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| Woman on death row gets 25 years for attempted murder of inmate |
| By The Tennessean |
| Published: 08/16/2004 |
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She already had a death sentence hanging over her head. Last week, Christa Gail Pike was sentenced to serve 25 more years for trying to kill another inmate at the Tennessee Prison for Women. Pike, 28, is one of two women in Tennessee on death row. Her trial, which was held in June, offered a glimpse into the lives of some of the state's most violent females behind bars. Pike was sentenced to death for the 1995 torture and murder of Colleen Slemmer, 19, on the University of Tennessee Agriculture campus when both were Job Corps students. Authorities said Slemmer was stabbed and beaten for at least 30 minutes by Pike and Pike's boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Pike took a piece of Slemmer's skull as a souvenir after she tortured her by carving a pentagram into her chest, investigators said. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, is serving a life sentence. Last week's sentence was for Pike's role in the attempted murder of Patricia Jones, an inmate who is serving a life sentence for murder. A fire in the prison brought Pike, Jones and a third inmate together on Aug. 21, 2001. Prison officials had evacuated the prison and stuck the three women in a ''cage'' in a recreation area outside after a fourth inmate set the blaze deliberately. Pike and her friend Natasha Cornett didn't like Jones. Jones, who shared the same maximum-security cell block with Pike and Cornett, had taunted Pike about her impending death sentence by making sounds of an electric chair, according to court records. At her trial in June, Pike testified that she was defending Cornett's life because she feared Jones would hurt her. Cornett is a self-described Satan worshipper who is serving three life sentences for killing a Knoxville couple and their 6-year-old daughter at a rest stop on Interstate 81 in Greene County in 1997. After all three women got into the cage Aug. 21, Pike tried to strangle Jones with a shoestring. She was unconscious when an officer pulled Pike off her. |
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