Murder of Kathryn Faughey

Last updated

Kathryn Faughey was a 56-year-old New York City psychologist who was murdered by 39-year-old David Tarloff at her Upper East Side office on the night of February 12, 2008.

Contents

Background

David Tarloff had exhibited disturbing behaviours for almost two decades, and was well known to the medical and psychiatric establishment and the police force. During these years, up to the time of the Kathryn Faughey murder, he received a wide range of psychiatric assessments and treatments. He received medication and electroshock therapy by force. [1]

Incident

Tarloff walked past the doorman, rolling a suitcase behind him (as seen on the building's surveillance video), saying that he was there to see Dr. Kent Schinbach, a psychiatrist from the same practice. Tarloff waited in the office reception area, chatting with a patient, while one of Dr. Faughey's evening sessions was in progress. After that session concluded, when he knew that Faughey was alone in her office, he entered the room and attacked her with a meat cleaver. Doctor Schinbach attempted to help her, but was seriously wounded by slashes in the face and neck. [2] [3]

Aftermath

Tarloff was arrested and arraigned for the murder and ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation [4] which found him to be mentally competent to stand trial. [5] There was evidence that the attack had been premeditated, but that the intended victim was Schinbach. [4] Tarloff told police that he had planned to rob Schinbach, who he remembered being involved in diagnosing him with schizophrenia in 1991 and arranging for his institutionalization at that time. [4] [5] Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations to protect patient confidentiality were reported to have delayed the initial investigation. [6] Tarloff, who was expected to plead insanity in the case, was confined to a psychiatric unit of Bellevue Hospital while awaiting trial. His attorney said that "the evidence is clear that he [Tarloff] did it, but the reasons he did it ... are so crazy that we believe we have a very strong insanity defense." [7] His trial was scheduled for October 2010, but during jury selection a mistrial was declared after two psychiatrists that the court had appointed to evaluate Tarloff found him mentally unfit to stand trial. [8]

Tarloff went on trial for the murder in March 2013 in the State Supreme Court in Manhattan. Jury selection was completed on March 8, 2013, and opening arguments were heard on March 11. Tarloff admitted to committing the murder, but sought to avoid a prison sentence on the grounds of his mental illness. [9] [10] On April 16, 2013, a mistrial was declared after the jury came back a third and final time with a note that they were deadlocked. [11]

After mistrials in 2010 and 2013, third trial began with jury selection on March 3, 2014. Kathryn Faughey's immediate family were in the courtroom when the verdict was reached on March 28, 2014. After six years, Tarloff was finally found guilty of Murder in the first degree for Kathryn Faughey, assault in the first degree for Dr. Shinbach. Verdict was reached in less than 5 hours. On May 2, 2014 a Manhattan Supreme Court Justice sentenced David Tarloff to life without the possibility of parole on murder in the first degree and 25 years to life for assault in the second degree. Each of the Faughey's family members gave a victim impact statement of how their lives has changed. Before being sentenced, David Tarloff acknowledged that what he did was wrong and apologized to the family stating he was 46 years old and sick since he was 23. The Supreme Court justice was satisfied the jurors found Tarloff guilty.[ citation needed ]

Broader implications

The incident led to public discussion regarding the safety of mental health professionals who see patients in isolated settings. [12] In 2006 psychiatrist Wayne Fenton, a schizophrenia researcher who was an administrator at the National Institute of Mental Health, was found dead in the home office in Bethesda, Maryland where he met with private patients, apparently murdered by a 19-year-old patient. [13] [14]

Related Research Articles

<i>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</i> American psychiatric classification

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a common language and standard criteria. It is an internationally accepted manual on the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, though it may be used in conjunction with other documents. Other commonly used principal guides of psychiatry include the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), Chinese Classification of Mental Disorders (CCMD), and the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual. However, not all providers rely on the DSM-5 as a guide, since the ICD's mental disorder diagnoses are used around the world, and scientific studies often measure changes in symptom scale scores rather than changes in DSM-5 criteria to determine the real-world effects of mental health interventions.

