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The Job Corps student, Colleen Slemmer, had been allegedly sacrificed to the devil by her classmates who fantasized about occult practices. Slemmer's half-naked body was found on January 13, 1995, with her throat slit and her head bludgeoned to death.
The killing, carried out by Christa Pike, Tadaryl Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson, took place at the University of Tennessee campus close to the Job Corps residence. The Mean Girl Murders episode, titled She-Devil, showcases the gruesome details of Slemmer's killing as it airs on May 20, 2024, at 9 pm EST on Investigation Discovery. The official synopsis reads:
"There is only one woman on death row in Tennessee, and this is her story. In 1995, Christa Pike is introduced to satanism. Her fascination with the dark underworld grows until it comes to a deadly head in the woods one night in January."
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Five chilling details about Colleen Slemmer's murder
1) Colleen Slemmer was found dead on January 13, 1995
Colleen Slemmer, a student at the Knoxville Center of now-closed Job Corps, had been lured into the woods outside campus by three of her classmates on January 12, 1995. She was last seen stepping out of her campus dormitory with Christa Pike, Tadaryl Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson around 8 pm local time.
The four walked towards an abandoned steam plant near the University of Tennessee campus, and Slemmer was told that they would be smoking cannabis. However, a University of Tennessee Grounds Department employee reported a dead body found on the agriculture campus the next day around 8:05 am local time.
The Knoxville Police Department identified the body to belong to 19-year-old computer enthusiast Colleen Slemmer.
2) Christa Pike and Tadaryl Shipp were into Satanic worship
18-year-old Christa Gail Pike had been enrolled at the Job Corps center in Knoxville with Slemmer. Pike had met her boyfriend, 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp from Memphis, in Job Corps, and the couple allegedly became inseparable.
Shipp and Pike were also allegedly into satanic worship and occult practices. According to WBIR, Shipp had a small shrine in his room and called Pike his "Lil Devil." The same report stated that the young couple's fascination with Satanism played a significant role in the killing of Slemmer.
Tadaryl Shipp told the Knoxville Police Department detective, Randy York, that Slemmer was indeed considered a sacrifice to Satan, per Knox News.
3) Slemmer's murder was premeditated in nature
Christa Pike, a teenager at Job Corps with a troubled past, had suspected Colleen Slemmer of wanting to get with her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. She mentioned in her statement the troubles the two women had allegedly been facing for a while.
According to court documents, Pike had allegedly found Slemmer standing over her with a box cutter. While Christa Pike said that she had supposedly wanted to scare Colleen Slemmer, she carried a box cutter and borrowed a miniature meat cleaver before she left for the secluded site at the agriculture campus steam plant.
4) Christa Pike kept a piece of Colleen Slemmer's skull with her
The four trainees at Job Corps left the dormitory room on Dale Avenue to the secluded spot where Christa Pike promised Slemmer cannabis as a peace offering. Pike, along with Shipp and her friend, Shadolla Peterson, lured Colleen into the spot where they took off the clothing from her upper body to prevent her from escaping.
While Peterson reportedly kept watch, Pike and Shipp tortured Slemmer for thirty minutes as they kicked her and beat her up brutally. Pike used a box cutter to carve a pentagram on her chest and made a long slit on her back. She proceeded to slash her neck at least six times till Slemmer had been breathing in blood.
As Colleen Slemmer tried to escape despite the attack, Christa Pike smashed her head with a large rock of asphalt and walked away with a piece of her broken skull, which she later used to brag to other schoolmates, per WBIR.
5) Christa Pike was sentenced to death in 1996
Christa Pike, Tadaryl Shipp, and Shadolla Peterson were arrested within 36 hours of the crime. Her trial took place in March 1996, and Pike was found guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.
While Pike became one of the youngest women in the history of the United States to be sentenced to death by electrocution, Tadaryl Shipp was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 25 years without parole. On the other hand, Peterson facilitated the investigation as an informant and thus got away with six years of probation as part of her plea deal.
Catch all the details of Colleen Slemmer's murder on the new episode of Mean Girl Murders airing on Monday.
