I'm not sure even how to approach this one, partially because so little seems to be known about the case. However, there's a metric crapton of stuff that's deviant about this incident, so I figured it was worth sharing here. Anyone want to speculate what this might be a case of, deviance wise, from what we've discussed thus far in class?
From http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/14/america/Therapist-Attack-Optional.php
Man butchers Manhattan psychologist to death, sets off manhunt
The Associated Press
Published: February 14, 2008
NEW YORK: The balding, middle-aged man breezed past the doorman, saying he had an appointment with a psychiatrist. Wheeling a large suitcase and carrying a smaller bag, he walked like he knew where he was going.
Police say he was carrying a bizarre assortment of items: adult diapers, women's clothing, rope, duct tape, several knives and a meat cleaver.
The man walked into the waiting room of Kent Shinbach, the psychiatrist he had said he was seeing, but then entered the neighboring office of psychologist Kathryn Faughey.
Shinbach heard Faughey's screams moments later. Her office was wrecked and splattered with blood when he raced in.
"She's dead," said the man, who according to police didn't appear to recognize Shinbach. The suspect began stabbing at the 70-year-old Shinbach, eventually pinning him to the wall with a chair before stealing $90 and escaping through a basement door.
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Police say Faughey, 56, was stabbed 15 times with the cleaver and a 9-inch knife in Tuesday night's fatal attack, which rattled neighbors on the Upper East Side and sent shock waves through the city's large community of mental health professionals.
Shinbach was in serious condition at New York Hospital Wednesday with slash wounds on his head, face and hands.
Police were hunting for the still-unidentified suspect Wednesday. Authorities released a sketch of the suspected killer along with dimly lit surveillance videotapes of the attacker entering and leaving the building.
Three knives were recovered at the scene, including the 9-inch knife and the cleaver, which was apparently bent from the attack, police said. Furniture in Faughey's office was overturned, shades torn and blood was on the walls and pooled on the floor.
"The condition of the room was that of a fierce struggle," said chief police spokesman Paul Browne.
Shinbach screamed out to the street from Faughey's office for help, and the building doorman called 911 around 9 p.m., but by then the suspect had escaped.
The suspect, wearing a green, three-quarter length coat and knit cap, left behind the two bags. The rope and duct tape and several knives he carried apparently were not used in the attack, police said.
Blood was found on the basement doorknob, and police said the route outside from the first-floor office wasn't very obvious; it was possible the suspect knew where he was going. Surveillance tapes show the suspect deliberately leaving the luggage by the basement door before walking out.
Faughey's office is in a 13-story apartment building on East 79th Street, in a bustling neighborhood just blocks from a major hospital complex.
Believing the killer might have been injured, authorities issued alerts to area hospitals and looked through Faughey's computer files for clues. They also examined surveillance footage to see whether he had been to the office prior to the attack.
A traumatized female patient, in the waiting room when the suspect arrived, was in Shinbach's office during the attack, and was being questioned by authorities.
Faughey, a licensed psychologist and graduate of Yeshiva University in the Bronx, described herself as a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on changing thoughts that cause feelings or behaviors. Neighbors described her as a tall, well-dressed woman who was reserved and private but friendly.
"This is, I think, an extraordinary occurrence," said Sharon Brennan, a psychologist in Manhattan and a spokeswoman for the New York State Psychological Association. "It has had a shocking impact on the whole New York community."
On her Web site, Faughey said she treated patients for relationship issues, coping with breakups, anxiety, panic attacks, stress over job changes and online intimacy, such as relationship issues arising from computer and text messaging.
In an interview with The New York Times in 2004, Faughey offered some advice on breaking up in a digital age: "In the old days it was burn the letters," she said. "Today, clear the hard drive."
Serious attacks by patients on their mental health providers are rare, but they do happen — usually in institutions that see more seriously ill patients.
A psychiatrist in Nebraska died of head injuries in August, several days after a patient with a grudge and a history of violence allegedly attacked him as he arrived at a medical center.
It is common for therapists who see patients in their homes or private offices to install alarm systems, or even help buzzers, in the event that a patient starts to lose control.
