Christa’s mother drank heavily and used drugs while she was pregnant with Christa resulting in brain damage which caused Christa’s bipolar disorder.

When Christa was 14 months old, she suffered a seizure. Her mother refused to leave the bar to take her to the hospital.

After Christa was born, her mother left Christa and her brother without food, crawling in dog feces, while she drank with her boyfriends.

Her mother allowed her boyfriends to beat Christa and twist her nipples. One beat Christa with a belt and sexually assaulted her.

When Christa tried to commit suicide after that, a psychiatrist told her mother Christa was severely depressed and needed help. Her mother denied Christa further help and her bipolar disorder was not treated.

When Christa was raped at 11 by a man in the neighborhood, her mother denied it until she developed an infection and the man was arrested.

When Christa was raped at 17, one year to the day before she committed murder with her boyfriend, Christa’s mother didn’t care.

But Christa was happy to see her mother in court during her trial and all she wanted was a hug.

Yes, Christa committed an extremely heinous murder at 18. But I just wanted to share a little bit of her story with you — especially for all the folks rejoicing at her execution.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/28/tennessee-woman-execution-christa-pike

Hey, look, cool news and all, oppose the death penalty I guess, but I don't like how the video tries to show her as a frail little girl.

She took her classmate into the woods to torture then kill her.

Pike, who is now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time, killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, one of their classmates at Knoxville Job Corps in 1995.

In case anyone else was curious about the crime she committed

...And justice for all

Death penalty in place of mental health while the bastard pedophiles are elected to positions of power

A society practicing the death penalty will never improve

That's the whole issue. It's like 50% actual narcissists without remorse and 50% just sad circumstances all around.

The death penalty is an extremely cruel way to "get rid of the problem" by fighting the symptom. But to get there, so many things would have gone wrong, and we should always prioritize fixing those things before ever thinking about punishment.

People love retribution but the truth is you can torture a murderer and that still won't bring the victim back and even then that's not satisfying to the victim's family.

They also tortured her a bit before the murder:

According to court testimony, for the next 30 minutes, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed. Shipp used a box cutter to carve a pentagram into her chest while she was still alive. Finally, Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt, killing her.

Kept part of her skull as a souvenir

Is this the woman they tried to lethally inject twice and failed

It’s sad but world people have as much sympathy for a man on death row? Would they even care to read how bad his childhood was? Most people wouldn’t care. Let’s see if somebody takes up for a condemned man and how much social media attention it gains.

That said, I’m not strictly in favour of the death penalty. No matter what the penalty is, people will commit crimes. But we have to do something. I’m not sure what, though.

The video doesn't "try" to show her as anything it just captures a moment in court. You can attribute to it what you want. What I see is the extreme results of bipolar disorder after a lifetime of abuse and lack of treatment. It is a stark example of a society that failed their citizen. Here is someone who had enough humanity somewhere in their system to just cry and want a hug from someone they loved before facing the consequences. I'm not even bipolar but I don't know what kind of human being I would be if I literally faced abuse since infancy.

To me the video doesn't take away the heinousness of the crime, it just brings into the focus how these types of situations aren't always some cut and dry stereotypical "evil person does evil things".

So dumb. She requested a All female firing squad because she was concerned the injection and her small veins might be an issue.

You don't beat a dog for its entire life and then act surprised when it kills someone.

It's not an excuse, beyond rumblings of materialist determination, but it is an explanation, and you should be asking yourself why this particular murderer has to die instead of all the others.

This isn't about men. Stop trying to make it about men.

Yup, really sad state of affairs.

They chose to show this moment. They didn't choose images of the evidence or the grieving family of the murdered child, they chose this. That's "trying" real hard, in my book.

I'm never surprised about any crimes, certainly the mother shares a lot of responsibility in this, but as a consequentialist I try to make the best use of my time to help the most people, and that does not include advocating for Christa because there are billions of better people more deserving of expending sympathy.

Now, if you came to me and advocated for abolishing the death penalty and enhancing the reform system with free education, therapy, etc: I'm on board. But sure af not because of Christa.

