186- The Dangerous Patient - Tatianna Tarasoff
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Hello everyone, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. If we sound a little different, hopefully we do not. But we got some new mics and we are testing them out. And we won't know how it sounds until we're done editing. Geez, our live show is just coming up. Live show is coming up. Wait, it's next week. Don't say that. It's pretty scary. That's so scary. You know what else is coming up?

good old halloween we're not really doing anything are we doing anything this year for halloween yeah our live show but after that you know a couple pumpkins a couple bobbing for apples a couple spooky movies hanging out with some witches a couple ouija boards oh nope that's not happening

Same old, same old. Conjuring up dead spirits, talking to my Grammy rip. Okay, what do you got for 10 seconds today? I do not have too much going on. Still hanging in in fantasy football. Peyton and I started this new show on Netflix with Beckham, David Beckham. It's pretty good. If you haven't watched it, you should watch it. You don't have to be into soccer or football to like it. It's actually really good. Peyton's even been liking it, huh? Yeah, because I like posh.

Good old posh. Yeah, so just that. And honestly, we've been setting up some new sets, revamping some of our old ones, just new equipment, new microphones, which right now...

i don't know i don't i feel like i sound weird so i'm hoping while this comes out it doesn't sound weird so i've just been busy doing that just working away we revamped my binged set and if you haven't listened guys please go listen to binge it's just me by myself but i'm gonna shamelessly plug my podcast and ask you to go listen and while you're listening give me a five star review i hope everyone is having the spookiest of spookiest times i hope everyone has a good halloween

I hope everyone gets candy or passes out candy or just chills. Yeah, I hope it's a good Halloween for everyone. Let's hop into today's episode.

Our sources for this episode are Bad Karma, A True Story of Obsession and Murder by Deborah Bloom, The Psychology of Stalking, Clinical and Forensic Perspectives by J. Reed Malloy, Timeline.com, Helio.com, PsychologyToday.com, Cornell University Law School, National Geographic, Lawline.com, DailyCal.org, TraumaHealth.org, Free Speech Center, and FirstPost.com. So you

know i am a big fan of personal growth and development and in turn going to therapy one of the reasons people swear by the process is because it offers a sense of security

A place where you can say how you really feel and work through it without worrying about being judged or having that information exposed. There's something sacred about that element of doctor-patient confidentiality. But across many of the 50 states, there's an exception to that rule.

If you tell a mental health professional that you plan to harm someone else, they are legally obligated to report that information, not just to the police, but to the person being threatened as well. But before the 1970s, that duty to warn and or protect policy didn't exist, which meant there were people confessing their darkest desires to their mental health professionals and they didn't have to report it at all.

But today's case was one so emotionally brutal, so twisted and sadistic that it changed the law around doctor-patient confidentiality entirely. Okay. The year is 1968. Just three miles north of the University of California, Berkeley, lies a quiet little street called Tacoma Avenue packed tightly with several modest two-bedroom bungalows.

One of them is home to the Tarasov family. The parents, Lydia and Vitaly, were Russian immigrants who grew up in a northeastern region of China. And once they were expelled from there after World War II, Vitaly and Lydia moved to Brazil. And on January 22, 1949, they welcomed their first daughter, Tatiana, or to most, Tanya. Fifteen months later, their son Alex was born.

But come 1963, the family was fantasizing about the American dream. Their long-awaited visas had come through, and the family found themselves settling into a blue-collar life in Berkeley, California.

Tanya, with her raven-colored hair, piercing green eyes, and sharp features, often caught the eyes of other boys as she was growing up in California. But she was far too shy and insecure to return their gaze, often complaining about her small boobs or her shapeless figure. She preferred to hide behind her school books instead, and it honestly paid off for Tanya. By the time she graduated from high school, her grades were nearly perfect, and Berkeley was her college of choice.

But Tonya's father wasn't exactly the supportive type. After long hours spent working a menial job at a mechanic shop, he'd come home to tell Tonya she was too dumb to ever get accepted to UC Berkeley, that she shouldn't even bother trying. Which might explain some of the insecurities Tonya harbored much of her life.

