Part 2 | The Knoxville Nightmare: Christa Pike & The Murder of Coleen Slemmer

0:06 Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are so shocking that many are left wondering how is this even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator, dig deep into complex cases of evil acts, some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning. Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended, then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey y'all, kJ you're back with part two of this episode, and this will be the conclusion. So I'm pretty sure I had some people probably cussing me for making this a two parter, but you're gonna see why once I jump into this.

1:10 So there's just a lot of story, so much story, so little time. So we were in Knoxville, Tennessee real quick. Some people said, hey, Kelly, will you please give us a quick recap whenever you jump into a multipart, and so I'm gonna do that for you. But last episode, if you haven't listened, please go listen. But we were in Tennessee. Colleen Slimmer was confirmed to be the body found on the edge of the university campus and the brutality level used to kill her was just out of the norm. And I know I had to say out of the norm, but this wasn't just someone got shot. I mean, this was actual hand to hand combat that was taken to the max and a pentagram was carved into her chest, which caught the attention of an officer who had secured the scene after the fact. So a girl wearing a pentagram necklace had come by and was asking questions, which later on a tip was called in which led investigators back to job Corps, which is the school, and that's where fellow students Krista Pike, to Darryl Ship and Shadala Peterson had signed out of the campus at the same time as Colleen, and investigators wanted to have a word with those students. Now, as far as connections went, Christa and to Darryl were boyfriend and girlfriend, while Shadala was just another friend of theirs that they hung out with.

2:29 So as word spread that Colleen was dead, some other students would want to speak to police on their own and would come forward, and this would include Krista Pike's best friend at the school, and her name was Kim and Nuelu. Now Kim, I want you to know, was the youngest of the bunch. She was only about sixteen years old whenever she and Krista met, and they were both newbies at the job corps, so they rather quickly hit it off and they became inseparable, inseparable friends from the jump. Now Christa was, in Kim's eyes, just so sweet and thoughtful, and although Christa was about two years her senior, they got along really well. They would joke and they would laugh. Kim appreciated the little things that Christa would do, like bringing her candy just to make her smile. And while that may seem like nothing to adults, you know, when you're a teenager, it means a lot.

3:29 They would gossip together, they would talk, but they would also dream and talk about things that they wanted to do. But all of that would have to wait for after class each day, which ended about three o'clock. So the girls would be especially excited in the afternoons because the policy was that from four pm to ten pm, students could sign out of the school and they could go and have their free time. So usually what the girls would do would be to hopple On. They had a free trolley in that area, and that would take them down to what they called the strip, and that's where they would just walk around and hang out, kind of the equivalent I guess of going to the mall. And you know, none of them had any money. Most of the kids at the school came from a low socioeconomic status and so they didn't have much about them in terms of money. So this was just a free way of having fun and getting to have some time away from the school. Now, truth be told, whenever I saw with my eyes that sixteen to eighteen year olds were out and unaccounted for from four pm to ten pm, that sent a bit of a shiver down my spine because that sounds like a long time for kids of that age to be out on their own, unaccounted for, no parents or anybody directly making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, and especially the ones that went to this school in particular. Now, why do I say that? And I touched on this last episode, but I want to go back to this real quick.

4:55 This is one of those things that it started out with great intentions, but but it went to hell in a handbasket rather quickly. Because remember the school started out as a free opportunity for the less fortunate to be able to better themselves, even if they couldn't afford to go to trade school or go to college. But this started to attract young adults with difficult home lives and disciplinary issues and things of that nature. So basically stated, over time, this school morphed into an alternative for a lot of fuck up kids instead of them getting locked up. And it was like join job corps rather than staying on this bad path. And eventually you're gonna end up in jail if you don't make a life change. So eventually those troubled students overtook the more traditional students. And again this is not my opinion, it was backed up by trends of the time at the school, as well as other students accounts of their experiences during their time there.

5:55 The other kids spoke on this and would validate what I'm telling you, and so knives and even guns were mentioned as being known to be carried on campus. Now, obviously this was against policy. The school wasn't like, hey, you know, bring your weaponry, let's battle, but delinquents do what delinquents do, and they don't give a shit about policy. They're gonna do what they feel they need to do, whether right, wrong or indifferent, to keep themselves safe. So while this was going on, it kind of makes you wonder, well, why didn't the school kick out the students when incidences of violence or weapons or anything like that were known on the low I guess at least to be carried by other students. Well, since this was a federally funded school, the more students that enrolled, the more money that you get, the more funding that you get. So hopefully you can see where things are going here. It didn't behoove the school to kick anybody out. They were more likely to take the hug a thug approach and address the situation and let's talk it out rather than kick the kids out. Well, because if they did, they lost money. So either way, I want to say, I don't blame the school, I don't blame the faculty. They were just doing the best they could with what they had, and you have to have money to run the school. So the instructors did continue to try to provide an amazing education to the students and hopefully create a somewhat productive young adult in the process, but the school had its fair share of

