Murder on School Grounds: The Colleen Ritzer Case

At Danvers High, a beloved math teacher and the new kid mysteriously vanish after class. And police uncover something more shocking than anyone imagined.

In this episode of Murder U, we examine the 2013 murder of 24-year-old Colleen Ritzer — a teacher who inspired her students and was loved by everyone who knew her. What began as two missing-person reports soon exposed a crime so disturbing it left an entire community searching for answers.

We trace the events from Colleen’s final class to the discovery that shattered Danvers High, the evidence that broke the case open, and the trial that forced Massachusetts to confront one of the darkest crimes ever committed on school grounds.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tuesday, October twenty second, twenty thirteen, the final bell rings
at Danvers High most students and teachers leave for the day.
A young math teacher enters a second floor restroom. Moments later,
a man wearing a hoodie walks into the bathroom. The
next morning, Colleen Ritzer's body is found in the woods
behind the school, the victim of a heinous crime committed

(00:22):
by an unlikely suspect that you'll be Hey, everyone, I'm
your host, Mattie. Hope you liked last week's Halloween episode,
The Scream Killers the murder of Cassie Joe Stoddart. Because
of you, our true crime family keeps growing. We just
hit eleven thousand likes on TikTok. Some of our past

(00:43):
stories are back in the news, so we'll be re
releasing a few favorites and starting now, will be covering
the biggest cases as they break. This week's story is
unbelievable murder on school grounds, The Colleen Ritzer Case. Twenty

(01:19):
four year old Colleen Ritzer was working her dream job
as a high school math teacher when she was murdered
just a few feet from the classroom where she inspired
so many students. She was the kind of teacher who
went out of her way to help students, which is
one of the reasons this case is so shocking. Colleen
Ritzer was twenty four, a second year math teacher who

(01:40):
kept her life close to home. She chose to stay
with her parents and younger siblings a short drive from
Danvers High because being near them mattered as much as
the work she loved. Most days, she split her time
between family routines in the classroom, pouring her energy into
students and the next day's lessons. She built her life
around simple routines, preparation and the kids in her classroom.

(02:04):
Lessons were orderly, explanations were clear, and when the bell rang,
she stayed for the one on one help that made
anxious students breathe a sigh of relief. Colleagues observed the
same steady pattern, a young teacher who arrived early, stayed late,
and kept her focus on what tomorrow's class would need
that fall. The second month of the school year moved

(02:27):
at its usual pace. Tuesday meant a full slate of
math classes. Between periods, she answered last minute questions at
her classroom door and checked on students who needed extra help.
On October twenty second, twenty thirteen, Colleen followed her usual routine.
The last teaching period ended at one fifty five pm,

(02:48):
and the building gradually emptied. She stayed on the second
floor to help some students after class. Colleen kept in
regular contact with her family, often updating them on how
her day was going and when she planned to return home. However,
that afternoon, they didn't hear from her. Their texts went unanswered,
so they reached out to her friends, but no one

(03:09):
had seen her. When she didn't come home, they started
to worry, and she wasn't the only person who didn't
come home that day. When Colleen didn't come home on
the evening of October twenty second, her family contacted friends
and colleagues. They called the staff who had stayed late
at Danvers High and started checking the hallways and classrooms.

(03:29):
Principal Sue Ambroseovitch saw that Colleen's car was still in
the lot, but there was no sign of her. Her
parents then called the police and reported her missing. That night,
investigators discovered that a student from Danvers High was also missing,
fourteen year old freshman Philip Chisholm, one of Colleen's students,
hadn't returned home after school. His mother, Diana, reported him

(03:54):
missing and went to the station to file a report. Suddenly,
the police were dealing with two missing persons connected to
the same school. Theories swirled. Had someone slipped into the
building that afternoon. With two people missing from the same school,
no one knew what had happened inside Danvers High that afternoon.
Through the night, the search for miss Ritzer intensified. In

(04:18):
the early morning hours of October twenty third, investigators pushed
into the woods behind the school. That's where they found
Colleen's body, dragged from the building and hidden beneath a
layer of leaves. She had been brutally attacked, and the
scene showed signs of sexual staging. The discovery left one
haunting question. Where was Philip Chisholm. The answer would shock

(04:41):
the community even more. Police had already found him even
before Colleen's body was found. Police had located Philip Chisholm
laid on October twenty second. Officers tracked his phone signal
toward the Hollywood Hits Theater on Endicott Street. Employees remembered
the teen buying a ticket earlier in the afternoon, then

(05:02):
leaving Immediately after the movie, police issued a lookout alert
with Philip's description. Not long after, an officer spotted him
walking along Route one in Topsfield, a neighboring town north
of Danvers. He was detained without incident and placed under arrest.
At first, it seemed like the successful recovery of a

(05:23):
missing teenager. However, when the officers searched Chisholm's backpack, they
made a disturbing discovery. Inside were items that immediately raised
alarms Colleen Ritzer's belongings, along with a bloody box cutter
and a change of clothes. Detectives also recovered his and
Colleen's smashed phones hidden in a woodpile near the movie theater.

