Box cutter used to kill Mass. math teacher

A box cutter was used to kill the 24-year-old math teacher whose body was found in the woods near her Massachusetts school, multiple media outlets were reporting Thursday.

Philip Chism, 14, is charged with murder in the death Tuesday of Colleen Ritzer, who taught at Danvers High School. Myfoxboston.com, citing an undisclosed source, was among media reporting that Chism told police he followed Ritzer into the women’s restroom, punched her in the face and slashed her throat with a box cutter.

Myfoxboston reported that Chism then put Ritzer’s body in a recycling bin and dragged it into the woods.

Ritzer had asked Chism to stay after school on the day she was killed because she wanted to help him with an upcoming test, a student in the class told The Boston Globe. Rania Rhaedaoui, 14, told the Globe she also was in the last-period algebra class.

“She saw him drawing during class and she just said to him, ‘I didn’t know you could draw,'” the freshman said. “I sit really close to him, so I could hear.”

Rhaedaoui said she later heard Ritzer ask Chism to stay after school.

“She just said, ‘Can you stay after with me?’ He just gave a nod,” she told the Globe. “There was a test coming up, and she wanted to know if he had any questions on learning equations,” Rhaedaoui said.

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