October 7, 2025 • 44 mins
Christa Pike killed a classmate in Job Corps, carved a pentagram in her chest with a box cutter, kept a piece of crushed skull as a trophy, and showed it to friends.
Sentenced to death for the January 1995 murder, she finally gets her date with death, but it is still another year away!
On January 12, 1995, Colleen Slemmer, 19, was lured to her death by Christa Pike, Tadaryl Shipp, and Shadolla Pederson. Pike believed Colleen was trying to steal her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Colleen's friends say she was not involved with Shipp. J
oseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack look at the beating that brought about Colleen's death. And how Christa Pike saved a piece of Colleen's skull as a trophy she shows to other members of Job Corps. Shadolla Pederson turned informant and got probation.
Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life but comes up for parole this month. Christa Pike was sentenced to death, and the date of her execution has been set for September 2026.
Transcribe Highlights
00:03.86 Introduction
03:29.97 What Christa Pike did in killing Colleen
08:31.69 Must be death penalty qualified
13:02.52 Job Corps
18:02.64 Christa Pike lured Colleen
23:32.31 Brain coming out of skull
27:37.26 Moving skin around skull
31:37.68 Long cut down Colleen's back
36:29.24 Colleen endured great pain during beating
41:07.05 Crime solved within 36 hours
44:26.51 Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body Bus with Joseph's gotten more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There are so many times in the life where we're
in the middle of whatever it is, tough times that
we're going through, maybe even happy times, we sit back
and say, you know what I wish. I wish I
knew what the future held. I wish that I could
(00:25):
reach reach to the veil, if you will, and try
to predict my next move. Well, how am I going
to spend the time that I have? Let's you say,
And a lot of people wonder this. I think they're
out there. When am I going to pass on? When
is my life going to come to an end? And
(00:47):
it's been amazing if you were armed with that information,
what exactly would you do?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Today? Today we actually have an individual who knows when
she's going to pass on.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The question is.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
What are you going to do at a time she
has left? Right now referring to the murderer, the killer
of Colleen Slimmer, her name is Krista Pike. The grains
(01:35):
of sand are trickling through the hour class as I
speak right now. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
body Bags. So many times, Dave, in my life, I've
you know, and it's always, you know, I mean, we
have no other choices. Always retrospectively, you know, you're sitting
(01:58):
there and you're thinking, Wow, I had that to do
over again, I probably would not have made that decision,
or I would have, you know, tried to do better,
or I never would have put myself in that position.
But it's an interesting, interesting set of circumstances that you're in,
I think in life, where you know that the terminus
(02:23):
rest ahead and you can almost see it over the
crest of the next hill, and miss Pike has put
herself in that position. Day from arguably one of the
most horrific cases. I think perhaps there's another one that
actually rivals that we've previously covered on bodybacks, but one
(02:45):
of the most horrific cases perhaps in Tennessee History.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Day January twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Krista Pike leured someone
she saw as a romantic rival in their job course situation.
Her name Colleen Slimmer, woman's nineteen years old. They're both
at job corps. But Krista Pike thinks or believes that
(03:12):
Colleen has eyes for Christmas boyfriend. So she puts a
game in play. I'm going to lure this girl out,
and based on what took place, Joe, it wasn't to
scare her, it wasn't to threaten her. Because based on
what we know took place, which I have questions for
(03:33):
you today. We have covered this story on bodybags previously,
but I want to get right into the murder of
Colleen Slimmer and what Christaph Pike did to her that night,
because on the outside looking in, you were thinking maybe
it was a threat that got out of hand. Hey,
(03:54):
you're hitting on my boyfriend. Stay away from him. I
don't want to hear any more about this. You stay
away from my man, and that it got out of hand,
you know, That's that's kind of the way it gets positioned.
But based on what we knew took know took place,
and the time after it. Thankfully, if you're a death
(04:15):
penalty proponent, this is the one you should look at.
This is the person you should look at. But I'm
still shocked and saddened that it has taken. If we're
going to have the death penalty, why does it take
thirty years?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Joe? It has the point, Yeah, it has taken. Well,
there's no deterrent. There's no deterrent factor any longer. You know,
it's not it's not one of these things where you know,
we're doing this to deter future crimes such as this. Really,
is that what you're going to tell me, because I
got I gotta tell you, it just doesn't seem like
(04:46):
much of a deterrent. We've talked about this, We've we've
covered Wow, we've covered actually we've dipped our toe in
waters that most people I think don't necessarily go down
the road of because you and I had come to
an agreement some time ago that that we we would
cover capital punishment or the end result of their decisions
(05:09):
that they made that led to them being you know,
killed by the state, these perpetrators, if we could focus
on the victim, because you know, that's the one thing
about it. These things come into the news and right now,
if you looked up Colleen's name, this is kind of
sad you looked up Colleen's name right now and did
(05:32):
a Google search on her, Well, it's not her name,
it's going to pop up. It's Krista Pyke's. And that's
the way it always happens with capital punishment cases, you know,
because the victims most of the time are a distant memory.
There's someone you know that is I don't know for
(05:53):
people in the modern context. And I say that, you know,
thirty years later, modern context, they don't. They no longer have.
There's not even really a remnant around of these individuals
other than the loved ones. And this is probably the
most important. But other than the loved ones that hold
their memory, you know, deer, they're the ones that sit
in silence, you know, all these years, wanting some kind
(06:17):
of answer, and most of the time you get people
chirping in and chiming in about how evil the death
penalty is, and they not necessarily have given two hoots
in hell about this person to begin with.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You know, I did a Google stary twin you said
that I typed in Colleen Slimmer, Yeah, and immediately it
pops up, and here are the top stories that popped
up the headlines, right, I've got one to three, four, five,
five pictures pop up on the screen with stories associated
with them. All of them are pictures of Krista Pike yeah,
and USA Today, foxnewspeople dot Com and so on, And
(06:57):
it's all about execution date set or Krista Pike and
again thirty years after the fact, Joe. And why do
they give her a year out? Because as we're talking
about this, they just set the execution date and it's
for a year away, a year away. Why isn't it
not forty eight hours. I mean, you've had thirty years.
(07:17):
After thirty years, if you haven't found a reason to
not carry this out, I'm going to say, I think
whenever there's a death penalty case, I know that it's
an automatic appeal, which I get that not a problem.
Examine all the things that took place, you know, and
because you got to remember, to get to that conviction,
(07:38):
a jury of your peers sat, they hurt all the evidence,
they went up everything, and they decided unanimously that this
person deserved death as a punishment, as a penalty for
their crime. It wasn't willy nilly, It wasn't you know,
it was monitored the entire time. How the attorney's handled
it all the way through the judge. I mean, there's
(07:59):
all kinds of safe guards in there.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, there are, and as a matter of fact, coming
to attorneys in most states. And I don't know if
if our friends are aware of this, but in most states,
if you're going to be on the I think it
applies to prosecution and defense. If you're going to be
on either of those teams, you have to be death
penalty qualified in order to move forward with a case
(08:23):
where you've got capital punishment, you know, staring down, staring
down the accused at that point in time. And that
goes to this idea of protections because it's so much
more complex based upon you know, this thing. If there
is if there is a guilty and if there is
sentencing that winds up in canpital punishment, it's automatic appeal.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's not like it's going to be backburner or anything
like that. So there's been over thirty years, there have
been a series of appeals that have been filed in
this case. I'm still stumped by the you know, the
the idea that you need a year in order to
(09:07):
do this unless unless the prosecution they're preparing for whatever
new appeal might pop up. But again, you can't necessarily
force it through the courts in any particular way. So
that's that's compelling. And here's the other thing I think
that's really kind of interesting here is that allegedly what
(09:31):
they're saying The reason I think it kind of made
it into the algorithm again is that she's like the
first female in two hundred years that you know that
Tennessee is going to put to death or over the
two hundred year history of capital punishment. She's like a
number one. So she's been bumped up the line, you know,
(09:55):
ahead of everybody else, any other females that might be
sitting on death row. Uh, you know, in in Tennessee. Uh.
