133. The Job Corps Murder: Remembering Colleen Slemmer

SPEAKER_02 0:14

I attended Job Corps in the 1990s. Researching the murder of Colleen Slimmer brought back that world to me in ways that I wasn't prepared for. 1990s Job Corps campus was a world entirely its own. It was this raw, beautiful, volatile pressure cooker of survival and hope. Kind of a lower class version of a college experience filled with teenagers and young adults who had been dealt a tough hand in life. Most of us came from broken homes and generational poverty. Some of us were there because we wanted to be, and others were there because a judge said job core or jail. But for many of us, the routine was a lifeline. We woke up early, we scrubbed the dorms to military standards and reported to our trades or classes. The rules felt relentless sometimes, but they gave us a structure that some of us had never had. We were earning GEDs, learning trades, and realizing, some of us for the first time, that we weren't stupid. We could actually learn when someone was willing to teach us and when we were willing to sit and listen. We began to picture a real future, one with promise. We were growing up and becoming productive. And then there was the weekend passes. After a week of schedules and inspections and rules, if we'd stayed out of trouble, they would drop us off in town on a Friday afternoon with about $25 apiece, and we pulled what we had for a cheap motel room. We drank, we did some truly stupid things. Thankfully, this was all before every bad decision could be recorded and shared on social media. But for a couple of days, nobody was keeping tabs on us. We were young, reckless, and truly on our own. We weren't always safe, but we were free. Most of us weren't getting care packages from families, and there were no safety nets waiting for us back home. We stayed connected to friends and families by hoarding plastic call-in cards and waiting our turn with payphones. I still remember Tupac blaring in the dorm room through cheap boom boxes, competing with the heavy distortion of grunge in the background. That music was the soundtrack of our lives. I'll never forget the shock throughout the campus when Tupac Shikur died in September of 1996. Life on campus could be rough. We brought our trauma with us along with whatever we had learned to protect ourselves. There was gossip, friction, and tension that would turn into a fight, sometimes without warning. But I also remember the friendships. There was a unique kind of camaraderie among all of us who knew what it was like to go without. We shared cigarettes and found excuses to linger outside together. There were crushes, jealousies, and teenage romances that would make or break our whole day. We stretched our goodbyes out until the last possible minute before curfew. For all we'd already been through, we were still young, wanting to catch someone's eye, hold someone's hand, and feel like we mattered. We were trauma bonded, and that's where I met Curtis. Shink JobCor in Brevard, North Carolina. One of the most beautiful places I'd ever been. A campus we both just happened to come to as a temporary stop gave us a relationship that's lasted for nearly 29 years in counting. When I think about Job Cor now, I remember both the craziness and how much I gained by going there. And those memories are part of why today's story has been one of the hardest stories for me to research and tell. I remember the environment, the jealousies, the intense friendships, and how quickly someone you trusted could become someone you feared or hated. I can't help but think how easily I could have known the people in the story. Parts of their lives remind me of my own and many of the people I knew and called friends. What you're gonna hear in this episode is horrifying, but the world around it feels painfully familiar to me. Before we go any further, I just want to warn you that this story involves extreme, prolonged violence and graphic descriptions of a brutal murder and autopsy report. The details are deeply disturbing and they can be difficult to hear even if you regularly listen to True Prime. So please consider whether you want to continue.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

This is Hard Times and True Crimes. So we just wanted to thank all of you once again for ratings and reviews. You guys are really coming through for us and we appreciate it, but and we are so grateful. So keep it up. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 6:36

I'm gonna jump right into this story. It's probably gonna be a little bit longer. I'm sure we'll have a lot to talk about. So Okay. On the morning of January 13th in 1995, at around 8.05 a.m., a University of Tennessee groundskeeper named Duncan Sutherland walked up on what he thought was a large, badly mutilated animal carcass near the greenhouses on the university's agricultural campus. And then he stepped a little bit closer and noticed clothes, and then he saw an exposed breast, and that's when he realized that this was the body of a young woman. He called the authorities as fast as he could. Officers from both the Knoxville Police Department and the University of Tennessee Police Department were called onto the scene. One of the first officers to reach the body was University of Tennessee police officer John Terry Johnson. The extent of this young girl's injuries were shocking. Her body was lined face down, she was naked from the waist up, and she was covered in blood and dirt. Her head had been so severely bludgeoned that at first he thought he was looking at her face, but he couldn't tell for sure, and it wasn't her face. Oh, that's horrible. There were multiple deep stab wounds and slashes all over her torso. This poor girl had literally been tortured.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

As more officers arrived and began searching the area, they realized that the place where the body had been found was only a part of the crime scene. There was blood in other locations, handprints and knee prints in the mud, along with drag marks.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Gosh.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

About 30 feet from the body, investigators found a large pool of blood. So the crime scene eventually grew to an area of approximately a hundred feet long and sixty feet wide.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Sounds like a struggle.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

And you said what how early was this in the morning?

SPEAKER_02 9:01

8 05 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

When they turned her body over, they saw her throat had been slashed multiple times and a bloody rag was still tied around her neck. That wasn't the extent of her injuries either. After she was taken to the morgue and all of the blood was cleaned off, they found a pentagram had been deeply carved into her chest.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

But see the the ability to be that violent, that explains a lot.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

And at this point, you know, all police knew was that they had a body, but they still had to figure out who she was, where she came from. And I don't know exactly what led them to the Job Corps Center, but I do know that it was really close in proximity to the university's agricultural grounds. By that afternoon, they were already investigating and questioning people at the Knoxville Job Corps. Investigator Randy York checked the sign out sheet and he found that four students had left the previous night, but only three had returned. So that fourth one was her, most likely, I guess. Colleen Slimmer. She had signed out of the center the night before on January 12th, but had not come back. And so they called her mother, Mae Martinez, and had to break the news to her that her daughter was missing and they had found the body of a young woman close to the center. It would have been impossible to identify her by her face. And so they needed a copy of her dental records. Wow, that would be a horrible call to receive. They did compare the dental records with the teeth of the unidentified corpse. And after hours of waiting and anguish, her mother's worst nightmare came true when she got the call that her daughter's dental records were an exact match. The young woman found in the woods near the University of Tennessee was 19-year-old Colleen and Slimmer. At around 8 p.m. the night before, another job core student, Kimberly Loillow, I think that's how you pronounce it, had seen Colleen walking away from the center with three other students. 18-year-old Krista Pike, her 17-year-old boyfriend to Daryl Ship, and 18-year-old Shadola Peterson. Later that night at around 10:15, she saw all three come back except for Colleen. Krista Pike. Her name continued to come up over and over again. After 10 p.m., she went to the dorm room of her best friend, Kimberly, and told her that she had done something and she had proof. She reaches in her pocket and pulls out a small piece of bone. She showed it to Kimberly and told her that this was a piece of Colleen's skull.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

She was smiling.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

I was that was my question.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

Is she bragging about it? She was absolutely bragging. She was breaking into hysterical laughter at times. Oh gosh. Krista told Kimberly that Colleen's throat had been slashed at least six times, that her brains had been beaten out. She described how Colleen had begged for her life. She told Kimberly that a meat cleaver and a box cutter had been used. She also said that pentagrams had been carved into her forehead and her chest.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

