It looked like a robbery gone bad.
42-year-old David Tarloff told New York City police that he planned to rob psychiatrist Dr. Kent Shinbach of $50,000 and use the money to get his mother out of a nursing home and take her to Hawaii. Armed with a meat cleaver, Tarloff went to Shinbach’s Manhattan office, but ran into psychologist Dr. Kathryn Faughey, who shared the office with Dr. Shinbach.
Tarloff told police that he believed the 56-year-old Faughey was going to kill him, so he sliced her to death with a meat cleaver 15 times. Tarloff fled the scene of the crime, but was later caught when police matched his palm prints with prints found on a suitcase left in the Manhattan office building. The suitcase was filled with women’s clothing and adult diapers, presumably for Tarloff’s mother… had the plan worked.
It seemed like an open-and-shut case, but it would take several twists and turns that would require the expertise of forensic psychologists, who act as detectives of the mind.
After his arrest, Tarloff plead not guilty by reason of insanity. In legal terms, this meant that he was supposedly temporarily insane during the crime and could not be held responsible for his actions. Contrary to popular belief, the insanity defense rarely works, but gets publicity in high-profile cases such as Lorena Bobbitt, John Hinckley and The Unabomber.
Was Tarloff sane and just pretending to be crazy?
Tarloff has more than 10,000 pages of psychiatric records that document his mental problems. In 2007, he was arrested by police and taken in for psychiatric evaluation after allegedly threatening to kill people at a nursing home where his mother lived. He was arrested again after allegedly assaulting a security guard at another nursing home. He was confined to a mental facility in 1991 by Dr. Shinbach, the intended victim of this grisly crime. Tarloff did have a history of mental illness, but was he temporarily insane?
Law enforcement cast Tarloff’s insanity plea into question when they found a video surveillance tape of Tarloff scoping out an escape route prior to the murder. Following a few weeks of incarceration, David Tarloff was declared to be mentally incompetent. This is different than the insanity defense. Mentally incompetent meant that Tarloff could not be tried because he could not understand what was going on in the courtroom, nor could he help defend himself.
Instead of jail, Tarloff would be confined to Bellevue Hospital. His mental incompetence went on for about a year, but then it appeared that he had recovered and would go on trial, or would he?
Trial proceedings moved forward and jury selection was almost complete in October of 2010, but Tarloff suddenly refused to leave a holding cell at the courthouse. He was taken back to Bellevue where, his attorney says, he removed his clothes and ran around the psychiatric ward naked. Soon after, two court-ordered forensic psychologists found Tarloff to be mentally incompetent… again.
Sensing that Tarloff might be competent to stand trial, prosecutors tried to have their own forensic psychologist examine Tarloff and crack the case. But according to Manhattan assistant district attorney Evan Krutoy, Tarloff shut down and stopped speaking. The forensic psychologist tried speaking to Bellevue Hospital officials who had been treating Tarloff for over a year, but they refused to share any information, citing privacy laws.
Presented with this quandary, Judge Edward J. McLaughlin ruled that Tarloff was “mentally incompetent” and unable to stand trial. However, Judge McLaughlin slammed Bellevue Hospital officials for being obstructionist.
Numerous questions still persist. Did David Tarloff have the presence of mind to speak to court-ordered forensic psychologists, but clam up when questioned by the prosecutor’s forensic psychologist? Perhaps this mystery will be solved someday by a forensic psychologist. Until then, Tarloff will sit in a state psychiatric center until he is, once again, deemed competent to stand trial.