Colleen Slemmer: “Botched Execution” | MURDERISH Ep. 219

On January 13th 1995, a facilities worker at the University of Tennessee’s agricultural campus was performing routine maintenance when he was struck by the unmistakable odor of decomposition. What appeared to be a decaying animal from far away led to a gruesome discovery as the UT employee drew closer. It was the mangled body of a young woman, later identified as 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. 

Just three months earlier, Colleen had enrolled as a student at the Knoxville Job Corps center, a federally-funded vocational training program for disadvantaged youth. No one even had a chance to report Colleen missing before she was found beaten and stabbed in a secluded section of the UT campus that neighbored the Job Corps grounds.

Colleen Slemmer’s murder more than three decades ago has cast a dark shadow over East Tennessee that never went away. Her case would lead to a botched execution three decades later.

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