And there's not a lot of females on death row
around America.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
There, Ris debis only won in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And let's see, Yeah, Tennessee has not carried out an
execution of a woman since the death penalty was reinstated.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And again all of that, you know, it goes back
to what you were saying a minute ago, Joe, that
the victim is left out of all of this. They
are for thirty years, Colleen Slimmer, she was killed by
this woman, and this woman was tried, convicted, and sentenced to.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Death in the most brutal way. And listen, I love
what you said earlier about the this. You know, when
when when I get into the level of brutality that
was exact upon this young woman, Colleen. You think about,
you know, when you're a kid and you're in high
(11:01):
school or whatever, and you're in my hometown, the used
calls fender lizards. And those were the individuals that would
pull into the parking lot at at heart Ease or
McDonald's and you just hang out in your car, right,
And they were called fender lizards. And there was actually
there was actually a city statute that was put forward
in the small southern town about you can't be a
(11:24):
fender lizard, you know, move on. It's loitering or whatever
the case might be. But you know, back back then,
during those periods of time when you're young and you know,
you're if there was a conflict over a relationship, you
might have two guys that you know that have fistcuffs
over it, and and that's it. That's that's not what
(11:47):
this is is about. This is this is about a
case of and I love these two terms luring and menacing,
and what it comes down to is that both of
those elements wind up equally.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Pure evil.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So I'm not really familiar with with job Corp necessarily, Dave,
I understand the principle, understand that it gives you an
opportunity to seek out employment and providing kind of a
backstop for you so that, you know, if you're in
(12:45):
a life situation where you're not going to get further
education necessarily, they have opportunities for people to do that,
to get some kind of technical training or get kind
of absorbed into the workforce. And you know, you've got
You've got these individuals that were around Colleen in this
(13:07):
Job Corps program that was actually they were being housed
in a dorm that was not too far away from
University of Tennessee campus. As a matter of fact, I
think where this accras comes into play, Yeah, the campus does,
(13:28):
because it's like part of their ag program, you know
at UT their agricultural you know, majors and that sort
of thing. And this is kind of an old abandoned
area that was on the property, wasn't it, Dave?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
It was. You give you an idea of what job
Corp is, and I pulled the easiest explanation is it
is a US Department of Labor funded no cost career
technical training. I think it was a little different thirty
years ago than it is now. But Colleen Slimmer was
a part of Job Corps, as was Krista Pike and
(14:04):
to Darryls Ship. And we have others involved in this,
but just staying right where we are, there are interpersonal
relationships that developed between the people of job Corp. Remember
they are living together, eating together, going to classes together.
I mean they are. It's an environment that you know,
you get to know people, you make best friends there
for the rest of your life or lifelong enemies depending
(14:26):
on that you have. And in this case, Krista Pike
was dating a guy named to Darryl Ship and she
believed that Colleen Slimmer was trying to lure to Darylship
away in a romantic relationship. Everybody that the police interviewed,
(14:46):
everybody that talked about the situation said Colleen and to
Darryl were friendly, but not in that way. They were
friendly as just we're in the program together. You know,
they were friends, but nothing more than that. But Krista
Pike didn't like Colleen and thought there was something going
on between to Darryl and Colleen. So I mean yeah,
(15:09):
and so she decided to take it into her own
hands and they lure. They being Krista Pike, to Darryls
Ship and one other person who ended up becoming state's evidence,
who got probation and got a problem for somebody being
involved in the death of another person, whether they're just
(15:32):
as a lookout or anything else they're involved in this case.
Her name, her last name is Peterson. She ended up
with probation. She didn't go to jail. But yeah, Shadola shada, Yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So they they being the three loure Colleen to the campus.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, and it's a it's an old abandoned steam plant.
I got to tell you when I when I heard that,
you know what it made me think of it. Uh,
I'm thinking about how ominous this thing probably looks. Uh
it looked like the said of like a Batman movie,
you know, it's kind of dark. Yeah. Yeah. And and
(16:14):
they used they used the opportunity to get her back there.
They said, come on, let's go smoke weed together. Well,
this is not like a spontaneous kind of event where uh,
you know, there's some kind of uh you know, act
that triggers somebody immediately, uh, where they get into a fight. Now,
(16:37):
they they came prepared, knowing, knowing what the purpose was there.
They're going to take her to this location that, you know,
just the the ominous nature of this abandoned steam plant.
It's not going to attract anybody else. It's you. You've
got this young girl, Colleen in this in a state
(17:00):
of isolation there, and suddenly you know, you've you've got
Krista Pike who literally begins to attack her along with
this other individual that's there that's supposed to be you know,
I guess the love of her life. Yeah yeah, and who,
(17:25):
by the way, just as a little aside, this guy
next week as of this recording, this guy is hang
on your hat, Dave. This guy is up for parole
hearing the first parole hearing. Yeah, yeah, he's he's gonna
he's gonna have and he's in his forties. Uh. Christ
(17:46):
Pike is sitting on death row. So that kind of
shows you the relationship between these two, the the level
of responsibility that they equate to Christa Pike as opposed
to this, you know, to this person that that she
you know, has you know, uh, romantic desires upon Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The one thing you mentioned about them going to smoke weed, Joe,
is that the reason or the way that comes about
and comes into play here is that Krista Pike. There
had been animosity there they were. There was a known
situation here, not with just them, but with others. And
that's where Christa Pike reaches out to Collin and says,
(18:30):
we're gonna get together. We're going to meet, and we're
gonna smoke weed. We're gonna smoke the peace pipe, you know,
that kind of thing. And that was the whole point
that the smoking of the weed was to seal the deal,
that this animosity was going to stop, that everything was fine,
We're all going to be buddies and pals. And of
course that was the way she lured her. But you
mentioned coming prepared. What did what did Christa Pike carry
(18:56):
with her Joe that she used in this well, yeah,
in this murder.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I think that that's Lord have mercy talk about
the tools of death, just so people understand they huh,
they came prepared with both a box cutter and dave
a meat cleaver. When was the last time we talked
about a meat clever? I don't I don't remember it. Now.
(19:24):
It's been used in in movies, you know, for years
and years, and I have worked a case involving a
meat cleaver. But they show up with a meat cleaver.
What's the purpose of a meat cleaper. Well, from a
forensic standpoint, you have what are referred to and these
are sharp force injuries that are generated by one of
(19:45):
these things. Uh, these are chopping injuries, and they're they're
kind of distinct from say the edge of a blade, uh,
where you're dragging, dragging the edge of a blade across
the surface of the skin. Interestingly enough, meat cleavers actually
have some characteristics of blunt force trauma that that can
(20:11):
be appreciated, particularly in the in the the depth of
the wound you get into the bone perhaps if you've
got it, like if somebody struck on a collar bone,
all right, with a meat cleaver, you're going to have
this kind of fragmenting of the bone, but it'll still it.
