by Renée Feltz | Sep 23, 2026 | Bill Lee, Capital Punishment, clemency, Death Penalty, Death Row, Execution, Executions, Gov. Bill Lee, News, Prisons, Rape, sex trafficking, Sexual Assault, Sexual Violence, Solitary Confinement, Tennessee, Torture, Trauma
Christa Pike was sexually abused and raped from the time when she was a toddler until almost a year to the day before she was arrested in 1995 at age 18 for murdering fellow teenager Colleen Slemmer when the two attended a job training program for troubled youth in Knoxville. Tennessee officials do not dispute these facts. “I think everybody in this courtroom wishes that those things had…
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by Nayanika Guha | Dec 27, 2025 | Capital Punishment, Death Penalty, death sentence, Executions, Florida, News Analysis, Pam Bondi, Ron DeSantis
Edward Zakrzewski’s wife had known him since they were in the fourth grade. Growing up in the same neighborhood in Michigan, she and Zakrzewski had a close friendship. “I always had a crush on him, but I always knew that he was a ladies’ man in high school, and I was a good girl, so I wasn’t having that,” she said. As happens with many childhood friendships, they lost touch when her family moved…
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