Murder With My Husband - 68. Colleen Ritzer - The Influential Teacher

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the case of Colleen Ritzer. LIVE ONLINE SHOW TICKETS HERE! https://www.moment.co/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers,_Massachusetts That Chapter - The Disturbing Case of Colleen Ritzer https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/23/us/teachers-body-was-found-with-slit-throat-and-note-documents-say.html Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. If you are watching on YouTube right now you have most definitely noticed that our set is different. It's because we are in LA actually recording at a different studio and we're really really excited about it. So if you're a little taken off guard that's okay. It does look a little bit different. But if you're listening on podcast and it's exactly the same, we might sound a little better.

Yeah, we might sound a little better. Yeah, we might sound a little better. Okay, so also, I did just wanna say we had, we have a couple, well not a couple, a lot of new listeners this week. So if you are a new listener or a watcher, hi, welcome to Murder with My Husband, The Podcast. We are a podcast about true crime,

and we try to focus primarily on the victims of the stories we tell. And our community is amazing, and you are accepted here, and welcome, no matter who you are, unless you're a murderer, in which case you are probably not accepted. Gary is my husband right here, and he not only hates true crime, but he also has no idea beforehand about the stories. We tell him his reactions are raw and real and although not very dramatic, he is probably the best part of our show.

And like Payton said, we usually don't do this intro every single time, but just because we know we have quite a bit of new listeners, we're doing this intro. And so everyone knows I have no idea what she's telling me each week, every week's a new story. So that is real, nothing is scripted on my end. And we're happy to have you here.

Okay, Gary, do you have your 10 seconds for this episode? I do have my 10 seconds. So this week I was actually going to change it up a bit. There were some comments on YouTube and Instagram, I wanted to read because I thought they were funny and they were about me. So the first one is, so Stephyn said, with all the knowledge she has,

I wouldn't piss her off Garrett. Talking about me. Talking about Payton. And then the next one is by Taylor, and it says, my favorite podcast ever. My husband and I drove six hours from NC to KY. I asked if I could listen to y'all on YouTube because I missed last week's episode and he said, I'll only listen if

it's the guy who does the 10 seconds. I thought that was pretty funny. That is funny. My infamous 10 seconds. Okay, so our case sources for this week's episode is Wikipedia, a YouTube video from that chapter and then also New York Times.com and a Sword and Scale episode, number 88. And those will all be listed in our episodes if you want to check them out. So our case this week begins in a suburb called Danvers, Massachusetts.

And Danvers is actually the new name of this area, which was originally named Salem Village. And so yes, for those of you putting two and two together, Dan Vers is best known for the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 that took place on this exact land we're going to be talking about, which is pretty crazy. I mean, I'm interested in the Witch Trials and all, but I just think that's insane. So I would dare say that some pretty horrific things happened on this land far before 2013 when our story takes place today. But that doesn't mean the morbidity had stopped. Once again, we will have plenty

of haunting footage that goes along with our case today. So if you want to watch as you listen, go ahead and check us out on YouTube. It's just murder with my husband. By 2013, Danvers, Massachusetts was home to roughly 20,000 people. It was a pretty decent suburb with a high school named none other than Danvers High School. The high school is near the local airport and had around 1,000 students around the time of our story. There was roughly 100 teachers at Danvers High School and one of them was named Colleen Ritzer.

Colleen was born in May of 1989 in a town near Danvers. Colleen was really close with her family and spent a lot of her free time with them. She went to college to become a math teacher and ended up as a ninth grade algebra teacher at Danvers High School in 2012. And I loved my college algebra teacher in high school, so I just kind of was thinking about her. I was doing this story, but Colleen was actually active on Twitter. She would tweet little fun math games and things for her students to follow along with. She would tweet about Taylor Swift,

like just trying to, you know, kind of keep up with them. She wanted to inspire and find new ways to help her students not just in school, but in life as well. So on Tuesday October 22nd 2013 24 year old Colleen woke up and went to school to teach like any other day. Halloween was coming up which is always an exciting time at school. It's like the first big holiday of the year. Colleen's average teaching day would usually end around two o'clock and at this point she

would stay after school and meet with some students who needed a little bit of extra help, sort of like a tutor session. Around 254 this day, Colleen Ritzler left her classroom of students and made her way to the bathroom. Around four o'clock the Danvers high school day would end and extracurricular activities like in clubs would begin. Do you know if it was like a big high school? Well I said 1,000 students, 100 teachers. Yeah, it was during this time at soccer practice, which Garrett played soccer, to be exact, the soccer coach actually noticed he had a player who was skipping out on practice. That player was 14 year old Philip Chisholm. The coach wasn't exactly worried, though. Philip was a new student who had only been at Danvers High School for two months. He had moved

