September 24, 2025 • 25 mins
We learn what the jury and public didn’t know about Christa, her attorneys, and their trial strategy.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is therefore ordered that you shall be put to
death after you know.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The prescribe by law that you shall be transferred to
custody for the warning.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
At the Tennessee Christmas.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It took less than two hours for a jury to
sentence twenty year old Krista Pike to death and further,
the twelfth.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Day of January nineteen ninety seven, your body shall be
subjected to shop by.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
A sufficient curme to electricity.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My God, January twelfth, nineteen ninety seven, it wasn't just
the day Kristal was marked to die. It was also
the two year anniversary of Colleen Slemmer's death.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Mister tied to the doctor.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
During Christa's trial, there was little doubt that she killed Colleen.
Conviction wasn't the question. The real question was whether Christa
was going to pay for the crime with her life.
In the end, the jury would agree with prosecutors that
imposing the death penalty would deliver some sense.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Of justice, not just.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
For Colleen's family, but for the community of Knoxville and
for everyone watching, shaking their heads that we live in
a world where things like this happen. But thirty years later,
Christa is still waiting to die, And for those three decades,
Christa's advocates had been arguing that it didn't have to
turn out this way, that her original defense team had
(01:47):
a chance to explain to the jury who Christa was
and how, at eighteen years old, she had ended up
in a wooded area of Knoxville. A chunk of concrete
raised above Colleen's head to explain that murdering a teenage
girl in a vicious rage wasn't a reflection of unresolvable depravity,
(02:07):
but something that emerged from a place of extreme brokenness
and desperation. I'm Sarah J. Levin, and this is Unrestorable,
Season two, Proof of Life, an original podcast from anonymous
content and iHeartRadio. Can you just tell me where we are?
(02:36):
Just where we're saying, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
We're sitting right now out on the outdoor plaza of
the City County Building. That's the main government building for
Knoxville and Knox County. This has been the center of
government since the late nineteen seventies. It's kind of ironic
that you have a building sitting on such a beautiful
setting because we've got the Tennessee River below us, You've
got Riverbank it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
When Beth Carris and I went down to Knoxville in
August twenty twenty four, we met up with John North,
a reporter who covered Krista Pike's trial for the murder
of Colleen Slimmer, it was a steamy, sunny day.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This is also a building that houses many inmates, because
in the belly of this building is a jail that
has I don't know, one hundred and fifty to two
hundred cells. And this is where, once upon a time,
the worst of the worst were held while they were
awaiting trial.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Is this where Krista and to Daryl would have been
while they were waiting trial?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
All three of the defendants would have been held in
the belly of this building at some point.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yes, Christa was charged alongside her boyfriend to Darryl's ship
and another young woman named Shidola Peterson. We're focusing on
Krista because she was the only one who faced death.
In nineteen ninety five, Tennessee law forbade executing anyone who
is under eighteen at the time they committed their crime.
(03:56):
So even though Christa and to Darryl were both accused
of killing Colleen, the law would hold them to different standards.
At the time of Christa's trial, there seemed to be
a little talk about whether it was reasonable that she
and to Daryl might face dramatically different consequences because of
their minor age difference. But in the decades since, questions
(04:19):
about where that line should be drawn, just how young
is too young to be sentenced to death, have only grown.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think it's fair to say that this was for Knoxville,
a very heavy, heavy thing that was about to go down, because,
first of all, we don't look at young people as
getting involved in savage crimes like this. Certainly it's still
thankfully considered an aberration, and this was a slaughter, and
(04:50):
the idea that young people would do this was shocking
and troubling to I think everybody be included. You also
had this torture aspect, hints of Satanism, which was like,
what the hell is that.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
The case was presided over by Judge Mary Beth Leebowitz,
who was appointed the first female criminal court judge in
Knox County in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Judge Leebowitz's courtroom was very small, had a limited number
of people it could accommodate. You sat very close to
both the defendant, the prosecution, and the jury.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Many saw the case as a slam dunk for the prosecution.
There was so much evidence against Christa, her own confession,
the clothes they found soaked in Colleen's blood, and that
piece of Collen skull which had already created a media
frenzy and played a starring role at trial.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, as you would imagine, all eyes were always on Christa,
always still are thirty years later. People pay attention to Christa,
so we were always looking at how she was handling things.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Jury's selection, especially in a high profile case where capital
punishment is on the table, it can be a tricky thing.
The defense wants jurors who might have empathy for the accused,
might be able to see a person beyond their worst acts.
The prosecution wants durs who might be inclined to punish
someone for their transgressions, in this case, someone who'd be
(06:14):
inclined to punish someone by death if the evidence warranted it.
One juror was excused after she started crying as she
tried to explain that she had always believed in capital
punishment but now couldn't stomach the idea of being responsible
for someone's death. All the while Krista watched. At times,
(06:35):
John says the gravity of what was happening didn't seem
to register with her.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
She was pretty chipper, she was sunny, she would smile,
she would talk to people. She'd gotten friendly with another
TV reporter and waived at him one morning as she
was walking into a court.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
In the pictures I've seen of Krista at her trial,
she's wearing a series of frilly, floral dresses. Her mass
of auburn curls are pulled up in a scrunchy sometimes
in her French braid, and she has these frizzy bangs.