The insanity defense, also known as the mental disorder defense, is an affirmative defense by excuse in a criminal case, arguing that the defendant is not responsible for their actions due to a psychiatric disease at the time of the criminal act. This is contrasted with an excuse of provocation, in which the defendant is responsible, but the responsibility is lessened due to a temporary mental state. It is also contrasted with the justification of self defense or with the mitigation of imperfect self-defense. The insanity defense is also contrasted with a finding that a defendant cannot stand trial in a criminal case because a mental disease prevents them from effectively assisting counsel, from a civil finding in trusts and estates where a will is nullified because it was made when a mental disorder prevented a testator from recognizing the natural objects of their bounty, and from involuntary civil commitment to a mental institution, when anyone is found to be gravely disabled or to be a danger to themself or to others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychiatric hospital</span> Hospital specializing in the treatment of serious mental disorders

A psychiatric hospital, also known as a mental health hospital, or a behavioral health hospital, is a specialized medical facility that focuses on the treatment of severe mental disorders. These institutions cater to patients with conditions such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and eating disorders, among others.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Szasz</span> Hungarian-American psychiatrist and activist (1920–2012)

Thomas Stephen Szasz was a Hungarian-American academic and psychiatrist. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, as what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, as well as scientism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delusional disorder</span> Mental illness featuring beliefs with inadequate grounding

Delusional disorder, traditionally synonymous with paranoia, is a mental illness in which a person has delusions, but with no accompanying prominent hallucinations, thought disorder, mood disorder, or significant flattening of affect. Delusions are a specific symptom of psychosis. Delusions can be bizarre or non-bizarre in content; non-bizarre delusions are fixed false beliefs that involve situations that could occur in real life, such as being harmed or poisoned. Apart from their delusion or delusions, people with delusional disorder may continue to socialize and function in a normal manner and their behavior does not necessarily seem odd. However, the preoccupation with delusional ideas can be disruptive to their overall lives.

Edwin Fuller Torrey, is an American psychiatrist and schizophrenia researcher. He is associate director of research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute (SMRI) and founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), a nonprofit organization whose principal activity is promoting the passage and implementation of outpatient commitment laws and civil commitment laws and standards in individual states that allow people diagnosed with severe mental illness to be involuntarily hospitalized and treated throughout the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrea Yates</span> American murder defendant (born 1964)

Andrea Pia Yates is an American woman from Houston, Texas, who confessed to drowning her five children in their bathtub on June 20, 2001. The case of Yates—who had exhibited severe postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, and schizophrenia leading up to the murders—placed the M'Naghten rules, along with the irresistible impulse test for sanity, under close public scrutiny in the United States.

Sluggish schizophrenia or slow progressive schizophrenia was a diagnostic category used in the Soviet Union to describe what was claimed to be a form of schizophrenia characterized by a slowly progressive course; it was diagnosed even in patients who showed no symptoms of schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders, on the assumption that these symptoms would appear later. It was developed in the 1960s by Soviet psychiatrist Andrei Snezhnevsky and his colleagues, and was used exclusively in the USSR and several Eastern Bloc countries, until the fall of Communism starting in 1989. The diagnosis has long been discredited because of its scientific inadequacy and its use as a means of confining dissenters. It has never been used or recognized outside of the Eastern Bloc, or by international organizations such as the World Health Organization. It is considered a prime example of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union</span>

There was systematic political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, based on the interpretation of political opposition or dissent as a psychiatric problem. It was called "psychopathological mechanisms" of dissent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Forensic psychiatry</span> Subspeciality of psychiatry, related to criminology

Forensic psychiatry is a subspeciality of psychiatry and is related to criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry. According to the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law, it is defined as "a subspecialty of psychiatry in which scientific and clinical expertise is applied in legal contexts involving civil, criminal, correctional, regulatory, or legislative matters, and in specialized clinical consultations in areas such as risk assessment or employment." A forensic psychiatrist provides services – such as determination of competency to stand trial – to a court of law to facilitate the adjudicative process and provide treatment, such as medications and psychotherapy, to criminals.

Dorothy Otnow Lewis is an American psychiatrist and author who has been an expert witness at a number of high-profile cases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insulin shock therapy</span> Psychiatric treatment

Insulin shock therapy or insulin coma therapy was a form of psychiatric treatment in which patients were repeatedly injected with large doses of insulin in order to produce daily comas over several weeks. It was introduced in 1927 by Austrian-American psychiatrist Manfred Sakel and used extensively in the 1940s and 1950s, mainly for schizophrenia, before falling out of favour and being replaced by neuroleptic drugs in the 1960s.

