Daniel Rakowitz

Background

Daniel Rakowitz was born in 1960 in Rockport, Texas. He moved to New York around 1985 and lived in Manhattan’s East Village in 1989. He was a dishwasher and a self-styled marijuana guru, and he carried a live chicken while selling marijuana, calling himself the “God of Marijuana.” He also started his own religion in which marijuana was a sacrament. He was described as a former mental patient and as having a history of mental illness, with psychiatrists diagnosing him as a paranoid schizophrenic, and as having never consented to taking psychiatric medications. Rakowitz was also described as a small-time drug dealer and as a devil-worshipper.

The offence

In August 1989, Daniel Rakowitz killed his girlfriend and Swiss dancer, Monica Beerle, after accidentally killing her during a sadistic beating in her apartment in New York’s Lower East Side. In 1989, Rakowitz murdered his roommate, Monica Beerle, who was described as a Swiss dancer and student, and prosecutors stated that the killing occurred when she tried to throw him out of her apartment. In 2004 reporting, Rakowitz was described as having killed Beerle by striking her in the throat. After the killing, Rakowitz hauled Beerle’s corpse into a claw-foot bath tub, dismembered her, and stored her bones in a locker in Hell’s Kitchen. Rakowitz reportedly cooked her remains into a soup and served it to homeless inhabitants of nearby Tompkins Square Park, and he bragged to regulars in Tompkins Square Park about having killed her and making soup from her brains. Rakowitz also dismembered her and hid the remains.

Rakowitz placed Beerle’s skull and bones in a plastic pail and deposited it in a locker at the Port Authority bus station. Later, after rumors of the killing and that a body had been boiled reached local detectives, he was questioned and led them to the Port Authority Bus Terminal baggage room where he had left her skull. A witness testified that shortly after the killing, Rakowitz had served homeless men in Tompkins Square Park soup containing a human finger.

Rakowitz scrawled on the door of his apartment: “Is it soup yet? Welcome to Charlie Gein's Ranch East... Home of the Fine Young Cannibals.” Rakowitz told a friend: “I killed her and boiled her head,” and also said, “Then I made soup out of her brains. It tasted pretty good.”

Apartment and locations

The apartment where the dismemberment occurred was described as 700 East 9th Street. Tompkins Square Park was where Rakowitz bragged. The locker where he deposited a plastic pail containing Beerle’s skull and bones was at the Port Authority bus station / Port Authority Bus Terminal baggage room. Hell’s Kitchen was described as the location of the locker where bones were stored.

Investigation

Police eventually got word of rumors of the homicide, picked him up, and received a tangled, bizarre confession filled with talk of Satanism, animal sacrifice, and a new religion that Rakowitz started. In a later interview, Rakowitz said: “I'm the new Lord, and I will take leadership of the satanic cultists to make sure they do everything that has to be done to destroy all those people who do disagree with my church. And I'm going to be the youngest person elected to the U.S. presidency.” During the trial, it was stated that a body had been boiled, and that after rumors reached local detectives, Rakowitz was questioned and led them to the Port Authority Bus Terminal baggage room.

During a confession videotaped inside the Ninth Police Precinct on Sept. 16, 1989, Rakowitz said he slept with Beerle twice before noticing some brown moles in Beerle’s sexual parts that made him not want to “party out” with her anymore.

Trial

1991 proceedings

In State Supreme Court in Manhattan, a Manhattan jury found Daniel Rakowitz not guilty by reason of insanity for the Aug. 19, 1989 murder of Monika Beerle. The jury deliberated for nine days and returned its verdict after three separate returns, described as: the forewoman misplaced her verdict sheet, the court reporter was absent the second time, and jurors later said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict.

The jury concluded that Rakowitz suffered from mental disease or defect and thus was not criminally responsible for the Aug. 19, 1989 murder. The verdict was described as not mentally responsible for the crime, meaning he would remain in a state hospital for the criminally insane until a judge, with the advice of psychiatrists, found him no longer a danger to himself or to others. The jury deadlocked on a count of tampering with evidence, described as dismembering Ms. Berle in her apartment at 700 East Ninth Street; Justice Haft declared a mistrial on that count.

Rakowitz thanked the jury after the verdict. He said: “I hope someday we can smoke a joint together.” When Justice Robert M. Haft called the trial a “lulu,” the narrative included Rakowitz smiling from the defense table.

A juror, Asuncion Cummings, said: “We don't think he intended to kill her,” and also that “But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime.”

The judge was Justice Robert M. Haft, and the prosecution included an assistant district attorney. Rakowitz was described as a 30-year-old dishwasher and a self-styled marijuana guru during the trial.

Medication dispute and testimony

Rakowitz testified during trial that he would rather go to prison than a mental hospital because he did not like being medicated. He testified that he did not kill Ms. Beerle, who was described as a 26-year-old Swiss woman who studied dance at the Martha Graham School while working as a topless dancer. He admitted that he dismembered her, bleached and boiled the bones “to disinfect them,” and hid them.

Sentencing

After the verdict, Rakowitz was found not guilty by reason of insanity on February 22, 1991. He was moved to a state hospital for the criminally insane. Later reporting stated he was sentenced to the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island, and that he was at Kirby since 1991.

Appeals

There were retention hearings and jury review procedures described for assessing his mental state. State law gave Rakowitz the right to a jury review and rehearing every two years to examine his current mental state. It was stated that the last time he had such a jury review before 2004 was 1995, when a jury returned him to the Kirby center.

