00:00Breaking news, a last-minute court ruling has stopped the execution of Tennessee death row inmate Krista Pike.
00:06A federal appeals court issued a stay about an hour before Pike was scheduled to be executed.
00:11Pike, who is now 50 years old, was 18 when she killed her 19-year-old classmate Colleen Slemmer.
00:17Her attorneys have raised questions about her history of childhood abuse and trauma, her mental health and her age at
00:24the time of the crime.
00:25Let's go now to CBS News correspondent Lana Zak.
00:28Lana, tell us about this last-minute court ruling and what happens to the execution now.
00:34Hi there, Mugo.
00:35Literally last minute, just an hour before this execution was set to take place,
00:41the U.S. Court of Appeals in the 6th District issued this stay of execution, and we obtained a copy
00:49of that motion.
00:50And the foundation of it is that the state recently reversed its litigation petition that Pike was a liar who
00:58fabricated sexual abuse and rape.
01:01And in the interest of justice and the finality of Pike's impending execution, they write,
01:06it compels the entry of a short stay of execution in order to properly analyze the party's fully briefed arguments
01:12and resolve the issue on the merit.
01:15So we don't know how long this stay of execution will last.
01:19We do know that they want it to be resolved quickly.
01:22There are several questions.
01:24If Pike were to be executed, she would be the first person in 200 years in Tennessee to be executed.
01:31And at the time that she was sentenced to the death penalty, she was the youngest person in modern history
01:38to be sentenced to the death penalty, being just 18 years old.
01:43She was also sentenced to the death penalty, and her co-conspirator, her boyfriend, who was 17 at the time,
01:50was not sentenced to the death penalty.
01:55He was sentenced to life in prison because he was a minor.
01:58So there's also a lot of feelings like she had this history of sexual abuse.
02:04She was dismissed for that.
02:06And there are a lot of feelings like maybe there needs to be a greater re-evaluation of the facts
02:13in this case.
02:14Can you walk us through the crime that landed Pike in death row in the first place?
02:20It was a heinous act.
02:23It was a brutal murder of a classmate, as you mentioned, Colleen Slimmer.
02:28That took place back in 1995.
02:31Pike considered her a romantic rival.
02:35She was jealous of her.
02:37She was lured into a forested area there.
02:42Pike and her boyfriend at the time brutally murdered her.
02:46They beat her.
02:47They defaced her body.
02:50Pike even kept pieces of her skull as a memento.
02:54This was an awful, awful act.
02:58But it was committed by teenagers.
03:01And that is part of the defense's argument.
03:04And it was committed by a teenager who had suffered abuse at the hands of adults.
03:09So all of this is being evaluated now.
03:12But there are no winners in this story, Mogo.
03:16Because there's also now the question of how the victim's family, the victim who went through all that, how they
03:20feel about this.
03:21We'll see what happens.
03:22Lana's back.
03:22Absolutely.
03:23And the mother had traveled to witness this execution.
03:27So she has been also dealt this information at the very last moment as well.
03:33Goodness.
03:34Lana, thank you so much.
03:35Appreciate it.
03:36Thanks.
03:36Thank you.
