Philip Chism is expected to appear a Boston juvenile court Wednesday, a day after being found guilty for the murder and rape Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer, on allegations he attacked a woman inside a Dorchester juvenile detention facility, the Boston Globe reports.
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Chism’s lawyers admitted he killed Ritzer, but said he suffered from severe mental illness.
Philip Chism, 16, was also found guilty of raping Danvers High teacher Colleen Ritzer in the high school bathroom and stealing her underwear, but not guilty of raping her in the woods outside the school.
Video shown at trial showed Chism put on gloves and a hoodie and follow his teacher into a school bathroom on October 22, 2013.
“This moment belongs to Colleen Ritzer”, Essex District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said. He was acquitted of a second aggravated rape charge.
The defense conceded that Chism killed Ritzer but presented an insanity defense last week.
Tried as an adult, Chism can be sentenced to life in prison.
They continue to work to ensure their daughter and sister’s legacy lives on, having set up a scholarship in Ritzer’s name and organizing an annual 5K walk/run to celebrate the life of the dear educator who described herself on social media as a “math teacher often too excited about the topics I’m teaching”.
Defense attorneys argued Chism was insane with previously un-diagnosed early-onset schizophrenia when he committed the crimes. The Colleen E. Ritzer Memorial Scholarship Fund has given out thousands of dollars in educational help to high school students in Danvers and Andover. Another student who also stayed late that day testified that Ritzer tried to engage Chism – a student who had recently moved to MA – in talk about how his new community compared with his old town of Clarksville, Tennessee.
Jurors deliberated a little over three hours Monday in the trial of Philip Chism, charged in the 2013 killing of Colleen Ritzer, his algebra teacher at Danvers High School. She was just 24, and Chism was only 14.
Chism then tossed Ritzer’s remains in a recycling bin and wheeled it out back of the school, where he dumped the beloved teacher’s body in the woods.
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“There can never be true justice for the crime that was committed”, he said. The district attorney was somber, so too the family of Colleen Ritzer.
