'God Is Not Going To Let Her Die' Christa Pike's Mom's Chilling Words Resurface After Execution Fail
Decades before Christa Pike survived two lethal doses during a botched execution, her mother said she believed God would not let her daughter die. Those words have now resurfaced.
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Add BollywoodShaadis on GoogleMore than three decades after Christa Pike was sentenced to death for the murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, an old interview with her mother is resurfacing following Pike’s failed execution in Tennessee.
In a 1996 interview, shortly after Pike received the death sentence, her mother, Carissa Hansen, spoke publicly about her daughter and pleaded against the punishment. Her words have taken on a striking new significance after Pike survived an attempted lethal injection on September 30, 2026.
Christa Pike's mother begged for her daughter's life
Hansen's comments came after Pike was sentenced to death for Slemmer’s 1995 murder. She was only when Slemmer, a fellow Knoxville Job Corps student, was killed. Pike and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, were convicted in the case. Shipp was 17 at the time and later received a life sentence with the possibility of parole, but his first parole was denied last year due to the cold-hearted brutality of the crime.
Following Pike’s death sentence, Hansen publicly fought against the punishment. In a 1996 interview with Fox News, she said she believed that her daughter would live. She famously said, "I just have so much faith that God is not going to let my daughter die."
Hansen shared her thoughts after Pike was sentenced to death. She recalled her reaction after the sentencing: "When they sentenced her to die, all I could do was scream at the jury, and I called them all murderers, that, you know, 'You're killing my daughter.'"
"She wants to live," Hansen said, adding that Pike had a niece and two nephews whom she adored. Hansen argued that executing her daughter would cause additional pain to the children who loved her.
She also claimed that Pike had expressed remorse over Slemmer’s death and felt sorry for her victim's mother. Hansen said:
"She's told me on many occasions that she wished she would be the one that had died instead of Colleen, and she's so sorry for May, Colleen's mother. I think those jurors cannot look at my daughter and know how sweet she is."
Christa Pike later acknowledged the horrific crime, but argued she didn't deserve to die
Two years after her mother’s plea, Pike spoke from death row in a 1998 Fox Files interview filmed inside the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville. At the time, Pike was 22 and was widely described in media reports as the youngest woman on death row in the United States.
Rather than denying responsibility, Pike acknowledged the seriousness of what she had done, saying, "I deserve to be in here for the rest of my life. I do, I know I do." She added, "I know I don't deserve to be out, walking around like everybody else is in the normal society."
The convicted killer, Tennessee's only woman on death row, admitted that she realized what she did was "horrible" and "unacceptable." However, given that there were a total of three people in the interview (Pike, Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson), Pike argued:
"I don't deserve to die for the actions of three individuals, when I'm only one person."
Click here to see the clip.
Pike, now 50, was given two doses of pentobarbital during the execution attempt but remained alive after "at least seven" injections were administered to her body via IV. She was eventually taken by ambulance to a Nashville-area hospital, where her attorneys say she remains unconscious, intubated, and on a ventilator. With her mother's resurfaced interview about God saving her, the botched execution left Christi Pike alive and snoring after a long time.
For now, Pike remains critically ill in a Nashville-area hospital. What are your thoughts on Mrs. Hansen's resurfaced words?
Image courtesy: Fox News
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