US state to execute first woman in 200 years

WASHINGTON:

The US state of Tennessee was set to execute a woman on Wednesday for the first time in 200 years, three decades after she murdered a classmate and a day after the Supreme Court rejected her last-minute application for a stay of execution.

Christa Pike, now 50, was 18 when she and her boyfriend beat and killed Colleen Slemmer, 19, at a job training camp for young people. The killing gained national attention after Slemmer's body was found with a pentagram, often seen as a satanic symbol, carved in her chest.

Pike will be Tennessee's first execution of a woman in more than 200 years, according to the Death Penalty Information Center said. In the United States, only 18 women have been executed since 1976, it said.

The case of Pike, the only woman on Tennessee's death row, has sparked debate over capital punishment.

Pike is set to die by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville.