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| Tenn. Death Row Inmate Faces Trial in Attack |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 07/14/2003 |
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Christa Pike, one of two women on Tennessee's death row, is accused of trying to strangle another inmate during confusion caused by a fire allegedly set by a third inmate in August 2001. Pike, 27, is on death row for torturing and beating a woman to death when the two were Job Corps students in Knoxville in 1995. She could receive an additional sentence of 25-40 years if convicted of attempted murder in the latest case, though the additional time would largely be academic unless her death sentence is set aside by an appeals court. A trial on the attempted murder charge is set for Nov. 3. Inmates and correctional officers told investigators that a friend of Pike's distracted 32-year-old Patricia Jones just before Pike attacked Jones from behind, The Tennessean newspaper reported. They said the friend then held the struggling Jones down while Pike choked her with a shoelace. Jones, who is serving a life sentence for murder, regained consciousness after a correctional officer pulled Pike off her. She was transferred later that day to the Mark Luttrell Correctional Center in Memphis. The incident involved some of Tennessee's most well-known female criminals. Pike's friend is Natasha Cornett, 24, a self-described Satan worshipper serving three life sentences for the shooting deaths of a Knoxville couple and their 6-year-old daughter. Cornett and some other Kentucky teenagers met the Lillelid family at a rest stop near Greeneville in 1997. The couple's 2-year-old son also was shot, but he lived. Correction Department investigators concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge Cornett with helping Pike attack Jones. The inmate accused of setting the fire is Jennifer Szostecki, 20, who is serving a nine-year sentence for a 2000 robbery in Nashville. She now faces an aggravated arson charge in the attack on Jones, which could add 15-25 years to her sentence. Szostecki allegedly started a fire in her cell, causing prison officers to put Pike, Cornett and Jones in the same recreation 'cage'' without handcuffs when inmates were evacuated because of the fire. In a transcript of a phone call Pike made to her mother, she boasted about the attack on Jones. |
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