On Oct. 22, 2013, Philip Chism, then 14-years-old, followed 24-year-old high school math teacher Colleen Ritzer into a bathroom at Danvers High School in Danvers, Mass. He proceeded to rape her, then stab her repeatedly before dumping her body in the woods behind the school. When Colleen Ritzer’s body was found, she was nearly naked with her legs propped up and spread open, a tree branch lodged inside of her.
This gruesome tale led to Philip Chism’s Dec. 15 conviction in the murder of his math teacher. It took a jury of eight men and four women ten hours to come back with guilty verdicts on three of the four charges leveled against him: first-degree murder, aggravated natural rape (which took place in the bathroom), and armed robbery. Jurors could not come to consensus on the fourth charge, aggravated unnatural rape, which is alleged to have taken place in the woods after Ritzer was murdered.
Chism was emotionless as he learned of his fate.
The crux of Chism’s trial was not whether or not he committed the crimes for which he has been sentenced. The police found him with his math teacher’s ID, her credit cards, her underwear, and a bloody box cutter. Surveillance footage from Danvers High School damned him by capturing images of him putting on the gloves and carrying the box cutter, as well as later footage of him rolling his math teacher’s body out of the school in a recycling bin. Chism even plead guilty to the murder.
The question is: was Chism legally sane when he committed the crime?
Chism’s defense argues that he was in the throes of psychosis when he murdered his math teacher, taking orders from a voice in his head that he could not ignore. Prosecutors, however, believe that Chism isn’t anything more than a malicious, destructive teenager faking a mental illness after being caught.
This is the most significant aspect of Chism’s trial, as there has never been any real dispute over whether or not he killed Colleen Ritzer.
The determination of whether Chism was legally insane at the time of the murder will decide whether or not he serves his time in the state prison system or in a psychiatric hospital. Chism’s defense attorney, Denise Regan, has stated that Chism was a kind, smart, and good-natured 14-year-old uprooted from his Tennessee home and moved across the country to a place where he knew no one and “had nowhere to hide.” She pointed to Dr. Richard Dudley, the defense’s expert witness, who has decades of experience in evaluating children and teens with severe mental illness. Dudley believes Chism had been hearing voices since he was 10. Another psychiatrist who had been treating Chism this fall agreed, diagnosing him as a psychotic and a depressive, even prescribing him anti-psychotic medication.
Conversely, prosecutors have argued that the surveillance footage from inside Danvers High School showed that Colleen Ritzer’s murder was premeditated. Prosecutor Kate MacDougall told the jury that Chism knew right from wrong and could make a determination as to what was right and what was wrong at the time he committed the murder. “The only still image that matters in this case is the image of Colleen Ritzer in the woods,” MacDougall said. “There is not one single person in this courtroom who wants to believe that a 14-year-old boy could have done this and not be crazy. But doing something so awful does not make you crazy.”
Chism is being tried as an adult. He faces life in prison with the possibility of parole between 15 and 25 years on the murder conviction. On the aggravated natural rape conviction, he is eligible for parole after 15 years. The presiding judge has the discretion on determining whether or not Chism serves his sentences consecutively or concurrently.
