Christa Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, has asked for an all-female execution squad ahead of her September 30 lethal injection, a request her lawyers say stems from a lifetime of abuse by men.

Pike, 50, is scheduled to die in Nashville's execution chamber before 10 a.m. local time on September 30, ending a case that began with one of the most savage murders in modern Tennessee history. If the state carries out the sentence, Fox News reported she would become the first woman executed in Tennessee since 1820 and only the fourth in state history.

Governor Bill Lee holds the authority to stop the execution. As of the most recent reporting, he had not responded to Pike's clemency petition, a 226-page filing that asks for commutation to life in prison without parole.

Pike's lawyers cite childhood abuse and mental illness in 226-page clemency bid

The clemency petition, filed by attorney Stephen Ferrell and Pike's legal team, leans heavily on Pike's background. It describes sexual abuse beginning around age two, allegedly at the hands of her grandmother's boyfriend. One passage, written in Ferrell's voice, describes a childhood photograph of Pike:

"There is a picture of Christa as a child that I often think about. She is outside; her curly red hair is slightly blown by the wind. She has big brown eyes, and her mouth is drawn tight in a straight line."

Ferrell wrote that the photo was taken around the time the abuse started, calling it "a devastatingly sad turning point, where the chaos that surrounded Christa began to leave marks on her that were too much to overcome."

The petition also cites a bipolar disorder diagnosis that Pike's lawyers say was not made until years after her conviction. It references scientific and research developments since the mid-1990s and describes 30 years Pike has spent in solitary confinement. Pike's attorneys told Breitbart that "with time and treatment for bipolar and post-traumatic stress disorders, which were not diagnosed until years later, Christa has become a thoughtful woman with deep remorse for her crime."

Remorse is a word that carries weight in clemency proceedings. But the court record of what Pike did to Colleen Slemmer makes that word do heavy lifting.

January 1995: Pike told a friend she planned to kill, then did it

Tennessee Supreme Court documents lay out the murder in granular detail. On January 11, 1995, Pike, then 18 and a student at the Job Corps Center in Knoxville, told her friend Kim Iloilo she intended to kill fellow student Colleen Slemmer. Her stated reason: she "had just felt mean that day." She also claimed Slemmer "had been trying to get her boyfriend" and "running her mouth."

The next evening, around 8 p.m., Iloilo watched Pike leave the Job Corps campus with Slemmer, Pike's 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp, and another student named Shadolla Peterson. Pike had lured Slemmer out with a lie about a trip to a Blockbuster video store and a claim that a "bag of weed" was hidden in a nearby park.

At approximately 10:15 p.m., Iloilo saw Pike, Shipp, and Peterson return. Slemmer was not with them.

Later that night, Pike went to Iloilo's room and told her she had killed Slemmer. She showed Iloilo a piece of the victim's skull, which she said she had kept as a souvenir. Court documents state Pike told Iloilo she had cut Slemmer's throat six times, beaten her, and thrown chunks of asphalt at her head. A meat cleaver had been used to cut Slemmer's back. A box cutter had been used on her throat. A pentagram had been carved onto Slemmer's forehead and chest.

Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing "la, la, la" while she described the killing, the court record states. The legal maneuvering of convicted killers often sanitizes the underlying crime, but the facts of this case resist sanitizing.

The next morning at breakfast, Iloilo asked Pike what she had done with the skull fragment. Pike replied that it was in her pocket, adding: "And, yes, I'm eating breakfast with it."

Slemmer's body was so battered a witness mistook it for an animal carcass

A University of Tennessee employee discovered Slemmer's remains on January 13, 1995. He testified that the body "was so badly beaten that he had first mistaken it for the corpse of an animal."

Pike's own account, given after she waived her right to silence and spoke freely to police, filled in additional details. She told investigators that as she slammed Slemmer's head against the concrete, Slemmer repeatedly asked, "Why are you doing this to me?" Pike said she began hearing voices telling her she had to prevent Slemmer from reporting the assault.

Pike was convicted in 1996 and sentenced to death. Shipp, who was 17 at the time, was barred from execution under Tennessee law because he had not yet turned 18. The disparity, Pike eligible for death, her boyfriend not, is one of the points her legal team has raised in seeking clemency.

Capital punishment cases routinely form years of appeals and procedural challenges. Alabama recently carried out a lethal injection execution after the Supreme Court blocked an alternative method, illustrating how execution protocols remain a live legal battleground.

Pike asked to be hanged instead of receiving lethal injection

In August, Pike's legal team filed a challenge to Tennessee's lethal injection protocol, which uses a single-drug dose of pentobarbital administered while the inmate is strapped to a gurney. Pike's lawyers argue she has a rare blood disorder that could make the injection "prolonged and agonizing." Ferrell told the New York Post that lethal injection "administered by men" would "increase the likelihood that an 8th Amendment violation will occur," adding that "there is an increased risk of pain and suffering."

Pike's proposed alternative: hanging. Her lawyers framed the request as a way to avoid the constitutional problems they see in lethal injection.

The state's legal team dismissed the challenge, arguing that "it was Ms. Pike's burden to come forth with scientific evidence" to overturn the execution method and that "she has completely failed to do that."

Pike also requested an all-female execution squad, citing post-traumatic stress disorder linked to documented abuse by men throughout her life. That request, combined with the hanging proposal and the clemency petition, amounts to a multi-front legal effort whose ultimate aim is commutation to life without parole.

The question of clemency and executive mercy in high-profile criminal cases draws sharp public attention. The Senate's unanimous vote opposing a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell showed how little appetite elected officials have for leniency when the underlying crime shocks the conscience.

Pike says she has 'horrible nightmares' as the date approaches

Pike appeared in a documentary titled Christa Pike's Last Fight to Stop Her Execution, where she described the psychological toll of knowing her execution date a year in advance.

"I know I said I believed a date would never be set, but now that one has been set, it's like a roulette wheel of thought and your actual brain is the ball bouncing around."

She added: "My nerves are shredded. When I do sleep, my brain eats itself. I have the most horrible nightmares."

On execution day, Pike is scheduled to wake at 5:30 a.m., clean her cell, shower, dress, receive a last meal, and be allowed final family visits or contact with a spiritual adviser before being taken to the execution chamber.

Slemmer's family is expected to be among the witnesses. High-profile criminal cases often cause extraordinary legal maneuvers from defendants seeking to avoid consequences, but the facts of each case eventually speak for themselves.

Pike's clemency petition asks Governor Lee to see a damaged child in the woman strapped to the gurney. The court record asks him to remember what that woman did to Colleen Slemmer when she was 18 years old, and how she danced afterward. Mercy is the governor's call. The facts are everyone's.