Satan's Helper: The Christa Pike Story, Part 2 - Kept a Piece of Colleen

Tony Brueski (0:01)

Breakfast, January 13, 1995, at the Knoxville Job Corps Center. Kim Iloilo found her friend Christa Pike and asked her a question. The night before, Christa had shown her something she'd brought back from the university campus. Kim wanted to know what she'd done with it. Christa said it was in her pocket. And then she said, and yes, I'm eating breakfast with it. It was a piece of Colleen Slemmer's skull.

Colleen had been dead since the night before.

Most of what happened to her in between comes from one person, Christa Pike, on tape two days later in her own words. The things she admitted are admissions. The reasons she gave are hers. On the morning of January 12th, Colleen asked a student named Andrew Drace whether he'd seen to Daryl Shipp. It was the last time he saw her. That night, around 8 o'clock, Kim watched four people leave the center and head towards 17th Street. Christa, Colleen, Christa's boyfriend to Daryl Shipp, and a student named Shadola Peterson. Shipp would later put the time closer to 9

Christa would tell police she never planned to kill Colleen, only to fight her and make her leave me the hell alone. For a fight, she packed a box cutter and a miniature meat cleaver. The cleaver was borrowed from someone at Job Corps, and she never would say who.

She'd asked Colleen to walk with her to the Blockbuster Music Store. On the way, she told Colleen she had a bag of weed hidden in Tyson Park. They kept walking, toward the university, and ended up at the steam plant on the agricultural campus. It was dark and it was isolated. At the steam plant, she and Colleen exchanged words. Then Christa hit her. She drove Colleen's head into her knee, threw her to the ground, and kicked her. She slammed her head against the concrete. Colleen kept asking the same question. Why are you doing this to me? Colleen said she'd report her, and that Christa would get thrown out of Job Corps for it. Christa kicked her in the face and in the side for saying so.

Colleen lay on the ground crying for a while. Then she got up and ran. Someone caught her. In her confession, Christa would only ever call him he.

He pushed Colleen down, and the two of them held her there until she stopped fighting. Then they dragged her to another spot. Christa took out the box cutter and cut Colleen across the stomach. Colleen screamed and screamed. Christa said she started hearing voices telling her she had to do something or Colleen would tell on her and send her to prison for attempted murder. That's her claim, and nothing in the record backs it up. What she said she did next needs no interpreting. She stood there and watched Colleen bleed. Colleen rolled over, got up and ran again. Christa cut her across the back, the big long cut on her back. Colleen kept trying to get up, and she begged. She said if Christa would just let her go, she'd walk home to Florida and never go back to Job Corps for her things. She was still talking. Christa told her to shut up. Her reason, in her own words, was that it was harder to hurt somebody when they're talking to you. The more Colleen talked, Christa said, the more she kicked her in the face. Then Christa heard a noise. She stopped, walked off and looked around to make sure no one else was out there. No one was. She walked back and then she started cutting Colleen's throat. Colleen kept begging. Christa cut her throat again and then again. Colleen tried to sit up with her throat cut open and Christa and the other person pushed her back down. She was still talking. She got away one more time. Christa threw a rock and hit her in the back of the head. The other person hit her in the head with a rock too.

Colleen went down and Christa kept hitting her. Christa could hear her breathing blood in and out. She could see her jerking. She kept hitting her and hitting her and hitting her.

Then Christa asked her a question. Colleen do you know who is doing this to you?

All she got back was groaning.

Christa and the other person each took one of Colleen's feet and dragged her towards some trees. They left her on a pile of dirt and debris and they threw her clothes in the bushes. Christa said the whole thing took about 30 minutes to an hour.

She admitted two more things. At some point they had made Colleen take off her top so she couldn't run. And at some point Christa had pulled the rag from her own hair and tied it across Colleen's mouth to stop her talking.