The Roman Colosseum made violence a public spectacle, displaying the condemned and the power of the state. Today, the courtroom and the media arena play that role: crime, claims of mental illness, government drugging of its population, expert testimony, and punishment become spectacles for the public to watch and judge. The spectacle can obscure the questions: what happened before mental-health treatment began, and which parts of government failed?

Understanding what led to a murder does not excuse it. It can show whether the systems responsible for treatment, oversight, and public safety failed, and whether the public can see who was accountable.

Lindsay Clancy’s trial shows how treatment histories and expert testimony can shape a public account of criminal responsibility. In four months, five providers prescribed 13 psychiatric medications to Clancy. The defense argued that the shifting regimen of psychiatric drugs worsened Clancy’s condition and impaired Clancy’s reasoning. Prosecutors called Dr. Gregory Saathoff, a senior psychiatrist with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), who testified that Clancy had the capacity to know right from wrong. Saathoff had no problem with the conflicting diagnosis and cocktail of mind-altering drugs. Experts failed to agree on Clancy’s diagnosis and psychosis. The jury deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial.

As influencers and the media pulled the crowd into opposing camps, the treatment system behind Clancy’s case receded from view, though it reaches far beyond one courtroom. In 2024, nearly one in five U.S. adults took at least one psychiatric drug. Why care? Mass killings and family murder-suicides are surging, while millions of people take psychiatric drugs that may put themselves and others at risk.

After Pike survived Tennessee’s failed execution, the public has an opportunity to confront behavioral health’s ties to government and work on reform that protects public safety and curbs killings.

At Pike’s 1996 trial, forensic psychologist Dr. Eric Engum testified about his evaluation of Pike. Vanderbilt psychiatrist Dr. William Bernet testified that the crime contained “satanic elements,” but characterized the elements as adolescents “dabbling in Satanism,” not an organized occult practice. A pentagram had been carved into Colleen Slemmer’s chest. Co-defendant Tadaryl Shipp testified that he carved the pentagram because he “felt like it.” Bernet had reviewed reports and statements, but had not spoken with Pike or the other witnesses. Bernet also acknowledged that Bernet lacked enough information to opine on whether Pike acted intentionally or with premeditation.

The same psychiatrist who testified in a death-penalty case later became part of a case establishing a legal limit on families’ ability to sue an expert after losing custody of their child. A father sued Bernet, Vanderbilt University, and others, alleging that their actions interfered with his parental relationship. In 2005, the court ruled that an adverse expert witness could not be sued for relevant testimony or participation in custody proceedings. The court reasoned that cross-examination and the fact-finder, not a later lawsuit by the losing party, should test expert evidence. The ruling did not determine whether Bernet’s testimony was right or wrong; it established civil immunity for relevant expert testimony.

Psychiatric experts can influence decisions with profound consequences, while the law protects experts from certain civil suits over relevant testimony. How well can cross-examination expose error when expert opinions carry authority, records are incomplete, or an expert has never examined the person being judged?

Pike’s record also raises an accountability question: what can the public know when the available accounts of treatment conflict? In post-conviction proceedings, Pike’s mother testified that Pike took a Tylenol overdose in third grade, received outpatient psychiatric care, and was prescribed medication that made Pike feel worse. The published opinion does not name the psychiatrist or the medication. Yet a later evaluation reportedly says Pike had no psychiatric medication before incarceration. The available sources do not resolve the discrepancy.

Pike’s lawyers also describe child-welfare involvement: Pike’s removal from home at 13 and a three-month residential placement after an assault by Pike’s mother’s boyfriend.

The court record says Pike spent about a year at a North Carolina juvenile facility called “Swannoa.” After returning, Pike became interested in Job Corps. Pike arrived at Knoxville Job Corps in fall 1994.

On January 12, 1995, Pike and Tadaryl Shipp murdered fellow Job Corps student Colleen Slemmer. Shadolla Peterson was also charged in the killing. Police reported that the three had some association with the occult and investigated satanic worship among Job Corps students. Investigators said a pentagram had been cut into Slemmer’s chest. After the killing, investigators recovered a piece of Slemmer’s skull; a Satanic Bible and an altar were reportedly found in Shipp’s dorm room.

Both the psychiatrist and the police chief involved in the case downplayed the satanic connection. Bernet described the crime as adolescents “dabbling in Satanism.” Police Chief Phil Keith said there was no evidence the murder itself was satanic or ritualistic, describing it instead as a love-triangle killing.

The question of accountability extends beyond expert testimony to the federal center’s oversight of student safety. In the week after the murder, the Associated Press reported a history of assaults, rapes, and other violent incidents at or involving the Knoxville center since 1991. The center’s deputy director said Job Corps was not a detention facility. A national deputy director said the national office was scrutinizing the center.

The Knoxville Job Corps center later closed permanently following the murder, amid community concerns about the crime.

Reports of violence preceded Slemmer’s murder, and the Knoxville center closed within months afterward. What did its operators and federal overseers know about student safety and reported occult activity, and what did they do before and after the murder? Those questions demand scrutiny of the administrative state.

Behavioral-health evaluations, diagnoses, prescriptions, monitoring, and records may later shape court decisions about competence and criminal responsibility. Records may be incomplete and withheld, yet expert opinions carry weight.

After Pike survived Tennessee’s failed execution, the public may have the opportunity now to confront behavioral health’s ties to government and demand reform that protects public safety, obtain full psychiatric records to help curb killings.  Maybe God spared Pike’s life so humanity could focus on who exactly is in the arena with the lions, and look more closely not only at the execution system, but also at state powers and the worst actors within who abuse and harm children.

The administrative state’s response is very revealing: bring back the electric chair, saying it would deliver justice swiftly.

Electric chair, lethal injections, firing squads, a colosseum with lions: the spectacle should not obscure the question of who exercises the state’s power over life and death, and how the public can hold that power accountable.

U.S. spending on mental-health and substance-use-disorder treatment reached $139.6 billion in 2021.

References: JOB CORPS

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R47208
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-117hhrg44535/pdf/CHRG-117hhrg44535-add8.pdf

AbleChild is a 501(3) C nonprofit organization that has recently co-written landmark legislation in Tennessee, setting a national precedent for transparency and accountability in the intersection of mental health, pharmaceutical practices, and public safety.