Christa Pike, a 50-year-old death row inmate in Tennessee, is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection on Wednesday for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, which she committed at age 18. After Governor Bill Lee denied her clemency request and the US Supreme Court declined to stay the execution, Pike refused her final meal. This execution is historically significant as Pike would be the first person Tennessee has executed in the modern death penalty era who was a teenager at the time of the offence, and the first woman the state has executed in over 200 years.

Pike, with her boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and classmate Shadolla Peterson, lured Slemmer to a secluded area where they tortured and killed her in a jealous rage, as Pike feared Slemmer was a romantic rival. The case attracted widespread attention because of its brutality and the age of those involved; a satanic symbol was carved into the victim's body. Pike's legal team argued that whilst she does not deny her guilt, execution is inappropriate for a crime committed by a teenager with untreated mental illness stemming from childhood sexual abuse and severe trauma. They challenged the lethal injection protocol on constitutional grounds and argued that Pike's past sexual abuse made male handlers retraumatising, suggesting hanging as an alternative—a proposal the Supreme Court rejected.