Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan: Jealousy, Murder, Death Sentence - The Conviction of Christa Pike

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3.9 • 7.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2024

⏱️ 40 minutes

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Summary

Christa Pike was 18-years-old when she thought her 19-year-old job corps classmate, Colleen Slemmer, was trying to steal her boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp. Pike spent over 30-minutes beating Colleen Slemmer with her hands and feet, as well as a box cutter and a meat cleaver. Slemmer tried to escape. Shipp,17, caught her so Pike could continue the beating. Pike carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest, used the box cutter to slice her throat. When she didn't die, Pike picked up a chunk of asphalt and slammed it onto Slemmer's head. The next day Pike brought a piece of Slemmer's skull to breakfast and told classmates what she had done. Convicted of murder and sentenced to death, Christa Pike now wants a judge to vacate her death sentence. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack detail the story that Joe Scott says is the worst case he has ever seen.

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Transcript Highlights

00:00:31 Joseph Scott Morgan says he has never seen a crime so vile

00:02:10 Woman on death row in Tennessee

00:05:16 Talk about dynamic between suspects and victim

00:10:09 Description of box cutter and meat cleaver

00:15:03 Discussion of pentagram carved into chest

00:20:56 Description of wounds to victim

00:25:15 Talk about how to occult and satanism factor into case

00:30:40 Description of taking piece of skull as a trophy

00:35:50 Discussion about letting murderer out of prison

00:39:15 Talk about sadistic murder

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Bodybags with Joseph Scott Morgan. If you ever come in contact with someone that works in forensics,
0:24.7	specifically medical legal death investigation,
0:28.0	and they tell you that they've seen it all or that they've seen everything.
0:35.0	Don't walk, run away from them because they're lying.
0:41.0	No one ever sees everything. There's too many variables. You've got geography. You've got
0:50.1	modes of death. You've got circumstances and but most of all got unique. But there are those events that mark you as a death investigator. Those of us that
1:09.8	I think that some people think that we're imbued with some kind of supernatural
1:14.9	strength because we're around death all the time. There are those events that
1:18.9	cross our paths over the years that do in fact mark us that we can't quite seem to escape even in our
1:28.1	dreams. Today I'm thinking about investigators in Knoxville, Tennessee, specifically Knox County.
1:41.5	And a case that occurred back in 1995 and how many of those people might be retired by now,
1:49.0	but I can guarantee you this. When they close their eyes at night they can still see this crime scene
1:56.0	and they can still see the body of Colleen Slimmer. Today we're going to talk about one of the most brutal homicides that ever took place in that part of Tennessee.
2:10.0	I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is body bags.
2:16.0	Dave I had been doing some reading and came across something the other day that really caught my attention.
2:27.8	You know, you and I spent a lot of time researching cases and the reasons kind of popped onto my radar I think was the fact that it involved
2:37.5	the only woman on Tennessee death row and that was you know significant she's the only person that is
2:48.0	on death row she was placed on death row I think she was actually convicted when she was 19 but the event happened when she
2:54.9	was 18 but that's that's not the only thing that drew me to this case. From a
2:58.6	forensic standpoint when I began to read because I'd not heard of this case
3:02.4	when I began to read and I came across these three words
3:07.6	asphalt box cutter and pentagram I couldn't help myself I had to read about this case and you
	...

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