She has a spray of acne over her chin and
pudgy cheeks. She really looks like a kid, maybe even
younger than she was. A jury of seven men and
(07:18):
five women was finally chosen. They heard testimony about how
Colleen had fought for her life, about the pentagram that
was carved into her chest, about how she was cut
dozens of times with a box cutter and hit over
and over. They heard the confession Krista made to Detective
Randy Yorke.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
She has kind of ramack face, as Christ's confession was
played for the court.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
She appeared to be crying, dabbing at her eyes with
a tissue.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
There were moments when obviously I don't know if it
was guilt or what hit her, but she would see
some of the clothing. I think I remember when the
clothing came out of Colleen's Krista put her head down
and I think was affected by that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
The evidence was hard to hear and see.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
This is the skull from the victim.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Doctor Sandra Elkins was a medical examiner who did Colleen's autopsy.
She brought Colleen's skull into court to show the jury
Colleen's cause of death. Colleen had injuries all over her body,
but the fatal blows were to her head.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
At least a minimum of two separate blows causing this
massive fracture on the last side of the skull. Taking
into account soft tissue and skull, I can say that
there were a minimum of five blows to the head.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Doctor Elkins showed the or the fragment Krista had taken
and how it fit back into Colleen's skull. John says
that may Martinez, Colleen's mother, sat through every day of
the trial and made a point of speaking to the press.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Colleen's mother wanted to be there for every bit of it,
including some bits that were just got awful. I mean
when they brought Colleen's clothing out and May got to
look at her pink sweater which was blood stained, and
her jeans where Christa had stabbed her in the crotch.
You know, that stuff was wrenching.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
I was very angry.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
In May twenty twenty five, Beth and I spoke with
May Martinez, Colleen's mother. She told us what she recalls
about being in court that week in nineteen ninety six,
and what it was like to sit so close to
the woman who killed her daughter.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
She was sitting across from me and she kept looking
at me. But we're told that we can't look at
them or say anything to them. We can't say anything
for when you're there at a trial, the dog tells
you to keep quiet, no emotions, do nothing. And she
kept looking over and her family lives an over but
it was rough. The hardest thing was is seeing Colleen's coat,
(10:12):
her shoes, her remains being passed around in the trial.
I mean, they passed her skull around. It was not good.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
John remembers Colleen's mother being stoic throughout the trial.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Well, there must have been some point where you got emotional.
Would you wait until you got back to the hotel
or wherever you were staying.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
Them outside in the courtroom, Outside of the courtroom, I
got emotion.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
You know.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
It was not easy.
Speaker 8 (10:40):
I seem to recall reading that she had a sweater
on that you recognized.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Yeah, she had jacket her father water a green jacket
for Christmas, and she had that arm, and then she
had her new sweater that I had gotten her and
her jeans.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Beyond the graphic evidence, prosecutors also worked hard to show
Crista as a cold blooded killer with little remorse. Writing
at the time in the Knoxville News Sentinel, John North
noted that quote the defense has done little to refute
Pike's acts. Rather, they claimed that she murdered Slammer in
a fit of rage she couldn't control.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
This was backed up by a defense witness named doctor
Eric Engham. The clinical psychologist testified that Christa, despite being
extremely bright, especially for someone who only completed ninth grade,
suffered from borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
And was addicted to Pott.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Doctor Engham said he believed Krista hadn't intended to kill Colleen,
but things had escalated and she had lost control. He
added that Christa acted elated about the murder because she
believed killing Colleen would help her preserve her relationship with
to Darryl. What the jury heard over the course of
the trial was devastating for everyone and undoubtedly damning for Christa.
(12:00):
What they didn't hear and what was going on in
the background of the trial was much more complicated. I'm
going to hand things off to Beth here so she
can take you through the mess on the legal side
of things.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
So do you think Bill Talman was ineffective? Yes, that's
Kelly Gleeson, one of Christa's post conviction attorneys, and Bill Talman,
one of Christa's trial lawyers, was an experienced Knoxville defense attorney.
Speaker 9 (12:27):
At the time, he had never done a capital case.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Death penalty cases are complicated and with so much at stake,
lawyers with experience are important, but Christa's parents didn't have
the money to hire their own expensive lawyer, so the
court appointed Talman. Steve Ferrell, another one of Christa's attorneys. Today,
says Christa seemed to trust Talman and seemed to find
(12:52):
some comfort in his warm, folksy nature.
Speaker 10 (12:55):
A big part of his strategy was they'll never give
the death penalty to a pretty little like you. I
think he believed that.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Talman later denied that. He said that.
Speaker 10 (13:09):
Why he gets this capital high profile case is a mystery.
Speaker 8 (13:14):
But a lawyer without capital case experience was not their
only issue.
