She contended that Christa was a
cold-blooded killer who not only plotted
Colleen’s death, but cruelly prolonged it
for sport.
A University of Tennessee
anthropologist then told the court that
the fragment of skull found in Christa’s
pocket exactly matched the gap in
Colleen’s shattered head.
The prosecutor said that Colleen was
lured into the deserted area with the
promise of some marijuana, but when
she got there Christa grabbed her and
slammed the girl’s head into her knee.
She threw Colleen on the ground
and began the assault. At one point, as
she slammed Colleen’s head into the
concrete, the helpless victim pleaded,
“Why are you doing this to me?”
Something had clearly snapped in
Christa’s head, the prosecutor went on,
because the more Colleen pleaded, the
angrier she got. At one point Colleen
attempted to flee, only to be grabbed by
Peterson or Shipp and pushed back on to
the ground.
Finally, in an effort to save her life,
Colleen said that if Christa let her go, she
would “walk back to her home without
returning to the Job Corps facility for
her belongings.” In response, Christa
told her, “Shut up! It’s harder to hurt
someone when they’re talking to you.”
Dr. Sandra Elkins, who performed the
post-mortem on Colleen, said there were
leaves, twigs and mud on the body, and
drag marks on the right side of the upper
torso. A bloody piece of fabric was tied
around her neck, and blood had come
from her ears, nose and mouth.
In addition to multiple stab wounds,
she had a rectal haemorrhage, slash
wounds on her back and abdomen and a
gaping slash in her neck.
“There were so many other wounds
that I stopped trying to count them all,”
Dr. Elkins told the court. “I basically
threw up my hands and just wrote
down ‘innumerable superficial slash
wounds on the back, arms and chest.’
The area around each wound was red in
appearance, indicating that the heart had
still been beating when the wound was
inflicted.”
That meant that Colleen was alive
when these “other” wounds were
inflicted. None of them would have
rendered her unconscious – she had died
from blunt-force injuries to her head.
During the doctor’s evidence Christa
began to cry. Her defence lawyer told
the court that his client was clinically
insane and called Dr. Eric Ergum, a
psychologist, to enlighten the jury.
“Her fear of losing her boyfriend, of
having him taken by the victim, was so
threatening, so overwhelming to her, that
it caused this huge reaction,” said Dr.
Ergum. “Christa meant only to beat up
Colleen, but her lack of control and fear
of losing Shipp caused her to turn the
beating into a killing.”
He had interviewed Christa several
times in jail and found her “highly
intelligent, with academic skills far
beyond her level of education.” But sheher own children to associate with her
niece because the girl lived in a filthy
home with no ground rules.A
s the court papers for a murder trial,
scheduled for March 1996, were
prepared, prosecutors first had to decide
how to try Shipp. He was still only 16,
which made him a juvenile in the eyes of
the law. That meant he couldn’t be tried
as an adult, and the prosecution wouldn’t
be able to ask for the death penalty or life
without parole.
Shadolla Peterson admitted being at
the crime scene but, she said, she had
nothing to do with the murder. With
no evidence to tie her to the killing,
the police had to drop the first-degree
murder charge and instead charge her
with being an accessory to murder.
They were not entirely happy about
that. Detective York said, “I know she
was there, and I know she took part in it.
But we had to focus our case on the two
main suspects.” She was freed on bail,
while Christa Pike was kept in custody to
await her trial.
When the trial opened, prosecutor
Jo Helm began by telling the jury they
would be seeking the death penalty.Describing the murder, Christa said
she and “another person,” who she
referred to as “he,” held Colleen down
until she stopped struggling, then
dragged her to another area where she,
Christa, cut open Colleen’s stomach with
the box cutter. As Colleen “screamed
and screamed,” Christa said she began
to hear voices telling her that she had to
do something to prevent Colleen from
telling on her and sending her to prison
for attempted murder.
“At this point I was looking at Colleen
and just watching her bleed,” Christa
said. “When she rolled over, stood up
and tried to run away again I cut her
back – the big, long cut on her back. She
kept on trying to get up and run.
“She asked me what I was going to do
to her, at which point I thought I heard
a noise. I left the scene to check out the
surrounding area to make sure no one
was around.
“When I returned I began cutting her
across the throat. She continued to talk
and beg for her life, so I cut her throat
several other times. She still continued to
talk and tried to sit up even though her
throat had been cut several times, and
then I and the other person would push
her back to the ground.”
Colleen tried to run away yet again,
and Christa threw a rock, which hit
her in the back of the head. “The other
person also hit Colleen in the back of the
head with a rock. When she fell to the
ground I continued to hit her. Eventually
I could hear her breathing blood in and
out, and I could see her jerking, but
I kept hitting her and hitting her and
hitting her.”
It was then that Christa bent over her
victim, moments before she killed her by
smashing her skull, and said: “Colleen,
do you know who’s doing this to you?”
“Her only response was groaning
noises,” Christa told Detective York.
While she was locked up to await trial,
investigators began looking into her
heart of evil. Relatives said that Christa
hadn’t bonded with her mother when she
was a child because she was raised by
her maternal grandmother, who was an
abusive alcoholic.
When the grandmother died, Christa
was shuffled between her parents,
who were not married to each other.
Her mother, a nurse, testified at her
daughter’s trial that as a pathetic, belated
effort to bond with her daughter, the two
of them smoked pot together, “in order
to establish a friendship.”
During this period Christa was beaten
with a belt by one of her mother’s
boyfriends. Retaliating, Christa wielded a
butcher’s knife against him before calling
the police.
By the time she was 18 Christa had
been thrown out of her father’s house
twice. He described her as “disobedient,
dishonest and manipulative.” She
was finally told to leave because she
was suspected of sexually abusing his
two-year-old daughter from his second
marriage.
Christa’s aunt said she refused to allow
Above, Christa during the
murder trial at Knox County
Criminal Court in March 1996.
Below, the 18-year-old is escorted
from court on March 30th after
being sentenced to death