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Clinical director who released deranged Macy’s stabber has own history of mental illness, relied on advice from temp psychiatrist
NY Post ^ | 12/20/2025 | Tina Moore, Rich Calder and David Spector

Posted on 12/20/2025 5:37:33 AM PST by DFG

The penny-pinching Manhattan Psychiatric Center administrator who greenlit the release of the deranged Macy’s stabber has a long history of mental illness herself – and made her decision on the recommendation of a “temporary” shrink, The Post has learned.

Caitlin Stork, clinical director of the center on Wards Island, tried to kill herself twice as a teen and battled bipolar disorder, which was treated with lithium and the antipsychotic Seroquel, she told the Charlotte Observer in 2003.

The 43-year-old Ohio native relied on the advice of a temporary shrink, or a “locum tenens” psychiatrist hired on a contract basis, in releasing alleged stabber Kerri Aherne earlier this month, a source who works in NYC-based mental hospitals told The Post.

The temp, with Stork’s blessing, signed the discharge papers on Dec. 10, then headed out on a three-week vacation. Such contract employees are typically used by the state-run facility to fill staffing gaps.

The next day, Aherne — who told The Post in a jailhouse interview that she heard voices telling her to kill — went to Macy’s Herald Square, bought a knife on the eighth floor, then stabbed a woman from California changing her 10-month-old baby girl in a seventh-floor bathroom, authorities said.

Stork and other administrators are incentivized to release patients to cut state costs, the source said.

“There’s a push to get people out everywhere,” the source said. “It’s all musical chairs in order to move people from one bed to another, so there are beds available.

Stork “does the same thing — push, push, push, to get people out.

“You [shouldn’t] get discharged if you’re hearing voices to kill people,” added the insider.

The paranoid, delusional Aherne, 43, also said in the Post interview last week that she is being “tortured by the government.”

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: US: New York
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1 posted on 12/20/2025 5:37:33 AM PST by DFG
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To: DFG

This is typical of government-run psychiatric personnel. What’s new?


2 posted on 12/20/2025 5:54:24 AM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: DFG

Sheesh


3 posted on 12/20/2025 5:57:18 AM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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To: DFG

I’ve found out through my life that most psychiatrists and psychologists are actually mentally ill and pursue the profession in order to find out what is wrong with themselves.


4 posted on 12/20/2025 5:58:19 AM PST by DCBryan1 (Inter arma enim silent leges! - Cicero )
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To: DFG

Mel Brooks film High Anxiety is very funny satire mental health institutions. The reality is that shrinks are basically witch doctors. The drugs they prescribe are dangerous.


5 posted on 12/20/2025 6:02:29 AM PST by DeplorablePaul
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To: DFG

They have to cuts costs everywhere they can, because how else are they going to be able to afford to buy their illegal alien voters so they can retain power.


6 posted on 12/20/2025 6:02:36 AM PST by jacknhoo (Luke 12:51; Think ye, that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, no; but separation.)
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To: DFG

Authorities who keep releasing these animals into society need to be held accountable for their part in the crime. They are certainly complicit.


7 posted on 12/20/2025 6:10:07 AM PST by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus….)
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To: DCBryan1

They do seem to have a tendency to search for their own psychotic ‘doppelganger’.


8 posted on 12/20/2025 6:11:32 AM PST by Cletus.D.Yokel (The Democrats' official policy is now, “Hate, Violence and Murder". Change my mind.)
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To: DFG

When I took some courses at USF’s psychiatry department, I was struck by how lunatic some of the students and faculty were. A friend suggested this is because they went into psychiatry so they could treat their own problems. Self-treatment of psychiatric problems is almost always a failure.


9 posted on 12/20/2025 6:16:55 AM PST by Gen.Blather (Has anyone seen my tagline? ...I know it was here...)
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To: DFG

The lunatics are in charge of the asylum...And I thought that was a joke punchline.


10 posted on 12/20/2025 6:17:51 AM PST by pfflier
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To: DCBryan1

“I’ve found out through my life that most psychiatrists and psychologists are actually mentally ill and pursue the profession in order to find out what is wrong with themselves.”

