Tennessee is on track to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection on Wednesday, making her the first woman put to death by the state in more than 200 years, after Gov. Bill Lee announced Monday he would not step in to stop it.

Pike, now 49, was convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, a fellow student at a Knoxville Job Corps training center. Prosecutors said Pike, then 18, and two accomplices lured Slemmer to a wooded area and beat and stabbed her to death in what investigators described as a jealousy-fueled attack; trial testimony said Pike kept a piece of Slemmer's skull as a souvenir. She was the only one of the three convicted defendants sentenced to death.

Lee said in a statement that he had "thoroughly reviewed" Pike's case, including her clemency petition, and was upholding the jury's sentence. Pike's attorneys had argued that she suffered severe childhood trauma and abuse, and that she has spent nearly three decades on death row working as a hospice volunteer for fellow inmates.

A 200-Year Milestone

If carried out Wednesday evening at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, Pike's execution would be the first of a woman in Tennessee since 1820, according to death penalty researchers. She would also be the first person executed in the state's modern era for a crime committed as a teenager.

"I AM UPHOLDING THE SENTENCE HANDED DOWN BY THE JURY."

Executions of women remain exceedingly rare nationally. Only 18 women have been executed in the United States since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, compared with more than 1,600 men, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Pike's legal team filed a last-minute appeal this week arguing her execution would amount to "re-traumatization," citing an amicus brief from mental health experts. Tennessee's Supreme Court had not ruled on the appeal as of Tuesday morning. The state Board of Parole voted earlier this month against recommending clemency, despite pleas from several former corrections officials who worked with Pike.

Barring last-minute court intervention, Pike is scheduled to receive a three-drug lethal injection Wednesday evening. It would be Tennessee's second execution this year.