Here here, it is a barbaric and hamfisted revenge.

she was giving them advice on how to find her veins better. she and her lawyers told the courts it wouldn't work due to her veins. witnesses reported at least 7 needles they tried before finally "finding" a vein. she requested firing squad and hanging to avoid exactly this but was denied both.

absolutely barbaric treatment, regardless of her crime. not to mention that she's been in solitary for 30 years now.

Why was she imprisoned for 32 years when she was already sentenced to death? What's the point? I don't agree with the death penalty in general, but if you're going to do it, just do it?

Not just imprisoned, she's been in solitary for 30 fucking years.

Wow. Straight people's right to reproduce should be conditionned to a psychiatric exam. Her mother should have gone to jail. This is fucking heartbreaking.

Where does it say the mom was straight?

Standard practice in the US. You know you will die but you do not know when and in the meantime you rot in jail for decades.

Then sometimes an hour before you will be executed you hear you may get pardoned, and then a few hours later you will be executed anyway.

Execution itself also goes wrong many times.

USA! USA!

So when she does torture and murder it's the death penalty, but when the system does it they just ignore it. Love that.

I'm not excusing what she did, but how is taking someone's life going to bring back the victim, or give closure to the family of the victim? American "justice" is about revenge, not justice. The death penalty should be gone, utterly and completely. It's barbaric.

What the FUCK? That is straight up torture.

That's conservatism. Conservatives demand this and delight in it. The only thing that can bring a conservative a glimmer of joy is the suffering of the vulnerable.

A dog won't torture and get any pleasure from the explicit pain of an innocent for pain's sake. Apples to oranges. Humans are fucked up lol

although I agree with most of what you say, death penalties are important to reduce the impact to taxpayer dollars.

no reason to continue rehabilitating a prisoner who is going to spend life in prison for brutally raping a 5 year old. just remove them from the world and move on.

Nope

According to recent estimates, the death penalty costs taxpayers 2.5 to 5 times more than life imprisonment.

Even if it was true, which it isn't, fuck taxpayer dollars. You don't give your government the power to murder its citizens to save some money.

Yeah, sure, show me a lesbian mom in the 80s/90s. Unless Christa and her brother were the product of rape.

"Her mother allowed her boyfriends to [insert terrible story] to Christa"

You don't give your government the power to murder its citizens to save some money.

you clearly haven't been paying attention to government spending for the last century.

bisexuals exist. regardless, your comment is a non sequitur. your hatred of straight people doesn't follow from this story. please stop using the terrible things that happen to other people to further divide society.

The same way she had zero right to decide who lives or dies, the state had zero right too. No questions here, the death penalty is inexcusable under any circumstances. Only under the most extreme cases should it be recognized for protection and self defence but it still shouldnt be celebrated but regarded as a necessary evil. And also yeah, there are cases like "what if i killed hitler" but first of all that would be war and second, thats such an extreme case that you cant make a law arround it. Hitler and similar people represent such a hatefull ideology that them being alive is an active danger to millions of people and an excuse to kill.

If you're fine with the double standard, just admit it and own it. Nobody's perfect, and in fact, perfect is the enemy of good. If that's your position, defend it. If you can't, you should look at why that is. It's fine if we disagree, and disagreement is good to advance the discourse. We shouldn't be a hive mind online. But defend your position. Explain why it's okay for men to be put to death but not women. Or whatever your point of view is — I don't want to put words in your mouth. Or maybe you don't think it's a double standard. Just explain your position better and defend it. It's also fine to be "wrong" and own that, too. Like, I like pineapple on pizza. I know most don't. But I own it. I'm not gonna convince someone who's never had a great Hawaiian pie that it's pretty good. I don't need to, I like what I like and if that's wrong... I'm not perfect.

I've had that kind of dire childhood, so, yeah. Some parents' place is in jail and to be sterilized so they can never give life to better destroy it. Straight people hurt children too often.