Yep.

L


11 posted on 12/20/2025 6:21:55 AM PST by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is.)
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To: pfflier

Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether....


12 posted on 12/20/2025 6:37:32 AM PST by gundog (The ends justify the mean tweets. )
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To: DFG

Humanity has (mostly) solved the plague, smallpox and typhoid - but our new pandemic is mental illness.


13 posted on 12/20/2025 6:46:09 AM PST by PGR88
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To: DCBryan1

you’re not alone in that belief


14 posted on 12/20/2025 6:52:16 AM PST by Jeff Vader
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To: DFG

Ever wonder why there were so few mass killings before the 1970s? I remember three mass murderers between 1949 and 1970. all crazies.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/story-first-mass-murder-us-history-180956927/

Howard Unruh, 1949. Considered the first mass murderer, So dangerous he died in a mental hospital in 2009.
Richard Speck, 1966. Murdered eight student nurses with a knife. Died in prison.
Charles Whitman, 1966. killed many from the Texas Tower. Had a tumor on the brain, killed on site.
Then in the 1970s, the mental hospitals were closed down, the crazies declared “sane” enough to walk the streets and murder rates took off like a rocket.
Here is partial list of people who would have been in a MENTAL WARD before many of the ASYLUMS were shut down, crazies declared “sane” and dumped on the streets.

Mark David Chapman who murdered John Lennon
John Hinckley Jr. who shot President Reagan
Robert John Bardo who shot Rebecca Schaeffer
David Berkowitz, the .44 Cailber Killer.
Jared Laugher who shot Gabby Giffords.
Pat Purdy, released from a mental hospital, allowed to buy guns, then shot up the Stockton School Yard.
Patrick Sherrill who shot up the Edmond Post office.
James Oliver Huberty who shot so many at MacDonalds
This is just a SHORT LIST t of people who were crazy enough who would have been in a mental hospital before they were closed down in the 1970s.
When you add the MASS MURDERERS and CHURCH and SCHOOL SHOOTERS who would have been shown to be insane but allowed to roam freely you will begin to understand why it is...
LONG PAST TIME TO REOPEN THE MENTAL WARDS AGAIN!
Now we can add another name, Decarlos Brown Jr. who knifed Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
Now we can add the son of Rob Reiner to the list.


15 posted on 12/20/2025 6:58:10 AM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar (REOPEN THE MENTAL HOSPITALS CLOSED IN THE 1970s!)
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To: DCBryan1

very true. Everyone I’ve ever known fits this category.


16 posted on 12/20/2025 7:06:33 AM PST by redangus
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To: DCBryan1

Ping,
Pretty well known fact!


17 posted on 12/20/2025 7:10:58 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
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To: Gen.Blather
When I took some courses at USF’s psychiatry department, I was struck by how lunatic some of the students and faculty were. A friend suggested this is because they went into psychiatry so they could treat their own problems. Self-treatment of psychiatric problems is almost always a failure.

Sadly, who else would be motivated to go into the field?

You might find a few who were motivated by seeing others close to them suffer from psychiatric illnesses, but the most motivated will be those who are suffering.

18 posted on 12/20/2025 8:17:57 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: DCBryan1
I’ve found out through my life that most psychiatrists and psychologists are actually mentally ill and pursue the profession in order to find out what is wrong with themselves.

That might not be a bad thing. We use the term "teacher" for "Sensei" but Sensei means "one who comes before".

If the psychiatrist or psychologist figured out their issues, they may have far more to offer than someone who learned from textbooks.

19 posted on 12/20/2025 8:28:09 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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To: PGR88
Humanity has (mostly) solved the plague, smallpox and typhoid - but our new pandemic is mental illness.

There's a lot of evidence pointing toward mental illness being caused by parasites such as toxoplasma gondii or hookworm and viruses.

https://neurolaunch.com/viruses-that-cause-mental-illness/

Add in secondary effects, where the children of a mentally ill parent develop mechanisms to cope in the environment the parent put them in, and the effects continue for generations.

20 posted on 12/20/2025 8:36:32 AM PST by T.B. Yoits
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