Sunny Hostin confessed on The View that she was the holdout juror in the trial for New York City’s Butcher of Tompkins Square Park cannibal killer.
How did this lady not only get a law degree but also become a federal prosecutor!?
In 1989, Daniel Rakowitz murdered Monika Beerle, believed to be his live-in girlfriend. He confessed to murdering her, dismembering her body, boiling the body parts, and feeding some of the parts to the homeless in Tompkins Square Park.
That was me, and it was because I saw clearly that he was psychotic. Of course, he was in a psychosis. He did not mean to kill her, and once he killed her, he panicked. He he chopped up her body parts. Yes, boiled her body parts. Tried to commit the perfect crime, and then fed her…
Sunny Hostin brags about being a holdout juror that prevented The Butcher of Thompson Square Park from going to prison.
She admits “once he killed her, he chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts … and fed her body parts to the unhoused.” pic.twitter.com/sLbElgLuGt— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 22, 2026
The other hosts couldn’t believe Hostin prevented the guilty verdict.
Hostin continued:
That’s how much I believe in the insanity defense.
But all that being said, it was so clear to me in the jury room, and we were sequestered for nine days. One juror threw a chair at me. They were so angry with me, but one by one, I picked them off and said, “What about this? What about that? And we ended up all 12 unanimously. voting that he was not criminally responsible.
I encourage everyone to read this article from Village Voice: “The Untold Story of the Tompkins Square Murder.”
Monika’s friends begged her to throw out Rakowitz due to his outbursts.
“She was stupid to f*ck with him,” said one friend. “He told her he was gonna kill her. She said that he had told her that.”
Did you catch that? “He told her he was gonna kill her.”
Rakowitz has a history of psychosis and delusions of grandeur.
However, a mental illness, even a personality disorder, does not automatically mean you met the standard for the insanity defense.
The insanity defense rarely works out because the standards are so narrow.
The defendant must prove that “as a result of a severe mental disease or defect” they were “unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts.”
More from the story (emphasis mine):
On the evening of Thursday, August 17, Rakowitz walked Sylvia to the PATH train. As they shared a joint, he told Sylvia that he couldn’t take Monika anymore, he’d had enough. He said be planned to kill her the next day, and he asked Sylvia to come back and help him get rid of the body. “I said ‘Daniel, what are you, crazy? I ain’t gonna help you with anything.’ ” recalls Sylvia. “And he was really nervous. He was terrified. He was so terrified of being homeless.”
“I didn’t go there Friday,” she continues. “I didn’t think about: ‘It’s Friday — is Daniel killing Monika?’ On Saturday night, I could see from the street that the apartment was dark, and I knew something was wrong. But I went up there anyway. I was coming up the stairs and I heard Daniel’s TV, and it was really loud. And I opened the door, and his TV was in the kitchen, and it was very dim. I went back to my room to make sure my stuff was okay, ’cause I told him I was leaving it there for awhile till I got it all out. And Monika’s door was closed, and I went and knocked on Monika’s door, and nobody answered. So I went to the kitchen. And on the stove there was a pot. And in the pot was Monika’s head. She was all burnt-up, and her eyes were closed.”
So Hostin said she didn’t think Rakowitz meant to kill Monika? He clearly planned the murder for days. So not only did he intend to murder Monika, he premeditated it.
One of the friends said Rakowitz bought materials to commit the murder, chop up her body, and clean the apartment less than two weeks before the murder.
In other words, Rakowitz planned it.
Not only did Rakowitz plan the murder, but he planned how to dispose of her body and clean the apartment afterward.
Again, the defendant has to prove that at the time of the criminal act they were “unable to appreciate the nature and quality or the wrongfulness of his acts.”
Yeah, um, planning how to dispose of the body and clean the apartment before the murder tells me that he knew the murder was wrong before and during the act.
Since the jury, thanks to Hostin, found Rakowitz criminally insane, the state sent him to a state hospital for the criminally insane.
Permanently? Nope. State law allows Rakowitz to have “a jury review and rehearing every two years to examine his current mental state.”
If a jury finds Rakowitz is mentally healthy, he could return to the streets “pending further legal procedures.”
Luckily, he remains in the hospital.
The jury should have found him guilty of first-degree murder.
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