Death row killer Christa Pike has one request for her execution which takes place in two days

Christa Pike has issued the people closest to her one final request as she faces execution in just two days.

The 50-year-old is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Tennessee on Wednesday (30 Sept), more than three decades after she was sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

But as the final hours approach, Pike has reportedly told her loved ones that she does not want them to witness her execution.

Pike was 18 when she was convicted of murdering Slemmer, whom she had met at a Job Corps training centre in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Pike believed Slemmer had insulted her and was trying to take her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp.

In January 1995, Pike, Shipp and another student, Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to an isolated area near the University of Tennessee's Agricultural campus, brutally attacking and killing her.

Pike, Shipp and Peterson all received very different sentences (WBIR/NBC)

Pike was later convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to death in 1996, while Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was also convicted of the same offences but received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.

Peterson pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and testified against Pike and Shipp, receiving six years' probation.

Now, after more than 30 years on death row, Pike will become the first woman to die as ordered by the state of Tennessee in more than 200 years if her execution goes ahead.

According to the BBC, with her death looming, Pike recently messaged her friend Ashlee Sellars from death row and explained that she doesn't want her loved ones to experience the execution.

"She doesn't want us to experience that," she explained.

Pike was sentenced to death in 1996 (Tennessee Department of Corrections)

Sellars, who has known Pike in prison, has spoken about the difficulty of reconciling the woman she knows with the crime she committed as a teenager.

The pair met while Sellars was serving a sentence for her involvement in a robbery-murder. They communicated through the meal flaps in their cell doors on the high-security unit.

Sellars - who now works as an advocate for justice reform and victims of crime - told the BBC that she believes both Slemmer's life and Pike's life matter, while acknowledging the devastating impact of Slemmer's death.

"People want to know that everyone's life matters, right? They want to know that Colleen's life mattered," Sellars continued. "Christa, in this moment, I think she is fighting much more for her life to matter than she is to actually live."

The request comes as Pike's legal team continues to fight to prevent the execution from going ahead.

Slemmer had been a student at the Job Corps, alongside Pike (First Coast News/ABC)

There are still potential legal avenues available to her, however, including her clemency petition and further court action.

Her lawyers have submitted a 226-page petition to Tennessee Governor Bill Lee asking for her death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment without parole.

They argue that Pike's childhood was marked by extensive abuse, rape, neglect and abandonment, circumstances which they say were not properly presented to the jury that sentenced her to death.

Pike was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder while incarcerated, and her defence team has also raised concerns about PTSD and the impact of her childhood trauma.

Her team have separately requested that an all-female team be involved in her execution, arguing that being restrained and handled by male officers could exacerbate trauma linked to her history of sexual abuse.

Pike was 18 when she was sentenced (Cornell Law School)

Tennessee has said female corrections officers will transfer Pike to the prison and that efforts will be made to have female staff present, although the state has not guaranteed that everyone involved in the execution will be a woman.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has rejected challenges to the planned execution, but Pike's lawyers say they are continuing to pursue further options.

Pike's latest request comes days after she spoke publicly about the murder and her feelings towards Slemmer's family.

In the documentary Dead Woman Walking: Pike Vs Tennessee, the convicted killer said she has always felt sorry for Slemmer's mother.

"I’ve always felt bad for her mother, that I took someone’s child, someone’s sister, someone’s friend away," she said. "I feel remarkably remorseful for what I did."