But let's be inclusive about it: reproduction and/or adoption should be conditionned to a psychiatric exam.

All men should be administered RISUG in their teenage years and the RISUG should only come off when the parents have been cleared for reproduction.

source from your source is limited in scope.

FROM AN ANALYSIS OF THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN OKLAHOMA, PREPARED FOR THE OKLAHOMA DEATH PENALTY REVIEW COMMISSION, 2017

your source is also clearly biased.

The Death Penalty Information Center (DPI) is a national non-profit organization providing the media, policymakers, and the general public with data and analysis on issues concerning capital punishment and the people it affects. For more than 30 years, DPI has been the preeminent national resource for timely and trustworthy information about the death penalty. DPI does not take a position on the death penalty itself but is critical of problems in its application.

Founded in 1990, DPI promotes insightful discourse on the death penalty by curating and presenting expansive, authoritative data from credible sources and offering clear, reliable, and timely information and research about the history and current application of the death penalty. DPI’s careful tracking and analysis of death sentences, executions, legislation, and newsworthy events provides critical context to inform meaningful public debate and sound policy decisions.

meaning the information they provide is forthright and true but their delivery of which is curated and formulated to strengthen their position.

it's clear what their position is once you read a handful of their articles, and they are free to hold that position. however, it's not okay to use them as a definitive source of truth when arguing a point because they obviously have an agenda.

I did a research report on this in grade school. The costs are mostly tied to the amount of appeals they are mandated to get and the average length of stay before execution.

I came to the conclusion in my research paper that Republicans would likely eventually pass laws to limit the appeals and fast track execution.

I think I got a C on the paper because of the editorialization about what I thought would happen in the future. I am actually surprised it hasn't happened yet.

No questions here, the death penalty is inexcusable under any circumstances. Only under the most extreme cases should it be recognized for protection and self defence but it still shouldnt be celebrated but regarded as a necessary evil.

Way to contradict yourself within 2 sentences.

Yeah, sure, show me a lesbian mom in the 80s/90s.

you're not really being any sort of advocate by saying there were no lesbian moms before your lifetime.

But let’s be inclusive about it: reproduction and/or adoption should be conditionned to a psychiatric exam.

All men should be administered RISUG in their teenage years and the RISUG should only come off when the parents have been cleared for reproduction.

Ok that's just eugenics.

There were lesbian moms before my lifetime. Lots of lesbian moms who were forced to pass by having a husband and children.

Unless it's said somewhere else, I doubt Christa's mother was lesbian (maybe she was), but she definitely shouldn't have been able to make children while she was a raging alcoholic and drug addict. I mean, wtf.

Adoption's already regulated in most countries and nobody calls that eugenism. Children are subject to the worst traumas all over the world and, somehow, straight people shouldn't be imposed prevention and regulation?

If you call my opinion eugenism, I can call yours "child endangerment". Same bad faith.

your anger is blinding your reasoning. log off, go outside, have fun, being on this platform doesn't seem healthy for you. there is nothing reasonable about the things you said in this thread. take a step back and look at what's going on: someone posted a video of a woman that was abused as a child and is now sentenced to death, and your immediate association is to make it about how awful straight people are, and then about how awful men are. this is not normal, this shouldn't be your first reaction to reading such a thing. neither is it helping anyone at all, nor is it healthy. i hope you find happiness elsewhere, you must stop consuming the content that enrages you.

She killed one person and got life? i feel like people do way worse and get less

You don't have to have strong opinions and put them on the internet, you know?

Not a contradiction at all, and it’s not even all that nuanced either.

There’s a massive difference between death as punishment for a crime versus deadly force to stop someone from killing you first.

One takes place while those involved would otherwise be in relative safety.

The other typically takes place during a tense altercation where moment to moment decisions mean life or death.

"I can't kill him because it would contradict my stance on the death penalty" -me, getting attacked by a crazy guy with a knife

Lol I know multiple people born in the 80s whose parents came out of the closet in the 2000s/2010s. Hell, my one friend has two moms now.