Woman Pleads Guilty In Mother's Drowning Death

YAKIMA - A woman pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree manslaughter in the 1990 drowning death of her mother, whose skull was found last year by authorities in a rental storage locker.

Christine Varness, 43, faces a maximum term of 10 years for killing Lois Huysman, 61.

A sentencing hearing was scheduled to begin Monday before Yakima County Superior Court Judge Susan Hahn. Prosecutors said the hearing could last a week.

Varness was charged with second-degree murder last summer after police discovered her mother's skull and an artificial hip joint encased in concrete in a Yakima storage locker.

Varness told police she drowned her mother in a bathtub in September 1990. She said she became enraged when she tried to discuss her feelings about sexual abuse by a stepfather. Varness said her mother told her she was aware of the abuse, which occurred when Varness was between 6 and 10 years old, but blamed her daughter, rather than her husband.

After Huysman's death, Varness tried to convince family and friends that her mother was traveling with a wealthy man she had met in Hawaii.

But Huysman's relatives and friends were unconvinced and pressed for an investigation by police, who subsequently found the remains.

Investigators believe the mother's body was cut into eight pieces, most of which went to a suburban landfill.