Horrifying Details of the Case of Colleen Ritzer That You Might Now Be Aware Of

The most severe criminal sentence in Massachusetts is life without the chance of parole. It is a weaker form of the death sentence intended for persons guilty of First-Degree Murder. Peggie and Tom Ritzer, the parents of Colleen Ritzer, the Danvers High School teacher killed in 2013, are speaking against the bill H.1797, “An Act to Reduce Mass Incarceration.”

Many victims’ families in Massachusetts are incensed, and they are coming out to speak against the house bill. Families of homicide victims in some of the state’s most notorious murder cases were split on whether or not individuals who killed their loved ones should be granted parole.

Highlights of the Case

November 21, 2013— According to an indictment filed, a Massachusetts teenager was accused of murdering a respected high school math teacher; he brutally raped the victim in a sequence of “unspeakable acts” in a horrific incident.

Phillip Chism was a 14 years old student who was arrested and charged with the murder of Colleen Ritzer, his Danvers High School teacher, in 2013. As per Essex County prosecutors, Chism was charged with murder, aggravated rape, and armed robbery related to the heinous crime.

Horrifying Details of the Case

Ritzer’s remains were discovered on October 23 in a heavily wooded area about 50 feet from a Danvers High School athletic field. According to authorities, her throat had already been slit with a boxcutter, and she had been hit in the face.

As per court records, Chism followed Ritzer into a restroom after putting on gloves, which was seen on a school surveillance camera. He dragged her body from the bathroom in a blue recycling container on wheels, according to the documents.

According to authorities, he then returned home to change his bloodied clothing. He went to lunch at Wendy’s before watching a Woody Allen film at Hollywood Hits, a cinema not far from his Danvers home, where he lives with his mother and two younger sisters.

Both Ritzer and Chism were reported missing on the night of October 22. At 5 a.m. on October 23, Chism was arrested and charged with first-degree murder as an adult, and Ritzer’s body was discovered a short time later.

The police and prosecutors said they didn’t know if Ritzer was alive or dead until they discovered her corpse and had no grounds to suspect Chism until they saw security video of him entering the Danvers High School bathroom soon after Ritzer on the afternoon of October 22.

They claimed it was a long time after he was spotted in Topsfield. And, as community protectors, they would’ve had no option but to approach Chism as he walked alone in the middle of the night on a dark and narrow section of Route 1 near Topsfield, said MacDougall.

A knife was discovered when the police stopped Chism. According to the affidavit, a check of his bag later revealed a bloodstained box cutter.

“The girl,” Chism reportedly said when asked where the blood came from. He was also in possession of Ritzer’s credit cards and driver’s licenses, as well as a pair of blue-green women’s underwear. He first claimed that he discovered the goods at a petrol station. He later claims to have taken them out of Ritzer’s vehicle. Chism has been apprehended.

In an attempt to hide Colleen Ritzer body, she was in a “supine position covered with leaves and debris.” A sharp pointy object was used to rape her. Her throat had been slashed. A handwritten letter found beside the corpse was unfurled by a crime scene officer. “I hate you all,” it said.

In the security footage, the green recycling bin was 20 yards away from the deceased. Clothing and other personal items were strewn about, as were the blood-soaked gloves Chism wore in the video.

What prompted the investigation by the police? 

Diana Chism contacted the police in the tiny northeastern Massachusetts town where she lives with her three children after failing to contact her teenage son Phillip Chism on the campus of Danvers High School.

Then, the phone’s location was tracked with the help of his cellular phone carrier “ping”. According to authorities, it was last located near the Hollywood Hits Theater, where he had bought a movie ticket before departing.

A second “ping” location yielded no results. The news of his disappearance was widely disseminated via Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.

A Danvers police officer watched security camera footage from the high school CCTVS the next day and created a minute-by-minute chronology of what happened after the school day on October 22.

The call came at 6:34 p.m. on October 22, and it was the first in a lengthy string of contacts and old style of investigation that helped solve a case that stunned the sleepy New England town of 26,000. The mother’s frantic call was one of the first details in a police affidavit detailing the murder of Colleen Ritzer.

Inside of the Court

Later in 2015, the prosecution rested its case with painful evidence from the forensic doctor who performed Ritzer’s autopsy.

MacDougall outlined the prosecution’s hypothesis about why Chism assaulted Ritzer in a girl’s restroom at the school on October 22, 2013, for the first time in open court.

Chism, then 14, commenced the heinous crime in the restroom – strangling, rapping, and stabbing his 24-year-old math instructor — but was halted when a student entered the bathroom, according to Essex Assistant District Attorney Kate MacDougall.

According to pathologist Anna McDonald, asphyxiation and the 16 stab wounds to the neck, three of which damaged major blood arteries, were the two causes of death.

It’s impossible to identify which killed her first, but McDonald believes it was asphyxiation since the knife wounds to her neck were so severe that strangling her after stabbing her would have been too difficult.

On the other hand, McDonald believes she may have survived the strangling if she hadn’t been stabbed. Chism’s defence attorney, John Osler, used McDonald’s evidence during cross-examination to indicate to the jury that Ritzer was most likely dead by the time Chism rolled her into the woods in a recycling bin.

Chism was brought to trial as an adult. He bore capital punishment if convicted of first-degree murder. Following rulings by the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, he could not receive a life sentence without the possibility of release as a minor.

 Adults convicted of first-degree murder in Massachusetts are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release.

Do Her Friends and Colleagues Still Remember Colleen Ritzer? 

On October 22, 2013, Ritzer was just 24 years old when she was brutally murdered, apparently by a student at Danvers High School, where she was employed as a math teacher.

Her parents, Tom and Peggie, as well as her brother, Daniel, and sister, Laura, who still live in the Dascomb Roadhouse where she grew up, still miss her.

Friends and former classmates at Assumption College in Worcester, where she got her bachelor’s degree in 2011, recall Ritzer’s life and accomplishments, including her colleagues and students from Hale Middle School in Stow, Mass., where she taught for one year before coming to Danvers High School.

What about Now?

Chism could not be convicted to Life No Parole since he was a minor at the time; therefore, he was handed a 40-year term instead.

Chism will be allowed to file a petition for his release from jail as a result of this.

Regardless of how the legislature decides on H. 1797, Chism’s sentence will not be affected. Colleen Ritzer’s parents, on the other hand, wish to protect future families from the hardships they will face. They stated they would testify against H. 1797 in their first-ever TV interview.

Liz Miranda, a state representative from Boston, introduced the House bill H. 1797. If passed, the measure would provide for parole hearings for inmates after 25 years. The law would apply to all convicts in the state’s prison institutions and would be retroactive.

The Ritzers wished the killer had been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of release, but he was a minor.

“We have the impression that the state is still more concerned with the killers than with the victims and their families,” Peggie Ritzer said.

Peggie Ritzer told the media, “We haven’t, and we haven’t on purpose; we’ve been waiting for the right time to do so. And this is the right reason,” he added, “They’re putting the killer’s life ahead of the victim’s life. They are in essence saying the victim’s life doesn’t matter. And their lives mattered. Our lives matter.”

Because of the duration of Chism’s imprisonment, Colleen Ritzer’s parents believe it would be up to their other children to stand before a parole board and resist any attempt by Colleen’s killer to win release. Colleen Ritzer father had a straightforward message for Massachusetts legislators considering repealing Life No Parole:

“This is wrong. Don’t do it to the families. Don’t do it. He urged, “Think about what you are doing to the victims’ families and what they have to go through.”