7:25 issues with the students, and this included Christa and to Darryl. Now here's some background on this duo, so you know what police were dealing with when they went to go question these two about what they knew, if anything, about Colleen Slimmer. So Christa from the jump thought when she met to Daryl that he was mysterious and that he was dangerous and something that young girls always seem to think. That they contame the proverbial bad boy. That was kind of the essence of their relationship. But they were both instantly attracted to one another and they had similar interests. But I'm gonna tell you the relationship was toxic. I'm not even gonna pretend that this was some Romeo and Juliette bullshit. It wasn't. There was passionate attraction, for sure, but there was also fighting with that same level of passion and intensity. And Christa's background was rough, okay, but so is she Tough Times do make tough people. To Daryl was a thug, to put it bluntly, but he brought this element to the table where he would protect Christa at all costs, and she loved that, maybe because when she was younger she felt like she wasn't protected, maybe because she didn't have in her mind a male figure that had done that before. I don't know what was going on in her head, but I will tell you she loved that so much, so though, that it made other people wary of this couple. They were kind

8:57 of at an arm's reach. It was those people that like, if you were friends with them, great, but if you weren't, watch out one of those situations. And casein point, I wanted to give you an actual example so you would know this wasn't me just run in my mouth. There was a male student at the same time that Christa and to Daryl were at this school and he bumped into Christa in the hallway while they were passing. Now to Darryl, without missing a beat, without even thinking twice, snatched that kid up and shoved him into the wall, and he pulled out a switchblade and he began to threaten to gut that boy for bumping in to Christa. Now Christa thought this was great. In her mind, you know, this is what love looks like. So she felt I guess again that she had this bad boy who was going to defend her and he had that soft spot in his heart for her. Now Christa's mom, why might she feel this way? Okay, here we go. Well, her mother was in and out of her life, and her mother was an alcoholic. It was said that her mother would buy alcohol before she would buy food if that were the choice she had to make. And she was also the type of woman that had boyfriends and husbands basically in and out of the house. Two of those boyfriends slash husbands that I don't have names of which ones did what, if anything, but allegedly two of those boyfriends had raped Colleen when she was younger or molested her, and then one of them also allegedly whipped her so bad with a belt that it ended up leaving scars

10:29 on her. So a rough go for sure for Christa. Now to Daryl, he had been raised by his grandparents and again no angel whatsoever, But once his grandfather had died, that's whenever he stopped following societal rules altogether. So to speak, from what I gather, his grandfather had been the leader of the household growing up, and so to Darrel believed from that example that the male in the relationship should be in charge. But I feel like he misinterpreted what that meant. There's a difference between being a leader of a household and being a dominating, abusive male figure. His grandfather, from what I understand, was a good man married to his grandmother fifty something years. But to Daryl's interpretation was that he was going to be violent and he was going to be proud to be the boss. In his relationship with Christa, they were both very strong willed, but Christa would do the things that she felt would impress to Daryl and he the same. So, long story short, they were both little badasses and toxic would be the best word that I can use to describe this relationship.

11:39 So when detectives began their interviews Christa's friend Kim, like I mentioned, she had some insight to give them about the night that Colleen was murdered. So while Kim had not left the school like those other students did that night, she had seen them leave, like physically watched them leave. And I want you to I've got to remind you again here Kim is sixteen. She's not up in age in the older twenty She's a fresh sixteen, so she was very scared, and now she knows that someone was dead, and so the fact that she did not call police prior to what she's about to tell them, I'm not going to hold it against her, but what she had to say was very damning. Christa had come into Kim's room that evening that Colleen was killed, and she told Kim, look, we're headed to the park. We're going to go hang out.

12:34 And she asked Kim or Kim asked her, excuse me, you know, why why are y'all going to the park. And Christa said, we're going to smoke in the park. But Kim didn't want to go because there was something that didn't sit right with her because Christa mentioned that Colleen was going to go with them. Now, being a very good friend at the time as far as sixteen year olds go, Kim was not impressed by this, and she called her out on it, and she said, why would you be going to the park with Colleen? Because there was well known animosity between Christa and Colleen. Now, the reasoning is a bit juvenile, but we've got to share it because it's the truth. But all of this animosity was based around to Daryl because when Colleen had first arrived at the school to Daryl had a bit of a crush on her and thought that she was cute, but soon after he got with Christa. Well, Christa didn't like the fact that Colleen had once had to Daryl's eye, so she was very very open about her dislike of Colleen, and this is why Kim was very perplexed. Whenever she said that they were going to the park together to smoke, Kim knew in her gut this was not a good idea, so she decided to stay back. But as Christa left the room, Christa turned around and winked at her, flashed her a big toothy smile, and then exited the room. Well, a few minutes later, Kim went out on this balcony at the school and she watched as the group of

