By Colleen Long and Adam Goldman
Associated Press
NEW YORK — He told investigators he set out to rob a psychiatrist he said had institutionalized him 17 years ago.
But his criminal mission spiraled into the vicious slaying of a therapist who worked in a neighboring office, where he butchered her with a meat cleaver and a 9-inch knife for reasons authorities don’t yet understand, police said.
David Tarloff, 39, was arrested Saturday after investigators matched his palm prints with those at the bloody crime scene, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. He said Tarloff would likely be charged with murder and attempted murder.
Neighbors at Tarloff’s Queens apartment building described him as a troubled man with an erratic and sometimes combative personality who would occasionally wander the halls half-clothed, muttering to himself.
Tarloff made incriminating statements during a 35-minute interrogation after he was taken into custody at 7:20 a.m. at his apartment, Kelly said. But the police commissioner declined to say Tarloff had confessed. The questioning stopped when Tarloff asked for a lawyer, but it wasn’t clear whether he had one.
His brother, Robert Tarloff, told the New York Post, “If he did it, I am deeply sad for the person and their family and friends. I hope my brother will get the help he needs.”
Police said it remained unclear why Tarloff would have attacked therapist Kathryn Faughey, who was slashed 15 times in her Manhattan office Tuesday evening. A psychiatrist who worked nearby, Dr. Kent Shinbach, came to Faughey’s aid and was badly injured.
During questioning, Tarloff said he went to the office because Shinbach had him institutionalized in 1991. Tarloff said he planned to rob the psychiatrist and then leave the country with his mother, who is in a nursing home but until recently had lived with him, police said.
Kelly couldn’t confirm whether Tarloff was ever Shinbach’s patient, or whether he’d met Faughey.
The breakthrough in the case came just hours before friends, family, and former patients attended Faughey’s funeral in Manhattan. Hundreds of mourners filled St. Monica’s Roman Catholic Church on Manhattan’s East Side, just down the street from the crime scene.
Tarloff had been arrested earlier this month on charges of punching a security guard in the face after being asked to leave St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Queens, Kelly said. It wasn’t clear why Tarloff had been at the hospital.
Police said they matched his prints from the Feb. 1 arrest with three found on a suitcase — filled with adult diapers and women’s clothing — left near the basement door where the killer escaped. Also found was a smaller bag with rope, duct tape and knives not used in the attack, police said.
Investigators established Tarloff’s identity at about 5:40 a.m. Saturday and found his address on an application he submitted in 2001 to the city’s Taxi & Limousine Commission, which licenses cab drivers.
Police then moved swiftly to locate him, and he went voluntarily to the 19th Precinct near the scene of the attack, Kelly said. He described Tarloff’s demeanor as “calm” but noted that Tarloff had cuts on his right hand.
During the short interrogation, Tarloff claimed that he had been institutionalized or incarcerated 20 times — a figure that Kelly said didn’t appear to be accurate.
Police continued to collect possible evidence at Tarloff’s apartment into the afternoon, Kelly said.
One neighbor who has known the Tarloff family for decades, Phyllis Zicherman, said Tarloff had seemed down lately, but she was stunned to hear he was a suspect. “He had problems, but he was never violent,” she said.
Tarloff had gone to college but did not graduate and was unemployed, neighbors said.
Investigators said the pudgy, balding, middle-aged killer arrived around 8 p.m. Tuesday, telling the doorman he had an appointment with Shinbach. Then he sat in the waiting room with one of Shinbach’s patients until the patient went into his office around 8:30 p.m., police said.
Sometime after that, the killer entered Faughey’s office and attacked her. Shinbach came to her aid but was assaulted, pinned behind a chair and robbed of $90. The killer then tried to attack Shinbach’s patient, but she fended him off and he fled, according to police.
Shinbach was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center with slash wounds on his head, face and hands. Kelly said the psychiatrist was released Saturday.
Kelly said investigators worked around the clock on blood and DNA samples from the scene, and three witnesses, including Shinbach, picked Tarloff out of a lineup.
Police examined every possible lead, combing through surveillance footage and removing evidence from the slain therapist’s office. Kelly said Saturday the suspect was seen on surveillance tapes about an hour and a half before the slaying walking the same escape route he would later use.
Associated Press Writers Clare Trapasso and Verena Dobnik and contributed to this report.