That is truly one of the most horrible things I've ever heard. Well, you haven't heard the autopsy. Are you kidding me? No. Oh my gosh. It's unbelievable. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

I'm gonna try to keep some of my questions, but go ahead. Kimberly, Krista's friend, she's in shock. And it wasn't just what Krista was saying, which was horrifying enough, but it was the way she was acting when she said it. At one point, Kimberly said that she started to dance around and sing and laugh, and she was just elated. You would have thought she had just been given the best gift of her life.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

But Kimberly was second guessing whether this is a person she really wants to be friends with. That's horrifying.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

It is, and you would think she would have gone to somebody, but she did not. Oh, she didn't report it. No. The next morning, Kimberly saw Krista at breakfast, and Krista said, It's in my pocket, and yes, I'm eating breakfast with it. That is sick.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

That girl is demonic.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

One of the investigators said, I never believed in demon possession until I met Krista Pike. I can see why. She wasn't the only person that Krista bragged to. Later that same morning, Krista went to another one of her friends, Stephanie Wilson, and told her essentially the same story. She showed her these brown spots on her shoes and told her, That ain't mud, that's blood. Wow. And apparently she's not afraid to getting caught. I guess not. She's a really big bully. And so I think that she knows that people are gonna be afraid to tell on her. The Kimberly girl said that she had threatened her. Like, if you tell anybody, I'm gonna kill you.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

And then after hearing what she had done, you would be really thinking she would. Right. And she probably would. Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

And then to the Stephanie girl, she pulls out a napkin out of her pocket and shows Stephanie this piece of Colleen's skull, told Stephanie that Colleen's blood and brains had been pouring out, and that she had picked up that piece of skull before she left her in the woods. By the early morning of January 14th, police were questioning Krista Pike and to Daryl Ship, her boyfriend. Krista was advised of her Miranda rights, but she waved them and she seemed amused. She was giggling, moving around. She was wearing her pentagram necklace and was more than happy to talk. She actually gave a detailed statement about what happened to Colleen that night. The interview was recorded, and so you know, they transcribe those recordings, and her statement filled 46 pages.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

So she fully confessed. Oh, yeah. She had no hesitancy.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

The only thing that she held back was the identity of other people, but not for herself. This is truly unbelievable. According to Krista, she hadn't planned initially to kill Colleen. She said that she was just gonna beat her up, fight her, and let her know that she had better stop trying to get with her boyfriend and leave her the hell alone. But she also admitted that when she left the center that night, she was carrying a box cutter and a miniature meat cleaver. She said she'd borrowed the meat cleaver from someone, but she never told police who that was. Krista asked Colleen to go with her to the Blockbuster music store. And while they were walking, she told Colleen that she'd had some pot hidden in the woods for them to smoke. And so the four of them started walking toward the University of Tennessee campus. And eventually that's when they reached the steam plant on the agricultural campus. It's a very secluded area. And so that's when Krista confronts her. At first, she accuses her of trying to take her boyfriend, and Colleen was like, I don't like him like that. Like it's not true. But there was nothing Colleen could have said. She just was determined. So Krista punched her in the face and then banged Colleen's head against her knee. I'm gonna say this is very difficult to listen to before she threw her onto the ground and started kicking her over and over again. Krista, matter-of-factly reenacting, you know, these events. She told how she slammed Colleen's head against the concrete while Colleen was crying and asking, Why are you doing this to me? Oh, this is so tragic. Krista responded by kicking her repeatedly in the face and in the side. So Colleen, she's lying on the ground crying for a while while Krista catches her breath. Colleen got up and tried to run away at that point, but Krista's friend caught her and pushed her back to the ground. Now at the time of the interview, Krista wouldn't say who that person was. She would just say he. So obviously we know who it is. It was to Daryl. Krista said that she and this other person held Colleen down until she stopped struggling. And then they dragged her to another area where Krista took out a box cutter and started slicing Colleen across the stomach. Oh poor girl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

And there's four three people or two extra people watching this and not helping or intervening. Well, they're helping.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

Well, they're helping, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Oh. A pentagram was cut into her forehead and chest at some point. While she was screaming, can you imagine while she's screaming for her life and trying to get away? Krista told police that at this point she heard voices telling her that she had to keep Colleen from telling anybody what had happened because otherwise she'd go to prison for attempted murder. Krista said that she stood there and just watched her bleed for a couple of minutes. She thought Colleen was near death, but then Colleen rolled over and somehow managed to get back onto her feet and start running again. Krista caught up to her and cut her across the back, leaving her this long deep slash in her back. But Colleen kept struggling to get away. She started begging Krista to please let her live. She told Krista that if she just let her go, that she would hitchhike home to Florida, she wouldn't go back to the center to get her stuff. She just begged her to please let her leave. Krista told Colleen to shut up because she knew it was too late for that. She said it was harder to kill somebody when they were talking, and it just made her mad that she wouldn't shut up. She said the more Colleen talked, the more she kicked her in the face. Around this time, Krista thought she heard a noise out in the woods, and so she left Colleen for a minute, and she and to Daryl went to make sure no one was coming. And then she came back. And that's when Krista took the box cutter and started cutting Colleen's throat. But somehow Colleen kept talking and begging for her life. So she cut her throat again. And she continued to talk. And Colleen was still conscious and still trying to talk.

unknown 20:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Krista said Colleen continued trying, even sitting up. Each time she did, Krista and the other person pushed her back down, stabbed her, punched her, beat her, stomped her, and just tortured her. And yet somehow she got up and tried to run away again.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Wow. So that girl was fighting for her life.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

For her life. So at this point, Krista picks up a big piece of asphalt and threw it hard against the back of her head. I guess when that happened, it like broke apart. And so they picked up the pieces from it and started hitting her. Yeah, continued to beat her and hit her and stab her. She told police that eventually she could hear Colleen breathing blood in and out and could see her body jerking. But in Krista's own words, she still kept hitting her and hitting her and hitting her. And then at some point, Krista asked her, Colleen, do you know who's doing this to you? Colleen still tried to talk. Of course she couldn't, like she could only groan.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

I mean, it's like wild animal behavior. Like not even human behavior.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

It's not. Krista said that she and the other person each grabbed one of Colleen's feet and dragged her towards some trees where they left her body on a pile of dirt and Debris. They left pieces of Colleen's clothing scattered in the bushes. And Krista estimated to the cops that as she thought the attack might have lasted somewhere between 45 minutes to an hour. Oh my gosh. Pure torture. Yes. She also admitted that during the attack, they had made Colleen take off her shirt and bra so that she wouldn't run away. At another point, Krista took a tie from her own hair and tied it around Colleen's mouth because she wanted her to just stop talking. Wow. She did not be in the one to carve the pentagrams into Colleen's chest and head. Pretty much believe her because Yeah, there's no reason to lie about it.

