Corona Neighbors Speak Out On 'Hatchet' Killer
BY LIZ GOFF

Last weekend, neighbors walked stone-faced past cops waiting outside the Corona cooperative apartment of the man charged in the hatchet death of a Manhattan psychiatrist.

David Tarloff, 39, who police said has a history of mental problems, was charged on February 16 with the vicious murder of therapist Katherine Faughey, who was killed in her Upper East Side office on February 12.

"He was a strange one," said a woman named Anna. "He would walk up and down the halls all day and night, talking to the walls and himself."

"He was always alone and he was always dirty," said another neighbor. "He was always complaining, fighting with everybody. He fought with his mother all the time when she lived with him. The cops came to stop him more than once. He was really upset when she left, like he really missed her or something."

Tarloff lived with his mother in the Corona apartment until she was moved to a nursing home some three years ago.

"He never did nothing to nobody," said a young man named Carlos. "Why are they bothering him for that woman's murder?"

Cops waiting for the search warrant to enter Tarloff's apartment on February 16 nodded at neighbors who gathered to share the news of his arrest.

"You could see something was wrong with him," said a man named Cesar. "He seemed like he needed help, but when you tried to talk to him he screamed at you."

Police picked up Tarloff shortly after midnight on Friday, after his fingerprint was found in Faughey's blood-soaked office, authorities said. Investigators believe Tarloff was furious with Faughey and her partner, Dr. Kent Shinbach, whose diagnosis led to Tarloff's being committed to a state mental institution in 1991.

Police claimed Tarloff entered Faughey's East 79th Street office building on Tuesday evening carrying two bags containing the hatchet, knives, rope, women's clothing, adult diapers and tape.

Tarloff was captured on a surveillance tape entering the building and walking into the reception area of the suite Faughey and Shinbach shared. About 19 minutes later, Faughey's screams brought Shinbach running to her office where Tarloff then turned his rage on him. Shinbach was released on February 17 from a hospital where he was treated for wounds he suffered in the attack.

Police who picked up Tarloff at his apartment on Friday night brought him to Manhattan's 19th Precinct for questioning, where detectives armed with an arsenal of forensic and material evidence later charged him with murder, attempted murder and assault.

One neighbor, who said she has known Tarloff for most of his life, said she was stunned to learn of his arrest, "He never did anything that would make you think he was capable of this."