A jury has found that 16-year-old Philip Chism “was sane” when he stalked, raped, robbed and murdered young algebra teacher Colleen Ritzer at his high school in 2013.
The Massachusetts teenager also ‘unnaturally’ assaulted Ritzer’s corpse with a tree limb after he dumped the victim in a wooded area adjacent to the campus.
Jurors, however, dismissed that specific criminal count against him as well as his insanity defense, following ten hours of deliberation.
Chism, who was 14 at the time of the brutal “premeditated” attack (see photo show here), was typically unemotional as his guilty verdict was read aloud yesterday.
He will be sentenced as an adult later in the month, but is expected to return to court this week to be separately tried for attempting to kill a female corrections officer in 2014.
That latter assault occurred at the youth detention center where Philip Chism was being held while awaiting trial for the shocking crimes he perpetrated against schoolteacher Colleen Ritzer.
As with that first known victim, the homicidal teen had followed his target into a ladies’ bathroom, then began punching and stabbing the young woman, before other guards heard the commotion and came to her rescue.
@EponymousRox
Trial Verdicts, Sexual Homicide
