Christa Gail Pike, who has spent nearly 30 years on death row, is fighting to live. At just 20, she became the youngest woman sentenced to death in the U.S. after being convicted of killing her classmate, Colleen Slemmer, in 1995.

Pike’s crime shocked the nation — the 19-year-old victim was brutally beaten and stabbed in a Tennessee forest. Investigators said Pike even kept a fragment of the victim’s skull as a trophy. Now 49, she faces execution on September 30, 2026 — the first woman executed in Tennessee in over 200 years.

“I know I deserve to be behind bars for life,” Pike said in a prison interview. “But I don’t deserve to die for the actions of three people.” Her boyfriend and another friend were also involved but avoided the death penalty.

Her lawyers argue she suffered “years of abuse and neglect” and that a modern jury would not sentence an 18-year-old to death.

As her execution nears, the debate deepens: Does justice mean death — or a lifetime of remorse?