NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — May Martinez came from Florida to Tennessee for the final days before Christa Pike’s scheduled execution. When Martinez talks about why she is here, she does not begin with Pike.
She begins with her daughter, Colleen Slemmer.
Her daughter was 19, easygoing and often smiling, Martinez said. She loved roller-skating and looked for ways to help other students at school. Those memories have endured through the decades since Slemmer was killed in Knoxville in January 1995.
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Pike was 18 at the time. Prosecutors said she and two accomplices lured Slemmer into a wooded area. Pike and her then-boyfriend beat and tortured her, cutting her multiple times before killing her. Pike told prosecutors she believed Slemmer was trying to steal her boyfriend…