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Queens man arrested in therapist's death

BY ANDREW STRICKLER | andrew.strickler@newsday.com

9:09 PM EST, February 16, 2008

David Tarloff, 39, center, is walked out of the 19th Precinct. Tarloff was arrested Saturday in the slaying of Kathryn Faughey, a psychologist attacked in her office with a meat cleaver, police said. (AP Photo / February 16, 2008)

A Queens man with a history of mental illness was arrested Saturday, four days after he hacked a Manhattan therapist to death and repeatedly stabbed a psychologist who may have once treated him, New York police said.

David Tarloff, 39, was charged with second-degree murder, attempted second-degree murder and assault after police matched palm prints taken following a recent arrest to those found near the body of Kathryn Faughey, who was killed Tuesday in her East Side office by a man wielding a meat cleaver, officials said.

Tarloff went peacefully to the 19th Precinct, where he spoke with detectives for 25 minutes before he asked to speak to an attorney, according to New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly. In those brief minutes, Tarloff offered some clues into the motive of the bloody attack, Kelly said.

"He made statements to the effect that he intended to rob Dr. Shinbach, not harm Faughey," Kelly said. Tarloff said he intended to use the proceeds of the robbery to take his mother, Beatrice Tarloff, out of the country, or possibly to Hawaii.

The motive may have been compounded by Tarloff's previous relationship with Shinbach, who Tarloff told investigators had had him institutionalized in 1991. Tarloff told police he had been in a mental institution or in police custody "up to 20 times," Kelly said. Officials are still trying to determine Tarloff's medical history and confirm that he had been one of Shinbach's patients.

The motive for the attack on Faughey, as well as the intended purpose of the bizarre collection of rope, adult diapers, and knives left at the scene, remains unclear.

Saturday night, Faughey's husband, Walter Adam said the family was "glad he's caught, and he can't commit anymore heinous crimes." Adam added that his wife "believed in forgiveness. She's into forgiveness and not into revenge."

The attacks occurred less than two weeks after Tarloff was allegedly involved in a violent incident in a Queens hospital. Police were called on Feb. 1 to the third floor of St. John's Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway after Tarloff was seen "touching a critical care patient ... in violation of pre-arranged visitation conditions," according to a complaint filed by the Queens district attorney's office.

Tarloff threatened nurses, then punched a security guard in the face, knocking him to the ground. Police said they did not yet know why Tarloff was at the hospital, which is near his mother's Far Rockaway nursing home.

Tarloff was arrested and charged with assault, disorderly conduct and harassment. He was released the next day without posting bail and was scheduled to return to court Feb. 25.

Police said they have evaluated Tarloff's mental condition at least twice, including once last year at his father's home in Staten Island, although details of those incidents were not immediately available.

The attack on Faughey and Shinbach occurred Tuesday, after a man brought two bags into the East Side building where Faughey and Shinbach had offices, police said. The man, whose image was caught on a lobby surveillance camera, initially asked to see Shinbach, and then sat in the waiting room before he entered Faughey's office, where she was working alone.

The suspect and Faughey may have talked for more than 15 minutes before he pulled out a meat cleaver and a kitchen knife and stabbed Faughey more than a dozen times as she fought back, police said. Shinbach, who was with a patient in a nearby office, heard his colleague's screams and ran into the room, where the killer stabbed him before fleeing the building.

Shinbach, 70, survived the attack and he was released from the hospital Saturday, police said.

In addition to Tarloff's palm prints, which police said matched those found on the handle of one bag and the packaging of the adult diapers, Shinbach and two of his patients identified Tarloff in a lineup.

Police collected evidence at Tarloff's apartment in one of several buildings of Sherwood Village Coop, which overlooks Corona's massive LeFrak City complex, next to the Long Island Expressway. Phyllis Zicherman, who lives at Sherwood, said she met Tarloff and his parents, who are now divorced, when he was a young child.

As a teenager, she said, Tarloff was a meticulous dresser and seemed to have a lot of friends. "Everything had to be just so, the way he walked and the way he strutted," Zicherman said. "He thought he was God's gift."

In later years, she said, Tarloff's appearance became more disheveled. "I heard he was on medication because he was depressed," she said, adding that he frequently visited his mother in her nursing home.

Word that police were questioning the suspect spread among the 1,000 or so mourners who packed St. Monica's Roman Catholic Church for Faughey's Mass.

"She was a very special woman and she was really into her profession," said Stan Tice, a retired New York homicide detective and one of Faughey's neighbors.

Staff writer Rocco Parascandola, and Gina Pace and Sarah Portlock, contributed to this story.