Privacy update — September 18, 2026: Identifying details have been removed under our victim privacy policy.
What Happened
Two men were sentenced Thursday for the November 2, 2022 murder of a 49-year-old father and husband from Bohemia who was shot multiple times in his own backyard in a fatal case of mistaken identity. According to News 12 Long Island, Christopher Fernandez, 29, of Sound Beach, was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after a jury convicted him of murder. Oliver Schor, 24, of Miller Place, received 22 years to life after pleading guilty to murder.
Prosecutors said Fernandez and Schor targeted the victim’s Bohemia home on the night of November 2, 2022, based on the mistaken belief that a stolen cellphone had been pinged at that address. Armed with guns, the two men went to the residence and attempted to enter through the back door. When they encountered the victim in his backyard, one of the men shot the 49-year-old multiple times as he tried to get back inside his home. The victim was pronounced dead at the scene, News 12 Long Island reported.
The victim left behind a family. As News 12 Long Island previously reported, the victim’s children were asleep inside the home when the shooting took place — an especially harrowing detail underscoring the tragedy of a man killed steps from his own family over a mistaken cellphone location ping.
Fernandez’s sentence of 25 years to life followed a jury trial and conviction on the murder charge. Schor’s slightly lesser sentence of 22 years to life came as part of a guilty plea. Both sentencings were handed down Thursday, August 6, 2026, bringing the case to a formal close nearly four years after the killing. The case was reported by News 12 Long Island.
Location & Road Context
The shooting took place at a private residence in Bohemia, a hamlet in the Town of Islip in central Suffolk County. Bohemia is a predominantly residential community situated near major roadways including the Long Island Expressway and Sunrise Highway. The area has seen other serious and fatal incidents in recent years, including a motorcyclist killed in a Bohemia collision in April 2026. Unlike traffic-related fatalities that occur on public roads, this killing took place entirely on private property — in the backyard of a family home — making it a distinctly different but no less devastating loss for the Bohemia community.
Investigation & Legal Proceedings
The case resulted in two separate paths to conviction. Christopher Fernandez of Sound Beach faced a full jury trial, which concluded in a murder conviction before Thursday’s sentencing of 25 years to life. Oliver Schor of Miller Place took a different route, pleading guilty to murder and receiving 22 years to life — three years fewer than his co-defendant. Prosecutors established that both men arrived at the victim’s home armed with guns, acting on the false premise that a stolen cellphone had been tracked there via a location ping, a detail that formed the core of their motive and their defense’s undoing. The sentencings on August 6, 2026 formally closed the criminal proceeding in what prosecutors framed as a fatal, preventable act of vigilantism built entirely on faulty technology-based assumptions.