Her father was so strict that he would never let her date, let alone look in a boy's direction. She wasn't allowed to wear makeup and she was required to adhere to an early curfew. - Jeez. - Vitaly once told her if he ever caught her sneaking out, he would beat the living daylights out of Tanya. So yeah, going to Berkeley was kind of out of the question, especially with the way things had been going on campus lately.

Because by 1968, Berkeley had become a major hotspot for the counterculture free love movement that was sweeping the nation. For the 19-year-old Tanya, it was liberating to see boys growing their hair past their shoulders and girls wandering braless through the quad. People openly smoking pot and experimenting with psychedelics alongside conversations of sexual awakenings.

At Berkeley, sit-ins and love-ins were how time was spent between class, anything to soften the blow of those outgoing Vietnam War draft letters. Good old 70s. On top of that, the university was seeing constant protests in favor of the free speech movement. But Tanya had to watch it all unfold from an arm's length.

Instead, she enrolled at Merritt College in Oakland and tutored Portuguese part-time at Berkeley just to stay somewhat connected to the campus scene. But not being a student there made her feel like an outcast, a foreigner in her own town. Any chance she could get at being a fly on the wall, she would take, which is why she was ecstatic when her parents gave in to one small thing.

She was allowed to attend the weekly folk dance classes at the university's International House. It was the fall of 1968 when Tanya stepped into the auditorium in the lobby of what they called the I House.

As Tanya joined hands and twirled with others in the group, the gaze of a young man caught her attention. He was tall with a wiry frame, darker skin, and deep-set brown eyes. He was a foreigner and looked just out of place as Tanya usually felt on campus. While she didn't know it yet, he'd come to introduce himself as Prosenjit Podar.

The 28-year-old Prasenjit had come to UC Berkeley as a graduate student back in September of 1967. He was living upstairs in the I House, studying naval architecture and working part-time as an inspector on marine structures.

But his journey to get to this point hadn't been easy. Prasenjeet was born 200 miles north of Calcutta, India, in a small village, a place that had been untouched by time, operating thousands of years in the past with thatched huts for housing and rickshaws for transportation. There was no running water, no toilets, no electricity, but that wasn't even the hardest part.

Prasenjit and his family were members of the Dalit or Untouchables class, which has since been formally renamed as the Scheduled Case. So you're probably wondering, how on earth did Prasenjit find his way to Berkeley? Yeah. Well, the answer is a lot of good luck and a lot of hard work.

As a kid, his father actually sat outside of a school every day and spied on the classes to learn how to read and write. Wow. Because of that, his father was able to get a higher paying job so Prasenjit could receive his own education. Because when he was in grade school, Prasenjit proved he was actually brilliant when it came to math and chemistry. He was eventually accepted to the Indian Institute of Technology and was the only scheduled caste member to secure admission.

Then he graduated second in his class. When he applied for graduate school at UC Berkeley in California, Prasenjit knew it would be a long shot. The college only accepted a limited number of foreign students. That along with his background made Prasenjit certain it was a pipe dream. But nevertheless, he was offered a spot.

and the West Bengal government offered him a full scholarship along with it. So in the summer of 1967, Prasenjit's father took out a loan of 6,000 rupees, which would be about $72 today, and put Prasenjit on his very first plane to America. Now, I can't even begin to imagine the culture shock that he must have felt when he first stepped onto the Berkeley campus.

He goes from this tiny remote village with no electricity to rock and roll music, free love, and student protests. Also the fact that he comes to America and he's going to Berkeley and it's completely different than the, I guess, social class he was in. Yes.

in his country, so that alone would be a huge culture shock. - Oh, it's like another planet for this guy. But over time, he opens up a little bit, starts socializing with other international kids in his dorm, gets a part-time job, he's kicking butt in school, trying to stay focused on the real reason he's in America. He doesn't want to let anyone, especially his family down, but then he goes to that dance and he lays eyes on the 19 year old Tanya.

