Christa Pike Scheduled for Execution in Tennessee
Christa Pike is set to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years for a 1995 murder. Her defense team is seeking clemency, arguing that she is a victim of circumstances and would not face the death penalty under current legal standards.
First reported 2 days ago · latest update 2 hours ago
"My heart breaks every single day because I keep reliving it and reliving it, and I can't no more, and I want this to happen before I die," she added.
"There's not a day goes by that I don't think about Colleen or how she died and how rough it was. I just want Christa down so I can end it, relieve my daughter, so she finally can be resting."
The Justice Coalition, a victims' rights advocacy group, has raised money to help Martinez travel to Tennessee to watch the execution.
The group's executive director, Robert Bracewell, said this sentence was determined by a jury of Pike's peers and it was what Colleen's family want.
"We stand firm with the family that on the 30 September her execution ought to proceed."
Ashlee Sellars grapples with two seemingly conflicting beliefs: that Colleen's mother has a right to feel justice has been served and that everyone, including her friend Christa, deserves a chance at redemption.
"When I think about reconciling who you see on TV or the horrible tragedy that happened with Colleen, the only thing that makes sense to me is around mental health and trauma and the way that people process stuff in a moment when they don't have the things that they need," Sellars says.
"These horrible things happen in your youth and then those traumas moved through you, in our community, and you cause harm to somebody else."
Sellars met Pike in prison while serving a 25-year sentence for her involvement in a robbery-murder. They spoke to each other through the meal flaps in their doors on the high security unit. Now, Sellars works as an advocate for justice reform and victims of crime.
"People want to know that everyone's life matters, right? They want to know that Colleen's life mattered," she says.
"Christa in this moment, I think she is fighting much more for her life to matter than she is to actually live."
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Christa Pike to be first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years - but her defence say she's a victim too
Lawyers for Pike, who killed a fellow student in 1995, say she should get clemency and would not be sentenced to death if the crime happened today.
2 days agoWho is Christa Pike? First Tennessee woman to face death in 200 years
20 hours agoFirst woman to be executed in Tennessee in 200 years says she feels ‘kinship’ with Lindsay Clancy
Christa Pike, scheduled to die by lethal injection Wednesday, says she and Clancy ‘are both females who got into trouble because of uniquely female issues‘
2 hours ago · Joe Sommerlad