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US Supreme Court denies Christa Pike's last-ditch bid to halt execution

Grace Eliza Goodwin
Tennessee Department of Corrections Tennessee Department of Corrections inmate photo of Christa PikeTennessee Department of Corrections
If the execution proceeds, Christa Pike would be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years

The US Supreme Court has declined to stop the execution of Tennessee inmate Christa Pike on the eve of the date appointed for her death by lethal injection.

Pike, 50, has been awaiting execution since she was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for the murder of a teenage classmate.

Hoping for a last-minute reprieve, her attorneys filed a petition with the high court ahead of her scheduled execution on Wednesday morning.

But after the high court's decision to deny that request, Pike will be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. Only 18 women have been executed in the US since the 1970s, compared to 1,663 men.

On Monday, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied a request for clemency from Pike, saying he would not intervene in her planned execution.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend beat, tortured and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old they met at a job training camp for troubled teens.

She is due to be executed at 11:00 EDT (15:00 GMT) on Wednesday at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.