Speaker 11 (13:19):
There should have been a chagent venue.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Kelly Gleeson says that emotions in Knoxville were supercharged, especially
with the ongoing suggestion that Colleen's murder was part of
a satanic ritual.
Speaker 11 (13:31):
She should not have been tried in that saturated media environment.
The norms in Tennessee at the time were to move
a case like that.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
Christa's attorneys did file emotion for a change of venue,
but it was denied. There were a lot of questions
about Talman's judgment, but one of the most consequential happened
just before he even stepped foot in Judge Leebwoitz's courtroom
for trial.
Speaker 11 (13:57):
There was a plea offer that came in days before trial.
Speaker 8 (14:04):
The offer was life without parole, a lot for a
young woman to consider, but certainly better than death.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
I don't think there were any extensive discussions with Christa
about this might be your best hope. That is what
Christa's asking for now. It could have all been done
and been over in nineteen ninety six, and we wouldn't
have to have gone through all this, and the victims
wouldn't have had to gone through all this.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
According to Kelly Gleeson, Talman did not spend much time
talking to Christa about the offer, about the opportunity to
spare her life. She says that later Talman said that
was his biggest regret, not spending more time with Christa
to explain the plea offer. But Christa didn't get that opportunity. Instead,
(14:50):
she put her fate in the hands of the jury,
and in a final blow, in the middle of the
defense case, and shortly before all the testimony wrapped up,
a juror told some of his fellow jurors that he
didn't feel comfortable with the idea of sentencing Christa to death.
She was so young, he said. The other jurors reported
(15:12):
him to the judge. After questioning the juror out of
the presence of the others, the judge removed him, finding
his answers about the death penalty were inconsistent and confused.
For a jury to render their verdict, all twelve jurors
must agree. Randy Spivey, one of Christa's attorneys today, says
(15:32):
that with that one juror gone, the likelihood of a
hung jury or a life sentence was greatly diminished. That's
the one you need, and he's gone.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
On March twenty ninth, nineteen ninety six, after just ninety
minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict. Christo was
found guilty of first degree murder and first degree conspiracy
to commit murder. Once Christa was convicted, the sentencing phase
was set to begin the next morning. It was a
chance for Christa's lawyers to convince the jury that though
(16:10):
Christa was guilty, she didn't deserve to die. The jury
had the option of sentencing Christa to life in prison.
At this point, Christa's team's job was to present mitigating evidence,
details of Christa's life from her earliest years that might
help the jury understand how and why Christa acted out
with so much rage. To see Christa as someone who
(16:32):
wasn't beyond repair, but desperately in need of help. Reporter
John North remembers this phase.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, I remember thinking, the defense has not got a
great hand to play with because of the nature of
the crime, because she talked to the cops, because of
her behavior, because of the souvenir's skull, because the attack
went on for thirty minutes to an hour. I think
they did the best that they could. Could they have
done better?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and I'm sure they would tell you that today.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Much of the mitigation evidence depended on the testimony of
a psychologist named Diana McCoy, who had spent months preparing
a report by interviewing Christa and her family members. What
McCoy found was a life characterized by chronic abuse, neglect,
and instability.
Speaker 11 (17:22):
She was shuffled between.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Her mom and dad.
Speaker 11 (17:26):
Her father beat her so badly with a belt and
ritualistic fashion the scars on her back were visible.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
She was emotionally abused.
Speaker 11 (17:35):
Her mom cared more about alcohol and the man in
her life than Christa, so she had such adversity to overcome.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
There was seldom food in the house. Christa's bed didn't
even have sheets. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
She was sexually molested by her grandmother's boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Christo was only two years old, and.
Speaker 11 (18:02):
Because of that molestation, she was going to school drawing
pictures of mailed Gena Talia with a devil ae them.
And you know she wasn't yetting counseling, when if that
had happened today, that child would be sitting with a
therapist immediately.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Christo was sexually assaulted again when she was eleven. She
told her mom, but her mom didn't believe her. A
year later, when she was twelve, Christa attempted suicide for
the first time. She was raped again at seventeen.
Speaker 10 (18:32):
There's a story that I don't know why this one
sticks with me the worst, because sexual assault, all those
things are so much worse than this.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
This is Steve Ferrell again, another of Krista's attorneys.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
There's an episode where her father has her and he's
tired of her.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Christo was around ten or twelve when this happened. She
had been staying with her father in West Virginia and
her mother was in North Carolina.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
So he drives her from West Virginia down to North
Carolina and dumps her on the front porch with her.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
Suitcase and no one's home.
Speaker 10 (19:03):
I mean to me that that's almost like a metaphor
of her whole childhood.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
She's alone. She's just alone.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
Yeah, she's completely alone, navigating this world with mental health
issues that no one's looking into.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Teachers, her parents, others who knew Christa as a child
remember a girl plagued by mental health problems. Christa later
reported that at the time she killed Colleen, she was
in the middle of a manic episode, staying up all night,
chronically agitated, unable to stop her mind from spinning.
