Former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith, who helped investigate the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, says that when Christa Pike described the killing to investigators, she sounded 'ruthless, without any remorse, almost giddy' — even as if she were bragging.

Keith, speaking in the New York Post documentary 'No Mercy: Christa Pike Unraveled' and confirming the comments to Fox News Digital, called his characterization 'spot on' and summed up Pike in two words: 'Pure evil.'

He recalls that she openly expressed joy about the killing when she returned to the Job Corps and bragged about it again in class the next day, showing her blood-stained shoes.

Pike was 18 when she, her 17-year-old boyfriend Tadaryl Shipp and 19-year-old Shadolla Peterson — all Job Corps participants — took Slemmer to a secluded area on the University of Tennessee's Knoxville campus, where her throat was cut multiple times, she was struck with a large piece of asphalt and a pentagram was carved into her chest, according to court records.

Pike later confessed to her role. Keith, per Fox News, said the brutality was different from the gore he was 'accustomed to seeing' and that the visual scene was 'so shocking' even to veteran homicide investigators.

She was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996, a sentence the Tennessee Supreme Court later affirmed.

Tennessee's attempt to execute Pike by lethal injection on Sept. 30 — after the U.S. Supreme Court vacated a last-minute 6th Circuit stay — failed after she received two doses of pentobarbital and was hospitalized.

According to Fox News, she remained unconscious for days; her attorneys at one point believed she was brain-dead, before she regained consciousness, was discharged and returned to prison. Her attorneys now say she can walk and speak in full sentences, and they are calling on Gov.

Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life without parole, arguing she should not face another execution attempt.

Gov. Bill Lee weighed in Wednesday, telling reporters Pike remains incarcerated under Tennessee law and that 'I suspect her sentence will be the same as it was before unless determined otherwise by the courts.'

Following the failed execution, Lee halted Tennessee's remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review of what went wrong.

The commutation push predates the attempt: in a 2021 filing, Pike's attorneys cited her age at the time of the killing plus a history of childhood trauma, mental illness and brain damage. Fox News Digital reached out to Pike's attorneys and Lee's office for further comment.