The Occult Killing of Colleen

WEBVTT

1
00:00:15.759 --> 00:00:21.879
Eighteen year old Christa Pike's relationship with
her classmate Colleen Slimmer had quickly become full

2
00:00:21.879 --> 00:00:28.839
of one sided distrust and jealousy.
Krista was convinced that Colleen was infatuated with

3
00:00:28.879 --> 00:00:33.600
her boyfriend to Darrell Ship and was
trying to steal him away from her.

4
00:00:33.840 --> 00:00:37.439
Christa adored to Darryl, and even
though he was a year younger than her,

5
00:00:37.640 --> 00:00:42.280
the two of them had a very
intense relationship. Krista's life up until

6
00:00:42.320 --> 00:00:46.039
that point had been full of adversity. She had never completed high school,

7
00:00:46.359 --> 00:00:51.600
dropping out before graduation to join a
government program called the Job Corps, which

8
00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:56.240
helped disadvantage young people to gain skills
that would allow them to get jobs.

9
00:00:56.719 --> 00:01:00.399
Despite everything she'd been through to Darrell
still loved her. He made her into

10
00:01:00.399 --> 00:01:03.920
a better person, and she liked
to think that she did the same for

11
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:08.439
him. She wasn't about to let
Colleen come between them, and she decided

12
00:01:08.480 --> 00:01:14.560
that she'd do whatever she had to
to make sure that Colleen wouldn't get what

13
00:01:14.680 --> 00:01:19.840
she wanted, or what she thought
Colleen wanted. Despite Christa's accusations, Colleen's

14
00:01:19.879 --> 00:01:25.719
friends were adamant that she was not
interested in too Darrell at all. It

15
00:01:25.760 --> 00:01:30.879
seemed as if Christa had misinterpreted Colleen's
friendly nature and innocent conversations with to Darrell

16
00:01:32.280 --> 00:01:37.920
as romantic interest. As time went
on, Krista became angrier and angrier at

17
00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:42.319
Colleen. She started to obsess over
Colleen's behavior, worried that she would lose

18
00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:47.680
to Darrell for good, and angry
because she thought Colleen wanted someone who belonged

19
00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:52.079
to her. Finally, she reached
a breaking point. She talked to one

20
00:01:52.120 --> 00:01:56.000
of her friends, Chadola Peterson,
and began to make a plan to teach

21
00:01:56.120 --> 00:02:01.040
Colleen a lesson. It was the
twelfth of January nineteen ninety five when the

22
00:02:01.079 --> 00:02:07.280
plan was set into motion. Christa
to Daryl, Colleen, and their friend,

23
00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.840
eighteen year old Shedola Peterson, all
signed out of their dorms and made

24
00:02:10.840 --> 00:02:16.000
their way to an abandoned steam plant
in the woods near campus. Colleen knew

25
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:20.319
that Christa didn't like her, but
she believed that the trip was sort of

26
00:02:20.319 --> 00:02:23.960
a peace offering where the group was
going to smoke some weed together and overcome

27
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:30.199
their differences. However, when the
four teenagers arrived at their destination, it

28
00:02:30.240 --> 00:02:35.439
was clear to Colleen that she had
been lied to. Krista and her boyfriend

29
00:02:35.520 --> 00:02:40.759
immediately turned on Colleen and began beating
her. Chidolah didn't participate in the attack

30
00:02:42.120 --> 00:02:46.719
and instead stood nearby to warn the
couple if any witnesses approached the area.

31
00:02:47.039 --> 00:02:53.280
This role as a guard or lookout
had been decided by Christa during her planning

32
00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:58.400
of the attack. For around half
an hour to forty five minutes, Colleen

33
00:02:58.560 --> 00:03:02.599
was ferociously toward shirt. She was
severely beaten and cut, and the couple

34
00:03:02.759 --> 00:03:08.080
used a blade to carve the shape
of a pentagram into her skin. Finally,

35
00:03:08.120 --> 00:03:13.599
the attack ended when Christa grabbed a
large piece of asphalt and hit Colleen

36
00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:16.680
in the head with it. The
force of the blow shattered Colleen's skull.

37
00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:23.400
It killed her instantly. Christa didn't
regret the murder. In fact, she

38
00:03:23.560 --> 00:03:27.800
pride one of the broken pieces of
skull free and took it back with her

39
00:03:27.840 --> 00:03:31.280
to her dorm to keep as a
trophy. She didn't just feel a lack

40
00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:36.280
of remorse, she felt pride.
Over the next day and a half,

41
00:03:36.360 --> 00:03:40.240
Christa carried this piece of calling skull
around campus with her while Colleen's family and

42
00:03:40.280 --> 00:03:46.439
friends were gradually realizing that she was
missing. It didn't take long for authorities

43
00:03:46.439 --> 00:03:51.439
to view Christa, to Darryl,
and Chidola as suspects. The evidence was

