A teenager who raped and killed his maths teacher while at school faces life in prison after being convicted. Jurors
today found Philip Chism guilty of first-degree murder in the death
Colleen Ritzer as Danvers High School in Massachusetts. The
teenager’s defence lawyers claimed he was in the midst of a psychotic
episode when he stabbed her 16 times in the neck in the women's
bathroom.
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| The victim |
Prosecutors said the schoolboy, who was 14 at the time,
used a box cutter to brutally stab the 24-year-old, before using a
recycling bin to take her body into the woods.
Once there he raped her and violated her with a wooden stick before abandoning her half-naked.
He was found guilty of first-degree murder, one count of aggravated
rape, including natural and unnatural rape and armed robbery.
Chasm, 16, was found not guilty on a second count of aggravated rape.
During
the trial jurors were shown CCTV footage of the pupil following Ritzer
into a bathroom, wearing a hood and putting on gloves.
“The only
still image that matters in this case is the image of Colleen in the
woods,” prosecutor Kate McDougall told jurors who deliberated over two
days.