Now, it takes a few more times of going to that dance class for Prasenjit to work up the courage to actually speak to Tanya. Because every time he sees her, he's paralyzed by how beautiful she is. And the more he prolongs this introduction, the more nervous he gets.

Remember, even though Prasenjit is 23 years old, he has zero experience when it comes to talking to women because of his cultural upbringing. Even today in India, almost 90% of marriages are arranged by the parents. People don't go around socializing and dating with the opposite sex to find the person they want to spend the rest of their life with.

So as Prasenjit watches Tanya glide around the room, all he can hear is his mother's words ringing through his head. No beef, no alcohol, no getting involved with an American girl. Man, I'd love to know more about the whole arranged marriage stuff. Yeah. It's just such like a unique way to do things. I wonder how many listeners we have.

that have been in arranged marriages from there. But one evening when that music stopped, so did his mother's voice. Prasenjit took a deep breath, walked right up to Tanya and asked her for her name. When she smiled and asked him his name back, it was like all that fear had melted away. Prasenjit was completely smitten. A few days later, Prasenjit worked up the courage to finally ask Tanya on a date and she agreed.

But when the day came for the two to meet up, Tanya started to get cold feet. She realized she'd made a mistake. She really didn't have an interest in dating this guy. She wasn't attracted to him like that, and she probably shouldn't have accepted the offer. Of course, he was going to think this was more than just a friendship if she went. But on the other hand, there was a part of her that felt slightly bad for Prasenjit. He didn't have too many friends. Plus, he seemed harmless. One evening of hanging out together wouldn't hurt.

Right? So Tanya got dressed and met Prasenjit downtown for dinner and a movie.

And just like she imagined, the evening was harmless. Prasenjit was a complete gentleman who paid for her tickets and the meal, and she realized he was charming after all. Certainly a bit quirky and different than any guy she'd met before, but he was interesting, unique. She saw no problem with continuing a friendship. And she tried to make it as apparent as possible to Prasenjit that that was all it was, friendship.

Friend zoned. Yeah, but the more time they spent together, the more Prasenjit misread the signals. She was giving him attention, accepting his offers to pay for their evenings out. To him, this seemed like courtship, despite Tanya's insistence otherwise. Oh, I'm scared where this is going already. I feel like I know now.

Well, just a few weeks into them hanging out, Prasenjit wrote a letter to his family back home. His letter claimed that he'd met a young girl who was studying at Berkeley, which was odd because he knew Tanya was enrolled at Merritt. He also claimed that he'd been invited over to her house to have tea with her parents so he could express his intentions with their daughter, which again was a lie. The truth was Tanya's parents had never even heard her mention Prasenjit's name. Mm-hmm.

There was no invitation to her house, especially not by her overprotective father. And Tonya had already made her intentions clear. This was just a friendship. But Prasenjit concluded the letter by saying, "Don't worry. I know you don't want me to fall for an American girl and I plan to honor that."

which will become one of the biggest lies of them all. All right, you guys, we are getting into an ad and this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Now my self-care non-negotiable is I always go on a hot girl walk most nights of the week. It really helps me clear my head, move my body and get fresh air.

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As a few more weeks go by, Tanya's starting to put distance between her and Prasenjit. His constant calling and asking her on dates is making her a bit uncomfortable now, and she's running out of ways to make it clear to him that this is purely platonic.

So when Prasenjit calls and invites her to a concert, she says she's got a terrible cough. She probably shouldn't go. She says she'll see him in a few weeks at the I House's New Year's Eve party, which is when Prasenjit starts spiraling. He can't wait a few more weeks to see Tanya. So what does he do? He looks up Tanya's address, gets a box of shortbread cookies, and hops a bus over to her house. So I wonder how she's feeling about all this because they're obviously...

friends, but he obviously wants more than being friends. Is she creeped out about this? Is she just like, oh, I'm used to it. He just likes me, but we're just friends. - She's definitely starting to get creeped out. - Okay. - He walks up to her front door and rings the bell again and again, but after a few minutes, no one answers. So he puts the cookies on the doorstep and leaves.