In Manhattan, these safety systems are often complemented by the usual security systems for office buildings, which include doormen and video cameras.
"Safety is always a concern," Brennan said. She added that therapists are thoroughly trained in how to assess a patient's potential for violence, and would normally see patients in a private setting only if they had determined that the safety risk was low.
___
Associated Press writers David B. Caruso and Verena Dobnik contributed to this report.
27 comments:
It's almost like the school and work place shootings we discussed in class, whereby a particular person or set of persons has been targeted. While the facts of this case seem obscure at the moment, and i'm sure new information will be brought to light as more is found out and told by the media, it would be interesting to see if this person had a diagnosable DSM-IVR disorder and is being treated by another psychologist at another location. I think it's hard to speculate now on what the motive was, or this individiual until we know the exact relationship between him and the targeted person. Veronica V.
This seems like a really unfortunate occurrence for the victim. Obviously, she was the target here and the suspect showed that by killing her in such a brutal manner. Its quite obvious he was suffering from some sort of mental disorder. Could he have felt the victim, in trying to help him, maybe advised him to do something that didnt work out well? Hopefully, the police can find this man and with all the evidence left at the scene, they should be successful.
I don't even know what to say to this one... you would think that if the psychologist was doing a good job that the patients wouldn't have all this rage. However, it would be wrong of me to draw a correlation between a bad doctor and an out of control patient, especially because their behavior is what landed them there in the first place. As I have said many times before, I do not understand why people resort to such violence when they do not get their way, in my eyes it is a cry for help as well as an outlet for stress.
Although this wasn't a "mass murder", it sounds like the disgruntled employee. It's like the patient didn't feel his therapy was working or he was still having a hard time coping and blamed the therapist for that. So, he took matters into his own hands. However, since he did have some sort of mental disruption, it could also be the psychotic mass murderer. He had a break and due to his mental illness, he took it out on the one person who should know how to fix it, his psychologist.
I agree with Amanda that this sounds like a case of the disgruntled employee. She is right in saying that this could have led to a more serious lack of judgement in terms of more murders if the offender was not interrupted. According to all the tools and weapons he brought into the office, it is clear that this was completely pre-meditated and it is really unfortunate that he had to take his aggression out on someone perfectly fit to help him work through his problems. I am sure when he is detained he will go through extensive psychological evaluations, how ironic.
It is hard to read this and even believe that it is real. "An extraordinary occurrence" seems like a gross understatement in terms of word choice, but I am not sure I could do much better myself. I'm not sure what the killer expected to have the time to accomplish with his suitcase of bizarre items. I just wonder if he did it because he perceived the woman psychologist or male psychiatrist as having passed judgement on him and his personal situation that brought him there in the first place..rather than taking the anger out the quintessential way, on the person who caused you the grief.
The part about all of this that really stings with me personally is the unfortunate need for heightened security in all places of daily life. I'm not going to say that increased security is necessarily the answer to these continued incidents of violence, but I'd bet a ton of money that additional safety upgrades and additional precautions will be brought up repeatedly by the media. Whether it's an airport, a school, or even a psychologist's personal office, our individual sense of safety has definitely been scarred. Unfortunately now the question becomes, how much is too much?
Other than that, I'd have to agree with what has already been said, it is clear that the suspect no doubt has some sort of underlying mental illness, whether it has been clinically diagnosed or not.
One of the first questions I thought to myself is why was he carrying womens clothing and adult diapers with him? It is obvious his act was premeditated. Maybe he was planning on doing something else, using the rope diapers and clothing, but once he got up there he got scared, or for some reason things didn't go according to plan, who knows. To speculate, maybe he had some sort of sexual fetishes, involving wearing diapers and/or women's clothing and sought out help. Like others have said maybe he felt shamed and judged by the psychologist and this angered him to the point of wanting to kill her. Or he may have blamed her for some advice she gave him or for not being able to "cure" him.
As for the man suffering from a mental disorder, I don't know. He could be a completely functioning rational person in all other aspects of his life. Not all killers are diagnosed with a psychological disorder.