to Danvers from Tennessee, so he didn't have a large amount of friends yet. As the day kind of moved on, and after school time turned into dinner time, Philip was still nowhere to be seen. His mother Diana began frantically waiting at her phone for a call and checking the clock. Why hid Philip not come home yet? She had no idea where he was and she didn't know any friends that he could be with because he was new. He didn't have that many. Yeah. Diana and Philip's father were actually going through a rough divorce,

which was the main reason she and Philip had actually moved to Danvers that summer. Philip seemed to be having a hard time with a divorce in the move, and so Diana was especially worried because of that. After Philip had still not called or shown up, Diana called the local police at 6.34 pm to report her son, Philip Chism, missing. But Diana was not the only parent around town worrying about their child's whereabouts. Peggy and Tom Ritzer were a little worried around dinner time when Colleen, Mrs. Ritzer, the teacher, wouldn't answer her phone. She lived with

them and would normally have been home by now. And if she wasn't coming home, she always called to let them know her plans, you know, where she would be. If not, Tom Ritzer decided to head over to Danvers High School and see if he could find his daughter, Colleen. So the teacher lived with her parents. With her parents. She was only 24. Like she was a pretty young.

Her dad thought, you know, maybe her phone had died and she was just working late at school or something. As he drove up to the parking lot of the school, he noticed Colleen's car in the lot and felt relieved. She was just still at the school probably working. Tom checked the school but couldn't find Colleen inside car in the lot and felt relieved. She was just still at the school probably working. Tom checked the school but couldn't find Colleen inside the school. He asked around, hit anyone seen Miss Ritzer, and no one had. Tom decides to begin Colleen's friends in hopes that maybe they had just picked her up from school and she'd forgot to tell her parents. All of Colleen's friends then they hadn't heard or seen her.

Tom and Peggy decided to call the cops and report their 24-year-old daughter Colleen Ritzer missing. Around 8 p.m., the Danvers High School principal set out a mass email explaining that 14-year-old student Philip Chisholm was missing and they were searching around the school if anyone could come out and join. It was around the same time that that same principal got a call about a missing teacher from his school, 24-year-old Colleen Ritzer. That's so weird. See, like a missing student, I understand more, you know, but a missing teacher. It's so weird. It's a little weird. Especially a missing

student and teacher. Okay, yeah, that's so weird. The principal was baffled like you, how had two separate individuals gone missing from their school in one day, especially a student and a teacher? Was Philip in Colleen's class? Yes. Okay, I don't know if you said that yet. I was going to. Yeah, I got it, got it. Yes, he was.

Okay. So, trying to answer this exact question of how a teacher and a student can end up missing together, I mean, we don't know if they're together, but like, what are the odds? People begin to put together that calling rits that are actually taught philipchism. And philip had been in the last class, calling had attended that day, the tutor session class for the kids

that needed extra help in the event. So police do not take this information lightly. Calling and philip had been last seen in the same class, and we're now both missing. It had to be connected, right? Despite the horror of two missing persons, police decide that they will focus the majority of their investigation into the minor for now. A missing 14 year old really weird.

A missing 24 year old. She could have just left. So how does that work? They're just focusing on Philip and forgetting about. No, no, they know. They know, but for now, they're like, we're just going to push and forgetting about calling or calling no they know they know they know But it for now they're like we're just gonna push the majority into finding the minor got it Which I don't think is that weird if they don't have enough task force to split it equally and I guess like you said before

If it's someone over the age of 18 they usually assume first maybe they ran away Maybe they took off. Yeah, and I don't want it to seem like Colleen wasn't being searched for. There were people looking for her just not as big of a push as for the minor. Totally. So police decide to try and trace Philips' cell phone, and they discover to their relief that it's on, and it's pinging near a movie theater in Danvers. So police rush to the movie theater and they searched the theaters. No Philip. But they interview the employees and discover on the cameras that Philip had in fact

been to the theater around 4.30 pm that day. And he had watched sources differ maybe Blue Jasmine, which is like a Woody Allen film or a gravity with Sandra Bullock. The sources can't seem to decide which one he watched all say both. And did the parents know that he went to the movie? No. Okay. And the employees and the cameras show that he was alone. No teacher, no adult woman with him. And they were figuring that Colleen and Philip were together. So police begins searching the surrounding streets worried about Philip's well-being. He was obviously ignoring calls and messages while his phone was still on,

like his mom had been calling him while he was at the theater and he was ignoring it. So none of it was making much sense. Meanwhile, police back at the school began searching the camera footage from that day in hopes of tracing both Colleen and Philip until the time they went missing. So like I was going to ask, like always, where's the camera?

