#7 - Kathryn Faughey
On the night of February the 12th of 2008, New York City psychologist Kathryn Faughey was
viciously attacked at her Upper East Side office. After one of her evening sessions, the 56-year-old
was ambushed by a man who proceeded to hack her to death with a meat cleaver. Her colleague,
Kent Schinbach, attempted to intervene on her behalf, but was consequently left with severe
slash wounds to his face and neck. The assailant was identified as 39-year-old David Tarloff,
who’d gone to the East 79th Street office that night with the intention of robbing Dr. Schinbach.
The latter had been involved in diagnosing Tarloff with schizophrenia back in 1991,
and had reportedly arranged for him to be involuntarily institutionalized. Tarloff’s murder
trial was scheduled for October of 2010, but a pair of psychiatrists found him mentally unfit,
leading to a mistrial. A second trial was set for March of 2013 in the State Supreme Court in
Manhattan. Tarloff admitted to Faughey’s murder, but sought to avoid jail time on the grounds of
diminished responsibility. Following 10 days of contentious deliberations, the jury assigned to
the case was left deadlocked on a decision, and a second mistrial was declared. Tarloff’s third
and final trial unfolded in March of 2014. He was ultimately found guilty of first-degree murder,
as well as second-degree assault, and was consequently sentenced to life without parole.
#6 - Steven Pitt
A prominent forensic psychologist who consulted on a number of high-profile criminal cases was
gunned down outside his Phoenix office on May the 31st of 2018. According to eyewitness testimony,
59-year-old Steven Pitt had gotten into a loud argument with someone near Scottsdale
and Bell roads at about 5:30 pm. The shouting match was punctuated by the sound of gunshots,
after which an adult male wearing a dark-colored hat with a short brim fled the area on foot. Pitt
was later pronounced dead at the scene. A few days later, local police announced that they’d
identified a suspect in Pitt’s killing, as well as that of 5 others over the course of a multi-day
shooting spree. The man, identified as Dwight Lamon Jones, was tracked down to an Extended Stay
Hotel in Scottsdale, where he ultimately took his own life as a tactical police team was preparing
to enter his room and take him into custody. It subsequently emerged that Jones had been arrested
on domestic violence charges back in 2008 and 2009, which led to the demise of his marriage.
Following “bitter” divorce and child custody proceedings, the man was left demoralized. He
eventually came to the conclusion that he’d been the victim of a conspiracy involving his ex-wife,
psychiatrists, lawyers and the Maricopa County Judicial system. Among the professionals Jones
believed to be involved was Pitt, who’d examined him in connection to his divorce. The other
victims of Jones’ shooting spree were a pair of paralegals, a counselor, and a psychologist,
all of whom had been somehow associated with the man’s divorce and custody battle. Prior to his
death, Pitt had risen to prominence by working on the famous JonBenét Ramsey case, the Deer Creek
Middle School shooting, and the investigation into the Columbine High School massacre.
#5 - Robert Child
Liverpool Police were called to a home in the affluent suburb of Woolton on March the 6th of
2020. Neighbors had been alerted to the fact that the homeowner, 64-year-old Janice Child,
was in some sort of distress by her dogs, who’d been barking incessantly. Child reportedly lived
alone at the time, as her husband, who suffered from dementia, resided in an assisted living
facility. Officers entered to find the woman’s lifeless body discarded under the stairs in a
blood-stained utility room. There were signs of trauma to her skull and face,
later reported to have been inflicted by a hammer or some other similar weapon. The police
subsequently visited the victim’s 37-year-old son, Robert, to inform him of his mother’s death. When
officers arrived at his Wirral residence, he was out purchasing a luxury car with money that had
been transferred from his mother’s account the previous day. A short time later, he returned
home in a blue Jaguar, and appeared shocked and upset when told of his mother’s passing. However,
investigators began to notice inconsistencies in Robert’s testimony about his movements on the
day of Janice’s killing, and he was eventually arrested on suspicion of committing the murder
himself. The man, who worked as a sports psychologist at the University of Liverpool,
denied having killed his mother for financial gain, and initially decided to bring his case
to trial. Shortly before the commencement of the court proceedings, however, he entered
a guilty plea to murder, and was consequently sentenced to a minimum of 29 years behind bars.
