Three teenagers brutally murdered another teenager over thirty years ago. The crime was especially cold-blooded and horrific. One, Christa Pike, received the death penalty. The other two did not.

The story:

Christa Pike, now 50, has been in prison since she was 18 years old over the murder 1995 murder of Colleen Slemmer. She wasn’t the only one found guilty — but she is the only one who ended up on death row.

According to the University of Tennessee Knoxville, Slemmer was a 19-year-old Job Corps participant when she was tortured and murdered behind the agriculture campus steam plant on January 12, 1995. Pike and two others — 17-year-old Tadaryl Shipp and 18-year-old Shadolla Peterson — were also involved.

Shipp – who was Pike’s boyfriend at the time – was found guilty but because he was 17 years old he was ineligible for the death penalty. Pike was 18 and received the death penalty. Peterson – also 18 – is alleged to have been the lookout, and agreed to testify against the other two:

However, Peterson, who was initially indicted on a first-degree murder count, cooperated with police and entered a guilty plea to an information charge of being an accessory after the first-degree murder, according to Knox News.

Where is Shadolla Peterson now?
In exchange for testifying against Pike and Shipp, Peterson received 460 days in jail and a six-year probation sentence.

Pike was the only white defendant; the other two are black. Did this factor into the decision? I have no way of knowing, but the differing sentences seem to have more to do with the different ages of Shipp and Pike, plus Peterson’s cooperation.

Does this differential treatment based on one year of age bother you at all? It bothers me. In addition, most of the coverage till now has maintained that it was Christa Pike who carved a tetragram into the victim. But this is apparently untrue; in a post-conviction hearing, Shipp confessed to doing it.

Legally, it doesn’t much matter. They could all be argued to have been guilty of felony murder, including Peterson, had the prosecutors wanted to treat the perps that way. But I assume they needed Peterson’s testimony to convict the others, and let her walk.