But on the other hand, it'll kind of have a
(20:32):
clean edge to it. Okay, so it kind of and
you'll see, uh, you can see contoosed areas when anybody's
using an axe, if there's been an axe attack or
a cleaver, which many times are associated with blunt force
because you're you're pounding and tearing that skin at the
(20:53):
same time. It's not as neat as as you might
think that it is. But they showed up here, you know,
with these instruments, and not to mention they also what
also comes into play here day is a chunk of asphalt. Okay,
(21:13):
so this is going to be a blunt a blunt
object that that's going to be used as a bludgeon
at some point in time. Interestingly enough, injuries many times
when you use something like a piece of asphalt, even
though it's it's heavy, it's firm. The surface area of
(21:38):
a fragmented piece of asphalt, you can actually have bits
of it that will break off in injury. So when
you're kind of going through this kind of layered examination
of a of a strike to the skin, did you
know you can actually see bits of fragmented asphalt in there.
I've seen it with concrete as well. I've seen it
(21:59):
with You'll see little bitty features and you can certainly
see them at a microscopic level if you take a
sample of that tissue and put it on a slide.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Colleen Slimmer was beaten for at least thirty minutes yep,
and the only comment from Christ the Pike was saying,
the bitch won't die. Yeah, Well did they do to
her body. How did that beating gojo?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, well, let me give you one more insight. There
was one other thing that Christa Pike allegedly said at
this time, and it gives you an indication of the
level of violence that she was willing to inflict upon Colleen.
She said, I want to see her brains flow. So
(22:44):
she's purposed, all right, She's purposed in the fact that
not only is it on her her menu here, if
you will to inflict sharp force injuries on Colleen by
(23:05):
repeatedly striking her with a meat cleaver, she wants to
see her skull crushed to the point where and this
does happen, where you will see brain beginning to extrude
(23:27):
from a skull. It takes multiple strikes most of the
time to kind of invade the cranial vault, and once
it's cracked open, those fracture lines begin to kind of
spiderweb all over the place, and with each repeated strike,
(23:48):
you'll see these flaps that will open up. I've seen
this happen with hammer attacks, I've seen it happen in
motor vehicle accents. But it's a There has to be
a tremendous amount of force that's literally directed at the
head in order to facilitate that that's obviously a motor
vehicle that's a single strike. This would have taken multiple strikes,
(24:10):
probably with this piece of asphalt, in order to get
inside of the cranial vault where you're going to see
the brain extruding. And it's called extrusion. Extrusion is what
it's referred to as. And there's another point here that
we have to consider. Not only is she literally tormenting
(24:38):
this poor girl with all of these injuries that she sustained, Dave,
she she took this box cutter and carved a pentagram
on her chest. You know in pentagrams and inverted is
an inverted star, uh, five point star. You know that's
(25:04):
associated many times with Satanic worship.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
And in my experienced, people that that do this sort
of thing don't necessarily have they might think that they're
involved in Satanic worship. Many times it's left. It's just
kind of a horrific calling card along the way. And
I can't imagine that this that this person, Christa Pike
(25:33):
was intellectually uh, intellectually sophisticated enough to be the leader
of a satanic coven if you will, all right, this
is something where she's just trying to be as horrible
and and and try to be as debased as you
possibly can. And that's what happened with Colleen. Interestingly enough,
(26:00):
Colleen had done so much I'm sorry strike that day
three to Pike had done so much damage to Colleen
that in the wake of all of this, Dave, she's
not only taunting her, making new statements like the bitch
(26:21):
won't die. I want to see her blood flow. She's
a souvenir taker, Dave. She's a souvenir taker. She Krista
Pike took a portion of Colleen's skull, and in the
wake of having committed this horrible murder, torture, murder, she
(26:43):
takes this bit of skull with her and begins to
proudly display it to people.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Dave, how tough would it beat Joe to even get
a piece of skull?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Nothing? It would, it would. The thing about it is
our our our scalp is literally adherent to our skull
with fascia, which is this kind of thin membrane. If
you if you take your fingertips and you touch your
(27:16):
scalp right now, you can actually move your scalp over
the surface of your skull. You want it to do
that because if it's if it's static, you're gonna have problems. Okay,
So but once once you have erupted this area and
torn this bit of scalp away, it would be nothing
to reach down and dislodge a chunk of skull even
(27:40):
by the fascia connection that you have to that layer
of the scalp, just kind of lightly pull it away,
and there you have. You've got, like, I don't know,
a triangular piece of skull that you're walking around with. Hey, everybody,
look what I've Look what I've I've got here. You know,
it's not like she's walking around displaying a gold medal
for some grand achievement that she might have had job
(28:03):
corps or some athletic prowess. No, she's got a bit
of Colleen's skull that is now trophied for her. The
big question is this, I think, is this actually a
(28:25):
sign of mental illness? Because that's the big question here,
isn't it? And that's what the defense wants you to believe.
That she's got multiple psychiatric diagnoses, She's got PTSD from
previous sexual abuse. There's been talk that she had done
(28:47):
drugs with her mother at some point in time. But
does all of that trump beating and carving up a
young woman and taking a bit of her body with
her that she should not be held responsible. Somewhere out there,
(29:22):
Colleen's remains exist all that's left of her, and we're
thirty years downrange. You sit there and think of all
of the potential that existed within her, and also, you know,
(29:44):
the children she may have had, the potential that existed
in them, the hopes that may be, the ones that
loved her had for her moving forward, that's gone. It's
completely gone now, all over this kind of senseless, just
(30:05):
nonsensical uh behavior on the part of Krysta Pike and
these other people that she drug into this as well.
And look, I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that
those individuals should not be fully held to account for
what they did. They actively participated in this. You know,
at some point in time, you have to recognize that
(30:30):
we're creatures of free will. We're gonna make decisions, and
I don't care really how old you are, You're gonna
make decisions about the activities you engage in. Uh. It's
it's a real shame. I think that many in society
won't want people just to well, let's let's forget about
this free will decision that they made, and you know,
(30:53):
we're we're just gonna we're going to start over. You know, well,
go tell that Colleen's family and look, whether or not
you agree with the death penalty or not, you know,
be you know, be either hot or cold on it.
Don't sit in the middle of the road. If you
(31:13):
don't believe in the death penalty, that's fine, But she
doesn't need to see the light of day again. So
you know, I think the big question is that prosecutors,
many times, I think, are faced with they have to
weigh the risk here, you know, because listen at the time,
I'm sure the public was screaming, we want blood.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I was looking at a couple of the comments by
Krista Pike when she gave her story of what took place.
There was a wound to the back of Colleen Slimmer
that they were trying to figure out where did this
come from? How did this happen? And one was a
long cut down her back, and Christa Pike said, well,
(31:58):
she kept getting up and trying to run away, and
she would be tackled and beat again. So Colleen, for
thirty or forty minutes, Joe is fighting for her life
against an armed woman with a she's got a cleaver
and a box cutter. And from the very beginning, for
anybody who has ever been in a fight, if you've
(32:21):
ever caught a knee to the head, I'm gonna tell
you I have caught a knee to the head. It
knocks you into the middle of next week. And according
to Krista Pike, that was the first thing she did.