14:04 those three plus Colleen left together. But she just did not like it. She just thought it was weird. But she did know that they left around eight point fifty pm, so Christa to Darryl Shidala and Colleen. So this now confirmed the detective's suspicions that other students were physically with Colleen. The ones that had signed out at the same time, so now they wanted to speak with Krista Pike. And the detective was pretty surprised when he first laid his eyes on her, because she was a small little girl and she looked almost like a little kid in nature. She was very fair complected. She had really long, thick, kind of bushy, curly brown hair. She wore it very commonly of the late eighties early nineties style, with it like half up in a scrunchy and real poofy. She didn't wear a lot of makeup or anything. Just a very average looking girl. And when she spoke, the detective was even kind of like, golly, she sounds like a little girl, like young okay, But there was more to her than what met the eye, And immediately the detective picked up on the fact that not only was Christa charming, but she was also intelligent. She was smart. So she explained to the detective, Oh, I grew up in North Carolina.

15:23 My childhood had been rough. I bounced around between my parents and my grandparents. You know, mom drank a lot. She brought up the sex abuse. She also openly was willing to admit that her mother and her would smoke weed together as a pastime when she was with her Basically a total shit show of a home life based on traditional standards. Now, not surprisingly, Christa dropped out of high school in ninth grade, and that's whenever she moved to Knoxville where she joined Job Corps and she was specifically focusing on the nursing career or the nursing Corps to try to turn her life around. Now, this detective or well he was called a criminal investigator how everyone word it. His name was Randy Yorke, and he was the one that was assigned to the case, and based on the statements thus far from Christa's friends and others, he decided, all right, Christo, we're going to need you to come down to the PD for some more questioning.

16:23 So when she got there, he read her her Miranda rights, and you know, you expected this to go into kind of a back and forth questioning with the teenager, but Christa very quickly and very matter of factly waived those rights to remain silent. Now, Christa was eighteen, she was a legal adult, so she could do that. Remember that because it matters in the case. And then almost immediately she began to recount in detail exactly what happened that night that Colleen was murdered. Now how detailed was she It took forty six pages to transcribe everything that she said. Okay, but I'm going to condense that obviously and not give you forty six pages worth. But she said, yes, Christine, I mean, excuse me. Colleen and I had been having problems for some time. But there was a difference in this story at this point because Christa said things had gotten so bad that she woke up in the middle of the night to find Colleen standing over her in her bed. Now not only was Colleen standing over her in this scary fashion, but she also was armed with a box cutter. Now this terrified Christa. But this was nothing new because Colleen had had it out for Christa from the jump. Because Colleen wanted to Darrel to be her boyfriend. This wasn't a secret either, according to Christa.

17:51 She said Colleen had been running her mouth about it to everyone, and Christa said, I could not escape this. It didn't matter where I went, it didn't matter what what was going on. From day to day. It was constant, and Colleen would continue to provoke her day in and day out. So when asked, well, why what is this provocation about? I mean, obviously to Darryl, but why would she continue it's your boyfriend, why would she continue to provoke you? And Colleen's answer was actually kind of eye opening. She said, well, it was non stop because Colleen knew that if Krista was to get in any more trouble at job Corps, they were going to kick her out.

18:31 And with Krista gone, if she were to be kicked out, then Colleen could move in on to Darryl. So Colleen kept on and on and on while Christa was just trying to tolerate it while she was on campus. But eventually it came to a breaking point and basically the group initially left the school. She said that we left the school, but we were going to head to Blockbuster and we were going to rent a movie. But during that trek to Blockbuster, we changed our minds because we had a hidden bag of marijuana that we had buried in Tyson Park, which is the park where Colleen's body was found. Now, Christa would not name anyone else that was with them during all of this, but the detective he already knew this the sign out logs told him what he needed to know, but Krista would not give out names. But at some point on their way to get the weed, Colleen and Christa got into an argument which turned physical, and Christa said, we started, you know, it started off with an argument. Then we began exchanging punches, and then at some point during the fight, Christa slammed Colleen's head into her knee, and this was a really powerful strike from of the head into the knee, she said.

