Introducing... Unrestorable Season 2: Proof of Life

In January 1995, 18-year-old Christa Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee–and 30 years later, she’s still on death row. Proof of Life explores the meaning of justice and rehabilitation, and asks how we determine whether someone deserves to live or die.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is a take recorded state person being interviewed is
Krista Gaye Pipe. This in regards to the death of
a Colleen Slimmer. She started going out on me the
night hit uh just a hitler on the hitter.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
On a cold January day in nineteen ninety five, eighteen
year old Krista Pike killed a nineteen year old Colleen
Slimmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
This was for Knoxville, a very heavy thing. You also
had this torture aspect, hints of Satanism, which was like,
what the hell is that?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Since her conviction in nineteen ninety six, Krista has been
sitting on death row and now thirty years later, the
clock counting down Krista's life is starting to tick louder
and louder.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
The state has asked for an execution date for Krista.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
If killed, Krista will be the first woman executed in
Tennessee in two hundred years. Since Christ's conviction, questions about
how young is too young to face execution, about criminal
responsibility and the underdeveloped teenage brain have only grown.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
Christa's life was just this locomotive of violence, instability, lack
of connection.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
A team of lawyers is desperately trying to save her
life and rewrite the story that condemned her.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
I think what we see now is the person that
could have been thirty years ago had she received the
right supports.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
But not everyone believes that Christa deserves mercy. I don't
think she's changed it off, I really don't. I think
she's the same person as always. We let people languish
in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider
fundamentally unrestorable and whether the system is even capable of

(02:00):
responding when those same people change. How does someone prove
that they deserve to live.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
There are no evil people. There are people who do
evil things, but those people are deeply human. They are
deeply flawed, and they are very damaged. That is the
story of violent crime that nobody is telling.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Across the United States, thousands of men and women sit
on death row. Almost all are asking for a second chance.
They all have their own stories. This is Christas.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
We are starting the recording now, please start your first
and last night, Chryst the Pike.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Listen to Unrestorable Season two, Proof of Life on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts,