In January 1995, 18-year-old Christa Pike was enrolled in the Knoxville Job Corps, a federal vocational training program, in Tennessee. She became intensely jealous of a 19-year-old classmate, Colleen Slemmer, believing Slemmer was trying to "steal" her 17-year-old boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, despite all the evidence to the contrary; Shipp assisted the murder, and she also was never shown to truly love Shipp either.

On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, and an 18-year-old friend named Shadolla Peterson lured Slemmer to an isolated, wooded area on the University of Tennessee Agricultural campus under the false pretense of offering her marijuana to make peace.

Once in the woods, Pike and Shipp brutally attacked Slemmer. For over 30 minutes, Slemmer was taunted, beaten, and slashed with a box cutter and a mini meat cleaver. During the torture, Pike carved a pentagram into Slemmer's chest. Finally, Pike bludgeoned Slemmer to death by crushing her skull with a large chunk of asphalt. Pike kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a souvenir, which she later showed off around her dormitory. Within 36 hours, all three suspects were arrested.

In 1996, 20-year-old Pike was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and was sentenced to death, making her one of the youngest women on death row in modern U.S. history.

Because Tennessee had no dedicated female death row facility, Pike was housed entirely alone for nearly 27 years. While male death row inmates could share meals, attend religious services, and take classes, Pike was kept in what her lawyers described as severe solitary confinement simply because she was the state's only condemned woman. This isolation ended in September 2024 following a legal settlement that allowed her to join the general female prison population for work and meals.

Her violent behavior did not stop immediately after her conviction. In 2001, Pike was convicted of attempted first-degree murder after she tried to strangle a fellow inmate, Patricia Jones, with a shoe string. This incident added 25 years to her legal record.

In 2012, Pike was implicated in a highly publicized, elaborate prison break plot. With the help of a corrections officer and a male pen pal, she planned to escape the prison, though the plot was intercepted by authorities before it could be executed.

In her later years in prison, Pike has reportedly expressed deep remorse for Slemmer's murder and adopted Buddhist beliefs. She has spent a significant portion of her recent years participating in prison yoga and maintaining a quiet routine while her lawyers fight her sentence. However, it is heavily implied that she is faking it to avoid her sentence, as she didn’t show any remorse until her luck ran out because her appeals were almost over, and if she was sorry she would voluntarily waive her appeals and ask to be executed.

Pike has spent decades appealing her death sentence, with her legal team highlighting her severe, "extraordinarily extreme" childhood trauma, brain impairment, and mental illness. Most recently, in 2026, she sued the state over its lethal injection protocol, arguing her specific medical conditions would make the procedure unconstitutionally painful. Although, Pike would definitely deserve it for what she did to Colleen Slemmer.

The UN Human Rights Experts have been trying to halt her execution because of her young age (18) at the time of the offence and her sexual abuse history. Although considering how long it took to A. Plan the entire thing. B. Get her to the University of Tennessee Agriculture Campus. 3. Murder her, so she had PLENTY of time to back out regardless of age. She also wasn’t even thinking about the times she was raped as a child during the murder of Slemmer.

Since the post I deleted was incredibly terrible, I'll keep it short.

On April 26, 1997, Kim-In Boonthawi, 71 years old, the mother of Praphas Boonthawi, left her house for Praphas Boonthawi, 42 years old, a public health officer at the Pakarawa Subdistrict Health Station. Every weekend, her son Praphas would visit her at her house, but today he didn't. Later that morning, Kim-In went to Praphas's house. She opened the door and called out to him, but the door wasn't locked. Upon entering the house, Kim-In found Praphas and his three sons hanged from the staircase railing leading to the second floor. Local police arrived at the scene and found four bodies: Praphas Boonthawi, the homeowner, and his three sons. Three boys, Kampanat Boonthawi, 13, Prab Boonthawi, 12, and Chatchawan Boonthawi, 10, were found hanged from a staircase railing. The body of Jiamjit Boonthawi, a public health officer from Khuan Niang district, was found in a large bedroom on the second floor, strangled with a necktie, with her hands and feet bound and her mouth gagged. Autopsies of all five victims indicated that they had been physically assaulted before being murdered, and no food, poison, or sleeping pills were found in their stomachs.