SPEAKER_01 22:43

She's telling everything else.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

She claimed the other person had been the one to do that, but she still was refusing to say who. So Dr. Sandra Elkins, which was the Knox County medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Colleen, said that her body was covered with, again, dirt and twigs because we know that that's where they dragged her to. She was nude from the waist up. She was wearing jeans, socks, and shoes. And after cleaning the body, she attempted to catalog the slashes and stab wounds on Colleen's torso by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each wound. But there were so many that eventually she decided, okay, I'm just gonna catalog the major ones. Wow. She said that to catalog every wound, she would have had to stay in the morgue for three days. Eventually she threw her hands up and just said innumerable. Like she had innumerable slashes on her back, arms, and chest. She cataloged the major slashes and stab wounds on Colleen's back, arms, abdomen, and chest. She found a six-inch gaping wound across the middle of her neck, which had penetrated the fat and muscles in her neck. And then she also found 10 other slash wounds on Colleen's throat, as well as other slashes and wounds on her face, that pentagram on her chest. And because the area around each wound was red, Dr. Elkins said that meant Colleen's heart had been beating when the wounds were inflicted. And she would not have been rendered unconscious by any of those stab or slash wounds. Wow. Dr. Elkins determined that Colleen's death was caused by blunt force injuries to her head. She suffered multiple and extensive skull fractures. She suffered a minimum of four blows to her head, two to the left side, one over the right eye, and one to the nose area. The right front area of Colleen's skull had been fractured and as well as like the bridge of her nose. But the major wound in this one she had labeled W involved most of the left side of her head. Dr. Elkins said that this injury was caused by blunt force to the left side of her head while the right side of her head was against a firm surface. And so it fractured both sides and embedded a part of her skull into her brain. Wow. That just brutal. There were small divots in her skull with small black pieces from the asphalt chunk that they later determined was used to hit her with. The blood Dr. Evans found in Colleen's sinus cavity meant that she had been alive and conscious when the injuries were inflicted.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

It's actually hard to believe that she was survived all that.

SPEAKER_02 25:49

It really is.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

She was a fighter. Yes, she was. I mean, I can't even imagine that cutting her throat. Oh my god. Take her out. Yes. Oh, that's horrible though. But to live through her throat was cut 10 times. Yeah. And then just all the time amount of times that she was hit in the head, that had to have been really, I don't even really have words, but to survive that that long is crazy.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

So January 13th, this is the day Colleen's body is found, and Krista had been at the office. There was this guy named Robert Polak, and he was the orientation specialist, and she'd been in his office. She left her black leather jacket in there, and then he left and went home for the weekend. Now they knew that, you know, when they left and went home, there was possibly a murder, but they really didn't have any of the details. But by the time he came back over the weekend on the 17th, the jacket was still there. And at that time he knew that Krista was a suspect in Colleen's murder. So he took the jacket and turned it over to the police. And inside one of the pockets, they found that piece of bone that was taken, and that was taken to the Dr. Elkins that I was just talking about, to the University of Tennessee. So remember I said earlier that the blows to her head had been so severe that a piece of her skull had been broken off and basically driven into her skull. But there was one piece missing. Then Dr. Elkins was given that piece of skull. And when she put that into the missing section of Colleen's skull, it was a perfect fit. And so there was no question about it. Like she was not going to be able to get out of that later.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Right. And it came out of her coat pocket.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

So she had been carrying around a piece of Colleen's skull. She had shown it to people. It had been in a jacket that was identified as hers. So they had her confession, you know, all the physical evidence. But why? Why did Krista Pike hate Colleen so much? That's what I would like to know. So they had actually been friends. Krista was like popular. I think she was popular because people were scared of her. She was a bully. She was one of those loud girls. She had a lot of friends, but she was also dramatic and would get mad at people and just like that mean girl. Krista Pike was 18 years old and had come to the Knoxville Job Course Center to get her life on track.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

Was she sent there because she was out of control and nobody could do anything with her?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Well, that's a large part of it, yes. That's what it sounds like. She wasn't sent there, she did go on her own, but yes, nobody could do anything with her. She'd been raised in Durham, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 28:44

Mm-hmm. In an unstable, very poor household. We all were. Anybody who went to Job Corps, we were as a teen, she started getting into trouble and eventually ended up dropping out of high school. So Job Corps, you know, there was this opportunity there to get some vocational training, work toward an education, and hopefully a good paying job at some point. And Krista was pretty smart. She hadn't gone, you know, I don't even think she finished like ninth grade, but she had a 111 IQ. So that's not bad. No. So she did pretty well academically there. She did get her GD, like I was saying, at the center. She had a pretty big social circle. Colleen, who had initially been Krista's friend, she had a much milder, sweeter temperament. She was from Winter Park, Florida. And for your close to there, um, my aunt and uncle. I used to go there and do summer school sometimes. My aunt and uncle lived there. Yeah, it was a nice place. By all accounts, she had a really big heart. She would volunteer with the Special Olympics, and she loved music, roller skating, and she was really interested in computers. In fact, that's why she was there at the Knoxville Job Course Center. She could have gone to a center in Florida, but they didn't offer the computer classes that Colleen was interested in. And so she was really excited about having the opportunity to go to Knoxville and to have this experience. You know, she was poor too. Job course center is they it is for low income.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

For lower income youth or young adults. I think you could come in as young as 17, 16 or 17 if you had dropped out of school. The highest age was like 24.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

So it's from like 17 to 24. Okay. And it's all low-income families.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

I didn't realize that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:48

Yeah. But she did though come from a loving home. Like she had a good relationship with her parents. Just because you're poor doesn't mean that you're that everything's dysfunctional. Exactly. Exactly. They really didn't want her to go, actually. But her parents, not that they couldn't stop her, but I mean they were like, she is old enough to make her own decisions. And Colleen really, like, again, was excited about going. And so, yeah, once she came to the center, she started making friends too and did really good. When she got there, though, there was a guy named Tadaryl who apparently had a bit of a crush on Colleen. Whether she even realized that or not isn't really clear. But it is very clear that she had no interest in him. And nothing ever happened between them. Like they weren't in a relationship. He liked her. She never liked him. Krista came to the center after calling. She wanted to become a medical assistant. And at first, you know, things were actually going good. They were, you know, they had become friends. They both had their own friends and were both doing really good in their classes. But eventually, Krista was introduced to Tadaryl. His name is To Daryl. To Daryl. Okay. And the two of them fell really hard for each other. Whatever he felt for, you know, if he had a crush on Colleen before, he didn't at this point. He liked Krista. Krista would later describe to Daryl as someone who was respected, if not outright feared, at the center. But to Krista, he was the first guy she believed truly loved her for who she was and not for what he could get from her. And she became extremely attached to him. When Krista learned that to Daryl was a self-proclaimed Satanist, it didn't bother her at all. And if anything, it kind of intrigued her. And before long, Krista herself became increasingly interested in and eventually obsessed with Satanism. And there was a group of girls that were just into that. They were kind of experimenting with it. A teacher said that one night she walked in on a group of them holding hands and talking in what she thought was like a foreign language. And later she found out that it was this stuff they were doing. And then somehow Krista learned about to Daryl's earlier little crush on Colleen. And for whatever reason, it was much bigger in her mind. She was convinced that Colleen was trying to take him away from her.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

But from other girls and interviews and stuff, like it just wasn't the case. To Daryl may have had a really small crush on Colleen initially. There were a lot more guys than there were girls. And so, like, all the girls had people have crushes on them.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