Speaker 11 (19:35):
She didn't know what was wrong with her, but even
as a child and as an adolescent, she was showing
signs a post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, but
that doesn't get diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
When Christa arrived at Job Corps in the summer of
nineteen ninety four, she filled out in all about Me
intake form where she was asked to describe herself.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
She said her.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Favorite food was pizza, and that she she wanted to
be a neonatal physical therapist and work with the most
vulnerable newborn babies. She also said that she hoped to
get her life straight and that she wished she had
a quote normal life end quote.
Speaker 11 (20:12):
She wanted to be a nurse. She wanted to make
something of herself. Job Carr was a nightmare. It was
extremely violent, It was extremely chaotic. You know, this is
a conveyor belt into this disaster.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The portrait psychologist Diana McCoy crafted of Christa was of
a young woman in agony, a victim of serial abuse,
and a hostage to untreated mental illness. If allowed, McCoy
would have made the case that Christa killed Colleen not
because she was inherently rotten and irredeemable, but because of
a lifetime of trauma, family dysfunction, mental illness, and stress,
(20:51):
all making her incapable of controlling her behavior. McCoy's planned
testimony would have suggested to the jury that Christa could
get better with help, that she could claim a life
of recognizable value.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
But that never happened.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
She was going to be the sole witness. That was
the plan, But.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
The night before the trial that all changed. McCoy was
told not to testify by Christa's own lawyers.
Speaker 11 (21:19):
There are discrepant stories about why that decision was made,
but at the end of the day, those councils switched
to plan the night before capital sentencing.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Trial instead Chris's lawyer decided to call three witnesses, Christa's mother, father,
and aunt.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
I should be the one in hersy not for her.
I should be the one to be punished for this crab,
not for her. Yeah, I was a too.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
This is Christ's mother, Carissa Hansen testifying, trying a bit
too late to befend her daughter and take some of
the blame.
Speaker 9 (21:58):
In that penalty phase.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
Was not a single positive thing about Krista.
Speaker 9 (22:04):
It was all what a problem she was.
Speaker 10 (22:07):
They didn't see kind of the root of the problems.
We didn't have anyone to connect the dots. You need
someone telling that jury that this girl who has been
involved in a horrific crime, has had horrific.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
Things happen to her. And that's not an excuse.
Speaker 10 (22:28):
It never is an excuse, But it's a reason to
have some sympathy.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
That's the role of mitigation.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Reporter John North confirms that their testimony did little to
dispel the idea that Christa was unrestorable.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What was the appropriate punishment for a crime of this nature?
The utter taking, slaughter, torture of an innocent human being
who'd been lured out on a rainy night in January
what's a probate. You reach a point where you have
to say, Okay, you had a bad experience in life,
(23:06):
but do you know what you're doing? Are you aware
of free will? Are you aware of how people conduct themselves?
And what's your responsibility for your own personal actions?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
All good questions, but it was the job of Chris's
lawyer to argue that she wasn't fully aware of how
to conduct herself or unable. Instead, the person who should
have been fighting for the jury to hear that seemed,
at least in the view of Chris's lawyers today, inappropriately
focused on other interests.
Speaker 10 (23:37):
He had her sign a release giving him the media
rights to her story if ever.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
It was sold.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
After Chris's conviction, Her lawyer, Bill Palman, had christ to
sign a contract allowing him to profit off the selling
of her story.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
And the problem with I mean, it's a clear conflict
of interest. You don't represent someone and sell their story.
You represent them, or you're a journalist and you tell
the story. You can't do both.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Ultimately, the jury was not persuaded to spare Christa's life.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
She was sentenced to.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
The electric chair for killing Colleen and sent to the
Tennessee Prison for Women. Barely an adult still struggling with
untreated mental illness, Christa began a tumultuous new chapter waiting
on her own death.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I can't explain my thinking at the time, because I
was insane, I was miserable, and I just didn't want
to be here anymore and was too weak. I think
to take my own life, and I'm not sure, but
it was a really really bad mental state.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Be really bad.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
That's next time on Proof of Life.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Unrestorable is executive produced and hosted by Me, Sarah Tulevin
and Beth Carris. Our producer is Kathleen Goldhart, Mixing and
sound design by Reza Daya for anonymous content, Jessica Grimshaw
is our executive producer, Jennifer Sears is our executive in
charge of production, and nick Yannas is our legal council.
(25:28):
For iHeart executive producer Christina Everett and supervising producer Abu
Zafar
It is therefore ordered that you shall be put to
death after you know.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
The prescribe by law that you shall be transferred to
custody for the warning.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
At the Tennessee Christmas.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
It took less than two hours for a jury to
sentence twenty year old Krista Pike to death and further,
the twelfth.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Day of January nineteen ninety seven, your body shall be
subjected to shop by.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
A sufficient curme to electricity.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My God, January twelfth, nineteen ninety seven, it wasn't just
the day Kristal was marked to die. It was also
the two year anniversary of Colleen Slemmer's death.
Speaker 5 (00:45):
Mister tied to the doctor.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
During Christa's trial, there was little doubt that she killed Colleen.