This attack was by surprise. Remember they were there to
smoke the peace pipe. And Krista Pike starts pounding away
(32:43):
and knees her head, that's what she says. Kicks her
in the head, knees her in the head, kicks her
in the body, and I mean she is terrorizing the
body of Colleen's Slimmer. And again when she mentioned that
I want to see her brains flow out, she lifts
(33:04):
a large chunk of asphalt paving over Slimmer's head and
proceeded to smash her skull until brain matter started flowing
out of her head. Krista Pike shared that information This
was not something that investigators think happened, or that they
(33:25):
built what to a timeline of how it happened, you know,
based on evidence. This is the story told to them
by Krista Pike, that she used the asphalt to slam
over Colleen Slimmer's head over and over and over until
the brain flowed, brain matterflow, and then she grabbed that
chunk of skull as a souvenir and showed it off.
(33:49):
The next day at school here in the cafeteria eating,
and here's Christy, where's Colleen? I don't know where is
Colleen today? But look look what I've got.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I've got skull, yeah yeah, so fresh svel and she
you know, and you know, her thing about it is
when she picked us up, When she picked up that
bit of skull, there would have been some cleaning that
would have had to have taken place, because you would
still have some tissue, certainly have some blood that was
(34:20):
on there. I wonder if she took this young woman's
skull and that fragmented piece and rubbed it off on
her pants or stuck in her pocket, merely waiting for
it to dry out as she you know, kind of
dances away from the scene, leaving leaving Colleen's remains there.
But you had asked me a critical question, Dave, a
(34:41):
few months ago, how do we get to how do
we get to capital punishment in this particular case. Well,
if you look at the statute in in Tennessee, one
of the it's got, there are multiple different paths you
can take to get to first spree murder that can
be you know, uh punished, you know, with with the
(35:04):
death penalty and with first degree you you actually have
there's these aggravating factors. We hear about aggravating factors, and
the one that this case in particular meets is that
there is a subsection to it. That's that the way
(35:25):
you define it, the murder, and I quote the murder
was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel in that it involved
here's the word day torture, serious physical abuse beyond that
necessary to produce death. So if you look at this
and and if you had the utility to bring about
(35:49):
her death in a I hate to even use the
term humane, but in a quicker manner. I mean you
you yourself said that, uh you know that she's languishing
and was Dave. She had a full awareness of it.
She's responding to pain. It didn't start off with the
most fatal thing, all right, you don't have the skull
crushing that happens at the beginning. She's trying to get away,
(36:11):
She's fighting for her life. Okay, at this point in
time when these these choices are being exacted upon Colleen,
these choices that are made by Pike, for every one
(36:33):
of those this is leading up to the grand finale.
It's the totality of that that makes this so heinous.
This is not like somebody, you know, mob style, taking
somebody out and executing them by shooting them in the
back of the head and walking off from their body.
That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about
something that where this young woman is languishing. And then
(36:58):
I think that probably the other other part of this
that goes to the heinous nature of it. And I'd
be very curious from the perspective of a legal uh
a llegal uh scholar, does that heinous behavior? Can it
is there? Can that be evidenced as part of the
(37:23):
recipe if you will, uh for capital punishment? Can it
be evidenced in bringing a bit of skull with you
to display it to everybody. I mean, to me, that's heinous.
All right, it's horrific, absolutely horrific. But can that be
evidence to go into the bigger mix when the DA
is trying to decide or is it just those things
(37:45):
that happen in that moment where you know death is
is is going to happen. I'm not saying that she
She probably would have eventually died from these other traumas maybe,
but it would have been it was quickened, certainly. I
think by picking up the bit of asphalt. I don't
(38:08):
think you can define that as mercy though on any
level or any less heinous. Uh you know, Uh, she's
been kicked, h cut, carved on. And the idea that
that that in any way that that what was exact
(38:30):
upon Colleen was merciful. This is something that was intended
to be drawn out over a protracted period of time.
And listen, people don't like to use the word evil.
They shot away from it. Evil's real, It's it's truly real.
I take exception to people that try to, you know,
try to say, well, this is a sign of mental illness.
(38:54):
This is not some moral thing where we can define
them as evil. I beg to differ on that point.
This is this is the fruit of evil that you're
seeing played out here. I think that people want some
kind of other explanation, uh to to try to comfort
themselves in some way that evil doesn't exist, that it's
(39:15):
all mental illness. And I just I just don't see this.
They they, this group set about ending Colleen's life, and
now it would seem that the state of Tennessee has
decided to move forward in this case. Again. You know,
(39:38):
I find it very odd that we've got a window
of a year now after thirty way thirty years, you know,
isn't that kind of curious? Man?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
That is very you mentioned we you know, they are
they as a plural. They did this well for those
who might think well to Darrylship must not have been
very involved, you know, since he he was given life
with the possibility of pearl after twenty five years. But
you know, as part of the story as told by
Krista Pike and played for the jury, that after the
(40:11):
beating began, and you know, Colleen kept trying to run away,
it was to Darryls Ship that actually grabbed her back,
brought her down and held her down while Colleen I mean,
while Christa Pike used that box cutter to carve into
her chest and stomach. And by the way, according to
(40:32):
Krista Pike, Colleen was screaming in pain the whole time. Yeah,
she was begging. Knowing what was at stake, she said,
I will walk back to Florida if you'll just let
me go. I will leave. I will walk. I don't
I won't tell anybody what has happened. You know, she's
begging for her life to Darryl Ship is holding her
down while Christa Pike does this with that box cutter.
(40:54):
So he's coming up for parole next week, and I
wonder you remember what he did. Now. The other woman involved,
who you know, copped a plea deal. She was standing guard,
which again I'm not I'm not willing to go that far.
When you've got an admission of guilt by the perpetrator,
you've got a story that matches the evidence show. And
(41:17):
by the way, didn't take long. Okay, this crime took
place the night of January twelfth, the day of January thirteenth,
when Colleen Slimmer doesn't show up to eat, and that
at the same time, Krista Pike is showing off pieces
of her skull. Police are notified. They begin looking into
it right away after her body is found. It doesn't
(41:37):
take long. On the fourteenth, we're talking thirty six hours
after the murder. Police already have the principles in jail.
They've got him sitting there. Gott got the interview from
christ to Pike after reading her miranda. They've got to
Daryl Ship and they've got you know, they are a
guy everything. They didn't need to cop a plea deal
with the girl standing lookout for this whole thing, but
(41:59):
they did so. They gave her probation. They get to
Darrylship for life with possibility pro life for twenty five years.
And finally, now they're going to put christ the Pike
to death for what she did. But again, it's already
been thirty plus years and now she gets another year.
Is that a form of torture? You know, it's finally here, Mark,
(42:21):
this is the last time you're ever going to see
this date on the calendar. Yeah, you're not going to
see another you know, I mean, I just I'm for
the life of me trying to figure out you're carrying
out a sentence. You've had thirty plus years. Yeah, really,
why do we have to wait?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I don't know. I don't understand it, and I'm sure
that they're legal scholars out there that would be able
to certainly explain it. It just seems it's a rather
odd road to go down to me. At least, you
know it's you know, it's not like you know your
the matre d is taking your name down at the
(43:00):
you know, to check in. Well, we'll get to you
when we can where you know your table will soon
be available. It's not like to have a huge list
of people that are waiting to do this and that
you've had this much time that has you know, clicked
off of the clock. Colleen's time ended, I guess a
(43:24):
bit more mercifully in one sense, is that she's done
with the pain now. Krista Pike has got to sit
there in that cell for a bit longer, and they're
going to take her maybe a year from now, they're
going to initiate an IV site on her arm. They're
(43:50):
going to lead her into that room, and unlike in
other states that use lethal injection, Tennessee only uses one drug.