19:48 At that point she bas basically snapped. Her frustration and her anger from all of the torment just boiled over and she was able to just throw Colleen down where she began kicking her. And she got so mad that she was able to get the upper hand in the fight, and so she grabbed Colleen by her hair and she just started slamming Colleen's face into the concrete. Now she got the best of Colleen, she said she did. But eventually, during I guess a lull in the fight for them to catch their breath, Colleen was asking, why are you doing this to me? And Colleen told her or Krista told her, it's because you're trying to get me kicked out of school. So after she got the best of her, what happened, Well, Krista just tells the detective basically that Colleen laid on the ground and she cried for a while before she tried to get back up. Colleen got back up to her feet and she tried to run away, but someone else in the group, who was unnamed, pushed her back down. That other person she would only refer to as he. She said, he held Colleen down and then he cut her with a box cutter. I go, will you do the ma? There's only one guy that had signed out with them, and that would have been to Daryl. Now why was there a box cutter? That becomes the question if y'all were going to blockbuster and then you changed your mind to go smoke weed, well why is there now a box cutter involved? But she says, look, we all basically knew that the plan was going to erupt in a fight. We knew that we just had

21:20 to get off campus. Christa said she was going to put her foot down and this fight was going to be the way that she showed Colleen she better leave her the hell alone. But she was scared, and so she brought a box cutter with her just in case she were to start losing the fight, and that's why the box cutter was there. So it was at this point though in the fight and after he quote unquote cut her, that Krista began to freak out. But Colleen at this point was now screaming wildly in pain, tripping out as you can imagine. And she said, everything just got way out of control and in a panic. Colleen screaming wildly and I'm afraid that attention was going to get drawn to this. Chriso wanted her to stop, and then she goes, oh my god. In her own head, she's like, oh my god, I'm going to go to prison.

22:07 We're going to go to jail. You know. We beat the hell out of her, and now she's cut. So she saw that Colleen was bleeding. She knew that this was really bad. But she said that's when Colleen tried to get up again and run away, but Christa had the box cut her at that point, and she said she swiped at her and the box cutter put a big, long cut through Colleen's back. But Colleen kept trying to get up, but the group would not let her go. At this point, she said, Colleen began begging for her life and said, if you let me go, I will go home to Florida. I won't even go back to the school. I will go straight home to Florida, and I will never say a word about it. But Chrisa just told her to shut up, and she explained to the detective, look, I just wanted it all to stop.

22:49 I told her to shut up, and she said the reason I wanted her to be quiet is because it's really hard to hurt someone when they're talking to you. And when I read that in the interview, I was like, oh my god, Like it's hard to hurt somebody in general, but you're right, someone's talking to you, it is harder to hurt them because it makes them human. Right. So when she went and shut up, that's when Christa began kicking Colleen in the face. The coldness in which Christa told these events to that detective of supposedly what all had happened, I need you to understand, is astounding. It was astounding. It wasn't even like it had to be pulled out of her mouth, and it was almost as if Christa was telling the story in a way that she thought that she was justified in everything that had happened in her story. But the detective did what a good detective does, and he just sat back in the chair, closed his mouth, and he just let Christa keep talking, and that she did so. Her fearfulness that Christa says she started out with in this confession that she's given the detective sort of morphed. The more the detective was quiet, the more that this conversation began to morph, because now Christa was almost giddy, and those are the words of the detective, not me, giddy at points as she was retelling the events from her point of view. And she

24:21 added that at one point, Colleen said, what are y'all gonna do with me? And this is after she's been battered and cut and beat the shit out of her, she says, what are y'all gonna do with me? But at that moment, Christa said, they heard something and it spooked the entire group. It spooked everybody. So Christa said she walked away and she went to go, I guess, check the tree line or check the area over there to see what was going on, leaving Colleen on the ground wounded. But when she returned. Colleen was then begging her, still talking, saying please let us go, but Christa knew at that point she couldn't, and that's when she started slashing Colleen's throat with the box cutter, over and over and over. She said. Colleen continued to gasp. She even sat up with her throat slashed, begging, begging for them to stop, but another person in the group whose she didn't name, pushed Colleen back down. This confession was almost exhausting just to listen to the confession, let alone think about Colleen experiencing this for the entirety of the confession, but Christa just kept going. She said Colleen wouldn't die.

25:35 She said, she picked up a rock she hit Colleen in the back of the head with it, so did another person in the group, so Colleen fell to the ground at this point, and the effects of all of this attack really were taking their toll on Colleen, and Christas said that this is a direct quote that she was breathing blood in and out and her body started just like jerking randomly, and that's when Christa and an unnamed person in the group each grabbed one of Colleen's feet and they drugger over to those bushes and trees left or there, then took the clothing that had been removed through that in the bushes and that's a wrap. Colleen basically died and they left. So the detectives said, all right, well, how long do you think this entire fight lasted? Y'all? Krista straight up said, thirty minutes to an hour. That is torture. That is torture beyond you know what I mean. It's one thing to be attacked, you get your throat cut and like, and I hate to I'm not minimizing it, but you know you're jugular or something's cut and you bleed out in seconds and you're dead. Thirty minutes to an hour is torture. But the detective was still curious, why was Colleen's shirt and brawl off? How did that happen? And anyone who wears a bra knows that those do not easily remove. I mean, irregular style bra has clasps and wire underneath a sports bra. Hell,

27:08 you had a damn near fight to get your own sports bra off, So it doesn't matter what type she was wearing, it's still as difficult to get one off. If you're fighting, if you're thinking about ripping it off. And I think women will agree with me on that it may come up during a fight, but off that's a little tougher. And that's when Christa said, oh no, it wasn't ripped off. We made her take it off. We directed her take off your shirt, and then we made her take off her bra. I guess humiliation was part of the tactic here to humiliate her. You're being attacked by three people, and before they start cutting you and all of that, they hit you and they rough you up. Then they make you strip and humiliate. It's just humiliation in front of the group, to take off your shirt and your own bra. And so, while the story that's being recounted is horrible enough, it just seemed that there had to be more to it. There just had to be more to it, even with the confession.

