Christa Pike was just 18 when she took part in the 1995 murder of fellow Knoxville Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer.Now 50, Pike is due to die by lethal injection in Tennessee in just four days’ time, following more than 30 years on death row.But the convicted killer – who would become the first woman executed by the state in more than 200 years if her execution goes ahead – was not the only person involved in Slemmer’s brutal killing.In fact, there were three defendants involved in the case.While Pike was sentenced to death, her then-boyfriend, Tadaryl Shipp, 17, received life in prison with the possibility of parole.And then there was 19-year-old Shadolla Peterson, another young Job Corps student who was involved in the events surrounding Slemmer’s murder.

Unlike Pike and Shipp, however, Peterson did not spend decades behind bars.Instead, she received a very different punishment – probation.So, how did three teenagers involved in the same case end up with such dramatically different futures?It’s a question many long-time followers of Pike’s harrowing case have asked for decades – and with her execution finally looming, many fear they may never receive an answer.What did Pike, Shipp and Peterson do?In late 1994, troubled West Virginia teenager Christa Pike enrolled at the Job Corps centre in Knoxville, hoping to train as a nursing assistant.Her childhood had been plagued by instability, neglect and mental health struggles, the latter of which Pike later said were connected to being sexually assaulted as a child, including being raped at 11 and again by a stranger at 17.She had struggled severely at school and spent time in a juvenile facility before eventually earning her GED.