You know what I mean? Well, I mean, and that's just typical human behavior.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

It is, it is. Colleen didn't reciprocate it, and there was no relationship between them at all. But Krista started accusing her then of talking about her behind her back. And again, I haven't found anything that convinces me that Colleen was doing that. I think Krista had found someone she could bully. She was sweeter and milder, and she wasn't someone who was inclined to fight back in the same way that Krista was willing to fight. And honestly, Krista just seemed to enjoy having that power over her and looking cool in front of her friends. And the more she intimidated Colleen, the more powerful it made her feel. Instead of the people around Chris, you know, putting a stop to it, they fed into it because they're dumb and their kids and they're following her. They acted on. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, you know, Colleen has this group of people making her life miserable.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Poor girl.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I know. Colleen told her mom that several students at the center were bothering her, which is so sad that she spent the last couple of weeks of her life being bullied like this. Krista had developed this obsessive hatred toward her. It was just irrational and one-sided. Krista eventually started regularly threatening her. So then when she was like, I don't like him. Like, I don't, you know, he's not my type. Well, then she said she was a racist. So then she starts telling everybody that Colleen is a racist. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

To Daryl is black.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Yes. Can you imagine?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

She can't win for losing here anyway.

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Yes. People are just jumping on the bandwagon. So she would say that Colleen was doing stuff to try to entice her to fight her because she knew that if that happened, she would get kicked out. This went on for a while. And of course, with everyone feeding into it and feeling Krista, it just grew. Yeah. And so on January 11th, the day before Colleen was murdered, Krista just casually says to her friend Kimberly, I'm gonna kill Colleen. And when Kimberly asked her, Why would you do that or why would you say that? Krista said, I just feel mean today. And this is important because Krista told police that she never intended to kill Colleen. Like I mentioned earlier, Krista said the plan was just to fight with her and let her know that she better leave her alone. But again, when she left the job course center with Colleen, she took a box cutter, she took a miniature meat cleaver, she said that to her friend that she was going to kill her. And there was another statement made before they all left the center that night. Another job course student named Daniel Whalen ran into Krista, to Daryl, and Shandola Peterson that night before they left. And Krista and Shandola were asking if they if he had seen Colleen. And Whalen said to Daryl told him, When we find her, she's dead. And then Krista told people she was looking for Shandola earlier that day to get a box cutter from her.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

Okay. Sounds premeditated to me. I mean, there's no way around it, really. And anybody who was present and didn't do anything to help was involved. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Now Shandola would say she was terrified of Krista in her defense. This is what I can say. If she if she truly didn't do anything, and Krista never said she did now, all these years later, but again this happened. But back then she never said she did. She might have really been scared of both of them.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

But why would she have just like not gone with them? Yeah. Because she gave them the box cutter, right? True. You're right. So she did give them the box cutter. She knows they're going out there with her and they've got this box cutter, and at the very least, they're gonna beat her up and most likely use a box cutter. I would have thought of a way to get out of that and not go.

SPEAKER_02 38:17

I can see myself at that age getting I can see myself getting into a really dumb situation and really not thinking somebody would actually do something like that. I can just see me being so dumb. But I but I'm telling you, if I saw something like that, I can't even stand like to see people fight. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I'm sure once she was there, she was too afraid because they would have probably they probably would have to be like killed her. Yeah. But I just don't understand why she went.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Or you're right. You brought up the point about the box cutter that I wasn't thinking about. So yeah. Afterward, Krista and to Daryl washed the blood off of their hands and shoes and a mud puddle. Krista got rid of the box cutter and gave the meat cleaver to whoever she'd borrowed it from. And like I said, she never told police who that was. She also had Colleen's black gloves and you have a like a ID at Job Corps. So she had two of two of her IDs and ended up taking them and throwing them into a trash can at Texaco station on Cumberland Avenue. Krista knew she had another problem too because her jeans are covered in blood. So she rubbed mud from the bottoms of her shoes into her jeans, and she hoped that anybody who saw the stains would just think it was mud. Then Krista to Daryl and Shandola went back to the center and signed back in. And like I said, Kimberly saw the three of them returning at around 10:15. And a little over two hours they were back. And instead of keeping quiet about what had happened or being scared and shocked, Krista went to Kimberly's room and bragged about brutally killing Colleen and showing off a piece of her skull.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

That is pure crazy.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Like, what in the world would it's so funny because I have heard so many people say they weren't really involved in Satanism. Like they were just but I'm like, do you see what happened? Yeah, they have to be because that level of hatred. Even if they don't even take it serious. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 40:27

Like, even if they were not taking it serious, they're dabbling in it, inviting that influence into their and that spiritual realm. It's real. And I mean, for anybody to have, I mean, I know we're all sinners and we all have capable to do horrible things, but just that level of violence inside of them, there had to be something demonic about that.

SPEAKER_02 40:54

There has to be. I can't imagine watching somebody in pain like that or like help me. Oh my gosh, please. I just cannot imagine that.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

Listen, I actually got in a fight in school uh over a guy when I was in high school. I want you to know I felt so bad about that that I saw her at a restaurant years later and walked over and apologized to her. Yeah, I actually it was the Holy Spirit said, You need to go apologize. And I'm like, No, I'm not doing that. Right. But the Holy Spirit said, Yeah, yeah, you are, and I did. I went over and apologized to her. We're friends now. Oh, but the amount of guilt I felt over hurting someone else, I mean, it literally ate my conscience. Yeah. Because it was just it felt so barbaric after the fact or during it, this adrenaline is going on. Yeah, right. This frenzy that you're in when you're out of control. Right. But after the fact, somebody who could do that and have no guilt, no remorse, not no empathy, no compassion. Right. It's like I just can't imagine it.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Even the fighting thing, I can't understand. I mean, I think it was horrible to like take her out by herself with three people.

SPEAKER_03 42:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:21

But let's just say, let's just say that did happen, though. They did take her out there and they she just intended to fight her. Like you were saying, I do understand adrenaline taking over. And okay, so you get a fight, you beat her up, but you're saying you stop to watch her bleed.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:39

You're saying you stop to take your breath.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:43

Right. And she's begging you. Begging you. And you stop and you decide to take out the box cutter and cut her. Then you take out the meat cleav. Do you see what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Yeah, it's like way beyond your friends. You're no longer, you're you're contemplating each and every step.

SPEAKER_02 43:03

45 minutes to an hour.

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Yeah. That's I yeah, I hear you.

