Christa Pike’s Former Satanist Boyfriend May Be Freed in 5 Years

As questions continue to surround what comes next for Tennessee death row inmate Christa Pike following last week’s botched execution attempt, her accomplice and former boyfriend will have to wait at least five more years for another parole hearing in the 1995 torture and murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville.

Tadaryl Shipp, now 49, was 17 when he, Pike and a third person tortured and killed Slemmer, a classmate from their vocational school. The crime, which prosecutors described as containing “satanic elements,” continues to haunt investigators 31 years later.

Prosecutors alleged that Shipp held Slemmer down as she tried to escape and carved pentagrams into her chest and face.

“It was a grotesque crime scene,” former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith told News Media last week. “It was one of the worst crime scenes I’d witnessed, and I was with the police department almost 34 years.”

Because Shipp was 17 at the time of the killing, he was not eligible for the death penalty, Keith said. Shipp received a life sentence for first-degree murder and an additional 25 years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. He is incarcerated at Tennessee’s Northwest Correctional Complex.

Court documents state that Shipp explored satanism as a child, and investigators discovered “satanic paraphernalia” in his dorm room. He and Pike were reportedly wearing pentagram pendants when they were arrested.

Tennessee prison records show that Shipp later adopted the alias Abdul Khalip. In 2016, he was the plaintiff in an unsuccessful federal lawsuit seeking access to halal food and Islamic prayer oils while incarcerated.

Shipp became eligible for parole in October 2025, but the request was denied following his first hearing. His next parole hearing is scheduled for October 2031.

His most recent mugshot, taken in June 2024, shows Shipp wearing glasses and sporting a salt-and-pepper beard.

Pike was convicted of repeatedly slashing Slemmer and crushing her head with a piece of asphalt. Afterward, she kept a fragment of Slemmer’s skull as a trophy and showed it to another classmate before her arrest.

Pike was sentenced to death and remains hospitalized in critical condition this week, days after two doses of lethal-injection drugs failed to kill her in a baffling mishap. The failed execution occurred after she had requested an alternative method of execution.

A third suspect, Shadolla Peterson, pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and testified against both Pike and Shipp.