So there are 140 cameras in this school. They had just got a new system. They had like updated, gotten this new system, but they didn't update everything. And the 140 cameras were connected to an old and slow computer. And so as like the school cop is going in trying to find the footage, the images keep freezing or crashing that he can't get him to load. It's taking hours to even get to up and there's no number system for the cameras. So it's not like, oh, let's go to the camera near Colleen's classroom.

They don't know what of the 140 cameras is near her classroom. Of course it's not working. While that's happening, people and police begin searching classrooms and bathrooms near Miss Ritzer's home room hoping, okay, well maybe she's just here. It was during this search that police canvassed the bathroom, nearest to the classroom,

and discovered what they determined to be blood smears in the bathroom. It was not looking very good. What? Yes, blood smears in the high school bathroom. Just like everywhere or- I think just a little bit janitors had actually come and cleaned the bathrooms. So it's not like there was a large amount of blood anywhere. I think they just like saw the blood smears and were like, well, that's a little strange.

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So please are like, was she jumped? Yeah. Like, why is her purse here? They also found some clothes strewn around the purse and two pairs of shoes. One pair of women's like black flats and a pair of soccer cleats. Hmm, so it's one of them was Phillips, I assume, because he played soccer. Who's still missing? Yes.

And one of them that are assuming to be Colleen's. It was after this that police discovered a recycle bin, like in the middle of the woods by the school, that had a pair of bloody gloves near it. And then a note nearby all of this that said, I hate you all. So the police were going around finding all this, correct? Yeah, they're canvassing, and they're just finding random things here

and there in the woods. And obviously at this point they go, whoa, like something's going on. Something's going on, like something bad has happened. Back at the search for Philip, things were beginning to look something bad has happened. Back at the search for fill up, things were beginning to look up around 1am. He was found walking on a sidewalk in Toppsfield, which is a small town roughly 15 minutes away from Danvers High School. 1am, like the day he was missing? Yes, so like he went missing. No, the day he went missing. So he went missing after school, right?

Yeah. And was missing went to the movie that we know, and then was still missing, and then as the clock rounded up to 1am, he was found. What in the world? Yes. It seems that he had actually stopped at Wendy's after the movie to, you know, grab some food or whatever. But things didn't stay joyous for very long. He was found in a hoodie wearing like drawstring backpack.

And it was while searching the drawstring backpack He had that police discovered a box cutter a pair of bloody women's underwear and all of the contents of his teacher Colleen Ritzer's purse inside his backpack. Oh my gosh, and where is he going? Just walking when they asked him where he's going. He said nowhere twice twice he said that and they said what's with the backpack and he said survival like items. So when police ask him okay why do you have all of your teacher's things? Philip told them that he had broken to her car at a gas station and stole them but we know according to her dad her card never left the school parking lot her car was still in the parking lot when he got there. Police are like, okay, okay.

What about the box cutter, the blood and the underwear? Like where did those come from? And Philip replies with the girl. That's all he said was the girl. The girl. They put him in the police car, they take him back to the station. I'm confused because I mean, obviously the story

is coming together, like, what? But why? But why? Like why? Like it's his teacher. Uh-huh. In the early hours of the next morning, back at the high school, police had discovered the unimaginable.

Underneath some leaves, Colleen Ritzer's dead body was found near the high school. She had been murdered and dumped. Colleen was naked from the waist down and left in a suggestive pose. You can look up what that is if you want. She was covered in dirt, blood, and scratches, and Philip Chisim's ID was found in his school backpack

near the body, but he was found with a drawstring back there. So he had at least two backpacks. Now I need to clarify here that some sources say Colleen was found after Philip, but at trial, police testified that there was some confusion going on about a missing boy and a teacher, and that they didn't really know the teacher was missing because police had pushed the missing boy so hard. So when it came over their radio that a body had been found back at Danvers High School,

police thought it was the boy. Like, he had been found back at Danvers High School. Police thought it was the boy. Like, he had been found dead. I see. And then they like found him walking. Police like found him walking later. And so that would mean that she was found before he was. So I'm a little like there was not much clarity, but I'll go by the trial that she, her body was actually found

right before he was found walking. Okay. We are going to play some footage on YouTube now because you'll be able to watch this whole next part as I explain what's going on in the video. Police discovered on the cameras at school. So as the night turns into day, the cameras start to work and they start to be able to like

figure out what cameras which and piece together what had happened. If you are watching this footage without context, it's not that creepy, it's just some like school footage. But now that we know what happened, that he had all of her stuff in his bag, it's one of the most eerie things I've ever seen, watching it because I have context.

