Episode 196: Colleen Slemmer | The Cult of Christa

On January 13, 1995 Detectives in Knoxville, TN arrived at a murder scene in Tyson Park. This was unlike anything they had ever seen before. In the dirt leading up to the victim’s body they found finger marks, which implied the victim had been physically dragged to a more remote location while fighting desperately to save her life. Her clothes were strewn up in the surrounding trees, covered in blood, and she had been beaten horrifically and slashed with what they assumed as a knife. She had a deep impact wound on the left side of her head and it appeared that brain matter was visible.  This was a brutal murder and they knew it would rock the community of Knoxville, especially because the victim was college aged, and they had many universities and post high school programs located around them. But what the detectives feared far more than fielding phone calls from concerned parents was the fact that, in the midst of America’s ‘Satanic Panic’, their victim had a pentagram carved into her chest. 

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Sources:
A Love to Die For by Patricia Springer
Amazon Link for book
https://casetext.com/case/state-v-shipp-13
Newspapers.com Access to TN newspapers 
https://myfox8.com/news/court-upholds-sentence-for-only-woman-on-death-row/
https://nashvillebanner.com/2024/09/17/christa-pike-death-sentence-isolation/
https://casetext.com/case/pike-v-state-15
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/19a0205p-06.pdf
https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/docs/response_-_to_motion_1.pdf
https://archive.ph/20130127053544/http://www.ksdk.com/news/crime/article/311792/147/Death-row-inmate-woos-NJ-man-and-guard-to-help-plan-escape
https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/19a0205p-06.pdf
https://www.chattanoogan.com/2016/3/11/319852/Chattanooga-Federal-Judge-Upholds.aspx