SPEAKER_02 43:07

One and but one of the investigators said she is just pure evil. And by that point, obviously, they had overwhelming evidence against Krista. And so she and to Daryl Ship were arrested and charged in connection at that point with Colleen's murder. So when they first arrested her, I guess they were figuring out what they were going to officially charge her with. And Shandola, she was 18, the same age as Krista, and she admitted she had gone with them that night, but she swore she had not participated in the actual beating or cutting or anything physical with Colleen. And she said she was terrified of Krista and to Daryl. Prosecutors ultimately believed she had not participated, at least, not at the level of Of the other two, and because she agreed to cooperate with them, Shandola became a witness for the state.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

She eventually pled guilty to being an accessory after the fact to murder in exchange for cooperation and testimony against Krista and to Daryl. Which I mean, if she did not participate at that level, if she didn't, I mean, I mean, I guess when they first questioned her though, like she came.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

I mean, I know she didn't report it like I would think she should have, but when they questioned her, she went ahead and cooperated. Yeah. All right, I don't like it, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Yeah, I mean I don't like it either, but I think it's kind of their best oh, I mean, honestly, they do need the witness, but they did have confession. They had a full confession that lined up with the physical evidence. So I don't even know for sure that they needed her, but I'm sure every little bit helped, like with the motive and this was an I wish what yeah, because again, she wasn't Krista wasn't saying who did what. Yeah, and so Shandola was like, Okay, he did this, she did this. I, you know.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Plus, if if she is found guilty and then appeals later, then she like they might need that testimony because she might retract her confession. So maybe that testimony bolsters that exactly.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

So Krista was eventually charged with premeditated first degree murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Good, because anything less than that would be a travesty.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

Yes. And prosecutors were seeking the death penalty.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Good again.

SPEAKER_02 45:45

Under Tennessee law, the state had to prove at least one aggravating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt for her to be facing the death penalty. Okay. And in Krista's case, they had two. The first one was that Colleen's murder was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel, and they had plenty of evidence to support that Colleen had been killed slowly and unmercifully.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Or mercilessly.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Mercilessly. That's what happened. Gosh, thank you. And mercilessly. The second aggravating circumstance was that Krista admitted that she killed Colleen, at least in part, to keep from being arrested. So I didn't know that that was an aggravating circumstance, but it is.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

Because she's covering her traps. Yes, and it shows premeditation. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

And Krista had basically given prosecutors the evidence for that herself by what she said. I heard, you know, I heard a voice saying, Oh, I'm gonna go to jail. And so I had to finish her off. Krista went on trial in March of 1996. It would have been impossible for the defense to convince this jury that Krista hadn't committed the murder. Right. I mean, there was just no way that was gonna happen. And so the defense tried to challenge the premeditation. A psychologist named Eric Engum diagnosed her with severe borderline personality disorder. Do you know what that is? Yeah. So he said that he does not believe she premeditated the murder, but that she lost control and that that is consistent with the behavior of, I guess, someone who has that personality disorder.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Yeah. Which it may be, but yeah, I just saw with all the whole Lindsey Clancy stuff going on this week, I just saw a thing online that said, you know, every like serial killer has had a mental illness. Right. That doesn't mean that you can't face consequences for those choices. And so, yes, you may have that disorder for what you're obviously not safe out to be walking among other people.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

And isn't that like a sociopath?

SPEAKER_01 48:01

Like they okay, that's what I was thinking. I think the like those like the sociopaths, I think all that's like a form of that borderline. What's it called again? Borderline personality disorder. So sociopaths are one type, and psychopaths are one type of that. Okay, from what I understand. If I'm wrong, y'all can just tell me later.

SPEAKER_02 48:23

That was her diagnosis, and I don't, I'm not disputing that because she's definitely a sociopath.

SPEAKER_00 48:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

But the jury didn't buy it, and they found her guilty of first-degree premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. Then the trial moved on to the sentencing phase. And so now the question is whether a jury is going to sentence an 18-year-old girl to death. I want to show you a picture of her when the trial was going on.

SPEAKER_01 48:53

Let me pause this.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah. All right. So here is a picture of her.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

She looks like a kid and does not look like she's all that tough. Like, I was not picturing that at all. No. She literally looks like she could be your like a sixth grader. Yeah. Like she looks young and not like she could do something like that. Wow. But that's what the jury is seeing. This girl, this they're seeing this girl. Are you gonna put you need to put some of those pictures over a Facebook group? People need to see that. That is crazy. I definitely will. This is not nice. I well, I don't know what I was picturing somebody looking emo. Oh, were you? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's so funny. No, she was not. She looks like somebody might be at my youth group, right? Right. Well, that just goes to show you can't judge a book by its cover. And I apologize to all the emo people out there too.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

So yeah, the question is like, are they going to sentence this little girl to death?

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Oh gosh. That would be, I mean, I still think she deserves it. After hearing all that evidence, how could they not? But then sitting there watching her in a courtroom, I'm like, there might be some who have pity on her because she literally looks like an innocent little girl.

SPEAKER_02 50:10

And before we get to the sentencing, I'm gonna talk about her childhood. Oh, okay. Not because I'm trying to excuse, you know, what she did, but because you know, the jury has to take all of this into consideration, you know, whether this 18-year-old should live or die.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

They have a lot of things to weigh out, and that's a very serious sentence, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Yes. So Krista was born prematurely on March 10th, 1976, in Beckley, West Virginia to Carissa Hanson and Emil Glenn Pike. And pretty much from the beginning, her home life was just it was a mess. Her mother did not bond with her as a baby. There was substance abuse in the home. Her parents had a tumultuous relationship. They married and then divorced because Carissa, which was her mother, had an affair, and then they got back together and remarried after she attempted suicide. There were allegations, even admissions from her own mother and then other family members of really pretty serious neglect. On trial, Krista's aunt described going into the home and finding Krista crawling around on the floor where there was just piles of dog feces all over the floor. They aunt said there were times when she had to make sure that Krista and her older half sister were fed because her parents that was not their concern. She remembered when Krista was really young and having seizures, and they had to go out and find her mother and tell her what was happening, and she would not go home to her daughter. She stayed out partying. Wow. One person who did consistently take care of Krista was her paternal grandmother. And Krista would later say that she was the only person she ever really believed loved her. And then her grandmother died in 1988 when Krista was 12 years old, and she actually attempted suicide at that point. She had attempted suicide in the third grade. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

And she had some major mental problems.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

She did, and some major home issues. As much as she loved her grandmother. Now, this is of course allegations here, but everybody, her family seems to believe it, but that her grandmother's boyfriend was molesting her. And possibly more than that, they say that when she was very little girl, like kindergarten or first grade, she was in school and they were supposed to draw like pictures of family or whatever. And she draws a picture of basically like this demon man with like giant genitals. And she's too young to she should know what all that is about. The jury did not hear about all of the sexual abuse in this part. We'll bring that up again later. She did receive some psychiatric treatment at different points, but there just wasn't much consistency there. I don't think she had anybody all that worried about her.

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Because they were consumed with themselves. Krista reported that she had been sexually assaulted multiple times. And at least one of those cases was not just an accusation. There was a man named Claude Davis who lived in the same trailer park as her. And he sexually assaulted her. And he was actually prosecuted, convicted by a jury, and sent to prison. She also was attacked and went and got a rape kit. She was taken to the hospital. They did a rape kit on her. So that was probably true. She had been sexually assaulted multiple times. I think you do have we do have to take into account the nature versus nurture. If you do have a predisposition for evil, I don't know, you know. And then you have this type of an upbringing. I mean, it's like the perfect storm.

SPEAKER_01 54:28

Yeah. So the nature and the nurture together is like combined to create this monstrous behavior.

