The state of Tennessee may soon carry out its first execution of a woman in more than two centuries. The Tennessee Supreme Court approved a request to move forward with the death sentence of Christa Gail Pike, now 49 and the only woman on the state’s death row. She was just 18 when she committed one of Tennessee’s most infamous murders.

On January 12, 1995, Pike lured 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer into a wooded area. Both were students in the Knoxville Job Corps program. Investigators said Pike believed Slemmer was interested in her boyfriend. Jealousy escalated into a brutal, premeditated attack. With the help of two others, Pike slashed Slemmer’s throat with a box cutter, struck her with a meat cleaver, carved a pentagram onto her chest, and crushed her skull with a piece of asphalt.

One of the most chilling revelations came when Pike showed detectives a fragment of Slemmer’s skull she had kept as a trophy. A retired detective recalled she was disturbingly cheerful during questioning and demonstrated how the piece fit into the wound “like a puzzle.” Pike was convicted of first-degree murder in 1996 and sentenced to death. Nearly a decade later, she earned an additional 25 years after attempting to strangle another inmate.

An execution date has been set. Pike’s attorneys argue that her age, trauma history, and mental health diagnoses—including bipolar disorder and PTSD—should weigh against execution. Her defense describes a childhood marked by severe abuse and says she has since shown remorse. If carried out, her execution would be Tennessee’s first of a woman since 1820. A rare case, a brutal crime, and a decision that continues to divide.