Fortunately, there’s a sound track for this

Christa Pike still alive, ‘snoring’ after 2 lethal injections as Tennessee governor halts all executions

It’s Tennessee, so a country music classic seems appropriate to the occasion.

Botched execution aside, Miss Pike, like most criminals on death row, doesn’t seem the kind of person who’d be missed.

From the Tennessee Supreme Court decision confirming her sentence detailed Pike’s horrific acts;

“On January 11, 1995, Pike, a student at the Job Corps Centre in Knoxville, told her friend Kim Iloilo, who was also a student at the facility, that she intended to kill another student, Colleen Slemmer, because she ‘had just felt mean that day’.

…. “At approximately 10:15 p.m., Iloilo observed Pike, Peterson, and Shipp return to the Centre. Slemmer was not with them. Later that night, Pike went to Iloilo’s room and told Iloilo that she had just killed Slemmer and that she had brought back a piece of the victim’s skull as a souvenir.

“Pike showed Iloilo the piece of skull and told her that she had cut the victim’s throat six times, beaten her, and thrown asphalt at the victim’s head. Pike told Iloilo that the victim had begged ‘them’ to stop cutting and beating her, but Pike did not stop because the victim continued to talk.

“Pike told Iloilo that she had thrown a large piece of asphalt at the victim’s head, and when it broke into smaller pieces, she had thrown those at the victim as well. Pike told Iloilo that a meat cleaver had been used to cut the victim’s back and a box cutter had been used to cut her throat.

“Finally, Pike said that a pentagram had been carved onto the victim’s forehead and chest. Iloilo said that Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing ‘la, la, la’ while she related these details about the murder.

“When Iloilo saw Pike at breakfast the next morning, she asked Pike what she had done with the piece of the victim’s skull. Pike replied that it was in her pocket and then said, ‘And, yes, I’m eating breakfast with it’.”

A University of Tennessee employee found Slemmer’s body on January 13. The employee testified that it was so badly beaten that he had “first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal.”

It did not take long for authorities to turn their attention to the 18-year-old Pike who, upon being interviewed, waived her rights to silence and gave a complete statement admitting to her involvement.

She told police she used a box cutter and meat cleaver and that she had asked Slemmer to accompany her to the Blockbuster store before lying about a “bag of weed” she had hidden in the park.

“According to Pike, as she slammed Slemmer’s head against the concrete, Slemmer repeatedly asked, ‘Why are you doing this to me?’,” the court documents read.

“As Slemmer ‘screamed and screamed’, Pike recounted how she began to hear voices telling her that she had to do something to prevent Slemmer from telling on her and sending her to prison for attempted murder.”