Crime
Pike became jealous of fellow student Colleen Slemmer, 19. She thought Slemmer was trying to "steal" her boyfriend from her. Though friends of Slemmer deny the accusations, Pike was set on a vendetta. Along with friend, Shadolla Peterson, 18, Pike planned to lure Slemmer to an isolated, abandoned steam plant close by on the University of Tennessee Campus.
On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dormitory and proceeded to the woods where Slemmer was told they wanted to make peace by offering her some marijuana. Upon arrival at the secluded location Slemmer was attacked by the other three. Per later court testimony, for the next 30 minutes she was taunted, beaten, and slashed, and a pentagram was carved in her chest. Finally, Pike smashed Slemmer's skull with a large chunk of asphalt paving, killing her. Pike kept a piece of her victim's skull.
Pike began to show off the piece of skull around the school and within 36 hours the three were arrested. The log book showed that the four of them left together and only three returned. They also found the piece of skull in Pike's jacket pocket. Their rooms were searched and a Satanic Bible was found in Shipp's room. Pike insisted they were merely trying to scare her and it got out of control.
Read more about this topic: Christa Pike
Famous quotes containing the word crime:
“Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.”
—Karl Kraus (1874–1936)
“By measuring individual human worth, the novelist reveals the full enormity of the State’s crime when it sets out to crush that individuality.”
—Ian McEwan (b. 1938)
“There is a blessed necessity by which the interest of men is always driving them to the right; and, again, making all crime mean and ugly.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)