28:12 Proving this in court is going to require more. So the detective couldn't help it. Notice that, you know, this confession was rather callous, and while it was being given, he looks at Christa. He's kind of just looking at her up and down, and he notices that she is wearing a necklace. During the confession, and do you know what was on that necklace? Of course you do. It was a pentagram, just like the one seen by that officer on the inquisitive girl at the scene the day before. Christa was that girl. Krista was that girl at the scene, feigning innocence and asking questions. And remember Knoxville, Tennessee, this is the Bible belt. Wearing a pentagram would have been so taboo that it would have been damn near unbelievable that two different girls would be in the same area at the same time, and both of them wearing that same necklace. It's just too good of a coincidence to even entertain that. But when she was asked about the pentagram that had been cut into Colleen's chest, Christa quickly rebuffed and was adamant she never carved anything into anyone's chest, no way. So detectives photographed Christa and based on that confession, she was placed under arrest for the murder of Colleen.

29:41 But they would also need to continue their investigation by speaking with to Darryl's ship. So what did he have to say about this? I mean, let's really put this into perspective. A teenager is dead murdered and disfigured beyond recognition. I get with to Daryl and he explained from the jump that they were just going to rough up Colleen. And he basically mimicked everything else that Christa had said, except there were some differences in the explanation of the fight Christa. In his explanation, Christa started it, and Christa made Colleen disrobe, take off her brawl on her shirt. Shadala, the other girl that had signed out of the school with them, she was now brought up more than you know.

30:29 Krista wouldn't give names, but Shadala was now named and brought up, and he said Shadala was beaten on Colleen too, and Colleen began grabbing at Christa. And that's when Christa cut Colleen. And I want to stop right there real quick. This is such victim blaming. It angers me. Because of course Colleen began grabbing at Christa. She was trying to defend herself, she was trying to stop this. But by wording it that Colleen began grabbing, Christa implies that Krista now had to do something. She had to do something, but she didn't because this didn't have to start from the jump. His explanation too, was that Christa had a meat cleaver with her that was never mentioned before. Christa had a meat cleaver and Shidallah had the box cutter, and that they both began cutting Colleen together. Now, he did eventually admit that he tripped Colleen when she tried to run away one of those times, and then that's when she fell. And that's when Colleen hit her head on a rock. Do you hear how that wording sounds Colleen hit her head on a rock. No fucker, you knocked her down which resulted in her head hitting a rock.

31:40 Colleen didn't hit her head on a rock. The wording here is so minimalizing in what I am envisioning happening. Are you building a picture in your head of this fight? Because I am. I could draw this out for you. If I was an artist, I could draw it exactly how I envisioned. This went on and after more talking, he then would go, Okay, yeah, well maybe I did cut her a few times too, Okay, dude, But then he says, Krista made me go and check and ensure that the coast was clear. Now, remember Christa says that they heard a noise, and she got spooked and she walked off. But he's saying she directed him to go make sure the coast was clear, and when he came back, the assault continued, he said, but I just became really uncomfortable with the whole situation, and I walked off. But when I came back, Colleen's head was busted all open, So he said. He ended up leaving before the other girls, and he walked back to the school. It took him about thirty minutes. Like I said, don't buy that for a second. I think he's minimizing his part. But to Daryl and Shadala, based on everything I've told you, we're both arrested in connection with Colleen Slimmer's murder. But it doesn't end there. It can't end there. That would be a shitty episode on my part because what did other students have to say? And it turns out they had a lot to say. And you're gonna want to know this, because when the group returned back to the school without Colleen that night, they didn't just go to bed and keep their mouths shut. Christa went to go see her

33:13 bestie Kim Kim and Nulu and that's where Christa began detailing everything that had happened, telling Kim this. Now, Kim was completely caught off guard. She was in shock, to say the least, and flat out didn't know what to do or what to say. And she really didn't know if Christa was telling the truth or not, because this is just out of this is just wild that that could even be true, And she told police. Kim told police that Christa was gleefully telling her the most horrific story she had ever heard in her life about someone's demise, and the entire time that Christa was explaining the story to her what she had done to Colleen, she said, she was dancing in a circle, smiling and going la la la la la. Think it was a joke, like it was funny. And then she told Kim, quote unquote, the bitch wouldn't die. I cut her throat nine times, but she just wouldn't die. And then Christa was even laughing as she recounted this to Kim. Said Colleen had been begging them to stop cutting her and beating her, but instead she picked up a huge piece of asphalt and she slammed it on Colleen's head and it broke it open, and then most damning, she told Kim that a pentagram had been carved onto Colleen's forehead and her chest, and then with pure pride. With pure pride, she said

