'Raped At 11 By A Neighbor...' Christa Pike Was Sexually Assaulted When She Was A Teenager

In a recent interview, interviewer Helen Roberts opened up about Christa Pike's troubled past. She interviewed Pike when she was 30.

50-year-old Christa Pike is currently hospitalized and being provided life-saving measures in an undisclosed hospital. She was moved to the hospital after the execution failed. Christa was scheduled to be executed on September 30, 2026, and was administered two doses of pentobarbital. Now, in an interview, an interviewer named Helen Roberts opened up about Christa’s troubled past. She revealed that Pike was remorseful for killing Colleen Slemmer.

For the unversed, Christa has spent more than three decades behind bars for the 1995 killing of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.

Christa Pike was raped when she was a teenager, reveals interviewer Helen Roberts

Twenty years have passed since Helen Roberts interviewed Christa Pike. At the time, Pike was 30, had served 11 years on death row, and was the youngest woman to receive the penalty in the United States. In a recent interview with the BBC, Helen opened up about Christa’s background and troubled past. Pike grew up in Beckley, in southern West Virginia, and her parents, Carissa Hansen and Glenn Pike, were alcoholics who neglected her.

At the time of the interview, Pike told Helen that she never received love from anyone except her grandmother, who died of cancer when she was just 12. After her grandmother’s death, Pike felt very angry and emotionally distressed, and she also began having thoughts of suicide. Christa revealed that she was raped by a neighbor when she was just 11. Roberts said:

"She was raped at 11 by a neighbor, and again at 17 by a stranger who she said dragged her into the woods. She went through different periods of neglect and abuse."

Christa Pike claimed Colleen Slemmer had insulted her and tried to steal her boyfriend

Pike went to the Knoxville Job Corps at 18, hoping it would give her a fresh start. She reportedly wanted to become a nurse. However, in 1995, when Pike was 18, she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, beat, tortured, and murdered Colleen Slemmer, a 19-year-old they met at a job training camp for troubled teenagers. According to Pike, Colleen reportedly had insulted her and was trying to take her boyfriend away from her.

In 1996, Pike was given the death penalty, and Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17 back then, was given a life sentence with the possibility of parole, and he remains in prison. Helen shared that Pike did not fully understand how serious her situation was during her trial and enjoyed getting attention because she had rarely received that kind of attention before.

Helen mentioned that when she asked Pike about the murder, she spoke about it in detail, very calmly and without showing much emotion. By the time Helen interviewed her, Christa had already spent 11 years on death row, so she had spent a lot of time alone thinking about what she had done and coming to terms with it. Pike described her younger self as a completely different person. She admitted that the night she killed Colleen, she had lost her mind. Helen said:

"She said it was like an out-of-body experience; she didn't realize what she was doing, and it's like someone had taken over her."

Helen shared that Pike told her that she was deeply sorry for what she did. However, Colleen Slemmer’s mother, May Martinez, thinks otherwise. According to May, Pike showed no signs of remorse and has never apologized to her for taking her daughter's life. She also believes that even after 31 years, Pike has never shown regret for killing Colleen. May, along with her husband, Raul Martinez, drove 11 hours from Florida to Tennessee so that they could attend Pike’s execution at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.

What are your thoughts on Helen Roberts' revelation? Let us know.

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