Great Neck woman felt tourist she fatally stabbed was 'evil,' prosecutor says

A Great Neck woman told authorities after the deadly stabbing of an English tourist in her home that she had made “a terrible mistake,” but felt the woman was “evil," a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Faye Doomchin, 66, pleaded not guilty in Nassau County Court to a second-degree murder charge after a grand jury’s recent indictment following her Aug. 13 arrest.

“I meant to do a good thing and it turned out awful. God, strike me dead,” prosecutor Jared Rosenblatt quoted Doomchin as also telling authorities as he asked a judge to keep her held without bail.

"I wish I could go into a time warp and make this day never happen," Doomchin added, according to the prosecutor.

Doomchin’s attorney, Robert Gottlieb, argued unsuccessfully for $100,000 bond at his client’s arraignment Tuesday while also proposing conditions that would include GPS monitoring and home confinement as he detailed what he said was his client’s long history of mental illness. 

Acting State Supreme Court Justice Robert Bogle said before remanding Doomchin back to custody that he could change his bail ruling in the future when more information is available from doctors.

Police said Doomchin wielded a kitchen knife and fatally attacked Denise Webster, 61, on Aug. 13 — the same day they met — after Doomchin said she “needed to rid the house of evil.”

Doomchin said she didn’t like the woman from England as they sat talking in her living room, before retrieving the weapon and stabbing Webster in the chest, according to police.

Authorities said the deadly assault happened while Webster was visiting Doomchin’s North Road home to enjoy piano music, along with coffee and cake, after lunch out with a mutual male friend who introduced the women.

Rosenblatt told the judge Tuesday he disagreed with the defense's bail application that contended Doomchin’s mental health condition wasn’t in dispute.

He cited evidence suggesting Doomchin “had some sort of jealousy” toward Webster because of attention the woman was getting from their male friend.

But Gottlieb bristled at the prosecutor's statement, telling the judge that "to suggest for a moment that this case does not begin and end with a consideration of the very serious mental illness is to ignore the facts and reality."

Gottlieb said his client, a retired legal secretary, had been treated for schizoaffective disorder for 35 years. He pointed out she committed a "strikingly similar" but nonfatal knifepoint attack on another woman in 1999 in a Great Neck store, and got outpatient, state-mandated treatment for more than 10 years after pleading not guilty by mental disease or defect.

The Manhattan defense attorney suggested the possibility that medications his client had been taking for different ailments, including in connection with a June knee replacement, may have interfered with her psychotropic medications, causing her to turn violent at a time when her doctors and family believed she was “stable" and "under control.”

Despite Doomchin’s not-guilty plea, Gottlieb didn’t contest that his client was responsible for Webster’s death. Instead, he said there needs to be an understanding of “what broke and what happened to her" that resulted in the tragedy.

Doomchin is now undergoing psychiatric treatment at Nassau University Medical Center while in jail custody, and faces up to 25 years to life in prison if found guilty of the murder charge.

She turned and mouthed words to her family while arriving and leaving her arraignment, a proceeding that left the woman’s 22-year-old daughter in tears as she sat in court with her father and uncle. The family later declined to comment.

Webster lived in Garswood in northwest England, according to authorities. She was in the United States for a three-week visit that reportedly was to include seeing former “American Idol” singer Adam Lambert in concert in New York.

The victim’s husband told British media his beloved wife was a cancer and stroke survivor and the two had been married for 40 years.