Conviction wasn't the question. The real question was whether Christa
was going to pay for the crime with her life.
In the end, the jury would agree with prosecutors that
imposing the death penalty would deliver some sense.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Of justice, not just.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
For Colleen's family, but for the community of Knoxville and
for everyone watching, shaking their heads that we live in
a world where things like this happen. But thirty years later,
Christa is still waiting to die, And for those three decades,
Christa's advocates had been arguing that it didn't have to
turn out this way, that her original defense team had
(01:47):
a chance to explain to the jury who Christa was
and how, at eighteen years old, she had ended up
in a wooded area of Knoxville. A chunk of concrete
raised above Colleen's head to explain that murdering a teenage
girl in a vicious rage wasn't a reflection of unresolvable depravity,
(02:07):
but something that emerged from a place of extreme brokenness
and desperation. I'm Sarah J. Levin, and this is Unrestorable,
Season two, Proof of Life, an original podcast from anonymous
content and iHeartRadio. Can you just tell me where we are?
(02:36):
Just where we're saying, yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
We're sitting right now out on the outdoor plaza of
the City County Building. That's the main government building for
Knoxville and Knox County. This has been the center of
government since the late nineteen seventies. It's kind of ironic
that you have a building sitting on such a beautiful
setting because we've got the Tennessee River below us, You've
got Riverbank it's a beautiful day.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
When Beth Carris and I went down to Knoxville in
August twenty twenty four, we met up with John North,
a reporter who covered Krista Pike's trial for the murder
of Colleen Slimmer, it was a steamy, sunny day.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
This is also a building that houses many inmates, because
in the belly of this building is a jail that
has I don't know, one hundred and fifty to two
hundred cells. And this is where, once upon a time,
the worst of the worst were held while they were
awaiting trial.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Is this where Krista and to Daryl would have been
while they were waiting trial?
Speaker 1 (03:30):
All three of the defendants would have been held in
the belly of this building at some point.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
Yes, Christa was charged alongside her boyfriend to Darryl's ship
and another young woman named Shidola Peterson. We're focusing on
Krista because she was the only one who faced death.
In nineteen ninety five, Tennessee law forbade executing anyone who
is under eighteen at the time they committed their crime.
(03:56):
So even though Christa and to Darryl were both accused
of killing Colleen, the law would hold them to different standards.
At the time of Christa's trial, there seemed to be
a little talk about whether it was reasonable that she
and to Daryl might face dramatically different consequences because of
their minor age difference. But in the decades since, questions
(04:19):
about where that line should be drawn, just how young
is too young to be sentenced to death, have only grown.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
I think it's fair to say that this was for Knoxville,
a very heavy, heavy thing that was about to go down, because,
first of all, we don't look at young people as
getting involved in savage crimes like this. Certainly it's still
thankfully considered an aberration, and this was a slaughter, and
(04:50):
the idea that young people would do this was shocking
and troubling to I think everybody be included. You also
had this torture aspect, hints of Satanism, which was like,
what the hell is that.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
The case was presided over by Judge Mary Beth Leebowitz,
who was appointed the first female criminal court judge in
Knox County in nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Judge Leebowitz's courtroom was very small, had a limited number
of people it could accommodate. You sat very close to
both the defendant, the prosecution, and the jury.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
Many saw the case as a slam dunk for the prosecution.
There was so much evidence against Christa, her own confession,
the clothes they found soaked in Colleen's blood, and that
piece of Collen skull which had already created a media
frenzy and played a starring role at trial.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well, as you would imagine, all eyes were always on Christa,
always still are thirty years later. People pay attention to Christa,
so we were always looking at how she was handling things.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Jury's selection, especially in a high profile case where capital
punishment is on the table, it can be a tricky thing.
The defense wants jurors who might have empathy for the accused,
might be able to see a person beyond their worst acts.
The prosecution wants durs who might be inclined to punish
someone for their transgressions, in this case, someone who'd be
(06:14):
inclined to punish someone by death if the evidence warranted it.
One juror was excused after she started crying as she
tried to explain that she had always believed in capital
punishment but now couldn't stomach the idea of being responsible
for someone's death. All the while Krista watched. At times,
(06:35):
John says the gravity of what was happening didn't seem
to register with her.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
She was pretty chipper, she was sunny, she would smile,
she would talk to people. She'd gotten friendly with another
TV reporter and waived at him one morning as she
was walking into a court.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
In the pictures I've seen of Krista at her trial,
she's wearing a series of frilly, floral dresses. Her mass
of auburn curls are pulled up in a scrunchy sometimes
in her French braid, and she has these frizzy bangs.
She has a spray of acne over her chin and
pudgy cheeks. She really looks like a kid, maybe even
younger than she was. A jury of seven men and
(07:18):
five women was finally chosen. They heard testimony about how
Colleen had fought for her life, about the pentagram that
was carved into her chest, about how she was cut
dozens of times with a box cutter and hit over
and over. They heard the confession Krista made to Detective
Randy Yorke.