SPEAKER_02 54:37

And I'm not saying that was her nature. If it was. Yeah, if it was. Because it could have all been that's a lot to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Yeah, but no, I'm not saying that's an exception. I know you're not. I'm just thinking out loud.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

But that could have very well been what made her so angry.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

Yeah, there was a lot of anger in her.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Yes, yes, absolutely. One of the points that they brought out, because one of her mother's boyfriends punched Krista in the face, but she had chased him with a butcher knife. So I'm like, eh. Okay. I mean, yeah, of course, criminal charges are filed, and he got in trouble for it. But I mean, she did chase him with a butcher knife. So but anyway, the older she got, the angrier she got, the more she acted out. Her mother couldn't control her. And by the way, after her grandmother died, they that's when they moved to Durham. Okay. And so she lived in Durham most of her life. But she would skip school, she would run away from home, she changed schools repeatedly. And and I did all of this stuff too at that age. I think that's why this was so hard for me because it just brought back so many terrible hit close to home. It really did. Yeah. And I just thanked God, honestly. Like I really did in church someday. I was thinking about her and her life, and I was like, thank you, God, for my family. Because even though things were crazy back then, I guess I had like some foundation. She had nothing.

SPEAKER_01 56:09

Right. I do think just that Christian foundation, because y'all did have that. And see, we had that too. Yeah, we grew up with a lot of dysfunction and in the trailer park and all this stuff. And my sisters and I sometimes talk about how we can look around and see so many of the people we grew up with and how their lives have turned out so badly, and just how a lot of their choices have led them down some really bad paths. And we're like, thank God that didn't happen to us. But the difference I think truly is that we had parents that taught us about God and took us to church. Yes. And we had a foundation from early on, even though there was dysfunction on top of it, you know, rough lifestyle. I really do think that's the difference. I really do too. But anyway, she changed schools repeatedly. I changed schools repeatedly. Oh, me too. I I was before I got into high school, I had changed schools nine times. I was always the new kid. Yep. That didn't seem weird to me when I was young. I went to one school for four whole days before I was pulled out and sent to another one.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Wow. So she got into trouble and she was violent. She got into fights. She was probably doing anything she could for attention.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

I yeah, and I also just listened to what you're saying. I think all of that was an outlook for that anger that she had inside. I think all that acting out and that behavior was that anger inside of her.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Yeah. And her mom would later say, like, you didn't know what version of Krista you were getting when you came home because they were saying she could also be very loving and very sweet. Her friends would say that too. Well, that's that personality disorder. Yeah, exactly. She would defend you, like if she was your friend, like she wouldn't let anybody hurt you. People are complex, just very hot and cold personality. But yeah, and too, if she's getting attention when she's doing all these things, she never did. She was younger, probably for any of the good things she did.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:15

You learn, you know. And eventually in the 10th grade, she was sent to juvenile detention center for about a year. And while she was there, that is when she heard about the job core program. I don't guess I realized it because probably for the girls it was different, but Curtis was telling me there were a lot of guys that were in our job core program too. Wait, that were she was he in job core? That's how we met. Oh, yeah. Did I know that? I thought I mean I've told you. I thought.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Well, I guess I thought you met him when he was in the military.

SPEAKER_02 58:50

No, we met a job. That's we met a job poor. Did that throw me off? Yeah, it threw me off. I'm like, okay. Yeah, so he we met in job core, we got married, and then he went to the military.

SPEAKER_01 59:02

Okay. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I did know that at one time and I've just forgotten it. But that just kind of like, wait a minute, okay. So we were both there.

SPEAKER_02 59:10

And now we're at the one where we were at the one in Brevard, North Carolina. Okay. Shink S-C-H-E-N-C-K Job Course Center. He was telling me that a lot of the guys that were there were there on a court order. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like, it it was kind of a dangerous place. So every weekend, like if we weren't in trouble, um, we could get on a bus and they would just take us and drop us off in Asheville for the weekend, and then they would come and pick us back up on Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 59:42

Okay, actually, right now, this is what I'm realizing about something here. I don't think I really know what Job Core is. Well, I'll tell you. Okay, because now I'm realizing I can I'm probably have been hearing you say job core, and in my brain has been thinking peace core. Oh gosh, no. Okay, you know what I'm saying? No. So now I'm like, wait a minute.

unknown 1:00:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

No, no, no, no. So job core is totally different.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

Oh, yeah, it's not Peace Corps. I can assure you of that. Wow. This is like trouble kids all coming together in a concentrated place. So yeah, they would take us, drop us off into Asheville. So what would we do? We would all get a hotel together and drink.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:26

Right, of course, all weekend. Yeah, and do whatever other stuff you wanted to do. Like get oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:33

We couldn't do drugs because they did drug test us. Okay. But yeah. But I mean, a lot of people got kicked out for drugs, so a lot of people did them.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

But yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

And how long are you in this program?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:45

You can be in it for up to I bel I think it's up to two years.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

Okay. So it's kind of like if you go to Juvie, they can send they can send you to Job Corps. Like that might be the next step, but you can also enter it on your own accord. Yes. Without being sent there.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:01

So Curtis said, because I was asking him him how I would just do and doing this. I guess I had never asked him before. I'm like, so how did you how'd you hear about it? Like, and he said that his older brother had gone. And so he knew about it. That when he turned, he was only 16 when he went.

unknown 1:01:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

So he went to the I think he said the unemployment center or the unemployment office and asked or the employment, whatever it's called, and asked them about it. I found out about it. That's what's so I was in Florida for the summer staying with my dad. And I was going to get my GED at the community college. And the teacher there was so sweet, and she knew like my situation. So one day she was like, Hey, I want to talk to you about something. And she just told me about this guy who was a recruiter. All I heard was North Carolina. And I thought North Carolina was the most beautiful. I always said I'm gonna live in North Carolina when I get older. I'm like you. Oh, the Peace Corps. That sounds amazing. And it's in North Carolina. And of course, that they talked it up so much that I'm like, oh my gosh. So the guy comes, the recruiter comes, he took me somewhere. He explained the whole thing, I think he took me out to eat. Explained this the whole job core thing to me. Kind of. It was like a military recruiter. Yes. Kind of.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

I signed everything that day. So I had to go home and be like, I'm leaving next Tuesday to go to North Carolina. So I tell my dad, and he's like, oh my God, he's like, this is not what you're thinking. And it was not what I was thinking. But I will say this for me, for where I was at in my life, it was a good thing. Okay. At that time. Because I had never, I think I've told you this before. I did not know how to clean. I did not know how to take care of myself. I mean, really, like my mommy when she was talking to me the other day. She was like, I got to thinking, like, I never even taught you guys how to fold a sheet. She was like, I didn't know how to fold a sheet. When I went there, we had inspections, like the military. So we had to learn how to make a like I literally learned, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:27

So it was good for you.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

It was. I didn't learn a trade because I was in like carpentry or I was more interested in talking to boys, clearly. Um, but a lot of people that I know there learned a trade. Curtis learned a lot there. Wow. So for some kids, it's it's no it wasn't a bad thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

Okay. This is probably not gonna stay on either, but so when you met Curtis, weren't didn't you did you already have Memphis? Yes. Or you were pregnant. Okay, so here's what had happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