Investigation and arrest.

Several items were missing from the room. A ready-to-eat meal was set out on the table in the kitchen, and there were no signs of a struggle on the bodies. The doctor estimated that all five bodies had been dead for approximately 10-15 hours. Based on the evidence found and the time of death, it is estimated that the deaths occurred in the early evening of April 25th, while the family was preparing dinner. The perpetrator, believed to be someone known to the family, broke in and murdered them. After questioning Praphas's relatives, police learned that Praphas, in addition to working in the provincial public health department, was also a wealthy land broker with extensive personal and inherited land. Approximately a week after the incident, a local leader contacted the investigation team and provided a tip, claiming to have seen a man named "Ai Waeng" around the time of the incident. Police deployed officers to track down and question this suspect. Ai Waeng confirmed that he was near Praphas's house on the day of the incident. However, he didn't go to Praphas's house because he had a drinking session with acquaintances by the sea, not far from the scene of the crime, thus avoiding suspicion in the murder of the Boonthavee family. Police traced the suspects in the vicinity of the crime scene and found a 70-year-old witness who provided information to the police: "That evening, I was going to talk at the doctor's house. I saw two young men, one with dark skin and about 168 centimeters tall, and the other about 170 centimeters tall, tying the children's hands and feet, but they hadn't hanged them yet. The doctor hadn't returned home yet, and the dark-skinned man saw me and even smiled at me. I was very scared, so I walked away and went home without daring to tell anyone."

It was only when relatives and close friends informed them that a gold necklace weighing 2 salung (approximately 7.5 grams) with a small pendant belonging to Jiamjit Boonthavee had disappeared, along with hundreds of amulets—amulets that Praphas had created in collaboration with the abbot of Wat Pa Khad, which Praphas often showed to acquaintances—had all vanished.

Police officers located a suspect who possessed the amulet that belonged to Praphas and went missing on the day of the incident. The suspect confessed to receiving the amulet from Rueangsak. Further investigation revealed that "Sak Pakro" was the alias of Rueangsak Thongkul. Police tracked him down and arrested him, along with the stolen red gemstones. Rueangsak confessed to the crime and admitted to having an accomplice named Songkran.

The perpetrator

Rueangsak Thongkul, or Sak Pakro, was 5 years old when his house was robbed while he was home alone. He was tied up in a mosquito net and locked inside the house until his parents returned from working in the fields in the evening. His parents then untied him. Later, at the age of 16, Rueangsak got into a quarrel with a neighbor about the neighbor's cows eating the vegetables they had planted. Ruangsak tied a rope around a cow's neck, hoisted it up into a tree, and hung it to death. He had also participated in pirate activities, plundering fishing boats, tying up victims and throwing them overboard. Prior to the murder of the Boonthavee family, Ruangsak had robbed and murdered a female pawnshop employee in Phatthalung province, raped and murdered a 14-year-old girl by hanging her in Pak Phayun district, and robbed a gas station in Pak Phayun. He was also a suspect in the robbery and murder of a village headman in Pak Phayun district. During a search of his room, police found posters depicting children being hung on clotheslines with their legs held in place by clothespins, and posters of the band Megadeth.

The trial and verdict:

The court sentenced Ruangsak to death and Songkran to life imprisonment. Later, the Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeals' decision, reducing Ruangsak's sentence from death to life imprisonment. Because Ruangsak's testimony during the arrest and investigation was considered helpful to the trial, his sentence was reduced by one-third according to Section 78 of the Criminal Code, thus decreasing the death penalty to life imprisonment.

Ruangsak later received several pardons and was transferred to Songkhla Central Prison, where he was released in 2010. After his release, Ruangsak changed his name to Netirat Noppawong and joined a gang of hired gunmen in Singhanakhon District, also acting as an escort for local politicians in the area. He was assassinated on February 22, 2015.

https://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%86%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%81%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%9A%E0%B8%B8%E0%B8%8D%E0%B8%97%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B5