Speaker 4 (07:46):
She has kind of ramack face, as Christ's confession was
played for the court.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
She appeared to be crying, dabbing at her eyes with
a tissue.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
There were moments when obviously I don't know if it
was guilt or what hit her, but she would see
some of the clothing. I think I remember when the
clothing came out of Colleen's Krista put her head down
and I think was affected by that.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
The evidence was hard to hear and see.
Speaker 6 (08:18):
This is the skull from the victim.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Doctor Sandra Elkins was a medical examiner who did Colleen's autopsy.
She brought Colleen's skull into court to show the jury
Colleen's cause of death. Colleen had injuries all over her body,
but the fatal blows were to her head.
Speaker 6 (08:43):
At least a minimum of two separate blows causing this
massive fracture on the last side of the skull. Taking
into account soft tissue and skull, I can say that
there were a minimum of five blows to the head.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Doctor Elkins showed the or the fragment Krista had taken
and how it fit back into Colleen's skull. John says
that may Martinez, Colleen's mother, sat through every day of
the trial and made a point of speaking to the press.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Colleen's mother wanted to be there for every bit of it,
including some bits that were just got awful. I mean
when they brought Colleen's clothing out and May got to
look at her pink sweater which was blood stained, and
her jeans where Christa had stabbed her in the crotch.
You know, that stuff was wrenching.
Speaker 7 (09:35):
I was very angry.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
In May twenty twenty five, Beth and I spoke with
May Martinez, Colleen's mother. She told us what she recalls
about being in court that week in nineteen ninety six,
and what it was like to sit so close to
the woman who killed her daughter.
Speaker 7 (09:50):
She was sitting across from me and she kept looking
at me. But we're told that we can't look at
them or say anything to them. We can't say anything
for when you're there at a trial, the dog tells
you to keep quiet, no emotions, do nothing. And she
kept looking over and her family lives an over but
it was rough. The hardest thing was is seeing Colleen's coat,
(10:12):
her shoes, her remains being passed around in the trial.
I mean, they passed her skull around. It was not good.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
John remembers Colleen's mother being stoic throughout the trial.
Speaker 8 (10:23):
Well, there must have been some point where you got emotional.
Would you wait until you got back to the hotel
or wherever you were staying.
Speaker 7 (10:29):
Them outside in the courtroom, Outside of the courtroom, I
got emotion.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
You know.
Speaker 7 (10:36):
It was not easy.
Speaker 8 (10:40):
I seem to recall reading that she had a sweater
on that you recognized.
Speaker 7 (10:45):
Yeah, she had jacket her father water a green jacket
for Christmas, and she had that arm, and then she
had her new sweater that I had gotten her and
her jeans.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Beyond the graphic evidence, prosecutors also worked hard to show
Crista as a cold blooded killer with little remorse. Writing
at the time in the Knoxville News Sentinel, John North
noted that quote the defense has done little to refute
Pike's acts. Rather, they claimed that she murdered Slammer in
a fit of rage she couldn't control.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
End quote.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
This was backed up by a defense witness named doctor
Eric Engham. The clinical psychologist testified that Christa, despite being
extremely bright, especially for someone who only completed ninth grade,
suffered from borderline personality disorder.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
And was addicted to Pott.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Doctor Engham said he believed Krista hadn't intended to kill Colleen,
but things had escalated and she had lost control. He
added that Christa acted elated about the murder because she
believed killing Colleen would help her preserve her relationship with
to Darryl. What the jury heard over the course of
the trial was devastating for everyone and undoubtedly damning for Christa.
(12:00):
What they didn't hear and what was going on in
the background of the trial was much more complicated. I'm
going to hand things off to Beth here so she
can take you through the mess on the legal side
of things.
Speaker 8 (12:13):
So do you think Bill Talman was ineffective? Yes, that's
Kelly Gleeson, one of Christa's post conviction attorneys, and Bill Talman,
one of Christa's trial lawyers, was an experienced Knoxville defense attorney.
Speaker 9 (12:27):
At the time, he had never done a capital case.
Speaker 8 (12:30):
Death penalty cases are complicated and with so much at stake,
lawyers with experience are important, but Christa's parents didn't have
the money to hire their own expensive lawyer, so the
court appointed Talman. Steve Ferrell, another one of Christa's attorneys. Today,
says Christa seemed to trust Talman and seemed to find
(12:52):
some comfort in his warm, folksy nature.
Speaker 10 (12:55):
A big part of his strategy was they'll never give
the death penalty to a pretty little like you. I
think he believed that.
Speaker 8 (13:05):
Talman later denied that. He said that.
Speaker 10 (13:09):
Why he gets this capital high profile case is a mystery.
Speaker 8 (13:14):
But a lawyer without capital case experience was not their
only issue.
Speaker 11 (13:19):
There should have been a chagent venue.
Speaker 8 (13:21):
Kelly Gleeson says that emotions in Knoxville were supercharged, especially
with the ongoing suggestion that Colleen's murder was part of
a satanic ritual.
