

Once behind bars, Christa soon becomes a feared fixture within the prison walls.

World’s Most Evil Prisoners is a chilling exploration of the terrifying offenders sentenced to a lifetime behind bars. Locked away, yet still driven by their twisted desires, these inmates delve into acts of torture, abduction, and homicide. Prepare to confront the criminals from the darkest facets of humanity.

Brief Summary

Christa Pike brutally murdered Colleen Slemmer, showcasing her violent tendencies and manipulative behavior, leading to a death row sentence.

Key points

The Notorious Christa Pike. Christa Pike, one of the world's most notorious murderers, committed a brutal killing.
A Troubled Childhood. Christa Pike's early life was marked by abuse and neglect, shaping her dark path.
The Horrific Murder of Colleen Slemmer. Colleen Slemmer was brutally murdered by Christa Pike and her accomplices in a shocking crime.
Christa Pike's Chilling Confession. While in custody, Christa Pike confessed to Colleen's murder, demonstrating a disturbing lack of remorse.
Trial and Conviction. Christa Pike was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, shocking the community.
Attempted Murder in Prison. Christa Pike attempted to murder a fellow inmate, showcasing her violent tendencies even in prison.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I don't think I'm ever gonna see it.

Christa Pike's response about the electric chair.

1:37WatchApr 19, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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