Teen who killed teacher gets life with chance for parole

All seven schools in the suburban Boston town were closed as a result… “It is hard for this court to imagine what could be worse for an individual and family to endure than the brutal murder of Colleen Ritzer”.

Memorials were placed outside Danvers High School in 2013.

A clear jar with colorful slips of paper sat in front of Peggie Ritzer during her testimony.

(CNN) – A judge in MA on Friday sentenced a teenager to serve at least 40 years in prison for killing, raping and robbing his high school math teacher.

“Colleen Ritzer lived a life of quiet heroism”, Judge David Lowy said.

That family believes Philip Chism didn’t deserve a chance of parole, according to the Boston Globe.

Prosecutors had asked that he stay in prison for at least 50 years.

She recommended the defendant should receive two consecutive life sentences that would keep him behind bars until he was into his 60s.

Chism, who turned 17 last month, will spend approximately one more year in Department of Youth Services custody, where he’s been held since shortly after his arrest.

Philip Chism murdered Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer in 2013 when he was just 14.

“It makes me sick to know I drove by her in the woods and drove home”, father Tom Ritzer said Friday.

“But from what I saw in that family’s eyes, I’m sure people will never, ever forget Colleen, because I can tell those people will never allow it to happen”. “I hate Colleen’s killer and will never forgive him. And I lost my attractive little girl”.

“Words can’t express the amount of pain and sorrow these past two and a half years have been”.

Tom Ritzer said he felt like he had failed his daughter, AP wrote.

“I didn’t protect Colleen”, he said.

Defense attorney Susan Oker asked for a sentence that would make Chism eligible for parole no later than age 40.

“It was only during the trial that I fully understood where I had been, that I had walked the same stairways, used the same doors” as Chism, Ritzer said.

Defence lawyers admitted that Mr Chism killed his teacher but argued he was suffering from “severe mental illness”.

In an emotionally charged day in Salem Superior Court, the Ritzers spoke about the loss of their daughter Colleen, killed at 24 years old at the hands of one of the students she taught.

In 2013, the Massachusetts SJC ruled that sentencing juveniles to life without a chance for parole is unconstitutional.

Ritzer was someone who found joy in the small moments in life, her loved ones said. “Rather, this court is constitutionally obligated to set a parole date of no more than 25 years for her murder”.

The change in sentencing began with the U.S. Supreme Court, which decided these sentences for minors were cruel and unusual punishment, a constitutional violation.