Five dead in Fishkill homicide mystery
Police seek aid in probe of slayings, blaze
By Nik Bonopartis
Poughkeepsie Journal
FISHKILL State police need the community's help in solving the brutal killings of a family of five in Fishkill homicides that shocked the southern Dutchess County town.
The bodies were found in the ashes of a home at 203 Route 82 Friday morning. The Morey family Manuel A., 33, Tina, 30, Manuel, 13, Adam, 10, and Ryan, 6, have been tentatively identified, though no forensic identifications have been made, state police said.
The five homicides are historic for Dutchess. Only the eight killings committed by Kendall Francois from 1996-98 surpass the Fishkill tragedy, according to Journal research.
Meanwhile, a mysterious car fire connected to the case was being probed.
The Dutchess County Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the deaths as homicides, state police said.
Autopsies Friday by the medical examiner's office revealed two children suffered violent deaths.
Medical Examiner Dr. Kari Reiber said one boy, approximately 10, died of multiple stab wounds. A second boy, approximately 6 or 7, died of blunt blows to the head, Reiber said. She did not specifically name each victim.
An autopsy on a third family member was planned for Friday, but will be completed today, along with autopsies for the other family members.
As police investigated the rental home owned by Tom Skaarva, who lives a few houses down from the site, roads were closed, passers-by observed the activity and word spread.
The fire was reported at 3:12 a.m. by a passer-by on Route 82.
Responding at about 3:20 a.m., the Rombout Fire Department found the house "heavily involved" in flames, according to the department. A second alarm brought neighboring fire departments to the scene and put them in place to cover those fire stations.
The Rombout department was unsure if the occupants were home and firefighters searched the structure. The fire was under control about an hour later.
The fire damage and scope of the emergency response it drew more than a half-dozen fire departments complicated matters for police investigators, who had to wait for the house to be cleared as a fire scene before they could begin their forensic investigation, said Maj. William Carey of the state police Troop K, based in Millbrook.
No details about possible motive or suspects in homicides were released.
"We're just starting the investigation at this point," he said.
State police, assisted by Fishkill and East Fishkill police, also are investigating a car taken from the property and found burned out on nearby Lomala Lane in East Fishkill.
"There was a subsequent report about 20 minutes later of a car fire not far from here that appeared to be related," Carey said Friday morning, standing about 150 feet from the fire scene.
All the home's windows were smashed and the inside was completely charred. The white two-story cement house has gray shingles and is about 50 feet from Route 82. The rear roof of the house was partially collapsed.
On Friday, the Wappingers Central School District dealt with the loss of three students, providing grief counseling and alerting parents to the tragic fire. Two of the boys attended Brinckerhoff Elementary School and the third boy was enrolled at Van Wyck Junior High School.
Neighbors were shocked at the sudden loss of the family, though many weren't familiar with the Moreys.
They also watched as media, including news crews from New York City, descended on the neighborhood.
The state police Forensics Identification Unit, the Dutchess County Cause and Origin Team and the state Office of Fire Prevention and Control were still at the scene late Friday