I thought you I was wild. So I met her dad in Job Court. Okay, I got pregnant, yeah, and went home to like have my baby. And then I had the baby, and I'm like, okay, how am I gonna support my baby? No, okay, not at all. Like never. So I was like, okay, well, there was an army recruiter back at Job Corps, and I'm like, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna join the army. That's the only thing I knew that I could do to support her. Yeah. I talked to mom about it, and we just so I went back to Job Corps and I met Curtis. Curtis. I mean Curtis, can you imagine my mom? Can you imagine? Like, I get pregnant there, and then I'm like, oh, I'm gonna marry this guy that I just met. That I just met. I cannot, I can't imagine being my mother and having to do and knowing, like, oh my gosh, my grandchild is going with this person I don't know. Right. So I literally cannot imagine what was going through her head. And Curtis I can, because she told me a lot of what was having through her head.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:06

Yes, I can, I'm sure your mother did.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:08

So, and Curtis was how old? Okay, so he turned 17 in October. We got married in December. Three months later. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:20

No, two months later.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

Yes. And can you imagine his mother? Wow, just turned 17 and he's like, I'm gonna marry this girl that I just met last month. She's 19 and has a baby. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

I am learning so much about JobCore here and about you.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:44

Yeah, and not only that, but this was kind of the norm at Job Core.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

Wow. So, you know, it's funny because, like, really you think about it, those young teenagers will just do something like that without hurling. Thinking about it. But you basically ended up raising each other in Memphis, and yes, here you are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:05

I mean, it really was the Lord. I I mean, He's just faithful through it all.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:12

I'll just say that. That is okay. That's a wild story. We so we all got to learn a little bit about Darlene and Curtis on this episode. Yeah, I'm still I'm absorbing all this. So I did not mean to take us down a very long rabbit trail, and I'm sorry, but I just needed those questions answered.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:29

Yeah, no, that's fine. That's why this story is very I could have been her, could have been friends with her. Yeah. And so when I was sitting in church Sunday, I was just thanking the Lord. And also honestly, I was praying for her. Because I'm like, yeah, I'll tell you more about that. Okay. So the jury heard Krista's aunt, Carrie Ross, testify about, you know, all the instability in the family. They didn't, like I said, hear the full picture. They didn't hear about all of the sexual abuse. There was a lot of stuff that they didn't hear. But on March 30th, 1996, the jury made its decision, and Krista Pike was sentenced to death. Okay. She had just turned 20 years old a few weeks earlier. Her reaction to her own death sentence was very different from her behavior in the aftermath of Colleen's death. Sure. Yeah. I bet she was crying. She broke down as the judge told her that she's gonna die by electrocution at that time, is what they said. The judge said, May God have mercy on your soul. And she sobbed uncontrollably. And her mother, Carissa, was sitting behind her and she is crying too. Krista turns around like toward her mom and she begged the judge. She's like, Can I please hug my mom before I go? Can I please just hug my mom? And she asked again, and of course, you know, she's not allowed to. And then Krista was taken out of the courtroom and sent to Tennessee's death row. At 20 years old, she became the youngest woman in the United States under a death sentence. And I just want to say I I do agree with that jury's decision. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And when you watch the footage from the courtroom that day, she looks so young. And for a minute, you feel the shred of compassion for her. Something that I felt. I don't know what it was. I don't know if it was like relief that okay, she's finally humbled, but you feel something besides anger when she just been told, you know, the state's gonna kill her. And you know, you see her crying for her mother, and it's like finally you can see this pinprick of humanity when she breaks down. But just hours after that, after being sentenced to death and leaving the courtroom, she wrote a letter to her boyfriend to Daryl, and it said, You see what I get for trying to be nice to that hoe? I went ahead and bashed her brains out so she'd die quickly instead of letting her bleed to death and suffer more, and they effing fry me. Ain't that some sh wow? She's back to her angry self. Wow. The only person that Krista Pike feels for is Krista Pike. Yeah, obviously. So yeah. And so to Daryl, he was tried separately from her. And remember, he was 17 years old when Colleen was murdered, while Krista was 18, and that makes a difference. That's probably saved his life. Prosecutors argued that he was not just Krista's boyfriend who happened to be standing there when Colleen was attacked, because they kind of tried to make it like he was the passive one in their relationship, and Krista was loud and aggressive and like bossed him around, and maybe she was, but still, he helped prevent Colleen from escaping. He man, you know, when she had managed to get away, he caught her and brought her back. He participated in her torture.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

And he also told somebody before they went out in the woods that that she was gonna die.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:15

Yes, he did. In fact, there's a testimony from another job core student, Kip O'Hara, who said that days before Colleen was murdered, Tadaryl told him that he needed to make a human sacrifice because the celestial bodies were in alignment.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:33

Oh goodness.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

He, you know, went to trial for his part in Colleen's murder, and the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. He also received a 25-year sentence for the conspiracy conviction, and decades later, he is still in prison. He went before the Tennessee Board of Parole in 2025 asking, you know, for release, but he was denied. And his next parole review will be in 2031. After Krista's trial, she was sent to the Tennessee Prison for Women in Nashville. There wasn't really a woman's death row population in Tennessee because it was just Krista. For years, she was Tennessee's only woman under a death sentence. And so she did initially spend a lot of time separated from the general population. She still found ways to communicate, and she was with other women sometimes. So when she was 25 years old on August 24th, in 2001, there was this fire, the prison. And because of the fire, these inmates had to be temporarily moved from their normal cells, and they were placed together in holding areas. And why in the world they would have done this? But they literally put three women murderers. So there's Krista Pike. We know what she did. And she ended up in the same place as Patricia Jones and another inmate named Natasha Cornette. All three of these women are in prison for violent murders. Patricia Jones had a seriously violent history and was serving time for stabbing an elderly woman to death during a robbery. In prison, she'd been involved in numerous assaults. And Natasha Cornette is another name you might recognize because she was the ringleader of the Lililid family murders. Have you heard of that one? Okay, so that's another one that we might end up covering here. And Natasha and Krista were reportedly involved in a sexual relationship. There was bad blood between Natasha and Patricia. And these three are together in a cell. And these three are together. According to Krista, Patricia started threatening Natasha. And so Natasha swung at Patricia and missed. That's when Krista says that she got involved because she had to help Natasha. She just so happened to have brought a boot lace with her.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

Just so happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:31

And she got behind Patricia and put it around her neck and started strangling her. And eventually Patricia falls down, and Krista just keeps going. She rolled her over on her stomach, sat on her back, and kept pulling this boot lace around her neck. Finally, correction officers got in there and stopped her. I mean, this girl almost died. I mean, very close to dying. Krista says that she was just defending Natasha. But according to this corrections officer, she was so proud of what she had done. She was saying that if she had had 30 more seconds, that she would have killed her. But the most damaging evidence against Krista came from Krista because she can't keep her mouth shut every time. And she gets so excited about making people suffer, she called her mom. I guess either forgot or didn't care that the prison records phone calls. She's laughing. She describes getting the shoestring around her neck and trying to choke the life out of her. She told her that Patricia passed out and was lying on the ground twitching and foaming at the mouth with her eyes bulging. And she said, and I quote, I premeditated the hell out of this. Wow. Yeah. This girl is. And that's pretty much the opposite of the defense she gave at trial. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

