Suffolk DA Sini: Center Moriches Man Pleads Guilty to Murdering Mother in 2017
Riverhead, NY - February 21, 2019 - Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini announced that a Center Moriches man pleaded guilty to murder charges yesterday for fatally stabbing his mother in 2017.
“Taking the life of your own mother is a heinous, cold-blooded crime,” District Attorney Sini said. “With this plea, the defendant admitted his guilt and accepted responsibility for this brutal murder.”
Christopher Storm Harrison, 27, pleaded guilty yesterday to Murder in the Second Degree, an A-1 felony.
Nov. 17, 2017, Harrison stabbed his mother, Joyce Skarka, 53, of Center Moriches, to death in the kitchen of their house, located at 31 Union Ave.
Harrison dragged his mother’s body from the kitchen to the bathroom and placed her in the bathtub with her arms folded over her chest before dousing her in gasoline. He also cleaned up the scene of the murder and moved his mother’s car from the driveway of the residence to a nearby parking lot to give the appearance that no one was home.
Harrison then went to a Suffolk County Police Department substation, where he told police that his mother had attacked him and that she was dead. Police found Skarka in the home and she was pronounced dead at the scene by the Office of the Suffolk County Medical Examiner.
Harrison faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison. He is expected to be sentenced on March 25 in front of Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Francis X. Schroeder, of the Homicide Bureau.