There is no cocktail peanut barbital, and she will be
allowed to slip off into unconsciousness. Her lungs will begin
to shut down, her heart will cease to beat, and
(44:15):
all memories that she may have created in any hope
she may have had from walking out of that institution
will be at an end. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body Bags
Body Bus with Joseph's gotten more.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
There are so many times in the life where we're
in the middle of whatever it is, tough times that
we're going through, maybe even happy times, we sit back
and say, you know what I wish. I wish I
knew what the future held. I wish that I could
(00:25):
reach reach to the veil, if you will, and try
to predict my next move. Well, how am I going
to spend the time that I have? Let's you say,
And a lot of people wonder this. I think they're
out there. When am I going to pass on? When
is my life going to come to an end? And
(00:47):
it's been amazing if you were armed with that information,
what exactly would you do?
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Well?
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Today? Today we actually have an individual who knows when
she's going to pass on.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
The question is.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
What are you going to do at a time she
has left? Right now referring to the murderer, the killer
of Colleen Slimmer, her name is Krista Pike. The grains
(01:35):
of sand are trickling through the hour class as I
speak right now. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is
body Bags. So many times, Dave, in my life, I've
you know, and it's always, you know, I mean, we
have no other choices. Always retrospectively, you know, you're sitting
(01:58):
there and you're thinking, Wow, I had that to do
over again, I probably would not have made that decision,
or I would have, you know, tried to do better,
or I never would have put myself in that position.
But it's an interesting, interesting set of circumstances that you're in,
I think in life, where you know that the terminus
(02:23):
rest ahead and you can almost see it over the
crest of the next hill, and miss Pike has put
herself in that position. Day from arguably one of the
most horrific cases. I think perhaps there's another one that
actually rivals that we've previously covered on bodybacks, but one
(02:45):
of the most horrific cases perhaps in Tennessee History.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Day January twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Krista Pike leured someone
she saw as a romantic rival in their job course situation.
Her name Colleen Slimmer, woman's nineteen years old. They're both
at job corps. But Krista Pike thinks or believes that
(03:12):
Colleen has eyes for Christmas boyfriend. So she puts a
game in play. I'm going to lure this girl out,
and based on what took place, Joe, it wasn't to
scare her, it wasn't to threaten her. Because based on
what we know took place, which I have questions for
(03:33):
you today. We have covered this story on bodybags previously,
but I want to get right into the murder of
Colleen Slimmer and what Christaph Pike did to her that night,
because on the outside looking in, you were thinking maybe
it was a threat that got out of hand. Hey,
(03:54):
you're hitting on my boyfriend. Stay away from him. I
don't want to hear any more about this. You stay
away from my man, and that it got out of hand,
you know, That's that's kind of the way it gets positioned.
But based on what we knew took know took place,
and the time after it. Thankfully, if you're a death
(04:15):
penalty proponent, this is the one you should look at.
This is the person you should look at. But I'm
still shocked and saddened that it has taken. If we're
going to have the death penalty, why does it take
thirty years?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Joe? It has the point, Yeah, it has taken. Well,
there's no deterrent. There's no deterrent factor any longer. You know,
it's not it's not one of these things where you know,
we're doing this to deter future crimes such as this. Really,
is that what you're going to tell me, because I
got I gotta tell you, it just doesn't seem like
(04:46):
much of a deterrent. We've talked about this, We've we've
covered Wow, we've covered actually we've dipped our toe in
waters that most people I think don't necessarily go down
the road of because you and I had come to
an agreement some time ago that that we we would
cover capital punishment or the end result of their decisions
(05:09):
that they made that led to them being you know,
killed by the state, these perpetrators, if we could focus
on the victim, because you know, that's the one thing
about it. These things come into the news and right now,
if you looked up Colleen's name, this is kind of
sad you looked up Colleen's name right now and did
(05:32):
a Google search on her, Well, it's not her name,
it's going to pop up. It's Krista Pyke's. And that's
the way it always happens with capital punishment cases, you know,
because the victims most of the time are a distant memory.
There's someone you know that is I don't know for
(05:53):
people in the modern context. And I say that, you know,
thirty years later, modern context, they don't. They no longer have.
There's not even really a remnant around of these individuals
other than the loved ones. And this is probably the
most important. But other than the loved ones that hold
their memory, you know, deer, they're the ones that sit
in silence, you know, all these years, wanting some kind
(06:17):
of answer, and most of the time you get people
chirping in and chiming in about how evil the death
penalty is, and they not necessarily have given two hoots
in hell about this person to begin with.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
You know, I did a Google stary twin you said
that I typed in Colleen Slimmer, Yeah, and immediately it
pops up, and here are the top stories that popped
up the headlines, right, I've got one to three, four, five,
five pictures pop up on the screen with stories associated
with them. All of them are pictures of Krista Pike yeah,
and USA Today, foxnewspeople dot Com and so on, And
(06:57):
it's all about execution date set or Krista Pike and
again thirty years after the fact, Joe. And why do
they give her a year out? Because as we're talking
about this, they just set the execution date and it's
for a year away, a year away. Why isn't it
not forty eight hours. I mean, you've had thirty years.
(07:17):
After thirty years, if you haven't found a reason to
not carry this out, I'm going to say, I think
whenever there's a death penalty case, I know that it's
an automatic appeal, which I get that not a problem.
Examine all the things that took place, you know, and
because you got to remember, to get to that conviction,
(07:38):
a jury of your peers sat, they hurt all the evidence,
they went up everything, and they decided unanimously that this
person deserved death as a punishment, as a penalty for
their crime. It wasn't willy nilly, It wasn't you know,
it was monitored the entire time. How the attorney's handled
it all the way through the judge. I mean, there's
(07:59):
all kinds of safe guards in there.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yeah, there are, and as a matter of fact, coming
to attorneys in most states. And I don't know if
if our friends are aware of this, but in most states,
if you're going to be on the I think it
applies to prosecution and defense. If you're going to be
on either of those teams, you have to be death
penalty qualified in order to move forward with a case
(08:23):
where you've got capital punishment, you know, staring down, staring
down the accused at that point in time. And that
goes to this idea of protections because it's so much
more complex based upon you know, this thing. If there
is if there is a guilty and if there is
sentencing that winds up in canpital punishment, it's automatic appeal.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Dude.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It's not like it's going to be backburner or anything
like that. So there's been over thirty years, there have
been a series of appeals that have been filed in
this case. I'm still stumped by the you know, the
the idea that you need a year in order to
(09:07):
do this unless unless the prosecution they're preparing for whatever
new appeal might pop up. But again, you can't necessarily
force it through the courts in any particular way. So
that's that's compelling. And here's the other thing I think
that's really kind of interesting here is that allegedly what
(09:31):
they're saying The reason I think it kind of made
it into the algorithm again is that she's like the
first female in two hundred years that you know that
Tennessee is going to put to death or over the
two hundred year history of capital punishment. She's like a
number one. So she's been bumped up the line, you know,
(09:55):
ahead of everybody else, any other females that might be
sitting on death row. Uh, you know, in in Tennessee. Uh.