So according to Catherine Q. C. Lee with The New York Times, at 2.54 p.m. that day, you can see Miss Ritzer happily exit her classroom and walk down a hallway towards the women's bathroom like we said. Literally seconds after her, you can see Philip Chism step out of the classroom and into the hallway. He looks around and then he ducks back into his classroom again. Just a moment later, he reopens the door and comes back out into the hallway, this time with his hood on. Weird, okay.

So she walks out, you can literally see the shoe walks out. She's waiting for her. Goes to the bathroom minutes later, he pokes out, looks around, goes back in, comes back out moments later with his hood on. Okay. There is footage of Miss Ritzer right after this, like in the same minute,

passing the drinking fountain that sits in between the men and women's bathrooms. And you don't physically see it, but she goes into the women's bathroom. So the camera is pointed at the drinking fountain in between the two bathrooms, and then you can kind of see like the bases of the doors, but you can't like, if the door opens, you can't have a camera pointing into the bathroom. Does that make sense? Yep. So she goes in, and a minute later, Philip walks with his head down

along the same path that Ms. Ritzer had just took. So in this video, you can see him following her. He's just following her. It's like a horror movie. Yes. And as he comes into the frame outside of the bathroom door, you can see him pulling on rubber gloves. He's putting gloves on like in front of the drinking

fountain about to go in. He's crazy. He's so young too. 14. At three oh seven pm. Another female student moves into frame outside of the bathroom in front of the drinking fountain and she actually opens the women's bathroom door. And then she immediately turns around and leaves. Like she opens it, doesn't even walk in, closes the door, turns around and leaves. In the same breath, like I'm pretty sure the door doesn't even close all the way. You can see Philip exiting the bathroom door

and you can tell that he is clearly uncomfortable. He's adjusting his clothes and he's like almost running. He's like walk running out of the bathroom. So I'm confused. Someone exited before him. Someone came in to go in and didn't go in. Open the door. Oh, God.

Whatever she saw made her not want to go in the bathroom. And she turned around, not even two seconds later, he follows her out. OK. He did come out looking uncomfortable because he had just stalked his teacher, Colleen Ritzer, into the women's bathroom in the middle of the day, 11 minutes earlier, and came up behind her in that bathroom and choked her.

He then stabbed her at least 16 times in the neck and slit her throat with that box cutter. Holy crap. All in the school bathroom. And we've talked about this before, but how it's anger. Like it wasn't even, you know what I'm saying? Yes, like to snap that. You said that. Uh-huh. 16 times. Yes. So once she was down, Philip had sexually assaulted her and he was just pulling his pants up when the other student opened the door and all she saw was his like

butt. Oh, okay. And seemingly caught, he rushed out of the bathroom after her, like not wanting to be near the scene. If she was gonna go tell someone, he was getting out of there. According to sources, the other student said it looked like she had walked in on someone getting changed or someone having sex.

Because she had no idea. Yeah, and so she just turned around as fast as she could. She couldn't clearly see what was going on. She just felt embarrassed. Like, I know I shouldn't be here. No matter what's going on, I know I shouldn't be in there. Yeah. At this point, Philip then, you can see this on the camera,

made his way outside to the student parking lot, and there's footage where you can actually see his hand covered in blood as he's walking down the stairs. Like, he walks out of the bathroom and you can see that he's clearly covered in blood. At 309, two minutes later, he comes back into the school this time without his blue hoodie. So he's gone outside and ditched his blue hoodie and he comes back and just wearing a white t-shirt. I can't believe he thinks that he's not going to get caught. Like that makes me so mad. I don't know. He made his way back to Miss Ritzer's classroom and then is seen on

the cameras coming out the door again at 3.11 with a red hoodie on now. So he's changed his clothes. What is the word? You can clearly see at this point the panic beginning to set in. He's now like run walking everywhere. People are trying to talk to him and you can tell he's kind of just like trying to lead them away from the bathroom

or because there's like still people. Like school's still happening. So there's like people walking around around him talking to him as he hit yeah calling in the bathroom and this is all on the footage correct all on the footage and like at 254 like it's the middle of the day yeah he goes somewhere and then emerges back into the camera view with a recycling bin at this point and he gets to the bathroom with it at 3 16 pm pm. So he pulls, he goes outside and pulls a recycling bin in from outside and brings it all the way up to the bathroom.

