00:00Krista Pike said she grabbed Colleen Slemmer by the hair.
00:03She wanted Colleen to suffer beyond comprehension.
00:06She started talking about having a piece of her skull.
00:10There was a piece of bone missing in several inches in diameter.
00:14All the edges fit nicely and everyone kind of gasped and was surprised.
00:21More than 30 years after Krista Pike slaughtered her Job Corps classmate Colleen Slemmer,
00:26gruesome new details are emerging of what happened that night.
00:30In this New York Post exclusive, we're sitting down with the people who were on the ground
00:34and in the courtroom.
00:35For some, it's the first time they've spoken publicly about the twisted case.
00:44This case appeared in January of 1995 at the beginning of my career,
00:50and the nature of it has stayed with me throughout my entire career.
00:55The 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer was as brutal as it was shocking.
01:00She was tortured to death on the University of Tennessee campus, pentagrams carved into her skin.
01:06Three students were arrested, Krista Pike, Daryl Shipp, and Shadala Peterson.
01:12Pike was the youngest woman in Tennessee history to be put on death row.
01:16On September 30, 2026, two attempts to execute her by lethal injection failed.
01:22Pike was still alive and breathing.
01:24It was the first time that a death row mate had survived the lethal injection that we know of in
01:29the United States.
01:31How did Krista Pike end up on death row?
01:33Well, the answer is a gruesome slaying that horrified investigators.
01:37I got on the scene and realized it was a horrid crime.
01:42They got out there to that isolated area at night and removed her jacket and her sweater and her bra
01:50so she wouldn't run away.
01:52Colleen Slemmer was begging for her life, begging for her, please stop.
01:57Ms. Slemmer wouldn't stop talking, so Ms. Pike said I just took the box cutter and slit her throat.
02:05I was accustomed to seeing that kind of gore, if you will, but the brutality was different.
02:12You know, the visual scene of it, it was so shocking.
02:15And I could tell when I first walked up that there's two seasoned guys there.
02:19They've got 50 or 60 years of homicide investigations under their belt.
02:24But I could tell looking at their eyes and just their expressions that they were disgusted with what they saw.
02:29Slemmer's body was slashed and stabbed.
02:33Her head was smashed from repeated blows.
02:36When I first saw her body, you could see her skull was so crushed.
02:43And I could see as they moved the body where her neck had severe lashes, one very, very deep lash.
02:50It was probably seven or eight inches.
02:59Dr. Murray Marks, the forensic anthropologist who reconstructed Colleen Slemmer's skull postmortem, testified at Pike's trial.
03:10There were multiple blows to this left side of the head that caused all those fractures.
03:17Not from a distance.
03:19There were gouges and scrapes and all sorts of things.
03:23The night Colleen was murdered, Pike, Ship, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the Job Corps dorm.
03:29Only three would sign back in.
03:32Pike, when she got back, you know, immediately had to express her joy with killing Colleen.
03:39And then the very next day in class, she bragged again, talking about how she killed Colleen.
03:45She showed her shoes that had blood on them.
03:48Witness Kimberly Aeolio testified that Pike came back that night happy, smiling and laughing like she was excited about something.
03:56The day prior, Krista Pike had told Kim Aeolio, I'm going to kill Colleen.
04:03Prosecutors were convinced that Pike was the one calling the shots.
04:07Krista Pike said she grabbed Colleen's number by the hair and that the Daryl ship was the one who did
04:12the cutting.
04:13Shadala Peterson was basically just there.
04:15How critical do you think Shadala's testimony was to putting Krista and to Daryl behind bars?
04:22It was very critical.
04:24I mean, she was the only eyewitness there.
04:25Peterson quickly agreed with the prosecutor to turn state's evidence and she got a deal cut for her.
04:33The D.A. was very calculated about it.
04:35And you watched some of the interrogation of Krista Pike.
04:39Can you tell me what she was like in the interrogation room?
04:42What I did hear is I heard somebody that was ruthless, without any remorse, almost giddy.
04:49You know, she was describing what took place, like almost a sense that she was bragging about it.
04:56The most damning piece of evidence against Pike was a souvenir, a trophy from the crime scene.
05:03She took a piece of that, about a thumb-sized piece of skull.
05:07When I went into autopsy that day, one of the first things I noticed was there was a pretty sizable
05:13piece of bone that was missing, several inches in diameter.
05:17The skull fragment was paraded around by Pike, but shockingly, she would end up leaving it in a forgotten jacket
05:25pocket.
05:25The district attorney brought forth a little paper bag, and from that, it drew a piece of bone.
05:31And so that was presented to me.
05:33I took it, and, you know, I took my time and made sure it fit exactly.
05:38I looked at the edges.
05:39It fit precisely.
05:40The edges were a perfect match.
05:43And at that point, when the skull was demonstrated by me, the gallery gasped and was, wow.
05:51Pike and Shipp were both convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
05:56Pike was sentenced to death.
06:09She did write to Mr. Shipp after she got the death penalty, and she was apparently quite mystified why she
06:16got the death penalty.
06:17She said, I didn't deserve that.
06:19I showed a great deal of compassion because I didn't let her die slowly.
06:23With Krista Pike still walking and talking after her botched execution, what happens now?
06:30For that, I turn to Post reporter Alex Diaz.
06:32From speaking to legal experts, there's two arguments that you'll be able to bring now, given what happened.
06:38It's the cruel and unusual punishment, which is enshrined in the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
06:45The cruel and unusual punishment is not allowed.
06:48But not only that, there's the double jeopardy issue, because her lawyers could potentially make the case that she's already
06:58been punished by what happened in the botched execution,
07:02and therefore punishing her twice by trying to execute her again would constitute double jeopardy.
07:11Today's hearing was just a first step of many to preserve and enforce Krista's constitutional rights after this unprecedented botched
07:19execution.
07:20For years, Krista Pike's attorneys have tried to overturn her death sentence,
07:25pleading for leniency, the now 50-year-old's long history of abuse and mental health issues their top reason.
07:31We have to ask how much suffering is enough.
07:36We continue to ask Governor Lee to commute Krista's death sentence.
07:40After all we have seen and all that we still do not know, it is unimaginable that the state would
07:46try to execute her again.
07:48And a majority of people feel the state shouldn't get another bite at the apple.
07:52A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that only a third of Americans back a second execution attempt if the first
07:58one fails.
07:59Two lethal doses of pentobarbital were administered to Krista Pike, and neither of them worked.
08:04After the failed execution, Colleen Slemmer's mom, Mae Martinez, told First Coast News,
08:09I think the state owes me a big apology. All I wanted was justice.
08:14The key question now is what is going to happen to Krista Pike, right?
08:19You took the words right out of my mouth because this is, like you said, such a novel situation.
08:24What do we do now?
08:28Mitnoаж
08:30Mitnozy
08:30Mitnozy
08:32Mirac完成