34:44 that Colleen's brains were spilling out of her head when they were done with her. Now sixteen year old Kim was visibly shaken at this point. She almost fell sick. This was her best friend that was saying this to her. And as Crystal left the room, she turned around, and this is a direct quote from the from the interrogation, she said to Kim, quote, you know I love you, but if you tell anyone, I'll kill you. Two. Then she winked and smiled and exited the room. So to Daryl and Christa were now under the rest for the murder of Colleen, as was Sadala Peterson. Well, when to Daryl was arrested, he too was photographed as is the norm.

35:31 And guess what he was wearing around his neck a pentagram necklace. He also had a satanic like pen I believe it was on his hat, as well as an earring that also kind of went along with that same vibe. So the question now became where where there was this two teens that were trying to be edgy and pull negative attention, or was there more at play here? So detectives go to the school and they decide that they want to search their rooms at the school. And this would be so eye opening that it's almost like a movie because as they were let in, it was quickly apparent that there was something very dark and very sinister at play here. And this was not just two girls fighting it out over a boy, no way, because to Daryl's room had a Satanic altar set up in it, very obvious. When they went in Christa's room, she too had Satanic literature and readings and materials. And so the question is like is this for real? Like is this for real? For real? Or is this again, like I said, some kids trying to be edgy and be you know, put fear in people. Well, yes, y'all, it was for real because in talking to people at the school, Krista and to Daryl known to practice Satanism. They were known

37:04 to do this, the school knew about it. Christa had even gone and gotten a devil tattoo on the left of her chest. So the creep factor was now through the roof, no doubt, but that's when another student came forward with information to share, and her name was Stephanie Wilson. Now get ready, if you don't know this story, get ready. So Stephanie comes forward and says, look, I spoke to Christa after the murder of Colleen had happened, and she said that they were talking because Christa was muddy. There was mud all over her pants, there was mud all over her shoes. And that's when Christa said to her quote that ain't mudd on my shoes, that's blood. So knowing what's happening at the crime scene and that there was you know, mud and stuff from episode one, this is all lining up. Everything that's being said seems to be legit. Well, there was an admissions employee, his name was mister Pollock at the school, and it turns out that he had helped Christa on January thirteenth in his office.

38:03 This was the day after the murder, because she had lost her ID card. Now, when she left his office, she forgot her black leather jacket hanging on the chair where she had been sitting. And this was about four pm on that day, the day after the murder. Well, on Monday, the seventeenth days later, that jacket was still on the chair in his office. But by now everyone had heard that Christa had been arrested and she was a suspect in Colleen's murder investigation. So whenever mister Pollock saw the jacket there, he was like, oh shit. So he didn't want anything to do with it. He plucked the jacket and he took it and he turned it over to police, who did what you think they did, and they searched it. They were checking the pockets. They were trying to see if there's anything that they could find, but all they found was a small piece of rock that they pulled out of one of the pockets. But upon closer inspection, it didn't look like a rock. It really actually looked like a piece of bone. So to be sure, they sent it back to doctor Marx at the University of Tennessee. That's the doctor who had refurbished Colleen's skull originally. And as the doctor looked it over, almost like a puzzle, he found that the piece of bone in that pocket was bone, and it fit perfectly into that one missing piece of skull that was missing

39:34 of Colleens. It was the one piece Christa had been carrying it in her pocket the entire time. Now the question became was it accidentally, like not accidentally, but did it like fall into her pocket as they were fighting and crushing her skull? Or you know, was it inadvertent or had she put it in her pocket? And how would we know either way? Well, even more students came forward. Are you getting the feeling that Krista might have been a tyrant at the school? And now people were getting to say what they wanted to say without fear. That's how it felt to me. But they came forward with extremely disturbing information knowing this was in fact a piece of skull. This could not be ignored because what happened, according to these students, was the following morning after Colleen was murdered, before anyone knew that she was murdered, they had gone to breakfast and they were eating and Kim was talking to Christa, and Christa pulled out that piece of bone and she said, yeah, this is a piece of Colleen's skull from where I murdered her, and yes, I'm eating breakfast with it. She then pulled the napkin from her pocket, opened it up, and she showed Stephanie Wilson the piece of bone and told her it was Colleen's skull. And she added, while they were eating breakfast, Colleen's brains and blood had been pouring out when she dug in there and plucked it out of the bloody brains.