Six minutes later at 3.22 pm, Philip exits the women's bathroom in a white t-shirt again. So his red hoodie is now missing once again. He was wearing a black ski mask and pulling the bin with Colleen inside toward the school elevator. He makes it to the elevator and then pulls it outside and that's obviously where we lose frame. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what? There's a solution that can help you find clarity and confidence.

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all summer. Everybody's on your automatic energy savings! Plus free energy on the hottest day. The district attorney would later state that Colleen was more than a person who was So cool. Yes, you energy for everything. Captain Banner now to learn more. The district attorney would later state that Colleen was most likely not completely dead at the point that like while she was in the bin, she was most likely still alive just unconscious. Yeah. While outside, Philip, you know, takes the bin to the woods, gets calling out and does some more unthinkable things to calling in the woods and continues to harm the body both physically

and sexually. Got it. And also it's like the second time he's hurting her. As if he didn't get enough in the bathroom. Does that make sense? Like he did what he did in the bathroom, maybe got interrupted by that girl and then took her outside and continue to do it. And we don't really know if she's alive or dead at this point.

Yeah. He also posed her obviously and then left the note. The DA also states that if she was alive at this point, she would die very soon after to blood loss, like she would just lose enough blood to die. Around 30 minutes later, the video catches him coming back into the high school. So he spends another 30 minutes in the woods with her body or her writes the note and then does what he does. Comes back in the high school. He comes back in the high school around four o'clock.

By 404, he's now wearing a black shirt. He's changed once again. He has glasses on and he's carrying a pair of jeans. He makes his way one last time to the women's bathroom and then leaves the school for good one minute later. So how many times does he change now? Like three or four times though. Okay. And is still carrying a lot of different clothes as well. And he's made trips like he's in this footage. He's just back and forth, back and forth running, walking, talking to people like it's crazy. In 2015, Philip Chisholm was tried as an adult

after attacking another woman guard while waiting for trial. So they're like, okay, we're gonna try him as an adult. While he's waiting to go to trial, he attacks another woman. He had actually followed her into a staff locker room area where he was being held and stabbed her with a pencil. I'm glad he was tried as an adult, but I guess I'm surprised because he's 14.

I think just the graphic nature. It wasn't just like he followed her in there. Did he did and left? Followed her in there. Did we did? Covered everything up. Brought her back out. Spent another 30 minutes hurting her. Like it's just a lot. And then on top of that, he attacks someone else. Yes. Yes. So this new lady he attacked was saved after other guards heard the commotion and came in to check it out The guard that he attacked was not seriously injured and it's kind of weird because it's early familiar to his first attack on Colleen Like he's in prison for doing what he did to Colleen and then follows another woman in somewhere and tries to attack her again That's weird at trial the defense said Philip had lost all of his structure by going through a hard divorce. He was not mentally

aware of what he was doing. His life had been falling apart. And the states like, no, he knew right from wrong. Like there's other kids who go through divorce and don't do this. Yeah, something is obviously wrong with him, but he is mentally aware of his choices. It's crazy. They point out that he had a girlfriend back in Tennessee and in Tennessee, he was like, he liked to skate. He was the top scorer on his soccer team.

He had friends. He was popular. Like, no one saw this coming. No one. The jury found him guilty for what he did on October 22, 2013 to Colleen Ritzer. And he was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years due to his age. Okay, so it'll be 39.

Well, he also was sentenced to two 40-year terms to run concurrently for like robbery and rape inside the bathroom. So he was actually though acquitted of the second more gruesome rape that happened in the woods. Because there's no evidence. There is evidence. Like he used things.