Speaker 11 (13:31):
She should not have been tried in that saturated media environment.
The norms in Tennessee at the time were to move
a case like that.
Speaker 8 (13:41):
Christa's attorneys did file emotion for a change of venue,
but it was denied. There were a lot of questions
about Talman's judgment, but one of the most consequential happened
just before he even stepped foot in Judge Leebwoitz's courtroom
for trial.
Speaker 11 (13:57):
There was a plea offer that came in days before trial.
Speaker 8 (14:04):
The offer was life without parole, a lot for a
young woman to consider, but certainly better than death.
Speaker 11 (14:11):
I don't think there were any extensive discussions with Christa
about this might be your best hope. That is what
Christa's asking for now. It could have all been done
and been over in nineteen ninety six, and we wouldn't
have to have gone through all this, and the victims
wouldn't have had to gone through all this.
Speaker 8 (14:29):
According to Kelly Gleeson, Talman did not spend much time
talking to Christa about the offer, about the opportunity to
spare her life. She says that later Talman said that
was his biggest regret, not spending more time with Christa
to explain the plea offer. But Christa didn't get that opportunity. Instead,
(14:50):
she put her fate in the hands of the jury,
and in a final blow, in the middle of the
defense case, and shortly before all the testimony wrapped up,
a juror told some of his fellow jurors that he
didn't feel comfortable with the idea of sentencing Christa to death.
She was so young, he said. The other jurors reported
(15:12):
him to the judge. After questioning the juror out of
the presence of the others, the judge removed him, finding
his answers about the death penalty were inconsistent and confused.
For a jury to render their verdict, all twelve jurors
must agree. Randy Spivey, one of Christa's attorneys today, says
(15:32):
that with that one juror gone, the likelihood of a
hung jury or a life sentence was greatly diminished. That's
the one you need, and he's gone.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
On March twenty ninth, nineteen ninety six, after just ninety
minutes of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict. Christo was
found guilty of first degree murder and first degree conspiracy
to commit murder. Once Christa was convicted, the sentencing phase
was set to begin the next morning. It was a
chance for Christa's lawyers to convince the jury that though
(16:10):
Christa was guilty, she didn't deserve to die. The jury
had the option of sentencing Christa to life in prison.
At this point, Christa's team's job was to present mitigating evidence,
details of Christa's life from her earliest years that might
help the jury understand how and why Christa acted out
with so much rage. To see Christa as someone who
(16:32):
wasn't beyond repair, but desperately in need of help. Reporter
John North remembers this phase.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
Well, I remember thinking, the defense has not got a
great hand to play with because of the nature of
the crime, because she talked to the cops, because of
her behavior, because of the souvenir's skull, because the attack
went on for thirty minutes to an hour. I think
they did the best that they could. Could they have
done better?
Speaker 4 (16:58):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
Yeah, absolutely, and I'm sure they would tell you that today.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
Much of the mitigation evidence depended on the testimony of
a psychologist named Diana McCoy, who had spent months preparing
a report by interviewing Christa and her family members. What
McCoy found was a life characterized by chronic abuse, neglect,
and instability.
Speaker 11 (17:22):
She was shuffled between.
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Her mom and dad.
Speaker 11 (17:26):
Her father beat her so badly with a belt and
ritualistic fashion the scars on her back were visible.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
She was emotionally abused.
Speaker 11 (17:35):
Her mom cared more about alcohol and the man in
her life than Christa, so she had such adversity to overcome.
Speaker 3 (17:44):
There was seldom food in the house. Christa's bed didn't
even have sheets. But that wasn't the worst of it.
Speaker 11 (17:52):
She was sexually molested by her grandmother's boyfriend.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Christo was only two years old, and.
Speaker 11 (18:02):
Because of that molestation, she was going to school drawing
pictures of mailed Gena Talia with a devil ae them.
And you know she wasn't yetting counseling, when if that
had happened today, that child would be sitting with a
therapist immediately.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Christo was sexually assaulted again when she was eleven. She
told her mom, but her mom didn't believe her. A
year later, when she was twelve, Christa attempted suicide for
the first time. She was raped again at seventeen.
Speaker 10 (18:32):
There's a story that I don't know why this one
sticks with me the worst, because sexual assault, all those
things are so much worse than this.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
This is Steve Ferrell again, another of Krista's attorneys.
Speaker 10 (18:42):
There's an episode where her father has her and he's
tired of her.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Christo was around ten or twelve when this happened. She
had been staying with her father in West Virginia and
her mother was in North Carolina.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
So he drives her from West Virginia down to North
Carolina and dumps her on the front porch with her.
Speaker 9 (19:01):
Suitcase and no one's home.
Speaker 10 (19:03):
I mean to me that that's almost like a metaphor
of her whole childhood.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
She's alone. She's just alone.
Speaker 10 (19:09):
Yeah, she's completely alone, navigating this world with mental health
issues that no one's looking into.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Teachers, her parents, others who knew Christa as a child
remember a girl plagued by mental health problems. Christa later
reported that at the time she killed Colleen, she was
in the middle of a manic episode, staying up all night,
chronically agitated, unable to stop her mind from spinning.