And there's not a lot of females on death row
around America.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
There, Ris debis only won in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
And let's see, Yeah, Tennessee has not carried out an
execution of a woman since the death penalty was reinstated.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
And again all of that, you know, it goes back
to what you were saying a minute ago, Joe, that
the victim is left out of all of this. They
are for thirty years, Colleen Slimmer, she was killed by
this woman, and this woman was tried, convicted, and sentenced to.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Death in the most brutal way. And listen, I love
what you said earlier about the this. You know, when
when when I get into the level of brutality that
was exact upon this young woman, Colleen. You think about,
you know, when you're a kid and you're in high
(11:01):
school or whatever, and you're in my hometown, the used
calls fender lizards. And those were the individuals that would
pull into the parking lot at at heart Ease or
McDonald's and you just hang out in your car, right,
And they were called fender lizards. And there was actually
there was actually a city statute that was put forward
in the small southern town about you can't be a
(11:24):
fender lizard, you know, move on. It's loitering or whatever
the case might be. But you know, back back then,
during those periods of time when you're young and you know,
you're if there was a conflict over a relationship, you
might have two guys that you know that have fistcuffs
over it, and and that's it. That's that's not what
(11:47):
this is is about. This is this is about a
case of and I love these two terms luring and menacing,
and what it comes down to is that both of
those elements wind up equally.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Pure evil.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
So I'm not really familiar with with job Corp necessarily, Dave,
I understand the principle, understand that it gives you an
opportunity to seek out employment and providing kind of a
backstop for you so that, you know, if you're in
(12:45):
a life situation where you're not going to get further
education necessarily, they have opportunities for people to do that,
to get some kind of technical training or get kind
of absorbed into the workforce. And you know, you've got
You've got these individuals that were around Colleen in this
(13:07):
Job Corps program that was actually they were being housed
in a dorm that was not too far away from
University of Tennessee campus. As a matter of fact, I
think where this accras comes into play, Yeah, the campus does,
(13:28):
because it's like part of their ag program, you know
at UT their agricultural you know, majors and that sort
of thing. And this is kind of an old abandoned
area that was on the property, wasn't it, Dave?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
It was. You give you an idea of what job
Corp is, and I pulled the easiest explanation is it
is a US Department of Labor funded no cost career
technical training. I think it was a little different thirty
years ago than it is now. But Colleen Slimmer was
a part of Job Corps, as was Krista Pike and
(14:04):
to Darryls Ship. And we have others involved in this,
but just staying right where we are, there are interpersonal
relationships that developed between the people of job Corp. Remember
they are living together, eating together, going to classes together.
I mean they are. It's an environment that you know,
you get to know people, you make best friends there
for the rest of your life or lifelong enemies depending
(14:26):
on that you have. And in this case, Krista Pike
was dating a guy named to Darryl Ship and she
believed that Colleen Slimmer was trying to lure to Darylship
away in a romantic relationship. Everybody that the police interviewed,
(14:46):
everybody that talked about the situation said Colleen and to
Darryl were friendly, but not in that way. They were
friendly as just we're in the program together. You know,
they were friends, but nothing more than that. But Krista
Pike didn't like Colleen and thought there was something going
on between to Darryl and Colleen. So I mean yeah,
(15:09):
and so she decided to take it into her own
hands and they lure. They being Krista Pike, to Darryls
Ship and one other person who ended up becoming state's evidence,
who got probation and got a problem for somebody being
involved in the death of another person, whether they're just
(15:32):
as a lookout or anything else they're involved in this case.
Her name, her last name is Peterson. She ended up
with probation. She didn't go to jail. But yeah, Shadola shada, Yeah,
thank you.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
So they they being the three loure Colleen to the campus.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, and it's a it's an old abandoned steam plant.
I got to tell you when I when I heard that,
you know what it made me think of it. Uh,
I'm thinking about how ominous this thing probably looks. Uh
it looked like the said of like a Batman movie,
you know, it's kind of dark. Yeah. Yeah. And and
(16:14):
they used they used the opportunity to get her back there.
They said, come on, let's go smoke weed together. Well,
this is not like a spontaneous kind of event where uh,
you know, there's some kind of uh you know, act
that triggers somebody immediately, uh, where they get into a fight. Now,
(16:37):
they they came prepared, knowing, knowing what the purpose was there.
They're going to take her to this location that, you know,
just the the ominous nature of this abandoned steam plant.
It's not going to attract anybody else. It's you. You've
got this young girl, Colleen in this in a state
(17:00):
of isolation there, and suddenly you know, you've you've got
Krista Pike who literally begins to attack her along with
this other individual that's there that's supposed to be you know,
I guess the love of her life. Yeah yeah, and who,
(17:25):
by the way, just as a little aside, this guy
next week as of this recording, this guy is hang
on your hat, Dave. This guy is up for parole
hearing the first parole hearing. Yeah, yeah, he's he's gonna
he's gonna have and he's in his forties. Uh. Christ
(17:46):
Pike is sitting on death row. So that kind of
shows you the relationship between these two, the the level
of responsibility that they equate to Christa Pike as opposed
to this, you know, to this person that that she
you know, has you know, uh, romantic desires upon Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
The one thing you mentioned about them going to smoke weed, Joe,
is that the reason or the way that comes about
and comes into play here is that Krista Pike. There
had been animosity there they were. There was a known
situation here, not with just them, but with others. And
that's where Christa Pike reaches out to Collin and says,
(18:30):
we're gonna get together. We're going to meet, and we're
gonna smoke weed. We're gonna smoke the peace pipe, you know,
that kind of thing. And that was the whole point
that the smoking of the weed was to seal the deal,
that this animosity was going to stop, that everything was fine,
We're all going to be buddies and pals. And of
course that was the way she lured her. But you
mentioned coming prepared. What did what did Christa Pike carry
(18:56):
with her Joe that she used in this well, yeah,
in this murder.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
Yeah, I think that that's Lord have mercy talk about
the tools of death, just so people understand they huh,
they came prepared with both a box cutter and dave
a meat cleaver. When was the last time we talked
about a meat clever? I don't I don't remember it. Now.
(19:24):
It's been used in in movies, you know, for years
and years, and I have worked a case involving a
meat cleaver. But they show up with a meat cleaver.
What's the purpose of a meat cleaper. Well, from a
forensic standpoint, you have what are referred to and these
are sharp force injuries that are generated by one of
(19:45):
these things. Uh, these are chopping injuries, and they're they're
kind of distinct from say the edge of a blade, uh,
where you're dragging, dragging the edge of a blade across
the surface of the skin. Interestingly enough, meat cleavers actually
have some characteristics of blunt force trauma that that can
(20:11):
be appreciated, particularly in the in the the depth of
the wound you get into the bone perhaps if you've
got it, like if somebody struck on a collar bone,
all right, with a meat cleaver, you're going to have
this kind of fragmenting of the bone, but it'll still it.
But on the other hand, it'll kind of have a
(20:32):
clean edge to it. Okay, so it kind of and
you'll see, uh, you can see contoosed areas when anybody's
using an axe, if there's been an axe attack or
a cleaver, which many times are associated with blunt force
because you're you're pounding and tearing that skin at the
(20:53):
same time. It's not as neat as as you might
think that it is. But they showed up here, you know,
with these instruments, and not to mention they also what
also comes into play here day is a chunk of asphalt. Okay,
(21:13):
so this is going to be a blunt a blunt
object that that's going to be used as a bludgeon
at some point in time. Interestingly enough, injuries many times
when you use something like a piece of asphalt, even
though it's it's heavy, it's firm. The surface area of
(21:38):
a fragmented piece of asphalt, you can actually have bits
of it that will break off in injury. So when
you're kind of going through this kind of layered examination
of a of a strike to the skin, did you
know you can actually see bits of fragmented asphalt in there.
