It\u2019s been thirteen years since 14-year-old Philip Chism went from a quiet high school freshman to a murderer in one of the most brutal school killings in Massachusetts history. In the aftermath of the October 22, 2013 murder, the actions of the teen who\u2019d only just moved to the state and started at Danvers High School that fall were as inexplicable as they were evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chism had arrived at Danvers High School early that Tuesday morning, prepared to commit the perfect murder. According to investigators, Chism packed a ski mask, gloves, box cutter, and three sets of clothing in his backpack, a clear indication of intent and premeditation. The teen remained quiet and composed throughout the school day. After class, Ritzer, 24, told Chism to stay behind and offer some extra help. She had no idea what waited for her that afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A fellow student told investigators she\u2019d seen the two of them talking about China in the classroom after Ritzer\u2019s class ended. When Chism and Ritzer emerged from the classroom, the student said, she heard Ritzer mention Tennessee, where Chism and his family had recently moved from and the teen\u2019s expression changed. He began talking to himself and \u201cgot really upset,\u201d the witness told investigators. The student would later describe Chism as appearing \u201cspaced out,\u201d \u201cfreaking out and having an episode.\u201d Chism then followed Ritzer, who headed to a bathroom, where a security camera captured her walking down the hallway to a second-floor girls\u2019 bathroom. A few moments later, Chism pulled up his red hood and put on gloves before following her into the bathroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next seventeen minutes, Chism savagely attacked his teacher from behind. He slit her throat with a box cutter, stabbed her sixteen times in the neck, and raped her. During the attack, a female student peeked into the bathroom after the door opened slightly. The witness later told investigators that she saw someone standing at the end of the hallway with their back towards her and a pile of clothing on the floor. The student thought that someone had \u201caccidentally opened the door and was changing\u201d and left without alerting anyone. She had walked away from a murder scene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chism remained inside the bathroom long enough to clean himself up and change his clothes. Security footage shows him leaving the bathroom moments later, calm and purposeful, dressed in a different shirt. He walked to the school parking lot, returned inside two minutes later, changed again, and reentered the bathroom pushing a large green recycling bin. At 3:22 p.m., Chism left the bathroom wearing a white T-shirt and a black mask, dragging the recycling bin and Ritzer\u2019s body down the hallway and into an elevator. He wheeled it outside and toward the tree line behind the school, found evidence that he had sexually assaulted Ritzer again with a tree branch and that he left her body uncovered except for a pair of socks, her underwear, and a loose-fitting hooded sweatshirt, which was piled with leaves. Police also found a folded piece of paper with three words written on it in block letters near Ritzer\u2019s body stating \u201cI hate you all.\u201d The green recycling bin was next to her body, along with the bloodstained gloves and pieces of Ritzer\u2019s clothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That evening, Chism\u2019s mother reported him missing, and Danvers police began a search for him. Cell phone records helped officers determine that Chism was at a local movie theater and He\u2019d used Ritzer\u2019s credit card to purchase a ticket earlier in the day. Officers found Chism walking on a highway just before midnight the next morning. The teen\u2019s hands were stained with dried blood. Inside his backpack were Ritzer\u2019s credit cards, driver\u2019s license, and a pair of her underwear, along with the box cutter he used to kill her, which still had her blood on the blade. Chism told investigators that the blood was Ritzer\u2019s and that \u201cshe was in the woods.\u201d \u201cThe girl\u201d and the \u201cwoods\u201d would be the only clues that investigators got from Chism as they questioned him about Ritzer\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until 3 a.m. that officers found the scene of the crime, a shallow clearing a short distance from the cross-country path where Ritzer\u2019s body lay under a blanket of leaves. Her throat had been slit, her clothing was torn, and a branch was stuck in her body. The image of her battered body, investigators later described, was one of the most disturbing they\u2019d ever seen. Investigators collected evidence from the school and surrounding woods, including fingerprints, blood patterns, and the surveillance timeline, to construct an airtight case. A grand jury indicted Chism on charges of first-degree murder, aggravated rape, and armed robbery. In court filings, prosecutors cited the murder weapon packed from home, the gloves and mask, the multiple outfit changes, and Chism\u2019s calm, calculating behavior after the murder as evidence of his premeditation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurors saw surveillance footage in court, frame by frame, and watched as Ritzer walked to her death and Chism moved methodically after her. The medical examiner testified that Ritzer might have been alive during Chism\u2019s second sexual assault of her in the woods, which may have been when she was mutilated with a tree branch. Chism\u2019s defense argued that he suffered from mental illness, and Chism\u2019s parents claimed a family history of psychiatric problems, but the court found that the teen was competent to stand trial and knew what he was doing. In February 2016, the jury found Chism guilty of all charges, and he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 40 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The violence didn\u2019t stop even once Chism was incarcerated. In June 2014, while in a youth detention center awaiting trial, Chism followed a female staff member into a bathroom and pinned her to the wall. He then attempted to strangle her and stabbed her with a pencil. The staff member survived, and the attack was disturbingly similar to the Ritzer murder. In 2024, Chism pleaded guilty to attempted murder and kidnapping for that attack and was sentenced to 17\u201320 more years, to be served concurrently with his life sentence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2025, thirteen years after killing Ritzer, Chism requested a new trial, arguing that the judge should have allowed evidence from brain scans that showed signs of mental illness. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court threw out Chism\u2019s appeal and upheld his original conviction. Colleen Ritzer\u2019s family said the ruling \u201callows us to finally grieve.\u201d \u201cWhile true justice can never be served, we are grateful that this decision brings some peace,\u201d the statement read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s been thirteen years since 14-year-old Philip Chism went from a quiet high school freshman to a murderer in one of the most brutal school killings in Massachusetts history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186664079,"featured_media":1162081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"thoughtcatalog_call_to_action":"","tc_post_redirect":"","thoughtcatalog_is_sponsored_content":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[433445945],"tags":[603230245],"anchortext":[],"posttemplate":[],"adcampaign":[],"coauthors":[603229555],"class_list":["post-1162070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spooky","tag-true-crime"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/chism-cctv-two-views.remini-enhanced.jpg","author_meta":null,"photo_credit":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186664079"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162070"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162095,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162070\/revisions\/1162095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1162081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162070"},{"taxonomy":"anchortext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/anchortext?post=1162070"},{"taxonomy":"posttemplate","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posttemplate?post=1162070"},{"taxonomy":"adcampaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/adcampaign?post=1162070"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thoughtcatalog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1162070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}