41:05 It was a trophy to Christa and she was proudly displaying it to anyone who would listen. Now, back to Darryl real Quick, there was some more information that he failed to mention to investigators when he was being interrogated. Things that students were now as they came forward, were shedding a whole new light on this love triangle gone wrong, Because what if I told you, or what if the students told you. A few days prior to Colleen's murder to Daryl told another student named Kip O'Hara that he had to make a human sacrifice because the celestial bodies were in alignment. And during this talk to Daryl had out a Wiji board as he was discussing the sacrifice that he would need to make. Well, the day of the murder was on Thursday, January twelfth, which, looking into this, would make the following day the day that Colleen than night of the night that transitioned into Friday the thirteenth, which would be referred to as the Devil's Birthday. I don't believe in coincidences. I don't think you should either.

42:12 And the more police questioned students, the more they talked. Kim Now told them that Christa had told her in previous conversations she was gonna kill Colleen, but she thought it was just talk, I'm gonna kill that bitch. She didn't think she really meant she was gonna do it. Another student, his name was Daniel Wayland. He ran into that trio off of campus the day of the murder, and both Christa and Shidala asked him have you seen Colleen, which he hadn't, and they said, well, when we find her, she's dead. All of these people coming forward with information, but who would believe someone when they said this? Most of the teenagers thought this meant a fight, not a true murder. That basically everything compiled this is what investigators found in the death of Colleen Slimmer. Christa, to Daryl and Shadalah all planned the murder of Colleen Slimmer ahead of time. They lured her out to that park. They lured her out to that park under the guise of smoking weed, and Colleen, after speaking with her mother, was just trying to make things go well, and so she went with them. They had been terrorizing Colleen, but she went.

43:22 But once she got there, she realized this wasn't them extending the olive branch of friendship. They were going to attack her, and Colleen realized at some point, oh my god, this is not good. I am deep into the woods, I am on the edge of the University of Tennessee, and now I've got these three sharks circling me. Christa, feeling empowered by this group that was with her and fueled by rage, she began to accuse Colleen of wanting to Daryl. And once that accusation started, Colleen's like, no, no, no, no, no, y'all got this all wrong. But they chased her down. She tried to get away, they began stabbing her and beating her. She begged them to let her go. She begged them, please let me go, and they laughed at her.

44:07 They laughed at her as they brutalized her and tortured her for thirty minutes to an hour. The rag that had been found around Colleen's neck. There's two versions of how it got there. I'm gonna let you, the listener, decide which one you think happened. Either Christa had it tied in her hair, kind of like a bow, and then she pulled it out and she stuffed it in Colleen's mouth and tied it around her head so that she couldn't speak, because that's what she said, or to Darryl said that he found it on the ground when he went to go see if the coast was clear. Either way, it doesn't matter. They use it as a gag. However they got it. They gagged that girl and shoved it in her mouth so she couldn't yell out, so they could continue to torture her without somebody being alerted.

44:53 They stabbed Colleen by they I'm saying, Christa at least three hundred times, do anything three hundred times. Think about that. And every time she would get up and she would try to run, they knocked her down. She would get up, they knocked her down, They stabbed her. They were ramming her in the head with anything heavy and hard that they could. And then Christa held that girl down after she was mortally wounded severely injured. Walter Darrell carved a pentagram in her chest for certain, and likely in her forehead, which we won't know because her skull was so destroyed.

45:33 There's no confirmation on that. And although she looked to be dying, it was obvious to anyone that this girl was dying. Christa kept hitting her and kept hitting her and kept hitting her, and Christa even bent down and mocked her as she was gurgling blood on the ground dying. She mocked her and she said, Colleen, you know who's doing this to you. But Colleen was never able to answer her. She was just making groaning noises and gurgling. By that point, that's per Krista Pike herself. After Colleen was dead, they shoved her up in the woods. They washed their hands and their shoes in a mud puddle, and they did that to try to cover the blood.

46:16 That's why she told that girl back at the school that ain't that ain't mud, that's blood. And then they threw out the box cutter. All of them then went to a Texaco station on Cumberland Avenue where they threw out the personal belongings they had stolen from Colleen, like her ID cards and things like that. They just threw it in the trash, and then they threw out a black pair of gloves that they had with them, and then Christa went into the bathroom and she washed her hands, and then she washed the brains off of the piece of skull that she planned to keep as a trophy. An officer, by the way, did go to that Texico station and sure enough he found the gloves and he found Colleen's ID cards. Then they went back to the school returned the meat cleaver, which grosses me out because I don't imagine what happened with that. And when detectives did search Christa's room, they did still find those genes she wore covered in mud and blood. All of the DNA was absolutely connected through the crime lab and it was Colleen's. There's no question as to what happened here.