I've seen it with concrete as well. I've seen it
(21:59):
with You'll see little bitty features and you can certainly
see them at a microscopic level if you take a
sample of that tissue and put it on a slide.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Colleen Slimmer was beaten for at least thirty minutes yep,
and the only comment from Christ the Pike was saying,
the bitch won't die. Yeah, Well did they do to
her body. How did that beating gojo?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Yeah, well, let me give you one more insight. There
was one other thing that Christa Pike allegedly said at
this time, and it gives you an indication of the
level of violence that she was willing to inflict upon Colleen.
She said, I want to see her brains flow. So
(22:44):
she's purposed, all right, She's purposed in the fact that
not only is it on her her menu here, if
you will to inflict sharp force injuries on Colleen by
(23:05):
repeatedly striking her with a meat cleaver, she wants to
see her skull crushed to the point where and this
does happen, where you will see brain beginning to extrude
(23:27):
from a skull. It takes multiple strikes most of the
time to kind of invade the cranial vault, and once
it's cracked open, those fracture lines begin to kind of
spiderweb all over the place, and with each repeated strike,
(23:48):
you'll see these flaps that will open up. I've seen
this happen with hammer attacks, I've seen it happen in
motor vehicle accents. But it's a There has to be
a tremendous amount of force that's literally directed at the
head in order to facilitate that that's obviously a motor
vehicle that's a single strike. This would have taken multiple strikes,
(24:10):
probably with this piece of asphalt, in order to get
inside of the cranial vault where you're going to see
the brain extruding. And it's called extrusion. Extrusion is what
it's referred to as. And there's another point here that
we have to consider. Not only is she literally tormenting
(24:38):
this poor girl with all of these injuries that she sustained, Dave,
she she took this box cutter and carved a pentagram
on her chest. You know in pentagrams and inverted is
an inverted star, uh, five point star. You know that's
(25:04):
associated many times with Satanic worship.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
And in my experienced, people that that do this sort
of thing don't necessarily have they might think that they're
involved in Satanic worship. Many times it's left. It's just
kind of a horrific calling card along the way. And
I can't imagine that this that this person, Christa Pike
(25:33):
was intellectually uh, intellectually sophisticated enough to be the leader
of a satanic coven if you will, all right, this
is something where she's just trying to be as horrible
and and and try to be as debased as you
possibly can. And that's what happened with Colleen. Interestingly enough,
(26:00):
Colleen had done so much I'm sorry strike that day
three to Pike had done so much damage to Colleen
that in the wake of all of this, Dave, she's
not only taunting her, making new statements like the bitch
(26:21):
won't die. I want to see her blood flow. She's
a souvenir taker, Dave. She's a souvenir taker. She Krista
Pike took a portion of Colleen's skull, and in the
wake of having committed this horrible murder, torture, murder, she
(26:43):
takes this bit of skull with her and begins to
proudly display it to people.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Dave, how tough would it beat Joe to even get
a piece of skull?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Nothing? It would, it would. The thing about it is
our our our scalp is literally adherent to our skull
with fascia, which is this kind of thin membrane. If
you if you take your fingertips and you touch your
(27:16):
scalp right now, you can actually move your scalp over
the surface of your skull. You want it to do
that because if it's if it's static, you're gonna have problems. Okay,
So but once once you have erupted this area and
torn this bit of scalp away, it would be nothing
to reach down and dislodge a chunk of skull even
(27:40):
by the fascia connection that you have to that layer
of the scalp, just kind of lightly pull it away,
and there you have. You've got, like, I don't know,
a triangular piece of skull that you're walking around with. Hey, everybody,
look what I've Look what I've I've got here. You know,
it's not like she's walking around displaying a gold medal
for some grand achievement that she might have had job
(28:03):
corps or some athletic prowess. No, she's got a bit
of Colleen's skull that is now trophied for her. The
big question is this, I think, is this actually a
(28:25):
sign of mental illness? Because that's the big question here,
isn't it? And that's what the defense wants you to believe.
That she's got multiple psychiatric diagnoses, She's got PTSD from
previous sexual abuse. There's been talk that she had done
(28:47):
drugs with her mother at some point in time. But
does all of that trump beating and carving up a
young woman and taking a bit of her body with
her that she should not be held responsible. Somewhere out there,
(29:22):
Colleen's remains exist all that's left of her, and we're
thirty years downrange. You sit there and think of all
of the potential that existed within her, and also, you know,
(29:44):
the children she may have had, the potential that existed
in them, the hopes that may be, the ones that
loved her had for her moving forward, that's gone. It's
completely gone now, all over this kind of senseless, just
(30:05):
nonsensical uh behavior on the part of Krysta Pike and
these other people that she drug into this as well.
And look, I mean, I'm not I'm not saying that
those individuals should not be fully held to account for
what they did. They actively participated in this. You know,
at some point in time, you have to recognize that
(30:30):
we're creatures of free will. We're gonna make decisions, and
I don't care really how old you are, You're gonna
make decisions about the activities you engage in. Uh. It's
it's a real shame. I think that many in society
won't want people just to well, let's let's forget about
this free will decision that they made, and you know,
(30:53):
we're we're just gonna we're going to start over. You know, well,
go tell that Colleen's family and look, whether or not
you agree with the death penalty or not, you know,
be you know, be either hot or cold on it.
Don't sit in the middle of the road. If you
(31:13):
don't believe in the death penalty, that's fine, But she
doesn't need to see the light of day again. So
you know, I think the big question is that prosecutors,
many times, I think, are faced with they have to
weigh the risk here, you know, because listen at the time,
I'm sure the public was screaming, we want blood.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I was looking at a couple of the comments by
Krista Pike when she gave her story of what took place.
There was a wound to the back of Colleen Slimmer
that they were trying to figure out where did this
come from? How did this happen? And one was a
long cut down her back, and Christa Pike said, well,
(31:58):
she kept getting up and trying to run away, and
she would be tackled and beat again. So Colleen, for
thirty or forty minutes, Joe is fighting for her life
against an armed woman with a she's got a cleaver
and a box cutter. And from the very beginning, for
anybody who has ever been in a fight, if you've
(32:21):
ever caught a knee to the head, I'm gonna tell
you I have caught a knee to the head. It
knocks you into the middle of next week. And according
to Krista Pike, that was the first thing she did.
This attack was by surprise. Remember they were there to
smoke the peace pipe. And Krista Pike starts pounding away
(32:43):
and knees her head, that's what she says. Kicks her
in the head, knees her in the head, kicks her
in the body, and I mean she is terrorizing the
body of Colleen's Slimmer. And again when she mentioned that
I want to see her brains flow out, she lifts
(33:04):
a large chunk of asphalt paving over Slimmer's head and
proceeded to smash her skull until brain matter started flowing
out of her head. Krista Pike shared that information This
was not something that investigators think happened, or that they
(33:25):
built what to a timeline of how it happened, you know,
based on evidence. This is the story told to them
by Krista Pike, that she used the asphalt to slam
over Colleen Slimmer's head over and over and over until
the brain flowed, brain matterflow, and then she grabbed that
chunk of skull as a souvenir and showed it off.