Outcome

1991 outcome

A Manhattan jury found Daniel Rakowitz not guilty by reason of insanity for the Aug. 19, 1989 murder of Monika Beerle, who was described as having her skull left in the baggage room at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in a bucket of kitty litter.

2004 retention hearing

In 2004, a jury in Manhattan found that Rakowitz remained mentally ill but not dangerous after a retention hearing. The verdict was returned after about two hours of deliberation, and it was described as advisory but not binding on Justice Donna Mills, who would issue the final decision after receiving motion briefs. The jury found that Rakowitz was so mentally impaired that he lacked insight into his psychiatric problems and needed continued inpatient care. The jury’s vote was described as 5-to-1, and it could result in Rakowitz being confined in a less secure facility than the maximum-security Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, though the judge could reject the verdict and send him back to Kirby.

One juror, Kevin McCoy, said: “I don't think there was any doubt in anyone's mind that he was a murderer.” McCoy also said that jurors were impressed that Rakowitz had not been known to be violent for at least 13 years.

Rakowitz’s lawyer, Donald Graham, said: “He's pleased, but he realizes that this is not the final decision.” Graham said he would submit motion briefs on Aug. 20.

Aftermath

Rakowitz remained in Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center, described as a maximum-security hospital on Wards Island. It was stated that he had been off the streets for 15 years by 2004.

A lawyer representing Rakowitz, Donald Graham, said during opening trial statements that Rakowitz was no longer dangerously ill. Graham said: “For 13 years, [Rakowitz] has lived in an environment with psychotic people. He has not gotten into any fights,” and he added: “He was assaulted several times and he did not retaliate,” and “He has never been put into restraints. He has never been put into a time-out room. In 1997, when a staff member was attacked by a patient, Mr. Rakowitz intervened to help the staff.”

The prosecution included statements by Nancy Hornstein, an assistant to the state attorney general, who told the jury of three women and seven men that Rakowitz had a severe character pathology and that there was danger within him. Hornstein said: “He’s a pathological liar, which is one of the characteristics of anti-social pathology,” and added: “While he has been at the [maximum-security] hospital facility, he has shown no remorse for what happened to Monica Beerle. At this point, he has no understanding of what led up to the murder. His sole mantra is ‘denial, denial, denial.’ ”

It was stated that before the murder, Rakowitz married a 14-year-old woman, whom he battered and chained to his refrigerator, and Hornstein said she wanted him to chain her there. A psychiatrist, Elena Bruck, M.D., said: “I don’t think he should be let free because the history of these people is that they’ll do it again. There is no evidence that these people get cured,” and also: “Yes, it is some kind of insanity. On the other hand, just because you killed someone, it doesn’t mean you have a psychiatric illness. They’re two different things.”

Roger Klingman, a representative of New York State’s forensic psychiatric centers, said in an email response that no patients were ever discharged directly to society from a forensic psychiatric center, but were first sent to less-secure facilities.

Eduardo Arrocha, 42, described hearing about the soup in Tompkins Square Park and not tasting it. Clayton Patterson, who had photographed and filmed the Lower East Side for 20 years, said: “It was the absolute low water mark of social decadence,” and also said he believed Rakowitz disposed of the corpse but did not commit the killing.

It was reported that Sherri Hunter, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said jury review and rehearing took place every two years and that the right existed to examine his current mental state.

Michael, 35, who preferred not to give his last name, described memories of Rakowitz and said: “When I think about [Rakowitz], I kind of associate him with the nihilist crowd,” and “I remember him wearing button-up shirts, kind of plaidy. I remember he used to dress more on the beatnik style. He had long, blond hair and a beard. He wasn’t into the punk scene, so he stood out,” and “When things like that happen, you’re never so sure what’s reality, what’s fiction,” and “What I understand is that the homeless people in the park were after him.”

Eddie Newton, 37, moved to the Lower East Side in 1998, said he read about the killing while he was living in North Carolina and called it: “It was completely emblematic of how scary and weird this place was back then,” and he said it was creepy when he later found out he lived in the building where the crime was committed.

Other details

Rakowitz had frequently interrupted the six-week trial with bizarre outbursts. After the verdict, it was stated that he offered to smoke a joint with the judge, but the judge waved him off with an embarrassed smile. The judge waived him off and called the trial a “lulu.”

During opening statements in 2004, Donald Graham said Rakowitz had been assaulted several times and did not retaliate, and that Rakowitz had intervened in 1997 when a staff member was attacked.

Rakowitz denied killing Beerle on Aug. 19, 1989, and said he was not dangerously mentally ill. Graham said Rakowitz would not deny being in the room at the time when other people killed her, and it was stated that Rakowitz wanted to testify to explain why a story about the killing was not true.

It was stated that Rakowitz had been known to carry a Bible in his hand and a live rooster on his shoulder during the trial. Acquaintances described Rakowitz as roaming the streets with those items.

A friend of Rakowitz described by the narrative walked into the apartment while Beerle’s head was in a pot on the stove but did not notify the police. The friend explained: “I didn't want to hurt him anymore,” and said: “she explained.”

Monica Beerle had lived with Rakowitz for only 16 days, and it was stated she moved in with him only out of a desperate need for an apartment. She was studying at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.

A later report stated that the bizarre killing became a symbol of the depravity and disorder in the neighborhood during the 1970’s and 80’s, and it compared the event to the 1967 murders in an Avenue B tenement of James Hutchinson, known as Groovy, and his girlfriend, Linda Fitzpatrick.