but not before opening the family's car in the driveway and taking a piece of clothing that he imagines must belong to tanya oh no we're getting to that point now now cut to a few days before the new year's eve party prasenjit still hasn't seen tanya but he's so committed to this fantasy of winning her over that he does the unthinkable at least in indian culture he goes and buys her a sari now to some it's tradition for a groom to commission a sari for their fiance

To Prasenjit, this purchase is like another step in the direction of getting engaged and married. It's almost like buying her a promise ring, if you will. Got it. Prasenjit hands over the cash, gets it boxed up, and forms a plan. On the night of the New Year's Eve party, he'll invite Tanya up to his room and give it to her in private.

When the day comes, Prasenjit gets to the auditorium an hour early as the staff is still setting up for the party. For hours, he watches and waits for Tanya to arrive when suddenly he spots her in the crowd. He tells her he'd been waiting for her and asks how she'd like the cookies he'd brought to her house a few weeks ago. Tanya tells him it's not a good idea to just drop by unannounced, mainly because her father is so strict.

but before he can even invite tanya back up to his room to give her the sari she excuses herself from the party for nearly an hour prosenji waits in the lobby for her to return only she never does okay he counts down the new year alone and eventually retires back to his dorm room where he's convinced himself that tanya must have run off with another man especially when she refuses to see him or returns his calls after that night oh man

This guy needs to relax. She's just creeped out. Yeah. And that's when Prasenjit sinks into his deep depression. He stops showering and eating. He begins skipping class and missing shifts at his job. This thought of losing Tanya becomes all-consuming. Yeah, he's just obsessed about it. After a few more failed attempts at making contact with her, Prasenjit writes her a letter.

In it, he says he can no longer be her friend, that it's best if they lost touch completely. He stamps it and sticks it in the mail. But when Tanya reads it, it only makes her feel sorrier for her actions.

She calls him to apologize, eager to mend his broken heart and ask if he would meet with her. Oh no. Maybe there's a way they could come to some sort of understanding. Maybe this whole thing is just a giant cultural divide. She tells him she'll be down at the Union 76 where her younger brother Alex is working if he wants to come by. And of course, Prasenjit can't turn down an offer to reconcile with the woman that he loves.

When Prasenjit gets to the gas station, he's secretly thrilled to see Tanya's glowing face. And she seems equally happy to introduce him to her 18-year-old brother, Alex. At first, Alex is hesitant of Prasenjit. He's heard stories about him showing up at the house unexpectedly. But that afternoon, Prasenjit kind of redeems himself. Alex happens to be working on a car he just bought and he can't get the thing to start. However, Prasenjit, the genius engineer, is happy to help.

he takes one look under the hood and proposes a quick solution to alex that actually works and when he gets the car running it's like the best moment of presenji's life mainly because tanya's there to witness him playing the hero oh man this is getting scary plus he's just won over the admiration of tanya's little brother but you know good for him because that's a that's a pretty good way to win over the family well he's a genius that's smart i couldn't do that

Over the next several months, a friendship begins to form between Prosenjit and Alex, so now between him and the brother. And in Prosenjit's mind, he's now one step closer to winning over Tanya's family. It's only a matter of time before she falls in love with him too. He was still upset he's never gotten a formal apology from Tanya for the way she'd been treating him over the last several months.

but in his mind he still believes she feels that connection otherwise why would she have called him to try and mend fences so to prove that tanya really does have feelings for him prasenjit devises a new plan he'll tape record their conversations so he can go back and dissect everything oh my gosh what is wrong with this guy

Over the course of a few days, Prasenjit rigs his dorm room with hidden microphones. What the f- That Friday evening, just before dance class, he intercepts Tanya in the lobby of the I House. He tells her he sprained his ankle and will have to sit tonight's class out.