44
00:03:51.520 --> 00:03:55.000
clear four students had signed out of
the dorm together and then the group had

45
00:03:55.039 --> 00:04:01.800
returned without Colleen, resulting in Christa
and her accomplices being arrested thirty six hours

46
00:04:01.879 --> 00:04:06.080
after the murder. It's almost like
they didn't even try to hide their crime,

47
00:04:06.879 --> 00:04:10.719
which, don't get me wrong,
I'm glad they got caught so quickly,

48
00:04:10.759 --> 00:04:15.240
but with all due disrespect, what
a stupid plan. When Christa was

49
00:04:15.360 --> 00:04:20.240
arrested and her clothes were searched for
evidence, police found her disgusting trophy,

50
00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:26.399
the fragment of Colleen's skull, tucked
in the pocket of her coat. Christa

51
00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:30.800
quickly confessed to her involvement in Colling's
death, but she insisted that it had

52
00:04:30.839 --> 00:04:34.920
not been a murder. She and
Tadarrel had just been trying to send Colleen

53
00:04:34.959 --> 00:04:40.160
a message and scare her a little
bit, but then got carried away and

54
00:04:40.360 --> 00:04:46.680
accidentally killed her. A search of
the three accomplices dorms uncovered more pieces of

55
00:04:46.720 --> 00:04:50.839
the puzzle, especially when a religious
occult book, the Satanic Bible, was

56
00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:57.279
found into Darrell's room. Christa and
Tadarrel had not been into Satanism before they

57
00:04:57.279 --> 00:05:01.879
got together, but during their relationship
a mutual interest had spiraled into a full

58
00:05:01.959 --> 00:05:08.319
blown devil worship. It had become
a cornerstone of their relationship. For Christa,

59
00:05:08.519 --> 00:05:13.000
it gave her security and a sense
of purpose. Suddenly, the pentagram

60
00:05:13.079 --> 00:05:17.879
carved into Colleen's body made sense to
the investigators. At the nineteen ninety six

61
00:05:18.040 --> 00:05:23.240
trial, the jury found it easy
to reach a verdict. Even though Christa

62
00:05:23.279 --> 00:05:27.480
had insisted Colleen's death was an accident, she had already confessed to being the

63
00:05:27.519 --> 00:05:30.800
one to kill her. The rest
of the evidence brought forth by the prosecution

64
00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:35.199
made it clear that no part of
the killing had been an accident. It

65
00:05:35.319 --> 00:05:42.959
had been premeditated torture ending with cold
blooded murder. On the twenty second of

66
00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:47.360
March nineteen ninety six, Christa Pike
was found guilty of both conspiracy to commit

67
00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:53.160
murder and murder in the first degree. Four days later, she received her

68
00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:59.920
sentence twenty five years of jail time
and death by electrocution. The other murderer

69
00:06:00.040 --> 00:06:03.879
to Darrell received a much lighter sentence
of life in prison with the possibility of

70
00:06:03.920 --> 00:06:09.680
parole. Shadola, who had stood
guard during the attack and had been involved

71
00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:14.319
in the planning of Colleen's death,
had already pleaded guilty to being an accessory

72
00:06:14.319 --> 00:06:18.199
to murder and then acted as an
informant for investigators. In exchange for a

73
00:06:18.279 --> 00:06:23.920
reduced sentence, she received credit for
four hundred and sixty days in prison and

74
00:06:24.040 --> 00:06:30.160
probation for six years. Krista's violent, vengeful behavior didn't stop when she was

75
00:06:30.199 --> 00:06:34.000
imprisoned. The twenty fourth of August
two thousand and one, she and another

76
00:06:34.040 --> 00:06:40.600
inmates, Natasha Cornett, attacked a
prisoner named Patricia Jones. The two women

77
00:06:40.680 --> 00:06:45.240
attempted to murder Patricia by strangling her
to death with a shoelace. While the

78
00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:50.040
attack caused serious injury, Krista and
Natasha did not succeed in killing Patricia.

79
00:06:50.079 --> 00:06:54.839
Although there wasn't enough evidence to charge
Natasha for her role in the assault,

80
00:06:55.120 --> 00:07:00.439
Christa was not so lucky. She
received additional charges for the attack, tempted

81
00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:04.120
first degree murder. While incarceration,
Christa made a friend. His name was

82
00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:09.920
Donald Cohut, and he was a
personal trainer who had for some reason started

83
00:07:09.959 --> 00:07:14.759
writing letters to Krista. In two
eleven, the two of them regularly wrote

84
00:07:14.800 --> 00:07:18.720
back and forth, and eventually Donald
started driving to Tennessee, which was an

85
00:07:18.759 --> 00:07:23.959
eighteen hundred mile long road trip from
his home in Flemington, New Jersey,

86
00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:28.800
so that he could see Christa in
person. He made this journey multiple times

87
00:07:28.879 --> 00:07:31.920
every month. Donald wanted to help
Christa, so he devised a plan to

88
00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:35.839
help her escape from prison. He
got in touch with a guy named Jason

89
00:07:35.920 --> 00:07:41.439
Hefflin, who was a corrupt corrections
officer, who agreed that he would help

90
00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:46.319
and aid Christa's escape for a fee. But the plan did not get very

91
00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:50.319
far before it was discovered and two
twelve prison staff were tipped off about an

92
00:07:50.439 --> 00:07:56.879
escape plan involving Christa Pike. The
investigation was launched in both Tennessee and Donald's

93
00:07:56.879 --> 00:08:00.439
home state of New Jersey, and
the details of the plot were covered.