(33:49):
The next day at school here in the cafeteria eating,
and here's Christy, where's Colleen? I don't know where is
Colleen today? But look look what I've got.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
I've got skull, yeah yeah, so fresh svel and she
you know, and you know, her thing about it is
when she picked us up, When she picked up that
bit of skull, there would have been some cleaning that
would have had to have taken place, because you would
still have some tissue, certainly have some blood that was
(34:20):
on there. I wonder if she took this young woman's
skull and that fragmented piece and rubbed it off on
her pants or stuck in her pocket, merely waiting for
it to dry out as she you know, kind of
dances away from the scene, leaving leaving Colleen's remains there.
But you had asked me a critical question, Dave, a
(34:41):
few months ago, how do we get to how do
we get to capital punishment in this particular case. Well,
if you look at the statute in in Tennessee, one
of the it's got, there are multiple different paths you
can take to get to first spree murder that can
be you know, uh punished, you know, with with the
(35:04):
death penalty and with first degree you you actually have
there's these aggravating factors. We hear about aggravating factors, and
the one that this case in particular meets is that
there is a subsection to it. That's that the way
(35:25):
you define it, the murder, and I quote the murder
was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel in that it involved
here's the word day torture, serious physical abuse beyond that
necessary to produce death. So if you look at this
and and if you had the utility to bring about
(35:49):
her death in a I hate to even use the
term humane, but in a quicker manner. I mean you
you yourself said that, uh you know that she's languishing
and was Dave. She had a full awareness of it.
She's responding to pain. It didn't start off with the
most fatal thing, all right, you don't have the skull
crushing that happens at the beginning. She's trying to get away,
(36:11):
She's fighting for her life. Okay, at this point in
time when these these choices are being exacted upon Colleen,
these choices that are made by Pike, for every one
(36:33):
of those this is leading up to the grand finale.
It's the totality of that that makes this so heinous.
This is not like somebody, you know, mob style, taking
somebody out and executing them by shooting them in the
back of the head and walking off from their body.
That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about
something that where this young woman is languishing. And then
(36:58):
I think that probably the other other part of this
that goes to the heinous nature of it. And I'd
be very curious from the perspective of a legal uh
a llegal uh scholar, does that heinous behavior? Can it
is there? Can that be evidenced as part of the
(37:23):
recipe if you will, uh for capital punishment? Can it
be evidenced in bringing a bit of skull with you
to display it to everybody. I mean, to me, that's heinous.
All right, it's horrific, absolutely horrific. But can that be
evidence to go into the bigger mix when the DA
is trying to decide or is it just those things
(37:45):
that happen in that moment where you know death is
is is going to happen. I'm not saying that she
She probably would have eventually died from these other traumas maybe,
but it would have been it was quickened, certainly. I
think by picking up the bit of asphalt. I don't
(38:08):
think you can define that as mercy though on any
level or any less heinous. Uh you know, Uh, she's
been kicked, h cut, carved on. And the idea that
that that in any way that that what was exact
(38:30):
upon Colleen was merciful. This is something that was intended
to be drawn out over a protracted period of time.
And listen, people don't like to use the word evil.
They shot away from it. Evil's real, It's it's truly real.
I take exception to people that try to, you know,
try to say, well, this is a sign of mental illness.
(38:54):
This is not some moral thing where we can define
them as evil. I beg to differ on that point.
This is this is the fruit of evil that you're
seeing played out here. I think that people want some
kind of other explanation, uh to to try to comfort
themselves in some way that evil doesn't exist, that it's
(39:15):
all mental illness. And I just I just don't see this.
They they, this group set about ending Colleen's life, and
now it would seem that the state of Tennessee has
decided to move forward in this case. Again. You know,
(39:38):
I find it very odd that we've got a window
of a year now after thirty way thirty years, you know,
isn't that kind of curious? Man?
Speaker 1 (39:49):
That is very you mentioned we you know, they are
they as a plural. They did this well for those
who might think well to Darrylship must not have been
very involved, you know, since he he was given life
with the possibility of pearl after twenty five years. But
you know, as part of the story as told by
Krista Pike and played for the jury, that after the
(40:11):
beating began, and you know, Colleen kept trying to run away,
it was to Darryls Ship that actually grabbed her back,
brought her down and held her down while Colleen I mean,
while Christa Pike used that box cutter to carve into
her chest and stomach. And by the way, according to
(40:32):
Krista Pike, Colleen was screaming in pain the whole time. Yeah,
she was begging. Knowing what was at stake, she said,
I will walk back to Florida if you'll just let
me go. I will leave. I will walk. I don't
I won't tell anybody what has happened. You know, she's
begging for her life to Darryl Ship is holding her
down while Christa Pike does this with that box cutter.
(40:54):
So he's coming up for parole next week, and I
wonder you remember what he did. Now. The other woman involved,
who you know, copped a plea deal. She was standing guard,
which again I'm not I'm not willing to go that far.
When you've got an admission of guilt by the perpetrator,
you've got a story that matches the evidence show. And
(41:17):
by the way, didn't take long. Okay, this crime took
place the night of January twelfth, the day of January thirteenth,
when Colleen Slimmer doesn't show up to eat, and that
at the same time, Krista Pike is showing off pieces
of her skull. Police are notified. They begin looking into
it right away after her body is found. It doesn't
(41:37):
take long. On the fourteenth, we're talking thirty six hours
after the murder. Police already have the principles in jail.
They've got him sitting there. Gott got the interview from
christ to Pike after reading her miranda. They've got to
Daryl Ship and they've got you know, they are a
guy everything. They didn't need to cop a plea deal
with the girl standing lookout for this whole thing, but
(41:59):
they did so. They gave her probation. They get to
Darrylship for life with possibility pro life for twenty five years.
And finally, now they're going to put christ the Pike
to death for what she did. But again, it's already
been thirty plus years and now she gets another year.
Is that a form of torture? You know, it's finally here, Mark,
(42:21):
this is the last time you're ever going to see
this date on the calendar. Yeah, you're not going to
see another you know, I mean, I just I'm for
the life of me trying to figure out you're carrying
out a sentence. You've had thirty plus years. Yeah, really,
why do we have to wait?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I don't know. I don't understand it, and I'm sure
that they're legal scholars out there that would be able
to certainly explain it. It just seems it's a rather
odd road to go down to me. At least, you
know it's you know, it's not like you know your
the matre d is taking your name down at the
(43:00):
you know, to check in. Well, we'll get to you
when we can where you know your table will soon
be available. It's not like to have a huge list
of people that are waiting to do this and that
you've had this much time that has you know, clicked
off of the clock. Colleen's time ended, I guess a
(43:24):
bit more mercifully in one sense, is that she's done
with the pain now. Krista Pike has got to sit
there in that cell for a bit longer, and they're
going to take her maybe a year from now, they're
going to initiate an IV site on her arm. They're
(43:50):
going to lead her into that room, and unlike in
other states that use lethal injection, Tennessee only uses one drug.
There is no cocktail peanut barbital, and she will be
allowed to slip off into unconsciousness. Her lungs will begin
to shut down, her heart will cease to beat, and
(44:15):
all memories that she may have created in any hope
she may have had from walking out of that institution
will be at an end. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and
this is body Bags
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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