Would she have any interest in just hanging out in his room instead? Interestingly enough, Tanya agrees. Once they're settled into his room with the audio tapes secretly recording, she says she's sorry for the way she's treated him over the last few months, but she was a little bit depressed. There was a boy that she liked who wasn't returning her phone calls. Tanya bursts out into tears and cries into Prasenjit's arms.

Which only makes Prasenjit fall in love with her more. Oh man, he's got to realize it's the opposite's happening. Well, and that's when he remembers it. The sari, the one he planned to give her on New Year's Eve. Yeah. So he gives Tanya the gift and she accepts it. Which in Prasenjit's eyes means she's essentially accepting his marriage proposal. It's just...

Really hard when cultures are so different. Yeah. And I'm not saying one's right or wrong. Yeah. I do still think his behavior is abnormally creepy. I mean, setting up microphones in a room is weird. Yeah. We're married and I wouldn't do that. And...

to make matters even worse, he has this all on tape so he can prove to himself and to others he isn't crazy. Like she accepted his, the salary. - Yeah. - The relationship isn't one-sided like some may have believed, but of course Tanya knows nothing about the cultural importance of the gift that she's just received. So while he expects her behavior to change in the days following that gift, it doesn't. Tanya still goes on about her life, doing things on her own time and often not returning his calls as promptly as he likes.

So Prasenjit spirals back into that dark depression. He spends hours laying in bed, listening to that tape recording of Tanya under the covers, trying to dissect what she said to him, trying to find out where things went wrong. Again, he stops eating, showering, going to work, into class, to the point where one of his professors makes a comment to Prasenjit's friend, who we'll call Arjun.

If he doesn't shape up, Prasenjit will flunk out of UC Berkeley. He'll lose this incredible opportunity and will likely have to return to India. Now, of course, Prasenjit's behavior is making his friends, like Arjun, worried. But what's more troublesome is the comments he's making directly to Tanya. After one argument, Prasenjit tells her he wants to build a bomb and stick it in her purse. What?

What? Naturally, Tanya finds this unsettling, but there's something in her gut telling her Prasenji is just too in love with her to ever actually do any harm to her. It's the opposite. When someone's too in love with you, they'll do anything. Well, and I think it's just the point where she's like, ah, this guy just has this really creepy crush on me. And I just don't, I try to let him down softly, but... Love kills, man. I would never kill you though, babe. So Tanya begins looking for a change and...

Even if she did shut Prasenjit out, it would be hard to avoid him if she got into Berkeley next semester, which is what she's planning. Because in the spring of 1969, Tanya fills out an application to Berkeley despite her father's wishes. When she learns she'll have to wait until the summer to find out the results, Tanya starts looking for a temporary distraction.

Tanya's aunt, who's still living in Brazil, has invited her to come spend two months with her. Tanya figures maybe this will be a good escape from her overbearing father and the obsessive proscenjit.

but when she breaks the news to prasenjit it's really ugly he berates her for not discussing the plans with him first before she made her decision even worse tanya jokes that perhaps during this time he can find someone new the next morning prasenjit storms into the dining hall takes a seat across from his friend arjun and asks him what he would do if he killed tanya

That's when Arjun looks Prasenjit dead in the eyes and tells him, I'm taking you to see a psychiatrist. So did he call the police or what? Well, he took him to see a psychiatrist. Oh, he actually took him? Yes. Oh, I thought he was kidding. Well, this wasn't the first time Arjun had made the proposal. In fact, he'd been pressing Prasenjit for weeks about seeking help. Which is, what a good friend. Because I feel like if one of my friends started doing that, I'd be like, dude, don't talk to me. I'm not your friend anymore. Yeah.

I can't deal with this. Sometimes people need help. Sometimes they do need help. Not for me. Call the ambulance. Call an ambulance. But not for me.

Remember though, Prasenjit comes from an entirely different world. Psychology and therapy were not customary in his small village. But Tanya going to Brazil was more than he could handle. So Arjun escorts him to meet with Dr. Stuart Gold, one of the staff psychiatrists at Berkeley. Although unconventional, Prasenjit asks if Arjun can sit in on their session with him.

