Christa Pike’s family is not in the headlines. They are not planning to hold her hand during her final hours. They are not fighting for her life. In fact, the family that shaped her, and failed her, has been largely invisible throughout the 31 years she has spent on death row.
As Pike, 50, awaits execution on September 30, 2026, for the 1995 torture-murder of Colleen Slemmer, the story of her own family reads like a case study in neglect, abuse, and systemic failure. Her attorneys have argued that the jury that sentenced her never heard the full extent of what happened to her at home. That family, they say, broke her long before she broke the law.
Here’s what we know about Christa Pike’s family.
Her Parents: Glenn Pike and Carissa Hansen
Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10, 1976, in Beckley, West Virginia, to Emil Glenn Pike and Carissa Hansen. She was premature, and her parents’ relationship was volatile from the start. They married, divorced, remarried, and divorced again, with infidelity and a suicide attempt by her father marking the chaos.
Neither parent provided a stable home. Court records and psychological evaluations describe a childhood marked by severe neglect. As an infant, Pike was reportedly seen crawling around a house filled with dog feces. She was undernourished and starved of affection.
Her father, Glenn, was physically abusive. He beat her with a belt. Her mother, Carissa, was absent in a different way. According to a forensic psychologist hired by Pike’s defense team, Carissa did not believe her daughter when she reported being raped.
The Abuse That Defined Her Childhood
The details of Pike’s childhood emerged years after her trial, during post-conviction hearings. A three-volume psychological history was prepared by forensic psychologist Dr. Diana McCoy, but Pike’s trial lawyers never put McCoy on the stand.
What McCoy found was horrifying.
Pike was sexually abused starting at age two or three by her grandmother’s boyfriend. She was raped at 11 by a 37-year-old neighbor who received a suspended sentence. She was raped again at 17 by a stranger. The abuse involved multiple men: her mother’s husbands, her mother’s boyfriends, and a neighbor.
Her older half-sister also abused her, burning her and once slamming her finger in a door deliberately. An aunt subjected her to what was described as “sadistic cruelty and humiliation.”
“The abuse and neglect endured by Christa Pike as a child was truly extreme and its severity was almost impossible to grasp,” a psychologist who assessed Pike in 2023 wrote.
The One Person Who Loved Her
In interviews, Pike has said the only person who ever showed her warmth was her paternal grandmother. That grandmother died in 1988, when Pike was 12 years old. Pike has described that loss as the moment her world fell apart.
After her grandmother’s death, Pike had no one. She was left with parents who neglected her, a mother who didn’t believe her, and a system that, despite knowing about the abuse, never intervened meaningfully.
The Family at Trial
When Pike went to trial in 1996, her defense lawyers made a catastrophic decision. The night before the sentencing phase, they abandoned their plan to present Dr. McCoy as their sole mitigation witness. They did not call any of the witnesses McCoy had recommended. Instead, they put Pike’s parents and an aunt on the stand.
Those three people did not speak about the years of rape, violence, and neglect. The jury never heard the full story.
A federal appeals court later ruled that the jury had heard enough about her difficult childhood from her mother, father, and aunt’s testimony, and that new evidence of bipolar disorder and PTSD “mostly repeated” what the jury already knew. The court denied relief.
Where Is Her Family Now?
Pike’s parents, Glenn Pike and Carissa Hansen, have not been part of her public life in decades. They are not listed among the supporters advocating for her clemency. They have not issued public statements as her execution approaches.
Pike has an unnamed half-sister from her mother’s previous relationship. There is no public record of any sibling advocating for her or speaking about their shared childhood.
Pike’s lawyers and supporters have framed her story as one of a child failed by everyone: her parents, the state, the juvenile system, and her own trial attorneys. That failure is now the central argument in her clemency petition. But the family at the center of that failure has remained silent.
The Bottom Line
Christa Pike’s family is the family that broke her. A physically abusive father. A mother who didn’t believe her. Relatives who hurt her. A grandmother who loved her and died too soon. And a system that knew and did nothing.
As Tennessee prepares to execute her, that family is nowhere to be seen. The people who should have protected her are not standing beside her. The people who hurt her are not facing consequences. And Pike, 50 years old and awaiting lethal injection, is left to face the end alone, just as she has faced everything else.
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