Let us not forget
Colleen Slammer who was murdered by Christa Pike on this day (January 12, 1995).
Here is the latest news about her family:
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Victim: Pike and two friends killed
19-year-old Christine Slemmer, pictured, in 1995 as Pike believed the student
was trying to steal her boyfriend
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Mother of Christa Gail
Pike's slaying victim outraged over for-profit website
By Jamie
Satterfield
Friday,
March 23, 2012
May
Martinez sits in her Jacksonville, Fla., living room, staring at the box full
of her slain daughter's ashes and wishing she could afford a plane ticket to
confront the teenager's killer.
Five
miles away, Eric Gein is counting the cash he earns from selling that killer's
"murderabilia"
— graphic letters, greeting cards, artwork and, even, her panties.
"The
girl wins, no matter what," Martinez said Thursday of convicted killer
Christa Gail Pike.
Pike is
on Tennessee's death row for killing Martinez's daughter, Colleen Slemmer, in a
brutal attack on the University of Tennessee's agricultural campus in January
1995. Slemmer was just 19; Pike, 18. The two were fellow students at the
now-defunct Job Corps program in Fort Sanders and romantic rivals.
Pike,
with help from two fellow Job Corps classmates, lured Slemmer to a secluded
spot on the campus and then subjected the Florida teen to a torturous attack,
taunting her, beating her, slicing her with a boxcutter, carving a Pentagram on
her chest and, finally, repeatedly bashing her head with a brick. Pike even
took a souvenir — a piece of Slemmer's skull.
The
youngest woman ever sentenced to death in Tennessee, Pike has proved anything
but remorseful. Just this week, authorities announced the arrests of two men,
including a former guard at the Tennessee Prison for Women where Pike is
housed, she allegedly recruited to help her escape. In 2004, she was convicted
of setting a prison fire to ensure she was temporarily housed with Knoxville
killer Patricia Jones, whom she tried to choke to death as revenge for Jones'
interest in Pike's prison paramour — another East Tennessee ritual killer.
She has
Internet sites devoted to her, books written about her and people like Gein who
are drawn to and profiting either from her or, as Martinez alleges, with her.
"She
sends him all this stuff to sell and make a profit," Martinez said in an
interview Thursday. "She's not supposed to be making any money but she
is."
Gein
denied in an interview Thursday that he shares his profits with Pike. But he is
unapologetic of his Serial Killers Ink website, through which he hawks what he
dubs "murderabilia" he's obtained from dozens of killers nationwide.
"The
items I sell, the letters from these killers, do indeed have social
value," he said.
The
forty-something Gein, who also lives in Jacksonville, dates his fascination
with killers to his early youth.
"In
a very strong and powerful way, I felt as if I could easily fit the mold,"
he told an online interviewer.
So, he
began corresponding with killers, including the likes of John Wayne Gacy and
Richard Ramirez, and, eventually, selling whatever they provided in return. He
met Pike in 1997. She was, in his words, "a hottie."
In 2002,
the pair planned to marry — a marriage of convenience that would allow Gein the
rights to Pike's story should she be executed. The romance fizzled, though,
when Pike's execution was repeatedly delayed.
Now, Gein
sells their love letters and anything else Pike sends him on his website. In
those letters, Pike continues to fantasize about killing.
Gein says
he has a "vast customer base," including professors,
"psychologists, police officers and soccer moms." His prices range
from $40 for a postcard from Pike to $250 for an "audio letter."
Martinez
discovered Gein's website much like she found out her daughter's skull was
being stored as evidence — by happenstance.
"I'm
always checking websites on Christa," she said. "I just came across
it and was totally blown away."
She
confronted Gein, who is pictured on one website brandishing a shotgun, tattoos
covering his arms and a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
"He
(said) he doesn't have to take it down. He can do what he wants," she
said.
Gein
accuses Martinez of "stalking" and says detractors of his website
"remind me of socialism or, worse, Nazism."
With
wounds still fresh over her battle with Gein and her years-long fight to have
her daughter's skull, used as an exhibit at Pike's trial, returned to her,
Martinez was not surprised to learn of Pike's alleged escape plot.
"A
death sentence is not really justice," she said. "If they are going
to put her to death, they need to do it now."
Pike's
case is lingering in the state appellate court system. An execution date has
not been set.
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Colleen
Slemmer. (May Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel)
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May Martinez
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A memorial to Colleen
Slemmer in the backyard of her mother's home in Jacksonville, Fla. (May
Martinez/Special to the News Sentinel)
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