All right, friend, come on. I don't know. This is getting a little weird, right? And that's when Arjun tells Dr. Gold about proscenjit's misconceptions regarding the relationship, how it had led him to depression. So basically his friend is explaining the whole situation to the doctor, how he'd edited the tapes he'd recorded of Tanya to make it sound like she was saying, I love you. He edited the tapes? Yes.

to her saying i love you we're just that like we're we're way past the point of okay and friend knows friend knows yeah between the delusional fantasies about the relationship the not eating and bathing and the strange smirking prosenji was doing throughout the entire session dr gold comes to a conclusion prosenji is living with paranoid schizophrenia so

So he tells Prasenjit that he will benefit most from an outpatient program and assigns him to a therapist who he can visit on a weekly basis. His name is Dr. Lawrence Moore, a rising star in their department. Prasenjit has his first session with Moore right around the time Tanya leaves for Brazil on June 14, 1968.

Every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Prasenjit takes a seat on Dr. Moore's couch and the two work on ways to get Prasenjit's focus off of Tanya. I think what is weird is that, not weird, but scary, is he's talking about this girl he loves, right? And he's telling someone publicly. I feel like I would want to know. You know what I'm saying? I feel like if you went crazy, I don't know how else to say it, and you started like

Coming up with the ways he wanted to kill me and all this stuff and you were seeing a psychiatrist and I didn't know that any of this was happening I'd be pretty scary because I feel like she should take a restraining order out on him There should be all these steps that need to be taken. Well now now there is now there is oh, so this is okay That's why you said what you said at the beginning. Yes, I

You can't go in and say, I've been stalking this person and thinking about hurting them. They will then contact that person and say, this person came in and said that. It seems like it's common sense. In many states. How is it not a thing before? I know. That's crazy to me. Well, doctor-patient privilege. Yeah. Confidentiality. I guess so. And it seems to work. As the weeks pass, the threats and harsh words against Tanya start to dissipate.

He tells Moore he stopped writing Tanya letters, that he's handed all of the recorded tapes over to Arjun. He's gone back to work, picked back up on his schooling. In fact, he's grown to look forward to these sessions with Dr. Moore. What he fails to mention is he hasn't completely cut Tanya out of his life like Dr. Moore suggested because in her absence, Prosenjit's been spending a great deal of time with her brother, Alex. Yeah.

Shortly after Tanya left for Brazil, Alex called Prasenjit. He said the violent arguments with his father were getting out of control and he needed a place to stay. Could he spend a night or two crashing on Prasenjit's dorm room floor?

Now, Prasenjit was beyond thrilled to host Alex. For him, it meant scoring points with Tanya once she returned. It was just a way to stay in contact with Tanya while she was gone. But those two nights turned into a week and then longer. Eventually, Alex made a proposal. What if he and Prasenjit rented an off-campus apartment together?

Prasenjit didn't care that Alex wouldn't be able to afford as much of the rent as he could now that he was back at his job. All he cared about was this was a long-term solution for keeping Tanya in his life. It was a guarantee that he would see her when she returned.

By August, Prosenjit and Alex found a little place mere blocks from the Tarasovs' home and signed a lease. However, when Alex told Prosenjit he'd heard from his sister that month, Prosenjit went off the deep end again. She hadn't written him back, but she was writing her own brother back, so he was insulted, which...

It's just a whole thing. But the timing of this announcement couldn't have been worse. Alex had just invited Prasenjit to tag along with him to the Frontier gun shop. Alex was in the market for a small pistol for protection. After browsing the selection, Prasenjit told Alex, maybe I should get a gun too.

Problem was, you had to be a U.S. citizen to purchase a weapon. What Prasenjit could buy, though, was a pellet gun. Alex assured him, if he was getting robbed, that could still provide him protection, although it was unlikely to end someone's life. But that's all Prasenjit needs to hear. He ends up buying that gun. He even tells his friend Arjun about it. And that's when Arjun thinks, okay, I think I better call Dr. Moore and just...

