Boston, MA: A man entered a guilty plea on Friday. He was found guilty in the rape and subsequent death of a high school teacher in Massachusetts over ten years ago, during his teenage years.
This plea was made in relation to charges related to a distinct assault case involving a worker from the Department of Youth Services, which was described as “horrific and terrifying.”
Philip Chism, currently 25 years old, committed the act of strangling Colleen Ritzer, his algebra teacher, and subjecting her to numerous stab wounds using a box cutter in a toilet at Danvers High School in 2013. Subsequently, he employed a recycling bin to transport her corpse into the adjacent forest.
In the concluding remarks of the rape and murder trial, the prosecutors asserted that Ritzer had been subjected to acts of strangulation, physical assault, brutality, and violation. Chism, a resident of Danvers, received a 40-year prison sentence in 2016 for his involvement in the death of Ritzer.
Chism, a juvenile offender, appeared in Boston Juvenile Court and admitted guilt for assaulting and causing severe injuries to a DYS worker on June 2, 2014.
According to Assistant District Attorney David Bradley, Chism, who was 15 years old at the time, managed to evade the personnel at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Dorchester. He proceeded to pursue the female clinician into a designated lavatory area, where he subjected her to acts of entrapment, choking, physical assault, and physical aggression using a sharpened pencil.
In response to the judge’s inquiry on his voluntary admission to the facts presented in court by the prosecutor, Chism affirms, “That is correct, your honor.”
The victim’s absence during Chism’s change of plea in court was notable. However, in an impact statement presented by the prosecutor on her behalf, the victim made a derogatory reference to Chism as a “monster.”
Reference: Boston25 News.