Christa Pike, 50, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in Tennessee on 30 September for the 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. If carried out, it would be Tennessee’s first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, while Slemmer’s family supports the sentence and Pike’s lawyers and UN experts are seeking a reprieve.

Pike was 18 when she and her then-boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17, tortured and killed Slemmer at a training camp; Pike received a death sentence while Shipp was given life imprisonment with parole possible. Her defence argues that jurors were not shown evidence of extensive childhood abuse, neglect and mental illness, including repeated sexual violence, and says she might not receive the death penalty under today’s standards; she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in prison in 2021.