If you thought your last Hinge date was a disaster, congratulations—you've never been matched with an alleged murderer.
Enter Christa Pike, Tennessee's own contribution to the "why is everyone on this app" discourse, and a name that's been bouncing around true crime corners for decades.
Quick refresher for those who don't mainline Dateline: Pike was convicted in 1996 for the torture and murder of fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer.
The crime was so brutal it basically broke the local news cycle for a generation.
She's been on death row ever since, and yes, she is the only woman currently sitting on Tennessee's death row.
Pike, now in her late forties, reportedly made a TikTok account from prison.
A death row inmate allegedly vibing on the same app your niece uses to post thirst traps.
The account got taken down fast, but not before the internet did what the internet does: screenshot everything, meme it into oblivion, and start a thousand Reddit threads with titles like "AITA for thinking this is fake?" (You're not, bestie.
But also, who knows.) The commentary has split cleanly into two camps.
Camp One: "This is a gross violation of victims' families and should never have happened." Camp Two: "Honestly, if I were locked up for 28 years, I'd probably also try to go viral.
No judgment." Camp Two is wrong, obviously, but at least they're honest about their chaos.
What's actually fascinating—and by fascinating I mean deeply unsettling—is how Pike has become a kind of grim folk hero in certain online circles.
There are people who genuinely believe she's innocent because they watched a 45-minute YouTube video by a guy named Chad who owns three swords.
The true crime industrial complex has officially eaten itself.
Meanwhile, actual legal experts are like, "She confessed.
To multiple people." The appeals have gone nowhere.
The Supreme Court has politely declined to touch this one.
The real takeaway here isn't about Pike at all.
We've built a culture where a woman convicted of one of the most heinous crimes in Tennessee history can get more engagement than a small business's Instagram.
Where "true crime" has stopped meaning "let's understand evil" and started meaning "let's make evil into a personality." And where a death row inmate's alleged social media presence becomes a two-day news cycle before we all scroll to the next thing.
So no, you're not the asshole for being weirded out.
You're the asshole if you're in the comments asking for her Cash App.
Pike's case is a reminder that the internet will monetize literally anything, including a woman who should probably never see the light of day.
The fact that we're even having this conversation proves we've lost the plot.
Final Thoughts
And maybe, just maybe, swipe left on true crime TikTok for a week.