Nearly two decades ago, Helen Roberts met Christa Pike, who was serving death row in Tennessee, so that she could understand what kind of person the woman who brutally murdered Colleen Slemmer was.
Roberts interviewed Pike as the real-life editor of a women's lifestyle magazine, when Pike was 30 years old and had spent 11 years of her sentence in prison. She was the youngest woman to receive the death penalty in America.
Pike, now 50, was scheduled to be executed on Wednesday after a long wait, but despite being given two lethal doses of the drug pentobarbital, she survived and is currently being treated in hospital in a critical condition.
Roberts, who has been following these events, recalled her meeting with Pike and said that that experience still remains with her as a journalist and a human being.
Roberts said, "It was sometimes difficult for me to understand how to look at the woman sitting in front of me and the crime she committed together."
She said, "I felt as if these were two completely different people. I could not even imagine that the woman I had met could commit such horrific violence."
Helen Roberts arrived at a high security prison for female prisoners in Tennessee in December 2006. Now this jail is of Debra. Known as Johnson Rehabilitation Center. This was his first experience of a prison, especially a high security prison.
Roberts recalled, "I had never been to prison before, so I was very nervous. I didn't know how the interview would go and I was a little scared."
Roberts, a resident of Conwy, North Wales, was working at More magazine at the time and had gone to America for an interview.
After passing through security and several doors, he met Christa Pike through a glass window. The conversation between the two took place through the speaker system.
There was not much difference in the age of Roberts and Pike. Roberts said she did not go into the interview with any preconceived notions, but that she expected to meet a "very outspoken and tough" woman.
However, the person she met was completely different from what she had imagined.
Roberts said, "I was about 25 years old at the time. We were about the same age and in some ways we felt connected to each other."
He told that Pike had come very well prepared. His curly hair was also somewhat like Roberts's. Roberts felt that these small similarities created a comfortable environment between the two.
According to Roberts, Pike's behavior was warm and she appeared to be trying to please the person in front of her. She was repeatedly smiling, laughing and understanding the gestures of the other person during the conversation.
She said, "I didn't want her to feel uncomfortable. After a few minutes, she climbed on her side and sat on the window ledge to get a little closer to us."
Roberts said, "We didn't have a lot of time. He also realized that, and we had a lot of topics to talk about."
She came straight to the point. She was neither adopting a defensive attitude, nor avoiding difficult questions, nor twisting things around. To be honest, he answered all my questions very clearly and openly.
According to Roberts, Pike was constantly looking into the eyes and fully cooperating in the conversation.
He said, "She was eager to answer. At times she seemed like a normal person."
Roberts said, "I did not meet him with any kind of hatred or hostility. Perhaps he also realized that we were just going to have a very calm conversation."
She added, "I just wanted to meet Christa Pike as a woman. I wanted to understand her life, to know why she made that wrong decision and how she was managing her life in prison."
Christa Pike was 18 years old in 1995 when she, along with her then-boyfriend Tadryl Shipp, beat, tortured and murdered 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer.
The three met at a job training camp run for troubled teenagers.
Pike alleged that Slemmer had insulted her and tried to snatch her boyfriend from her. Two other camp residents later testified in court that Pike had bragged about the murder before and after.
He also said that Pike had shown him a piece of Slammer's skull.
Pike was sentenced to death in 1996. At the same time, Shipp was 17 years old at the time, so he received a life sentence with the possibility of parole. He is still in jail.
Roberts said Pike said during the trial he did not fully understand what was happening to him. However, he enjoyed getting attention because, according to him, he had never received such attention before.
Pike showed no hesitation when discussing the details of the murder.
"There was no emotion on her face or in her voice," Roberts said. "She was talking about it in a very direct and casual manner."
He told that by that time Pike had spent 11 years on death row. During this time, he got a lot of time alone, in which he thought a lot about what he had done and tried to understand it.
According to Roberts, Pike talked about her former self as if she were a different person. Pike had said that she had lost her mental balance on the night of Colleen's murder.
In Pike's words, "I felt like I was out of my body. I didn't understand what I was doing. It was as if someone else had taken control of me."
Pike told Roberts that he deeply regretted his actions. But he believed that whatever he said could not compensate for that terrible incident.
Christa Pike's childhood was spent in Beckley, a small town in the southern part of West Virginia. Her parents, Carissa Hansen and Glenn Pike, struggled with alcohol addiction and did not take good care of their daughter.
Pike told Roberts that there was a great lack of love in his life. Only his grandmother loved him, but when Pike was 12 years old, his grandmother died of cancer.
After this incident, he became angry and thoughts of suicide started coming to his mind.
Roberts said, "At the age of 11, she was raped by a neighbor. At the age of 17, she was also a victim of sexual violence. She said that a stranger dragged her into the woods. She experienced several periods of neglect and abuse throughout her childhood and adolescence."
Pike kept wandering from one school to another. At the age of 18, he joined the Knoxville Job Corps, which was to be a new beginning for him.
She told Roberts that her dream was to become a nurse.
Paik's lawyers had filed a 226-page document as a mercy petition and expressed hope that his execution could be postponed at the last moment. But this appeal was rejected. At the same time, human rights experts of the United Nations had also appealed to stop the hanging.
"He had hope right to the end," Roberts said.
According to him, Pike was confident that someone would understand and help him about his childhood, mental health and its impact on his decisions.
"She knew she had only two options, either the death penalty or life in prison. But she wanted a life sentence and a peaceful death," Roberts said.
Roberts described the past week as "strange and unbelievable", even though he knew the execution was to take place.
She said, "On Wednesday, I kept thinking about him the whole day. What was going on in my mind was what might be happening to him."
Roberts said he had read in the news that Pike had refused to take his last meal.
She said, "I can't even imagine what was going through her mind at that time, how she was feeling and how does one prepare themselves for that when you know you are going to die."
When Roberts learned that Pike had survived despite being given a poisonous injection, she was stunned.
"It was like watching a horror movie," he said.
Roberts further said, "I can't understand it. It seems very inhumane."
He said, "The irony is that the state was trying to kill him and then to save his life he was taken to the hospital. This whole thing is beyond comprehension."
When Roberts interviewed Christa Pike, Pike had to stay in her cell for at least 23 hours a day. On some days he was allowed to go out only for an hour's walk.
She was the only female prisoner in a death row case, so she was not allowed to live or socialize with other prisoners.
However, according to Roberts, Pike had created a routine for himself. He found solace in reading books, watching TV and writing letters to friends.
Shortly after the two met, Roberts received a hand-drawn card from Pike. In it, Pike thanked him for his behavior during the interview.
Roberts recalled, "I remember it was a butterfly-shaped card made of purple paper. Inside it she had written, 'Thank you for being nice to me, thank you for understanding and respecting me as a woman.' That's all that was written."
He added, "Yet you can't help but wonder if she had gotten help when she needed it, would she have done what she did?"
Roberts continued, "I'll never forget the woman I met. I can't deny the connection I made with the woman sitting across from me, the way she talked to me and the way she answered my questions."
She said, "He is still a human being. It was not possible that I would have met him and it would not have had any impact on me."
According to Roberts, Pike realized that he had ruined his life.
He said, "I think she knew she wasted her life. And I think she also knew she could have done a lot better things with her life, but she didn't."
