Family of murdered Danvers teacher Colleen Ritzer reach civil suit agreement with security system

The family of murdered Danvers High School teacher Colleen Ritzer and DiNisco Design, the company behind the school’s alleged state of the art video surveillance system reached a civil suit agreement on Friday.

The family of the slain school teacher alleged that the security system did not protect Ritzer. Ritzer was attacked and killed by Phillip Chism, one of her students in October of 2013.

“This litigation was never about assessing blame on any civil defendant. The only person to blame for the murder of Colleen is serving a life sentence in prison.,” said the family’s lawyer Daniel Murphy. “Through the civil litigation, the Ritzers gained answers to questions related to school security at Danvers High School. DiNisco Design was helpful to the Ritzer’s pursuit of those answers.”

In 2015, Chism was convicted of killing Ritzer in a women’s bathroom, stuffing her body into a recycling bin, and then burying her body nearby. Much of the crime was recorded on DiNisco’s video surveillance system, and while the evidence ultimately helped lead to Chism’s conviction, the family alleged that no one was monitoring the system at the time of Rizter’s murder.

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