Video shows teen dragging recycling bin that was found next to murdered teacher’s body
Philip Chism’s fingerprint was found on the bin.
Surveillance footage presented in court Friday showed Philip Chism dragging a heavy recycling bin that was later found near his murdered teacher’s body.
The video showed Chism, who is charged with killing his 24-year-old math teacher, Colleen Ritzer, moving about the nearly empty school for about 90 minutes.
He followed Ritzer into the bathroom before emerging minutes later, his gloved hand bright red. He ran down the hallway and retrieved a recycling bin from Ritzer’s classroom. The 14-year-old spent 6 minutes in that bathroom. When he left, he needed two hands to pull the now-heavier bin.
Prosecutors introduced the footage captured at Danvers High School on Oct. 22, 2013, the day Ritzer was raped and murdered after school. She was found early the next morning in a wooded area nearby. Chism has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, rape and robbery.
Chism’s fingerprint was found on the bin’s lid. In the video, he’s wearing the yellow backpack later found near Ritzer’s body, his school ID placed neatly on top.
But defense attorneys aren’t contesting the evidence. Instead, they say Chism did all he’s accused of in a psychotic break that had been developing for years. The defense is expected to describe his actions as the irrational decisions of a mentally ill teenage boy.
In the video, which was recorded from about 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. that day, Chism’s movements are captured as he goes in and out of the school, at one point barefoot, and changes his clothes several times before walking out in the shorts and black shirt he was arrested in hours later.
For the first time Friday, jurors saw a photo of Ritzer’s body as it was found in the woods, though it was not shown to the gallery. Her shirt was pushed up near her neck. Her pants and underwear had been removed, legs bent and spread. There was a deep cut on her neck that exposed ligaments and her trachea.
Some jurors couldn’t even open the manila folder all the way to look at the photo.
The stick allegedly used to violate Ritzer’s body in the woods was held up by the trooper who pulled it from her. It was three feet long.
A teacher and two of Chism’s friends also testified Friday, describing him as a quiet, cordial kid. Gilberto Perez, 16, had three classes with Chism, including Ritzer’s math class.
Earlier in the day, the pair had chatted in the back row in robotics class. But by the last period math class, Chism was withdrawn. He wouldn’t help with the group work he and Perez were doing. He just doodled in his notebook, Perez said.
Ritzer asked Chism to stay after class.
More than an hour later, after that meeting with Ritzer, Ramci Escorcia, another friend, ran into him. He was visibly scared and sweating, Escorcia said.
Escorcia had never seen his friend like that. Chism said he’d meet him on the soccer field for practice.
He never showed up.
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