Why Christa Pike's accomplice Shadolla Peterson avoided prison while she was handed death penalty at 18
Christa Pike was just 18 when she took part in the 1995 murder of fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer.
Now 50, Pike is due to die by lethal injection in Tennessee in just four days' time, following more than 30 years on death row.
But the convicted killer - who would become the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years if her execution goes ahead - was not the only person involved in Slemmer's brutal killing.
In fact, there were three defendants involved in the case.
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While Pike was sentenced to death, her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, received life in prison with the possibility of parole.
And then there was 19-year-old Shadolla Peterson, another young Job Corps student who was involved in the events surrounding Slemmer's murder.
Unlike Pike and Shipp, however, Peterson did not spend decades behind bars.
Instead, she received a very different punishment - probation.
So, how did three teenagers involved in the same case end up with such dramatically different futures?
It's a question many long-time followers of Pike's harrowing case have asked for decades - and with her execution finally looming, many fear they may never receive an answer.
What did Pike, Shipp and Peterson do?
In late 1994, troubled West Virginia teenager Christa Pike enrolled at the Job Corps centre in Knoxville, hoping to train as a nursing assistant.
Her childhood had been plagued by instability, neglect and mental health struggles, the latter of which Pike later said were connected to being sexually assaulted as a child, including being raped at 11 and again by a stranger at 17.
She had struggled severely at school and spent time in a juvenile facility before eventually earning her GED.
After joining the Job Corps, Pike began dating 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp, with the pair going on to form a close friendship with Shadolla Peterson.
After a while, Pike became convinced that another student, Colleen Slemmer, had taken an interest in Shipp and planned to steal him away from her.
On 12 January 1995, she, Shipp and Peterson lured Slemmer to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee's Agricultural campus under the guise of wanting to make peace.
Instead, the trio attacked Slemmer for around 30 minutes, beating and cutting her before she was killed.
Pike was also accused of carving a pentagram into Slemmer's chest, and reportedly kept a piece of her skull.
In the days that followed, she showed her gory 'souvenir' to another student, resulting in Pike, Shipp and Peterson being arrested.
Pike confessed to her role in Slemmer's murder, but insisted she had been trying to scare her fellow student and that the group's plan had quickly spun out of control.
Why did Pike and Shipp receive different punishments?
The details of the attack became central to the prosecution's case against Pike.
She was formally sentenced to death in 1996 after being convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
At the time, she became the youngest woman in modern US history to receive a death sentence.
"Your body shall be subjected to a shock by sufficient current of electricity that you shall die," she was told in court. "May God have mercy upon you."
Shipp, meanwhile, was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder but received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
The crucial difference was his age.
Shipp was 17 at the time of the killing and therefore was not eligible for the death penalty, meaning prosecutors could not seek capital punishment against him. He remains incarcerated.
In October 2025, the Tennessee Board of Parole denied his request for release, with his next review now scheduled for 2031.
What happened to Peterson?
According to the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals, Peterson testified against Pike and Shipp after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact.
As part of the agreement, she received a six-year probationary sentence.
And unlike Pike and Shipp, there is little recent public information about her today.
There does not appear to be reliable reporting establishing where Peterson lives, what she does or whether she has spoken publicly about the case in recent years.
Her last known legal status is fundamentally different from that of the other two defendants – she completed the sentence imposed after her guilty plea.
The stark difference in how Pike, Shipp and Peterson were sentenced has featured heavily in arguments made by Pike's legal team in the years since Slemmer's murder.
What have Pike's lawyers said about her sentencing?
Pike's team have repeatedly argued that the contrast between the punishments shows how heavily the age difference between her and Shipp affected the outcome of the case.
More recently, Shipp's former trial lawyer, M. Christopher Coffey, wrote in support of Pike's clemency application, arguing that the disparity between their sentences resulted from their slight age difference rather than their respective roles in the crime.
Pike's team have also argued that the person who committed the crime at 18 cannot be separated from the child Pike had been for years beforehand.
According to a 226-page clemency petition filed this month, her lawyers allege that the frequent abuse Pike suffered as a child left her with severe, untreated trauma.
They argue that this history provides important context for understanding how a troubled teenager came to commit the crime.
The petition also raises concerns about Pike's mother's alcohol use during pregnancy, arguing that this may have contributed to frontal-lobe brain damage.
Her lawyers argue that these issues were not adequately presented to the jury that sentenced her to death.
Has Pike spoken about her crime?
After decades in prison, Pike has also spoken about how she views what happened.
In a handwritten letter, Pike described the murder as the 'worst mistake' of her life and referred to herself at the time as a mentally ill 18-year-old.
She also wrote that it took her years to understand the consequences of what she had done.
"I took the life of someone's child, sister, friend," Pike penned, adding that it 'sickens' her to think that she could have committed such a crime.
Her legal team now says Pike accepts that she should remain imprisoned for life, but argues that she should not be executed.
What happens if Pike's execution goes ahead?
As we say, Pike is currently scheduled to be executed at 10am local time on 30 September at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.
The Tennessee Supreme Court set the date in September 2025 after determining that there was no legal reason at that stage preventing the execution.
But the legal process has continued since then.
Pike's lawyers have challenged Tennessee's lethal-injection procedure and have continued seeking relief.
Her clemency petition is now before Governor Bill Lee.
International human-rights experts have also called for the execution to be halted, while Amnesty International has urged Tennessee to commute Pike's sentence.
As things stand, however, 30 September remains the scheduled execution date.
Topics: True Crime, Crime, US News, Real Life, News
Rhianna Benson