About This Episode
What is this episode about?
The episode "Christa Pike: The Devil On Death Row - Part Two" from The Devil Within covers the murder of nineteen-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods outside Knoxville, and the trial that followed. Hours after the killing, Christa Pike reportedly went to breakfast carrying a fragment of Colleen's skull taken from the scene as a souvenir, showing the bone to other students and pointing out blood on her shoes while describing what had happened the night before.
This installment of The Devil On Death reconstructs Colleen's final hour, an attack that lasted somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour, and examines the Satanic imagery tied to the crime, including a pentagram carved into her chest. At Tadaryl Shipp's later trial, another student testified that Shipp had spoken days before the murder about needing a human sacrifice because the celestial bodies were in alignment.
The episode follows Christa Pike through her trial, where psychiatrists debated whether the killing was genuinely Satanic in motive or whether troubled teenagers had borrowed occult imagery to dress up jealousy, rage and violence. The jury found Pike guilty of premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy, and Tennessee sentenced her to death by electrocution.
Hosts and release
Branden Morgan hosts The Devil Within, a filmic true crime and supernatural podcast exploring legends, disappearances, curses and unsolved mysteries, with new episodes released weekly on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.
