Christa Pike's accomplices now - lover who was spared and friend who turned foe

Christa Pike's accomplices now - lover who was spared and friend who turned foe Christa Pike's two accomplices faced very different futures after Colleen Slemmer's brutal murder, with Pike being the only one who was sentenced to death for the attack Christa Pike has spent more than three decades on death row for the brutal murder of her classmate Colleen Slemmer. But she was not alone when the 19-year-old was lured to an isolated area of the University of Tennessee campus and killed in January 1995. Two other Job Corps students were involved in the crime - Pike's boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and their friend Shadolla Peterson. While Pike ultimately received the death penalty, the two accomplices faced very different fates. Pike was 18 when she and Shipp, who was 17, were convicted of participating in Slemmer's murder. Peterson, who was also 18, was also implicated but ultimately pleaded guilty to being an accessory after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. Slemmer was murdered behind the university's agriculture campus steam plant on January 12, 1995. Pike had become jealous of Slemmer, believing she was interested in Shipp, her boyfriend. According to court records, Pike, Shipp, Peterson and Slemmer left the Job Corps residence together that evening. The attack that followed lasted around 30 to 45 minutes and involved a sustained assault on Slemmer. Although Shipp was prosecuted as an adult, his age, 17 at the time of the murder, was crucial to his eventual sentence. He was too young to receive the death penalty under US constitutional law, which prohibits capital punishment for offences committed by people under 18. A Knox County jury subsequently convicted Shipp of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment at Tennessee's Northwest Correctional Complex, with a separate 25-year sentence for conspiracy. Unlike Pike, whose legal battle over her death sentence continued for decades, Shipp, now 49, eventually became eligible for parole, but his attempt to secure his release was rejected in October 2025, with the seriousness of Slemmer's murder cited as a reason for the decision. His next parole review is scheduled for October 2031, meaning he could be released in the next five years. Shipp has appeared in later legal proceedings connected to Pike's case, including post-conviction litigation. But while Shipp remains imprisoned, Peterson's life took a very different path. Peterson was 18 at the time of the killing and was initially charged with first-degree murder. However, she became a state witness and agreed to testify against Pike and Shipp. In return, she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of being an accessory after the fact. Peterson remained in jail before the plea deal and served several years of probation. Prosecutors argued there was insufficient evidence to establish that she had physically participated in the killing beyond acting as a lookout. The University of Tennessee's account says Peterson "turned informant" and was convicted as an accessory, while Pike and Shipp were convicted of murder. Pike, meanwhile, would have been the first woman to be executed in Tennessee for 200 years if she hadn't survived two rounds of the lethal injection. The 50-year-old survived two doses of pentobarbital. Commonly used for Death Row executions in the US, condemned inmates injected with lethal doses of pentobarbital will typically slip into a deep unconsciousness in a matter of seconds, before entering respiratory arrest. This, however, was not the case for Pike, who, to the amazement of those watching on from the viewing gallery, was observed snoring and then whimpering in pain after she uttered what they'd assumed had been her last words. In a startling turn of events, Pike was rushed to a Nashville-area hospital as medics tried to clear the drugs from her body. Her lawyers were told she was brain dead, but Pike is now said to be 'up and walking' around. No decisions have been made as to whether a second execution will be ordered or if her sentence will be commuted to life in prison.