Christa Gail Pike, the only woman on Tennessee’s death row, faces a scheduled lethal injection. Condemned at age 20, she remains among the youngest women sentenced to death in modern U.S. history.

The case stems from a January 1995 murder in Knoxville. Pike, then an 18-year-old Job Corps student, targeted 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer alongside two accomplices out of romantic jealousy. The group lured Slemmer into a wooded area, tortured her for roughly 30 minutes, carved a pentagram into her chest, and delivered fatal blows with a piece of asphalt. Prosecutors characterized the crime as exceptionally brutal.

Following nearly three decades of legal challenges and appeals, the Tennessee Supreme Court set Pike’s execution. If carried out, it will mark the first execution of a woman in Tennessee in more than two centuries.

Pike’s defense team is actively pursuing a clemency petition alongside a separate religious-liberty lawsuit challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol.