A woman accused of stabbing her home health aide during an argument in the suspect’s luxury Upper East Side apartment suffers from dementia and confused the victim with a different person, court officials said.
Barbara Salberg, 66, was arrested and hit with a slew of charges including attempted murder and assault following the Saturday afternoon stabbing of the 54-year-old victim in the suspect’s co-op on E. 73rd St. near Second Ave.
According to prosecutors, the home health care attendant prepared pancakes for Salberg and served the meal with a knife and fork.
Salberg confused the woman with another attendant, whom she believes stole from her, and began to argue with the victim, officials said.
“This is the knife I’ll kill you with,” Salberg said, according to prosecutors, before plunging the 5-inch knife the victim had given her for her pancakes into the woman’s stomach.
The attendant fled to the lobby shortly before 1 p.m., where she collapsed and was aided by building staff.
Medics rushed the victim to New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weil Cornell where she was in stable condition. The knife popped out of her as she was being taken to the ambulance, prosecutors said.
Salberg was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Monday via video hookup from her own hospital bed
Prosecutors and Salberg’s attorney agreed that upon her release from the hospital, she would be confined to her home without electronic monitoring, an arrangement that left Judge Janet McDonald with some concern.
”I worry about the welfare of the next home care attendant,” McDonald said.
The victim was discharged Saturday night after receiving stitches to the stomach area, officials said. But she complained of trouble breathing later and went back to the hospital.
Building employees have witnessed erratic behavior from Salberg in the past, prosecutors said.