#4 - Emily Dearden
New York real estate developer Kenneth Dearden awoke early one morning in November of 2013
with severe pain in his jaw, and found his wife, Emily, lying on the floor downstairs
in their Yonkers residence. The woman told the police that someone had broken in the
previous night and attacked them while they slept. Kenneth was brought to the hospital,
where doctors found a bullet lodged in his cheek. He underwent emergency surgery to remove the
projectile and remained hospitalized for about a week while recovering. Investigators were
immediately skeptical of Emily’s home invasion claims, as there were no signs of forced entry
and the house’s security alarm hadn’t been activated that night. It was subsequently
determined that the bullet found in Kenneth’s jaw matched the caliber of bullet from one of
the pistols given to Emily by her parents, which were later found in the basement of the family
home. On November the 21st, the woman, a former senior psychologist with the NYPD,
was taken into custody on suspicion of attempting to murder her husband. The latter alleged that
Emily’s actions stemmed from an affair she was having with a Texas executive, who’d
urged her to end her marriage so that they could be together. She was held on a $150,000 bail,
which she posted immediately. In February of 2017, Emily pleaded guilty to first-degree
attempted assault, and, during a sentencing hearing at Westchester County Court, was sent
to prison for 3 and a half years, followed by 2 and a half years of supervised release.
#3 - Thomas Burchard
On the morning of March the 7th of 2019, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police were called to the location
of a suspicious vehicle abandoned on a desert road near Lake Mead. Officers found the body
of California psychologist Thomas Burchard in the trunk. The county coroner subsequently concluded
that the 71-year-old man, who’d previously been reported missing by his longtime girlfriend,
had been struck multiple times with a blunt object, later determined to have been a
baseball bat. His cause of death was reported as blunt force trauma to the head. The car in
which Burchard’s remains were found belonged to a former Playboy model named Kelsey Turner,
who’d never reported the vehicle missing or stolen to the authorities. Upon further investigation,
the police learned that the doctor had gone to visit Turner in Las Vegas shortly before his
disappearance. The man had reportedly been paying her rent, as well as other bills, for some time,
but had recently indicated that he would no longer be lending her money. Investigators
thus surmised that an argument had broken out between Burchard and Turner, which ultimately
turned deadly. The psychiatrist, who worked at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula,
had been ambushed by Turner and her boyfriend, Jon Logan Kennison, both of whom were arrested
and charged with murder in the aftermath. For his role in Burchard’s slaying,
Kennison was sentenced to between 18 and 45 years in prison, after pleading guilty to
second-degree murder. Turner’s trial was scheduled to begin in November of 2022.
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#2 - Caroline Ekong
In the early hours of October the 14th of 2015, Delaware psychiatrist Caroline Ekong was found,
nude, lying in a pool of blood at her Hockessin home. An autopsy later determined that the
55-year-old had succumbed to multiple stab wounds. Roughly 30 minutes after Ekong’s
daughter came upon her lifeless body, 21-year-old Christopher Frick dialed 911 and confessed to the
murder. Frick detailed how he’d broken into his former psychiatrist’s home and confronted her.
A physical struggle ensued that culminated with him stabbing her multiple times. The young man,
a mathematics student at the University of Delaware, was reported as having been
diagnosed with a myriad of “mental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder, psychosis,
schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder”. Ekong arranged for him to be committed to a
psychiatric facility at the age of 18, after which he reportedly became obsessed with her,
eventually plotting his revenge. In an online review of the institution Frick was sent to, he
wrote “The person who imprisoned me was Caroline Ekong, whose ego is so large that she would
never be able to admit doing something wrong”. Following his 911 confession, Frick was taken into
the custody of New Castle County Police without further incident. He faced a slew of charges that
included first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.
In September of 2016, Frick pleaded guilty to the latter counts, prompting prosecutors to drop the
other 3 charges. He was consequently imprisoned for life, without the possibility of parole.
#1 - Mirah Wilks
A renowned South African psychologist was brutally murdered at her home in Johannesburg in October of
2019. 69-year-old Mirah Wilks, the former Chair of the Psychological Society of South Africa,
was a well-respected psychology professional known for her academic research into hate crimes,
trauma and violence. On the night of her death, Frank Wilks, her husband of 45 years, had gone to
worship at a local synagogue, leaving her home alone. A gang of armed robbers climbed up onto
the roof and removed some of the tiles, allowing them to drop down into the house and ambush Wilks.
The latter was reportedly stabbed upwards of 12 times and had her throat slit by the intruders,
who subsequently made off with a pair of laptops and a cell phone. 72-year-old Frank returned from
evening worship to find the bloody aftermath of the deadly home invasion. South African police
launched a full-scale manhunt for the gang responsible, although it’s unclear whether
any arrests had been made as of the latest available updates. Wilks had moved from Israel
to Australia as a young girl, before emigrating to South Africa with her husband and 2 children.
Thanks for watching! Would you rather see a psychologist who secretly posts
all of your session notes on social media or live
in a house with glass walls? Let us know in the comments section below!