First of all, it is sick that a person would do this and especially to a doctor because this person only tries to help people. If i had to assume, i would say this the killer was probably someone who was had a relationship problem, possible a breakup. I beleive that since that is what this doctor specialized in, that is what the killer, who im sure was a patient of hers, had problems with. It reminds me of the type of suicide that occurs after a ruptured relationship or thrwarted love, and instead of committing suicide, this man decided to take itout on the person who was trying to help him, or failed to help him. As far as some sort of mental illness that he had, i cant say we can really be sure about that.
This occurence albeit unfortunate doesn't really seem so uncommon. It seems that many patients might react negatively to having to see a psychologist/psychiatrist on a regular basis, and someone with some kind of severe mental illness might react in an extreme manner. Obviously murder is a deviant act, but the murder of a doctor by a patient doesn't semm all that rare. I think the victim may be partially to blame for not being able to diagnose such a stunning mental defect.
As with some of the other comments, I agree that there should be a heightened level of security in a place where mentally ill people frequent, and that if a basic metal detector was present at the door of the apartment building, this incident might have been prevented or at least prolonged until the doctor left the building.
I feel like this guy might be slightly disturbed, but not enough to not know what he was doing. Some aspects of his actions show negligence, the police did get an accurate description of him, but in other ways he knew how to get past security without raising awareness, and he did go to the room he said was going to first to again avoid suspicion. Secondly, he had a defined target. If he was just angry at psychologists in general then he most likely would have tried to kill as many as possible, not just one. It kind of sounds like disgruntled employee, because their was a specific target, but he obviously didn't work there, and is not a well known patient or he would have been recognized. Then again, we will never know if his victim recognized him. I think the suitcase was probably a way to hide his weapons.
I agree that this particular individual most likely was suffering from some type of mental illness. I believe that this person felt helpless in a sense and that if they were attending therapy they didn't feel as though it was helping them. It is sad that a doctor who attempts to help people who suffer from mental illnesses had to suffer such a brutal attack. According to what we have learned in class I would categorize this person under the category of a psychotic mass murderer because it seems to me that they were suffering from some sort of mental illness and weren't thinking properly at the time of the attack.
When I first heard about the details of this case—rope, duct tape, meat cleaver, it felt as though I were hearing the synopsis of a film like Silence of the Lambs. Although it is not appropriate to point fingers, I do feel that the doorman should have been tipped off by the large suitcase and the suspect’s hurried appearance. I know that in many buildings with front desk security the doorman usually calls upstairs to confirm that the tenant is expecting a guest. This probably would have prevented the attacks on the victims in question.
Telling by the contents of the suitcase, it is very obvious that the suspect was calculating, and possibly suffering from a severe mental illness. I believe he falls in the category of a serial killer, because if he has not already killed, the fact that he did not allow himself to be captured shows that he is capable of killing again.
As others have already stated this attack is correlated between patient and doctor. It is common in the medical field, whether being treated for psychiatrics or biological reasons; patients often experience tension toward their provider. What triggers this tension may be from a range of contributors. Such the patient may disagree with the doctor’s opinion, feel uncared for, or even malpractice. It is difficult to grasp what this particular suspect had in mind, but it is safe to say he was unhappy with this particular practice and a specific individual.
I believe this form of deviance is more common than we may realize. There should be proper security measures taken, especially in the metropolitan settings that deal with a variety of patients.
I agree with many fo the above posts. You would have to believe that he is suffering from some type of mental illness in order to do something like this. It would be interesting to see that within the therapy or help that he was receiving , what his mood was or the topic of discussion or his current state of mind was at the time right before this happened. Whether the treatment triggered something in his mind that pushed him over the edge, or he thought that he had exhausted all his options and this was the only thing left to do. I also agree with the other posts about increasing the security all around. We are a bit too trusting or we always want to turn the other way...we have to take action.