(05:46):
At the same time, Officer Stephen Baldassarre was reviewing the
school's surveillance footage. The sequence was chilling. Colleen was seen
leaving her classroom and entering a restroom on the second floor.
Moments later, Philip stepped into the hallway, looked both ways,
then went back into the classroom. He soon came out again,

(06:08):
wearing gloves and a hooded sweatshirt as he followed her
into the restroom. After eleven minutes, he exited the bathroom. Later,
separate footage showed him wheeling a large recycling bin down
the corridor toward an exit, the same one discovered in
the woods. By the following morning, investigators were piecing together
what had happened. What began as two missing person cases

(06:32):
had revealed an unthinkable crime. The student who seemed to
have vanished alongside his teacher was not another victim. He
was the prime suspect in her murder. Philip Chisholm was
born in Tennessee in nineteen ninety nine, the middle of
three children. He grew up in Clarksville, where he was
known for his love of soccer and time spent with friends.

(06:53):
When his parents marriage ended, the divorce split the family apart.
Philip moved north with his mother and siblings, settling in Danvers, Massachusetts,
in the months before his freshman year. By October twenty thirteen,
he was still adjusting to a new school and a
new town. That afternoon's final math period passed without incident.

(07:15):
Philip sat quietly, more focused on sketching in his notebook
than on the lesson. He didn't cause any disruption, but
he also didn't participate much in the class work. After
class ended, Philip remained in Colleen's room, talking with her
and another student about math and China. During the conversation,
Colleen mentioned Tennessee and asked Philip about living there. He

(07:39):
became visibly upset. At first she didn't notice, but once
she realized he was angry, she quickly changed the subject.
The other student later told police they also saw Philip
murmuring to himself at his desk. Later, after that student
had left for the day, Philip followed his teacher into
the bathroom. Minutes passed, then another female student entered. She

(08:02):
later told investigators she saw a man undressed at the
sink and assumed he was changing clothes. Startled, she turned
and walked out. What happened next was captured on school cameras.
After a long stretch with no movement in or out,
Philip was next seen leaving the restroom alone. He went
outside briefly and changed clothes, then re entered the school.

(08:25):
Not long after, cameras showed him wheeling a large green
recycling bin into the second floor restroom. At three twenty
two p m. He was captured again, now wearing a
black ski mask, as he pushed the bin back out
down the hallway and through the exit doors. About a
half hour later, he returned, changed clothes once more, stopped

(08:46):
at his locker, and even went back into the restroom
before leaving the building for the final time that day.
The following morning, search teams scouring the woods behind Danvers
High made the grim discovery. Colleen had been attacked with
a box cutter, assaulted and dragged into the tree line.
Her body was staged and partially concealed beneath leaves. A

(09:10):
branch had been used to desecrate her body, and beside
her lay a note scrawled with the words I hate
you All. Investigators didn't yet have the complete picture when
they brought Philip in the night before. To understand what
had happened, they went back to the backpack he had
carried that night. Inside was the box cutter, still stained

(09:30):
with blood. When officers questioned him about the blood, Philip
gave a chilling response. He said it came from the girl.
Now they had found the body of the woman, his
twenty four year old math teacher, Colleen Ritzer. Detectives also
found Colleen's credit cards and identification along with a pair
of panties. Philip initially claimed he had found the items,

(09:54):
but later changed his story, saying he had taken them
from her car. Both explanations quickly fell apart. The damning
evidence made it clear that Philip was the person who
attacked Colleen. At just fourteen years old, he was now
facing charges for the murder of his own teacher. Prosecutors
moved quickly, determining that the severity of the crime left

(10:17):
no doubt that Chisholm would be tried as an adult
and charged with first degree murder, aggravated assault, an armed robbery.
At trial, prosecutors presented evidence that Chisholm had planned the
attack ahead of time. They pointed to the items he
brought to school that day, a box cutter, gloves, a
ski mask, and several changes of clothing. Surveillance footage showed

(10:41):
him waiting, following Colleen into the bathroom, and later disposing
of his teacher's body for the state, Each step demonstrated
a careful, calculated plan. The defense did not deny that
Chisholm killed Colleen Ritzer. Instead, they focused on his mental health.
Lawyers argued he was suffering from severe psychiatric issues and