She her toxic trait is that she cannot not celebrate when she's done these horrible, violent things. Like it, she she's just so proud she has to talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:14

Well, one of the investigators said, I don't know if it was the investigator or the prosecutor, but one of them said she really looks at this as one of the best things that she's ever done in her life. This gave her a claim to fame. Like, this is who she is, this is her identity.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:29

And that she relishes in it. She's proud of it. Anyway, so she's going to court now for this attempted murder. And of the prosecutors have her in her own recorded voice, talking to her mom about her intentions and laughing.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:46

The call was the strongest evidence against her, and she was charged with attempted first-degree premeditated murder.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:55

Once again, the jury convicted her, and so she got another 25-year sentence. And then in 2012, her name was back in the news. This time, authorities had uncovered this plan she'd made to break out of prison. Krista was 36 at this time, and she'd been on death row for about 16 years.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:17

That's about 15 years too many.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:19

Yes, yeah, exactly. There were two men on the outside who were gonna help her escape. One of them was Donald Cohut, a 34-year-old from New Jersey, who he was actually a personal trainer. These guys are just weird. Somehow had started writing her and I guess falling for her. And like he's making all these trips back and forth between New Jersey and Tennessee. And then they start, you know, working out a plot. And then she convinces this young 23-year-old corrections officer named Justin Heflin to get in on the plan. They believe that prop maybe was sexual, but they were definitely offering him money and gifts. Authorities never released the full details of exactly how the escape was supposed to work. I mean, they're probably gonna not gonna release a guy how to escape death row.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

But they did say that money and gifts were involved and that Heflin was being bribed to help with the plan. And they found enough evidence to convince them that they were actually working on a full-on plan. And thankfully they caught it early enough, and so she never made it out of prison. Justin Heflin was fired, obviously, from his job, and he was indicted on charges that included bribery, official misconduct, conspiracy to commit escape, and facilitating an escape. Donald Cohut was arrested in New Jersey and he was charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit escape. And Krista still on death row. Actually, two separate guards in prison have ended up fired for having sexual relationships with her. And she reportedly had a thriving online business selling her underwear. What? From prison. You have got it.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:22

It always blows my mind that what people can actually accomplish from behind bars. Like just like Suge Knight having a podcast. I know. How? You're behind bars. I thought, like, and so she's selling stuff online. I mean her underwear, no less, but that part I did read on Reddit, and I'm wondering, like, is that even possible?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:42

Could be, because I don't know that they check stuff going out. I know that they check their incoming mail and packages, but I don't know that they check, you know, what's going out. So if any of our listeners know, yeah, let me know because I'm just curious if that's even a possibility. That's nuts though, isn't it? And then while all of that's happening, Krista's death sentence was also working its way through the court because of course they are appealing the crap out of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:09

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:09

And these death penalty cases can go through the court of appeals for years and decades. Since her conviction, the death sentence was upheld by the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1998, so early on, and then the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear her case the next year. And so then her attorneys started challenging how her original trial had been handled in the sentencing phase. They argued that the jury never heard the full story of her childhood neglect, the sexual abuse, violence, suicide attempts, mental health problems. But in 2001, Krista actually said herself that she wanted to stop fighting her death sentence. This took a year. They had her evaluated and determined that she was mentally competent to make that decision. And so in June 2002, she was allowed to withdraw her post-conviction case and an execution date was set, but she very soon changed her mind. 29 days later, and she wanted her case reinstated. And so the Tennessee Supreme Court allowed it. They ruled that a competent death row inmate could give up her appeals, but had 30 days to change her mind, and she had done it in 29.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:36

Oh, I think that whole time she was just borrowing more time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

So her case was reopened, and her attorneys were able to go to court and present more of the story, you know, that the jury hadn't heard about the details of Krista's childhood, and her new attorneys are because they were arguing to be heard that she'd been failed by her original defense team because they felt like the jury had understood the full extent of what she had experienced as a child, that at least one juror might have chosen life instead of death. Her original attorneys, though, said they had all of the facts. They had chosen not to present everything because some of the same family members who could describe Krista's terrible childhood also described her as dishonest and manipulative and frightening and that they didn't want their kids around her. And so her lawyers said they worried that presenting that to the jury could have done more harm than good. And it would have.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

A long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:44

Her attorneys are still fighting to stop this from happening. They've asked Governor Bill Lee to grant clemency and commute her death sentence to life in prison with without the possibility of parole. I watched a couple of hearings and they're saying she has really small veins and it could cause her uncomfortable. Some discomfort. Yes. Poor thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:07

Poor thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:14

And we know about brain development continuing well beyond the age of 18. They point to her Buddhist religion and say that she's not going to be able to have, like, I guess, a spiritual representative with her. They also point to her health and pain that she could experience. But I think it's important that in all of the discussion happening right now around Krista Pike, we don't forget Colleen Slimmer.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:44

Exactly. That's the real person who suffered here.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:48

Yeah, because she did not get the next 30 years to grow up and mature and become a different person. No. Krista was not worried about her pain. And with so much attention focused on whether Krista Pike should die. I want to end with Colleen because whatever happens to her on September 30th, this story today is in remembrance of Colleen and Slimmer. And her mother has waited for justice for her daughter since 1995. And she has said that if Krista's execution goes forward and she prays that it will, because she has waited a long time. She has. She wants to be there when it happens because she is going to hold up a picture of her daughter so that Krista can see her face and her final moments. Yeah. And remind her of why she's there and who she took. Yeah. Good for her. I hope she gets that. I do too.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:51

Wow. So was that story anything like what you expected? That no. That story was truly horrible. Obviously, you told it in a you told it great, but the just the details were unbelievably horrible. And I don't even understand how anybody could have that much rage and no compassion. And then I mean, if you had told me like she got to prison and had some remorse, I would have had a little bit more compassion for her, but she has no remorse.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:28

I've watched several interviews of her, but I truly think that she really does have that borderline personality. You know, there are some people that they'll point to, oh, I think they're sociopaths. No, I think she really truly has I don't think she has the capacity to feel this is what she said. And I I just wish you could hear the tone that she said it in. She was like, I did a horrible thing. I did a horrible thing. And I know that I don't deserve to walk around out there in society. Like I I can't do that. But I don't think that I deserve to die for what three people did.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:11

And just her. Yeah. She's I mean, she can't even do an interview without sounding angry.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:18

And that's why I was I was praying for her the other day because I I was thinking she has a couple of weeks on this earth to live, you know. Listening to the story, of course, I've just felt a lot of like hatred toward her. Like, God, what an evil, evil person. But then I just had prayed for her.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:39

Yeah. I'm like because her soul is going to hell. Yeah. If you know, anything short of repentance at the last minute. Right. Yeah. She's getting ready to face eternity.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:50

Yes. And oh my gosh. And I and I also pray for peace for Colleen's mother because she hates her. I mean, and I and I don't know that I would feel any different if that had been my daughter. Yeah. But I just pray for she that she yeah, that she finds some relief and peace. Yeah, me too. Gosh, that's sad.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:17

Those were some hard times. Yes, they were.