Suspect in N.Y. Church Shooting Said to Be Ex-Psychiatric Patient
A man accused of fatally shooting a priest and a parishioner during morning Mass had been twice admitted to psychiatric hospitals, a health official said Wednesday.
Peter Troy, 34, was last discharged from the Nassau University Medical Center by a judge’s order in May 2001 and health officials lost track of him, said Howard Sovronsky, head of the Nassau County Department of Mental Health.
A month earlier, police picked up Troy at a train station for behaving irrationally and brought him to New York’s Bellevue Hospital. Bellevue officials believed he was potentially dangerous, but Troy won a legal battle to discharge himself as mental health officials tried to evaluate him, Sovronsky said.
“We did make attempts to locate and find him, but those failed,” Sovronsky said.
Troy’s case file was closed in September. Six months later, a rifle-toting man walked into Our Lady of Peace Church on New York’s Long Island and killed Father Lawrence Penzes, 50, and parishioner Eileen Tosner, 73.
Troy was charged with two counts of second-degree murder and attempted murder involving an arresting officer.
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