A psychiatric assessment, or psychological screening, is the process of gathering information about a person within a psychiatric service, with the purpose of making a diagnosis. The assessment is usually the first stage of a treatment process, but psychiatric assessments may also be used for various legal purposes. The assessment includes social and biographical information, direct observations, and data from specific psychological tests. It is typically carried out by a psychiatrist, but it can be a multi-disciplinary process involving nurses, psychologists, occupational therapist, social workers, and licensed professional counselors.

The Maharishi University of Management stabbing occurred on March 1, 2004, when without provocation, a university student Shuvender Sem fatally stabbed a fellow student, Levi Butler, after Sem had attacked another student earlier in the day. The event occurred at Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, United States, and attracted attention partly due to the university's practice of "yogic flying," which proponents say reduces violence in the surrounding area. Sem was found not guilty due to insanity. A lawsuit against the university that had charged negligence was settled out of court.

Political abuse of psychiatry, also known as punitive psychiatry, refers to the misuse of psychiatric diagnosis, detention, and treatment to suppress individual or group human rights in society. This abuse involves the deliberate psychiatric diagnosis of individuals who require neither psychiatric restraint nor treatment, often for political purposes.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the psychiatric survivors movement:

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to psychiatry:

A religious delusion is defined as a delusion, or fixed belief not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence, involving religious themes or subject matter. Religious faith, meanwhile, is defined as a belief in a religious doctrine or higher power in the absence of evidence. Psychologists, scientists, and philosophers have debated the distinction between the two, which is subjective and cultural.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Holmes (mass murderer)</span> American mass murderer (born 1987)

James Eagan Holmes is an American mass murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora theater shooting in which he killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a Century 16 movie theater on July 20, 2012. He had no known criminal background before the shooting occurred. Before the shooting, Holmes booby-trapped his apartment with explosives, which were defused one day later by a bomb squad.

Andre Lee Thomas is an American convicted murderer and death row inmate known for removing both of his eyeballs in separate incidents and ingesting one of them. In 2004, Thomas killed his estranged wife Laura Boren, his four-year-old son and her one-year-old daughter in Sherman, Texas. He cut open the chests of all three victims, and he removed the two children's hearts.

References

  1. ↑ Kirk, Stuart A. (2013). Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs. Transaction Publishers. p. 13.
  2. ↑ Patient hacks therapist to death Archived 2008-07-25 at the Wayback Machine , New York Daily News , February 13, 2008
  3. ↑ Russ Buettner (March 13, 2013). "Psychiatrist, Also Victimized, Tells of Attack by Defendant". New York Times.
  4. 1 2 3 Associated Press, Man Arraigned in Therapist's Knife Slaying; Judge Orders Psychiatric Evaluation, February 17, 2008
  5. 1 2 Psychologist Murder Suspect Found Fit For Trial Archived 2008-10-12 at the Wayback Machine , WCBS-TV, February 22, 2008
  6. ↑ Associated Press, NYPD Investigation Into Therapist Slaying Slowed by Privacy Laws, February 16, 2008
  7. ↑ Samuel Maull, Insanity defense for NYC cleaver murder suspect [ permanent dead link ], Associated Press, April 15, 2008
  8. ↑ Jon Eligon, Defendant Unfit For Trial In Killing of Psychologist, New York Times , October 19, 2010
  9. ↑ Russ Buettner (March 11, 2013). "Third Attempt at Trial in Killing of a Therapist". New York Times.
  10. ↑ Russ Buettner (March 12, 2013). "Trial of a Therapist's Killer Will Hinge on Frame of Mind". New York Times.
  11. ↑ "Mistrial in 'Cleaver Slay' case". NY Post. 16 April 2013. Retrieved 16 April 2013.
  12. ↑ Therapists Are Advised To Take Precautions Archived 2021-09-17 at the Wayback Machine , New York Sun , February 14, 2008
  13. ↑ Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb, NIMH Administrator Wayne S. Fenton, 53, The Washington Post , September 5, 2006, Page B06
  14. ↑ Patient vs. Doctor, Newsweek website, February 15, 2008
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.