Prosecutors say math teacher’s murder was a “sexually-motivated’’ attack by Philip Chism
The prosecution has rested its case against the 16-year-old.
When Philip Chism followed his math teacher into the girls’ bathroom at Danvers High School, he was a rapist and premeditated killer who targeted his 24-year-old teacher in a “sexually-motivated’’ attack, prosecutors said Monday after resting their case against the teenager.
Chism, now 16, is charged with stabbing Ritzer to death in that bathroom, raping her, stealing her credit cards and underwear, and then dragging her into the woods outside the school.
In the woods, he violated Ritzer with a tree branch that was stained with her blood, investigators say.
Essex County prosecutors rested their case after seven days and 36 witnesses Monday, disputing the defense’s premise that Chism was a teenager experiencing a spontaneous psychotic break
Chism’s defense attorneys asked the judge to dismiss the robbery and unnatural rape charge for the use of the tree branch, arguing that Ritzer wasn’t alive in the woods, so the act of violating her wasn’t legally rape. Judge David A. Lowy rejected the defense’s request for dismissal on the robbery charge, but will decide Tuesday morning on the unnatural rape count.
Assistant district attorney Kate MacDougall argued that, despite the change in location and lapse in time between the slashing in the bathroom and the rape in the woods, it was all part of Chism’s plan. That plan that was interrupted after 11 minutes when another student came briefly into the girl’s bathroom, MacDougall said.
“He didn’t get to finish what he started in the bathroom,’’ MacDougall told the court, out of view of the jury. “He finished it in the woods.’’
Ritzer wasn’t just dumped among the dense trees, she was posed and “displayed’’ with legs spread open and her shirt pulled up to expose her breasts, MacDougall said.
Defense attorneys aren’t challenging the horrifying acts Chism is accused of. But they say he didn’t plan any of it, despite bringing a box cutter to school and putting gloves on before following Ritzer into the bathroom.
Instead, they say, Chism suffered a psychotic break on Oct. 22, 2013, after Ritzer asked him to stay after school and questioned him about his recently departed hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee.
Prosecutors, however, challenged the critical assertion that Chism was asked to stay after school by his victim.
Colleen Ritzer
Sarah Giaquinta, a fellow Danvers High School math teacher, testified that she chatted with Ritzer after school the day of the murder. Chism and another girl were inside Ritzer’s nearby classroom.
When Giaquinta asked Ritzer if she had to get back to class and her students, the slain teacher said no.
“I don’t know why he’s here,’’ Giaquinta recalled her saying.
Dr. Anne McDonald, the forensic pathologist who conducted Ritzer’s autopsy, said Ritzer likely died within minutes of suffering 16 stab and slash wounds to her neck, though she also showed signs of strangulation.
One group of cuts were so deep, the doctor said, it nicked her spine.
In his cross examination of McDonald, defense attorney John Osler called it a “frenzied attack.’’
Ritzer’s mother shielded her eyes when a projector displayed a diagram of those 16 stab wounds for the courtroom. Across the aisle, Chism’s mother wrapped her arms around her body.
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