94
00:08:00.920 --> 00:08:05.439
Donald had planned to use Justin's role
in the facility to obtain the tracing of

95
00:08:05.480 --> 00:08:09.839
a key, which could then be
used to create a copy. The finer

96
00:08:09.920 --> 00:08:13.560
details of the plan have never been
released to the public due to concerns that

97
00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:18.600
prison security could be impacted, but
the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations simply stated that

98
00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:22.120
the plan had been in the early
stages when it was discovered saying quote Christa's

99
00:08:22.199 --> 00:08:28.519
jailbreak was not imminent. Donald Cohut
was charged with conspiracy to commit escape as

100
00:08:28.519 --> 00:08:33.080
well as bribery. He received seven
years of jail time. Justin, the

101
00:08:33.200 --> 00:08:39.759
corrections officer was charged with conspiracy to
commit escape, bribery, and official misconduct.

102
00:08:39.200 --> 00:08:43.559
Because of Justin's willingness to cooperate with
the police, the only consequence he

103
00:08:43.600 --> 00:08:48.399
faced was losing his job at the
prison. Investigators were unsure whether Christa had

104
00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:52.440
actually taken part in any of the
plan, or if she was just aware

105
00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:56.000
that Donald wanted to break her out
of jail. Because of this uncertainty,

106
00:08:56.279 --> 00:09:03.039
Christa was not charged to this.
Christa's fate is still hanging in the balance.

107
00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:07.360
In two twenty her attorneys were given
extensions due to the COVID nineteen pandemic,

108
00:09:07.840 --> 00:09:13.159
giving them more time to compile a
convincing argument to save christoph from death

109
00:09:13.240 --> 00:09:18.440
by electrocution. In June of two
twenty one, Christa's attorney filed a motion

110
00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:22.799
that requested a certificate of commutation,
which would allow Christa's punishment to be reduced.

111
00:09:24.440 --> 00:09:26.960
Ultimately, the decision about the execution
is now down to the courts.

112
00:09:28.480 --> 00:09:33.240
If Christa Pike's execution does go ahead, she will make history as being the

113
00:09:33.320 --> 00:09:37.159
only female criminal to be executed in
the state of Tennessee in the past two

114
00:09:37.279 --> 00:09:43.080
centuries. Colleen Slimmer's mother just wants
closure and for this case to be finally

115
00:09:43.200 --> 00:09:48.240
over, because the fragment of Colleen's
skull that was once a trophy for Krista

116
00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:54.360
is still considered evidence and in custody
of the police. When this story finally

117
00:09:54.519 --> 00:10:09.320
ends, the last piece of Colleen
can be laid to rest. That's ten

118
00:10:09.360 --> 00:10:13.639
minute murder for today Brief and binge
able True Crime. I'm Joe the host,

119
00:10:13.799 --> 00:10:16.840
and I really appreciate you listening,
and I hope your day is fantastic.

120
00:10:18.480 --> 00:10:20.759
I made myself a cup of coffee
earlier. I spilled a little bit,

121
00:10:22.240 --> 00:10:24.639
and during the process of cleaning up, I got the sleeve of my

122
00:10:24.720 --> 00:10:28.240
shirt wet. I was washing my
hands, and you know it gets in

123
00:10:28.279 --> 00:10:31.720
the water a little bit, and
we know that ruins your whole day.

124
00:10:33.200 --> 00:10:35.519
So your thoughts and prayers are welcome
during this difficult time in my life.

125
00:10:35.960 --> 00:10:39.159
I could just change my shirt,
but I don't want to do that.

126
00:10:39.440 --> 00:10:41.879
Hey, if this is your first
time listening to ten Minute Murder. Please

127
00:10:41.879 --> 00:10:46.639
subscribe now so that you can catch
up on all the back episodes, never

128
00:10:46.679 --> 00:10:48.799
miss any of the new ones.
Connect with me on social media, see

129
00:10:48.799 --> 00:10:52.399
the visuals that we're talking about doing
the podcast, And if you liked this

130
00:10:52.440 --> 00:10:56.279
episode, please leave a rating and
review on Apple or any place that is

131
00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:01.919
possible. Your positive feedback is a
preciated go to ten minute murder dot com

132
00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:05.200
for all things ten minute Murder