\u201cThe View\u201d co-host Sunny Hostin revealed Tuesday that she was the lone holdout juror in the 1991 trial of a notorious New York City cannibal killer \u2014 resulting in the \u201cButcher of Tompkins Square Park\u201d being found not guilty by reason of insanity.<\/p>\n
Hostin made the boast, which stunned her colleagues, in a discussion about Lindsay Clancy\u2019s own insanity defense, and the attempts by Clancy\u2019s lawyer to question the holdout juror in that case.<\/p>\n
The gruesome Butcher of Tompkins Square Park case involved Daniel Rakowitz, a known weed dealer and East Village eccentric, who slaughtered his roommate, 26-year-old dance student and sometime-stripper Monika Beerle, in 1989.<\/p>\n
Monika Beerle, a Swiss dance student and topless dancer, was butchered by Rokowitz in 1989 in NYC. He bragged about boiling her head and eating her brains as soup. John<\/p>\n
Daniel Rakowitz was accused of stabbing his girlfriend to death, dismembering and her body, eating parts of it and feeding it to homeless people. ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n
Daniel Rakowitz looks in the direction of his attorney as he listens to the jury\u2019s verdict in Civil Court at 111 Center St. in Manhattan, on Tuesday, July 20, 2004. Robert Miller for NY Post<\/p>\n
He then dismembered her and boiled her head for soup.<\/p>\n
He boasted that he ate her brains and also fed some to local homeless people. <\/p>\n
Rakowitz was found not guilty by reason of mental disease \u2014 an outcome Hostin, 57, took credit for as the jury\u2019s only member not pushing for a conviction.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe insanity defense has been around in Massachusetts for 182 years, so I think it\u2019s well established. And I thought absolutely she was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity,\u201d she said of the Clancy trial outcome<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd the reason I felt that \u2014 I feel so strongly about this holdout juror is because I was a holdout juror in a case in the Daniel Rakowitz case. I don\u2019t know if people remember it, The Butcher of Thompkins Square<\/a>. It was in 1991\u2026\u201d she trailed off.<\/p>\n \u201cThe guy who ate the victims?\u201d cohost Joy Behar interjected.<\/p>\n Sunny Hostin told her colleagues that she was was the holdout juror in the trial of Daniel Rakowitz. ABC<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Hostin replied \u2014 drawing an audible gasp from panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin, who clasped her hand to her chest and asked, \u201cyou were on that jury?\u201d<\/p>\n Hostin, a former federal prosecutor, said she some people didn\u2019t believe her when she brought it up during a pre-show prep meeting, but a producer found an old New York Times article about Rakowitz\u2019s acquittal.<\/p>\n \u201cSeveral jurors questioned afterwards said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict,\u201d Hostin read aloud from the article.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was me, and it was because clearly I saw he was psychotic, he was in psychosis, he did not mean to kill her and once he killed her he panicked. He chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime and then\u2013\u201d she explained before Griffin cut her off.<\/p>\n The \u201cButcher of Thompkins Square Park\u201d (holding rooster) was found not guilty by reason of mental disease in 1991 by a jury on which Hostin claimed she was the lone holdout for acquittal. ASSOCIATED PRESS<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you got this guy off?!\u201d Griffin said, her mouth agape in shock, prompting a nervous titter from the studio audience.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s how much I believe in the insanity defense, and he fed her body parts to the unhoused [homeless],\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n \u201cExcuse me, can I move over? I don\u2019t need to be here,\u201d half-joked cohost Star Jones, who was seated next to Hostin, as panelist Sara Haines appeared to nervously tie her hair up and shift in her seat.<\/p>\n \u201cAll that being said, it was so clear to me in the jury room. 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 \u2018what about this, what about that,\u2019 and we ended up, all 12, unanimously voting that he was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Monika Beerle was a dance student who lived with Rakowitz.<\/p>\n Griffin, who has voiced that she doesn\u2019t believe Clancy\u2019s alleged mental state at the time she killed her three children excuses her actions, piped up over cross-chatter, \u201cThat\u2019s my issue with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut he is still in a mental institution being treated,\u201d Hostin assured.<\/p>\n The revelation came up during a panel discussion about Clancy attorney Kevin Reddington\u2019s push to investigate the holdout juror<\/a> in her mistrial who wanted to convict her.<\/p>\n Hostin said her fellow jurors were furious at her in the jury room, claiming one \u201cthew a chair\u201d at her as she \u201cpicked them off\u201d one by one to change their guilty votes. ABC<\/p>\n