A Love To Die For by Patricia Springer

On January 12, 1995, in Knoxville, Tennessee, 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer went for a walk with her friend, 18-year-old Christa Pike. Suddenly, Christa turned on Colleen, accusing her of flirting with her boyfriend. Then, the words turned to shocking blows. An enraged Christa used a box knife to cut her rival's throat and a mini meat cleaver to inflict more havoc. Half-naked, Colleen crawled through her own blood begging for her life. In the middle of the hour-long assault, a satanic symbol was carved in the dying girl's chest. And when Christa was finally done, she took a piece of Colleen's skull as a macabre souvenir. What were the dark forces that drove angelic faced Christa to commit such a savage murder and become the youngest woman ever to be put on Death Row? In this shocking expose of a case that stunned the nation, Patricia Springer takes us through a horrifying crime scene and into the heart and mind of a murderess who killed for love-and would die for it, too. (editorial review)

This book has the most gruesome photographs I have ever seen included in a true crime book.The photographs include how the victim was found half naked,her slashed throat(2x),the carvings on her stomach,her butchered back.her skull which really gives you an idea of how much she was tortured.Really really gruesome photos!!I really have no idea how the family feels about this but I would have fought to not have pictures of my family exposed to the world like that.This book was published in 2000 and I think that the trend in true crime books is now to have a lot more respect for the victims and their story.I believe true crime writers are now really targetting normal readers who read these books for the stories and maybe explanations of how the crimes occured and ways to avoid them,the psychology behind the crimes rather than readers who are trying to satify some strange sadistic interest in voyeurism.

Patricia Springer is actually a very good writer.This story included excellent information and the actual crime is told in great detail with the conversations that took place between the teenagers before,during and after the crime.Being teenagers I believe that they remembered vividly how this all transpired and this information was in the court transcripts.To explain what I mean here is a piece of the conversation.Colleen Slemmer's body had gone limp after the beating and Tadaryl Shipp and Christa Pike were trying to drag her body through the mud one more time and Christa decides to stop trying to do this saying "She's all gooey.I don't want to touch her anymore".Even details after the crime where Christa Pike informs her friend Kim that she was using the piece of skull taken from the crime scene to eat breakfast.This was a really disturbing book and not for the faint hearted.

Needless to say the details of the crime in this true crime book are fairly extensive and detailed.I wanted to read this book as it is essentially about the youngest woman on death row Christa Pike.I also wanted to find out how teenagers get to a point where they kill a friend.How they manage to convince others to join them.How they feel afterwards.What I should have known (and found out in this book) is that killers of this kind have no conscience.These teenagers especially Christa Pike was lost in a world of her own with no rules,compassion or respect for human life,even ultimately her own life.


Here is the link if you want to access some more reviews on this book'
A Love To Die For

I read this book in April 2007 and has 8 pages of photographs(gruesome).

Here are some more book details:
Mass Market Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Pinnacle (March 1, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 078601086X
ISBN-13: 978-0786010868

My Question:
Do you think that sentences imposed on teenagers(or people under 18) should be less severe than those imposed on adults who commit the same crimes?