A Queens man with a history of mental problems was arrested today in the vicious slaying of a psychologist attacked in her office with a meat cleaver, police said.

David Tarloff, 39, was taken into custody in the morning after investigators matched him with three palm prints found at the bloody crime scene, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

Mr. Tarloff made statements incriminating himself during a 25-minute interrogation, Mr. Kelly said. The questioning stopped when he asked for a lawyer, and it wasn’t clear later today whether he had an attorney. Murder and attempted murder charges are pending, Mr. Kelly said.

Therapist Kathryn Faughey was slashed 15 times with the cleaver and a 9-inch knife in her Manhattan office Tuesday evening. A psychiatrist who worked in the building, Dr. Kent Shinbach, went to Faughey’s aid and was badly injured.

During questioning, Mr. Tarloff said he had gone to the office because Dr. Shinbach had him institutionalized in 1991. He said he planned to rob the psychiatrist and leave the country with his mother, who lives in a nursing home, but until recently had lived with him in an apartment in Queens.

Mr. Kelly couldn’t confirm whether Mr. Tarloff was ever Dr. Shinbach’s patient, or whether he had met Faughey. It remained unclear why Mr. Tarloff would have attacked Faughey, police said.

The breakthrough in the case came as friends, relatives, and former patients attended a funeral for the slain therapist in Manhattan.

“I hope this arrest provides some measure of solace at this terrible time for her husband and the rest of her family,” Mr. Kelly said.

Neighbors described Mr. Tarloff as a troubled man with an erratic and sometimes combative personality who would occasionally wander the halls half-clothed. He had been arrested two weeks ago for assaulting a security guard at a hospital, according to criminal court records. Mr. Kelly said police matched prints from that arrest with a palm print found on a roller suitcase left at the crime scene.

There was a whirl of police activity at the Queens apartment today. Police kept outsiders from entering the building, and officers came and went from the building throughout the afternoon.

One neighbor who has known the family for decades, Phyllis Zicherman, said that Mr. Tarloff had seemed down lately, but that she was stunned to hear he was a suspect. “He had problems, but he was never violent,” she said.

Sisters Betty and Margaret Feeney, who live below Mr. Tarloff, said they have known him his entire life. They described him as unstable but were shocked that he was accused in the slaying.

“I know he’s crazy and everything,” Betty Feeney, 72, said. “I don’t think that he’s capable of doing something like that — of killing somebody. I really don’t.”

She said that Mr. Tarloff would come around asking for money but that she would not give it to him.

“I would keep out of the elevator if I saw him. I was scared of him. I wouldn’t go near where he would be,” she said. “He used to make terrible noise above us. We had an awful time with him. He was tramping back and forth all hours of the night.”

Investigators said the pudgy, balding, middle-aged killer arrived around 8 p.m. Tuesday, telling the doorman he had an appointment with Dr. Shinbach, then sat in the waiting room with another of Dr. Shinbach’s patients until she went into his office around 8:30 p.m.

Sometime after that, the killer entered Faughey’s office and attacked her. Dr. Shinbach came to her aid but was assaulted and robbed of $90.

Blood was splattered on the walls and pooled on the floor of Faughey’s office. Blood also was found on the basement door, police said.

Mr. Kelly said the case had strong forensic evidence, and investigators worked on blood and DNA samples from the scene. Police combed surveillance footage and removed evidence from the slain therapist’s office.

Mr. Kelly said today that the suspect was seen on surveillance tapes walking the same escape route about an hour and a half before the slaying.

Earlier in the week, detectives traveled to Pennsylvania to interview a friend of Faughey who spoke to the psychologist that day. He was not considered a suspect, police said.

The killer left behind two bags near the basement door through which he escaped. A larger roller suitcase was filled with adult diapers and women’s clothing, and a smaller bag was full of rope, duct tape, and eight knives apparently not used in the attack, police said.

Dr. Shinbach was taken to New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center with slash wounds on his head, face, and hands. The hospital declined to release any information about Dr. Shinbach today.