NEW YORK – Jurors are about to start hearing about the meat-cleaver murder of a Manhattan psychotherapist, after five years of uncertainty about whether her mentally ill killer ever could go on trial.
Opening statements are set Monday in David Tarloff's case.
Tarloff's lawyers don't dispute that he killed Kathryn Faughey (FAW'-hee) in 2008. But they argue that his schizophrenia made him unable to understand that what he was doing was wrong.
Prosecutors and Faughey's family say Tarloff carried out a considered, criminal plan.
Tarloff has said he aimed to rob Faughey's officemate to get money to take his ailing mother to Hawaii.
Tarloff was deemed mentally unfit for court months later. After doctors said his condition had improved, jury selection got started in 2010, but then he was declared unfit again.
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