47:20 Now let's talk about court real quick as I wrap this up, because that was a whole fiasco that is going to tugget your emotions so hard that I can't leave it out. I have to tell you this first of all, at trial, Christa loved the attention that she was getting. She would wave, she would smile, she even laughed throughout the trial. She felt like she was a celebrity. She had celebrity status. People knew who she was. Absolutely zero remorse and zero empathy. None. And at one point, remember this court isn't always fun. Okay, we love the justice aspect of it, but you're the family member, this ain't fun. This is misery, and you have to remember this.

48:05 Colleen's mother was sitting in the courtroom during the trial, watching that bitch laugh and smile and eat it up. All the attention and photographs of bloody chunks of asphalt and blood dripping from leaves and pools of blood, all of that introduced as evidence. The largest bloody piece of asphalt and Colleen's bloody clothing was also introduced into evidence, while her mother was forced to sit there and silently watch this, knowing her baby girl wore that that was hers, that was her blood, that was half of her DNA all over it. But what got me was this part Colleen's actual skull. The head was brought into the courtroom, the skull was held up, it was passed around. Her daughter's head was passed around as evidence. A necessary evil, for sure, but can you imagine your baby knowing that was your baby that you rocked and you fed, and you taught to walk, and you were proud of and you loved her. And that's her head. Her head is being passed around. It's not even attached to your daughter's body, which, by the way, her mother got no formal burial yet of her daughter because of trial, they had to keep her head as evidence. Kim would come in there, and kudos to her. Kim testified against her best friend, Christa because even a troubled kid knows when evil is standing

49:37 before them, and Kim wasn't having this. Kim knew it wasn't right. Friendship be damned. You don't do that to people. Kim didn't need a friend like that and she didn't want one. Now, Shadala Peterson, I know I haven't said a lot about her. She ended up turning state's evidence. She testified at the trials against both of her accomplices. I guess she'd call them, and because of this, she was charged with accessory after the fact, but she was only given six years probation because she turned state's evidence. And it's one of those things where the state needed to make sure they sunk the ringleaders now Krista and to Daryl will be tried separately. To Daryl was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus twenty five years I believe was added on there.

50:24 Krista Pike, in her trial, was found guilty and she was sentenced to death. And y'all, it only took ninety minutes for the jury to convict her. And guess what that included a one hour lunch. That's how bad this was. And on March thirtieth, nineteen ninety six, Krista Pike was sent to death row. And she had been told you're getting the electric chair, We're going to fry your ass. And she cried in court when she realized that she was no longer going to be free. But as soon as she hit the cell, she got out of pen, she got out some paper and she started writing a letter to to Daryl that basically said, can you believe they're doing this to me? A young girl? Very aloof, very dismissive of it all. And when she was asked why did you kill Colleen? Her answer direct quote was I had just felt mean that day. This case goes to show that some people know no bounds when they feel threatened, even when it is a self induced feeling of threat. And by the way, my Patreon members, there's a bonus episode coming your way on this one. After she goes to prison, y'all behind bars, whole different story.

51:42 You're not gonna believe this, trust me. I'm not just pumping this up. Jaws are gonna drop. There's gonna be a bonus episode coming your way on this one. You're gonna want to hear it. But Colleen, this victim in this case, she wanted to finish school and go home. She was trying to make something of herself. And I'm going to tell you to Daryl wasn't part of that plan. Krista Pike wanted a fight and to Daryl Ship wanted a sacrifice to Satan. And when Satanic driven evil meets jealousy and the sprinklesome mean girl energy on it, this is what you get. And to anyone, anyone who thinks the death penalty isn't just here, these are my words to you. Krista Pike was an absolute jealous, mean girl who took it way beyond teenage rivalry. And this wasn't a tragedy of a misunderstood girl who had no proper raising.

52:40 This was entitlement by a person so committed to being cruel that when the usual mean girl tools failed, things like gossip and humiliation and control, when those stopped working, she escalated it. And not because she had to, and not because she was pushed to do it either. It was because she wanted to. This evidenced, and how proud she was to share what she did and even show a piece of her victim's skull her trophy with joy. She showed this to other students. And I cannot stand the court portion where the defense gets up and says that she quote unquote snapped, or that there are complex emotions at play here. No fuck that, because mean didn't become murder. Mean just ran out of social cover here.

53:34 If anyone deserves the electric chair, it's Krista Pike. And now there are groups trying to save her right now as you listen to this twenty twenty six, because she is up for her date with the chair, and they're crying that the death penalty is unjust and it's unfair. Really, maybe you know, we should ask Colleen about that. If anyone can attest to that, it's her, but oh yeah, we can't. People don't snap, they don't. They simmer until they boil. And this was avoidable had Christa and to Daryl ever been held accountable for their continuous misbehavior. But they weren't. Okay, they weren't because of weak parenting. They weren't because of hugga thug programs, and they weren't because federal funding opportunities thwarted that. And if this ending feels uncomfortable, good let it, because the scariest part of this story isn't that she felt mean that day, it's how long everyone let her be mean before it ever mattered. The end