Confidentiality Hinders Police Investigation

As part of an expansive effort to catch a knife-wielding attacker, police officials confronted a thorny legal hurdle on Friday as they sought the medical records of an Upper East Side therapist who was slain and those of a colleague who was wounded rushing to her aid.

Three days after the attack, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said the police and the Manhattan district attorney’s office were trying to get a court order that would allow investigators to go through the patient files — up to 1,000 of them — of the slain therapist, Kathryn Faughey, and the wounded man, Dr. Kent D. Shinbach, in the hope that one could provide evidence leading to the killer.