Let him know what's happening. Oh man, we got to call the police. When Arjun and Morse speak, the doctor realizes much of what Prasenjit's been telling him at their sessions was a lie. He said he had cut ties with Alex, that he wasn't writing Tanya any more letters, and that he hadn't been thinking about her at all.

In the past, Dr. Moore figured the threats he made against Tanya were just empty promises. But if Prasenjit bought a gun, he'd have to reevaluate many of their conversations. It also puts Dr. Moore in a morally compromising position. Does he break the code of doctor-patient confidentiality and let his superiors and the police know that Prasenjit is planning to hurt Tanya? Or does he stay quiet, keep working with Prasenjit, and try to help him iron out his issues in his own office?

It's a tricky situation. At that time, most doctors would have chosen the latter. Keep your promise and your oath to the patient, stay quiet and do your work. Especially because the best indicator of future violence is a history of past violence, only prosenjit has a clean record.

Most people he knew, including Arjun, always thought he would never hurt a fly. So more goes to Dr. Gold, who initially evaluated Prasenjit and asks for his advice. And Dr. Gold says, no way. If I thought he was that dangerous, I would have committed him. If you say something to him or to anyone else about the gun, you're sure to lose the kid, which could only make things worse. I'm so confused because...

I'm not a doctor. I'm not in their shoes or their position. But how could you not think this person, this kid's not going to hurt someone? I mean, he's editing tapes that he had hidden in his room. Oh, right there. I'd be like. Of her saying, I love you. Like.

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Dr. Gold reminds Dr. Moore he's not legally obligated to do anything about the situation, including tell Tanya or her family that she might be in danger. Still, when Dr. Moore meets with Prasenjit during their next session, he can't help but ask about the gun. Prasenjit admits, yeah, he has it, but he only plans to use it to save Tanya, to play the hero if she ever needs it.

But when Moore asks him to hand over the weapon or risk getting committed to the psychiatric ward, Prasenjit loses it. He begins screaming that Dr. Moore is against him and storms out of his office. So now Moore's realizing he really screwed up. So he calls the campus police. Good. Okay, here we go. On the afternoon of August 22nd, Prasenjit's confronted by authorities and brought to the station for questioning.

Prasenjit denies that he made any threats towards Tanya and assures the police that he'll stay far away from her once she returns from Brazil.

Since they have no complaints from Tanya on their record, they let Prasenjit go without any further questions. After that day, Prasenjit never returns to therapy. The police never follow up with Dr. Moore. Instead, he's put on probation for his poor judgment in the matter and for, quote, breaking the container of the therapeutic relationship. So the doctor gets in trouble for calling police. Oh my gosh, okay.

As a result, Tanya's family is never told of the threats against their daughter. So when Tanya lands stateside on September 10th, she's completely unaware of the chaos that had been unfolding in her absence. Instead, she's welcomed home with a piece of good news. She's been accepted to Berkeley. And while her father still insists she isn't going, Tanya is done listening. She starts looking for her own apartment and prepares for classes to begin that October.

But almost the minute she returns, Prasenjit starts inserting himself back into Tanya's life, following her around at parties, showing up while she's out lunching with friends, watching from outside of her home.

but tanya's over it she finds presenji creepy especially since he found a way to become her brother's roommate so she's like okay this dude has gone way too far he's my brother's roommate he's watching me outside of my windows also i wonder if the brother he must not know to what extent this is all happening i could be wrong or think it's a big deal or he probably is like oh it's just my sister you know yeah like

I don't know. I'm trying to think like I have a brother and I feel like at this that age, he would have just been like, oh my gosh, you're overreacting. He's not going to kill you. It's not a big deal. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So she wants nothing to do with him and she decides to make that clear. So on October 8th, Prasenjit pulls a friend aside and says, hey, I'll pay you if you help me out with this plan to get Tanya back. I need you to proposition Tanya and take her up to your dorm room. Pretend like you're hitting on her. And a few minutes later, I'm going to burst in with a gun and save her from you.

