A man convicted of raping and killing a Massachusetts high school teacher more than a decade ago when he was a teenager pleaded guilty Friday to charges related to a separate “horrific and terrifying” assault case involving an employee. of the Department of Youth Services.
Philip Chism, now 25, was just 14 when strangled Colleen Ritzer, his algebra teacher, and stabbed her repeatedly with a box cutter in the Danvers High School bathroom in 2013. He then used a trash can to take her body to nearby woods.
During closing arguments in his rape and murder trial, prosecutors said Ritzer was “stripped, beaten, brutalized and raped.” Chism, of Danvers, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in 2016 in connection with Ritzer’s death.
Appearing in Boston Juvenile Court, Chism, accused of being a juvenile delinquent, pleaded guilty to attacking and seriously injuring a DYS employee on June 2, 2014.
Assistant District Attorney David Bradley alleged that Chism, who was 15 at the time, eluded staff at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Dorchester and followed the doctor into a bathroom, where he held her down, choked, beat and attacked her with a sharpened pencil. .
“At some point, the 29-year-old doctor walked down the hallway and entered the bathroom inside the staff locker room. Chism took off his sandals, which would have made noise on the floor, before moving toward the hallway in a crouch to keep him out of the employee’s view. Chism had a pencil in his hand and opened the locker room door. When the doctor came out of the bathroom, Chism looked at her from about a foot away,” Bradley told the court. “He put both hands around her neck and began to choke her while pushing her against the concrete wall of the bathroom. The victim was unable to scream because Chism’s hands grabbed her throat tightly. When she managed to remove her right hand from her neck, Chism repeatedly punched her in the face, head and jaw. She screamed as other staff rushed to help her and restrain him. The victim escaped from the bathroom short of breath, with injuries to his neck, face, jaw and back. Chism began repeatedly shouting, ‘I’m going to kill them all.’”
When asked by the judge whether he was voluntarily admitting the facts presented in court by a prosecutor, Chism responded, “That is correct, your honor.”
The victim did not appear in court for Chism’s change of plea, but in an impact statement read by the prosecutor on her behalf, she called Chism a “monster.”
“After this horrific and terrifying event, I remembered the bruises on my face, around my body and on my neck,” the prosecutor read in the statement. “His face still haunts me, that lack of emotion, ready to kill… True monsters exist in this world. Philip Chism is a monster.”
Chism Victim Impact Statement per Boston Table 25 on Scribd
A charitable institution, the Colleen Ritzer Memorial Fund, was founded after his death. The fund awards hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants and scholarships to future teachers.
Ritzer, known for always having a smile on her face, loved teaching and loved life. She graduated from Assumption College in 2011 and was an honor student at Andover High School, graduating in 2007.
At the time of her death, her family said in a statement: “We are mourning the tragic death of our incredible, beautiful daughter and sister. Everyone who knew and loved Colleen knew her passion for teaching and how she guided each of her students.”
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