Well I agree with most of other people's comment. This stituation could be a case of a phychotic mass murder or a disgruntled citizen. He maybe had a mental illness that drove him to do what he did or he was just fed up with his life and being that the psychatrist wasn't really helping him or their advice wasn't working for him he decided to go of on them. -H.P.
this case is really awful! i wonder what psychological disoders the suspect is suffering from, a sane person definatly wouldn't do that. I would if this was a planned attack or if something set this guy off? i guess we wont know until someone is caught. i wonder what the diapers were for? haha
I feel like this guy must have been suffering from a mental illness. Clearly the crime was premeditated but all of the items recovered from the scene seem to not make much sense. Why would he carry two suitcases with diapers, women's clothes and rope in them? It doesn't make sense and I think it shows the killer's twisted state of mind. I think it is obvious that the killer knew the victim. This was an unfortunate incident and it shows that despite how much a person tries to help people, they can never be safe. People are sometimes punished due to their good deeds.
It sounds like a "disgruntle citizen" where by a particular person is angry about something that happened at work or a personal matter in which they take it out and become violent on other citizens. This man was obviously mentally ill and had emotional problems. It is an unfortunate occurrence for the victim. It seems like the the patient was not satisfied with what his therapist said and was resentful of her. What i don't understand is why was he allowed to bring in a bag and a large suitcase? What about security?
It is clear that the murderer is suffering from some kind of mental illness. His treatment was most likely not working, so he became frustrated and that provoked him to kill. The suitcase he brought demonstrates that his act was premeditated. So it would make the most sense that he planned to kill the psychologist because he wasn't getting better. It is unfortunate that those who try to help others are the ones that get hurt in the end. I am sure this type of killing is more common than we know. Therefore, I agree with the comments made in the article that precautions should be taken for situations like this. With better security this occurrence might have been prevented.
I'm not sure if this was just a random killing, perhaps someone who was a little imbalanced committed the act because of an inner urge, maybe some voices told him to, I don't know. Or, something a little more scary to think about, is maybe it was the start of a serial killer. They say that at any point in time there are somewhere around 12 serial killers. Maybe this was just a practice run for someone. Maybe it was just someone who didn't like psychiatrists. Who knows. But I guess we'll find out if doctor weirdo makes another visit to someone else.
Uhm....forgot to leave my name on the above comment...
Caitlyn C
This was a sad and unfortunate situation. No one ever thinks that while you are at work a crazy man is going to come in and kill you. Both victims were just doing their job. It was ironic that their job is to deal with people that have psychological issues and obviously this man did. I would categorize him as a disgruntled citizen. He was mad at the world and targeted the only kind of people that could have probably helped him. Maybe he felt like they werent helping him and thats why he targeted them, but it could have happened anywhere else.
The article said that Faughey described herself as a specialist in cognitive behavioral therapy, which focuses on changing thoughts that cause feelings or behaviors. I'm guessing she was trying to change the way this patient felt and he did not like it at all. I find it odd though that Faughey was not aware that the patient could become this violent. It is odd that he brought so much stuff with him to assist in the killing and whatever else he had planned for her, although he was clearly suffering from a serious mental illness. I think that people with mental illnesses such as the one this man was suffering from should be monitored more closely. It is obvious that their attitudes can change and can do serious damage to themselves or others. B. Brown
This covers a pretty broad spectrum of deviant behaviors. Clearly there's extreme violence, due to the nature of the attack. It's also likely the perpetrator was mentally ill in some way, and that there was some sort of sexual deviance planned due to the assortment of...interesting...items he brought with him in the bags. Yes, this is tragic, but the fact that it occurred in a counselor's office does not necessarily set it apart from other murders. Severely mentally ill individuals with violent tendencies are a danger no matter where they go if they do not receive proper treatment, and something like this could have happened anywhere.
The victim was definatly murdered on purpose. It was not a random killing because the victim was brutally murdered. He most likely had mental problems and wanted to kill her. Maybe she gave him advice that it did work and he was mad and killed her. This is a case of the disgruntled employee. He was not satisifed with the serivce he was getting so he reacted with murder.
He seems to be a psychotic mass murderer. When his emotions take over he resorts to extreme violence.
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