NEW YORK (AP) - Jurors have started weighing whether a mental patient who admits slashing a Manhattan psychologist to death with a meat cleaver is guilty of murdering her.
Jurors went home for the day after deliberating for about an hour Thursday in David Tarloff’s retrial. He’s asserting an insanity defense.
Deliberations are due to resume Friday.
The schizophrenic Tarloff acknowledges killing Kathryn Faughey (FAW’-hee) in 2008. He aimed to rob her officemate but encountered her first.
Prosecutors say Tarloff understood what he was doing was wrong, despite his psychiatric history. Tarloff’s defense argues he was too psychotic to be held criminally responsible.
A trial last year ended in a hung jury. A 2010 attempt at a trial collapsed during jury selection, when Tarloff’s behavior disintegrated and he was found mentally unfit for trial.
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