Speaker 11 (19:35):
She didn't know what was wrong with her, but even
as a child and as an adolescent, she was showing
signs a post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, but
that doesn't get diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
When Christa arrived at Job Corps in the summer of
nineteen ninety four, she filled out in all about Me
intake form where she was asked to describe herself.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
She said her.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
Favorite food was pizza, and that she she wanted to
be a neonatal physical therapist and work with the most
vulnerable newborn babies. She also said that she hoped to
get her life straight and that she wished she had
a quote normal life end quote.
Speaker 11 (20:12):
She wanted to be a nurse. She wanted to make
something of herself. Job Carr was a nightmare. It was
extremely violent, It was extremely chaotic. You know, this is
a conveyor belt into this disaster.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
The portrait psychologist Diana McCoy crafted of Christa was of
a young woman in agony, a victim of serial abuse,
and a hostage to untreated mental illness. If allowed, McCoy
would have made the case that Christa killed Colleen not
because she was inherently rotten and irredeemable, but because of
a lifetime of trauma, family dysfunction, mental illness, and stress,
(20:51):
all making her incapable of controlling her behavior. McCoy's planned
testimony would have suggested to the jury that Christa could
get better with help, that she could claim a life
of recognizable value.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
But that never happened.
Speaker 11 (21:08):
She was going to be the sole witness. That was
the plan, But.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
The night before the trial that all changed. McCoy was
told not to testify by Christa's own lawyers.
Speaker 11 (21:19):
There are discrepant stories about why that decision was made,
but at the end of the day, those councils switched
to plan the night before capital sentencing.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Trial instead Chris's lawyer decided to call three witnesses, Christa's mother, father,
and aunt.
Speaker 5 (21:36):
I should be the one in hersy not for her.
I should be the one to be punished for this crab,
not for her. Yeah, I was a too.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
This is Christ's mother, Carissa Hansen testifying, trying a bit
too late to befend her daughter and take some of
the blame.
Speaker 9 (21:58):
In that penalty phase.
Speaker 10 (21:59):
Was not a single positive thing about Krista.
Speaker 9 (22:04):
It was all what a problem she was.
Speaker 10 (22:07):
They didn't see kind of the root of the problems.
We didn't have anyone to connect the dots. You need
someone telling that jury that this girl who has been
involved in a horrific crime, has had horrific.
Speaker 9 (22:25):
Things happen to her. And that's not an excuse.
Speaker 10 (22:28):
It never is an excuse, But it's a reason to
have some sympathy.
Speaker 9 (22:35):
That's the role of mitigation.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
Reporter John North confirms that their testimony did little to
dispel the idea that Christa was unrestorable.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
What was the appropriate punishment for a crime of this nature?
The utter taking, slaughter, torture of an innocent human being
who'd been lured out on a rainy night in January
what's a probate. You reach a point where you have
to say, Okay, you had a bad experience in life,
(23:06):
but do you know what you're doing? Are you aware
of free will? Are you aware of how people conduct themselves?
And what's your responsibility for your own personal actions?
Speaker 3 (23:18):
All good questions, but it was the job of Chris's
lawyer to argue that she wasn't fully aware of how
to conduct herself or unable. Instead, the person who should
have been fighting for the jury to hear that seemed,
at least in the view of Chris's lawyers today, inappropriately
focused on other interests.
Speaker 10 (23:37):
He had her sign a release giving him the media
rights to her story if ever.
Speaker 9 (23:44):
It was sold.
Speaker 3 (23:46):
After Chris's conviction, Her lawyer, Bill Palman, had christ to
sign a contract allowing him to profit off the selling
of her story.
Speaker 10 (23:54):
And the problem with I mean, it's a clear conflict
of interest. You don't represent someone and sell their story.
You represent them, or you're a journalist and you tell
the story. You can't do both.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Ultimately, the jury was not persuaded to spare Christa's life.
Speaker 4 (24:21):
She was sentenced to.
Speaker 3 (24:22):
The electric chair for killing Colleen and sent to the
Tennessee Prison for Women. Barely an adult still struggling with
untreated mental illness, Christa began a tumultuous new chapter waiting
on her own death.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I can't explain my thinking at the time, because I
was insane, I was miserable, and I just didn't want
to be here anymore and was too weak. I think
to take my own life, and I'm not sure, but
it was a really really bad mental state.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Be really bad.
Speaker 4 (25:02):
That's next time on Proof of Life.
Speaker 3 (25:07):
Unrestorable is executive produced and hosted by Me, Sarah Tulevin
and Beth Carris. Our producer is Kathleen Goldhart, Mixing and
sound design by Reza Daya for anonymous content, Jessica Grimshaw
is our executive producer, Jennifer Sears is our executive in
charge of production, and nick Yannas is our legal council.
(25:28):
For iHeart executive producer Christina Everett and supervising producer Abu
Zafar
Hosts And Creators
Beth Karas
Sarah Treleaven
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