So he's like, I'll pay you to basically pretend to assault this girl and I'll save her. Oh my gosh.

Now this guy's like, okay, dude, you're crazy. Absolutely not. That sounds insane. Good. So Prasenjit only gets more frustrated trying to find ways to win Tanya over. And on October 27th, 1969, he makes one final stop at her house to see if he can change her mind, to see if he can convince her to love him. That evening, Tanya's home alone when Prasenjit ascends the steps to her family's home. He tries to just let himself in, but with the door locked, he just begins ringing the bell.

Tanya opens the door and tells Prasenjit he shouldn't be here. Her father will be home any minute and if he catches him here, it wouldn't go well for either of them. She then tries to slam the door on Prasenjit, but he wedges his foot in between the crack. He then pushes the door open with so much strength that he falls face down on the floor inside of the home. Completely humiliated, Prasenjit rises to his feet with this sadistic look in his eyes.

One that Tanya has never seen before and she becomes terrified. He grabs her as she starts to scream at the top of her lungs. Then she begins clawing at his face. That's when Prasenjit pulls the pellet gun from his belt and fires at her until he's unloaded everything in the chamber. What the freak? But just like Alex had told him, a pellet gun wasn't going to end her life. The injured Tanya leaps toward Prasenjit trying to defend herself.

But Prasenjit acts quickly. He grabs a knife and stabs Tanya over and over again as she rushes towards the front door. Screaming and crying, Tanya makes it out the front lawn until the noise stops and she collapses. Prasenjit, hovering above her with the weapon still in hand, looks up and sees there's no getting out of this one. A little boy is standing, watching horrified from around the corner. Oh my gosh.

Okay.

As soon as they arrive, Prasenjit willingly surrenders. Meanwhile, Tanya is taken to Herrick Memorial Hospital but is pronounced dead on arrival. - No! I thought for sure she was gonna be alive. - Prasenjit Potter was charged with first degree murder but pled not guilty by reason of insanity, which might have been a good choice.

In August of 1970, he was found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to five years to life in the California medical facility. Prasenjit appealed the sentence and instead of a new trial, was deported back to India in 1974. He went on to have an arranged marriage, a daughter, and later received a scholarship to resume his studies in naval architecture at a university in Germany. Nope, there's no freaking way he got married and has kids.

While Prasenjit got to go on to resume a basically ordinary life, Tanya's parents were left to pick up the pieces, wondering how no one had a duty to warn them that their daughter had been in imminent danger.

I mean, he told multiple people he wanted to harm her. I don't understand how that wasn't a rule. I don't know what slipped through. Something is wrong. Something's not okay there. Well, the Tarasovs later brought a wrongful death suit against the University of California, which eventually escalated all the way to the California Supreme Court. In a ruling known as Tarasov II, the court agreed in 1976 that in the state of California, a mental health professional has an obligation to report threats like proscenity

to law enforcement as well as the person being threatened. Today, close to all 50 states have some variation of this duty to warn or protect under the Tarasov statute. Which is crazy. Again, it seems like it's common sense. Yeah.

And while the conditions under the statue are always in flux, even changing slightly in California since Tanya's death, mental health professionals like Dr. Moore no longer have to choose between their reputation and career and doing what they believe is the right thing. And that is the story of Tatiana or Tanya Tarasov. It's a little frustrating when you hear episodes like this and he gets to go on and

quote unquote live his oh in quotations live his life and she's dead that's so messed up i can't believe it because he should be in the prison for the rest of his life he killed someone or at least at least in a facility hopefully getting help i mean he was legally diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and now he's married and has a daughter a

And it's just so frustrating because Tonya's dead. Yeah, she's dead. He killed her. He killed her. Yeah. And he had planned to kill her. I mean, it wasn't. It was. I mean, it's first degree murder. I don't think it was murder in the slightest. I think he pled down. Yeah, for sure. All right, you guys, that is our case for this week. And we will see you next time with another episode and a bonus episode for our Patreon and Apple subscribers. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.