Yeah. So there was like evidence with DNA on it, but it was unclear whether or not Colleen was still alive at the time of the second rape. And if she wasn't, that card would not be rape. It would be, you know, like awful acts to a dead body. Yeah. That's a whole different charge. So the jury was like, well, we don't know if she was alive. Even though he's the one killed, he can still get a credit for that. So there is a slight chance he could get out, but he would be like in his 80, he got it. I mean, his 80s are 90s. A student

would later come forward to police that and tell them that before Philips stocked Miss Ritzer out of class that grew some day, she had actually been in the tutor class with both of them and observed calling and Philip talking about China, like China the place. Okay. Apparently Miss Ritzer then mentioned Tennessee where Philip had moved from and Philip became visibly upset. She said Miss Ritzer pushed the subject a little longer,

but once it was obvious that Philip was not happy and did not want to discuss the move, she changed the subject. A friend of Colleen's and a fellow teacher that taught across the hall also comes for it and says that Miss Ritzer had told her she was unaware why Philip was staying after school for help.

She hadn't told him to. So this class after school that would like come in for help, he was not a part of it. He just showed up. He just showed up. And she voiced to another teacher, I don't know why he's staying after school. So it's not like he was had to be there. So was it all because of the Tennessee thing that just flipped him off or what?

I don't know. That same student who said that, also said that after this, she saw Philip talking to himself, like under his breath in the classroom, like something had obviously gone weird, but this is a lame excuse because according to police, they believe that the crime was planned because he showed up to school that day with a box cutter,

a ski mask, gloves, and multiple outfits. That's true. You don't just show, you don't get triggered in school and then just have a kill kit. You know what I mean? So they're like, no, he planned this. He planned this. He went there uninvited.

And just because she brought up Tennessee does not mean he just got triggered and killed her. And we don't know why he chose her, really? No. We don't. OK. So according to The New York Times, Dr. Eugene Barerson, who is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a specialist in adolescent psychiatry

at the Clay Center at Massachusetts General Hospital, says, I personally have never seen anything like this in the hundreds of cases I've had and the thousands of cases I've supervised. Most kids who commit violent acts have a history, a history of something, of impulsivity, of mood disorders, or abuse, and neglect. They've had a rough childhood. He says, I see kids every day who have witnessed the most horrifying sexual and physical abuse, for example, or have been abused themselves and they don't do this. Any number of internal factors such as psychosis or neurological condition or external factors

such as abuse could be involved, but none that they can point a finger on. They say most kids who do this have had, you know, like the signs of a serial killer, right? Like a rough childhood. There's just, well, I've been abused. I don't know many cases, but I only know this one because it's paid, maybe, watched the movie, but kind of like Ted Bundy in a way, right? No one had any idea that someone like that could be a serial killer. Correct. And this is kind of where everyone's confused because normally there's signs of violent aggression, whatever. And they're just, I mean, even in a couple weeks ago, we covered the case where another teenager killed a young girl.

And he had snuck into the house. Like there were small signs, right? Like he had snuck into the house. He had stolen pictures of young girls. He had filed pornography and like violent pornography on his computers. So there were tiny little secret signs that like, okay, something was a little weird. Nothing like this. Nothing. He seemed like a normal kid. Colleen Ritzer was a beloved teacher and most students identify her as their favorite teacher. They claim she tried her hardest to make them feel safe and loved.

She was respected and loved, and over 1,000 people attended her funeral. There is a scholarship fund in Colleen's name that goes to help kids who want to go into education and teach the future generations. You can check that out or donate at ColleenRetzer's Scholarship.org. And I will say this, the only person who had the power in that bathroom over what was happening was Philip. And despite what his defense said, he's not the victim here. It was not, there was nothing that happened that could make him do this.

Colleen only got two years of teaching, which was her dream. And she only got to do it. Yes, she was 24. She was so young. She only got to do it for two years. So in memory of Colleen, whose legacy was to be a kind and inspiring woman, we will remember her and think about her. Poor Colleen, that's crazy. Insane. That is so insane. I think for me, the thing about this case is the footage that goes along with it, which like I said, you can check out on our YouTube because like I said, without any context, it looks like a guy following, you don't even really notice that they both go into the bathroom and then the girl comes in and leaves and he leaves.

You can kind of see him running, which is a little weird. You see him pulling a bin with a ski mask. Once you know the context of what he did when he followed her into there, that he was in there stabbing her in the neck, raping her, the footage becomes a lot more. Like, eerie to watch, just heavy and like, oh my gosh, it's insane. That's so crazy. Okay, you guys. Well, that is the story of Colleen Ritzer. If you want to support our show and actually get bonus episodes

that not everyone else gets to hear, you can check out our Patreon. That's murder with my husband Patreon. It's really awesome. We will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

Thank you.