(11:02):
was not legally responsible. Jurors heard testimony about his behaviour
in the weeks before the crime, including withdrawal, anger, and
talking to himself in the courtroom, the details were laid bare.
Students and staff recounted the events of that afternoon. Detectives
described the search through the woods and the note left

(11:23):
beside Colleen's body, the evidence from Philip's backpack, the bloody
box cutter, her identification, her credit cards was shown piece
by peace. After weeks of testimony, the jury found Philip
Chisholm guilty of murder, as well as armed robbery and
aggravated assault with a weapon. The judge sentenced him to

(11:45):
life in prison, with the possibility of parole after forty years.
For Colleen's family, it was justice, though it came with
the devastating reality that the young teacher's life had been
cut short in the place she loved, Moe Moost her school.
Philip Chishom's crime was almost impossible to square with the

(12:06):
boy his classmates thought they knew. He had never been
in serious trouble at school, never had a violent record,
and was described as polite even quiet. Teachers remembered him
as respectful. Friends from Tennessee recalled an easygoing kid who
loved soccer, but beneath that surface, his life was unraveling.

(12:27):
His parents bitter divorce had forced him to move from
the town he knew, leaving behind close friends and routines
that grounded him. In Danvers, he was the new kid,
withdrawn and increasingly isolated. Witnesses later testified to odd behavior
in the weeks before the murder, whispering to himself in class,
sudden bursts of anger, and long vacant stares. At trial,

(12:51):
defense attorneys argued that he was suffering from severe mental illness,
possibly schizophrenia, and that he was not criminally responsible, but
some of the expert testimony about his mental health was excluded,
limiting what the jury could hear. Prosecutors countered with the
most compelling point of all, he had come to school
that day prepared with gloves, a ski mask, a box cutter,

(13:15):
and multiple changes of clothing. He destroyed two cell phones,
tried to conceal evidence, and lied to investigators about where
he got Colleen's belongings. Those weren't the actions of someone
unaware of right and wrong, they argued, So which was
it was. Philip Chisholm, a teenager overwhelmed by mental illness,

(13:35):
his mind slipping beyond his control. Or was he a
boy filled with rage and selfishness who decided to hurt
as many people as possible, his teacher, his classmates, and
the community that welcomed him. Or was it some combination
of both. Those questions never fully went away. They became
the center of his appeals, as his attorneys argued that

(13:59):
his mental state had not been fairly considered at trial.
The courts have consistently upheld his conviction, but the strange
contradiction at the heart of this case, a polite, respectful
teenager who carried out one of the most brutal murders
in Massachusetts history, remains impossible to reconcile. The mysterious murder

(14:19):
of Colleen Ritzer by one of her students reverberated far
beyond Danvers High. In the days that followed. The community
gathered in shock and mourning. Hundreds filled the school parking
lot for a candlelight vigil, many wearing pink bows and ribbons,
Colleen's favorite color. At Fenway Park, the Boston Red Sox
held a moment of silence before Game one of the

(14:41):
World Series, honoring the young teacher whose life had been
cut short. Her family spoke publicly about their loss, calling
Colleen their amazing, beautiful daughter and sister. Colleen's mother, Peggy Ritzer,
spoke warmly of her daughter's optimistic outlook on life. One
of Colleene Zane's favorite quotes was there is something good

(15:02):
in every day, she said, to celebrate our love for her.
We will carry on and do our best to find
the good in every day. The family remembered her passion
for teaching and how she mentored every student, always finding
time to offer encouragement on social media. Her last posts
reflected that same joy, sharing excitement about math lessons and

(15:24):
her student's progress. Philip Chisholm was sentenced to life in prison,
with the possibility of parole after forty years. His attorneys
quickly began filing appeals, arguing that the trial had been unfair.
They challenged the exclusion of expert testimony about his mental health,
raised objections to how psychological evidence was handled, and pressed

(15:46):
the claim that the jury had not fully considered his
mental illness. In February twenty twenty five, the Massachusetts Supreme
Judicial Court rejected those arguments, affirming both his conviction and
his sentence for Colleen's family. The long legal fight only
emphasized the painful truth no ruling could ever bring her back.

(16:08):
Colleen Ritzer was a bright and ambitious young woman, just
beginning the career she had dreamed of since childhood. She
carried an infectious enthusiasm for teaching, and she left behind
a legacy of kindness and dedication that her students and
colleagues still carry forward. That's it for this episode. Thanks
for listening, and don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit

(16:30):
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