The execution of Krista Pike in Tennessee was stopped at the last minute, about an hour before the scheduled execution of her death sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a temporary stay to consider the defense's arguments that the sexual abuse and severe trauma that Pike experienced as a child were not sufficiently taken into account in determining the sentence, Focus reports.
The decision was made by a 2-1 vote. The court did not specify a deadline for the completion of the consideration of the case. Meanwhile, Tennessee's attorney general has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to lift the stay.
Pike, now 50, was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Pike was 18 at the time. According to the court case, she and her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, who was 17, lured Slemmer to a secluded area near Knoxville, where she was beaten and killed. There was a third person involved in the case.
The murder caused a public outcry for its brutality. A pentagram was carved into the victim's body, and during the investigation it became known that part of her skull had been taken as a kind of trophy. Shipp was later sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Pike's defense argued that the jury was not given full information about the abuse and sexual abuse she suffered as a child when sentencing her. Her lawyers also cited subsequent diagnoses of bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
If executed, Pike would be the first woman to be executed in Tennessee in more than 200 years. She is also the only woman currently on death row in the state.