Daniel Rakowitz, the notorious figure once branded the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park,” has reportedly been transferred to a lower-security psychiatric unit—prompting speculation among hospital employees that he could be moving closer to release.
Rakowitz, now 65, went on trial in 1991 over the killing and dismemberment of his roommate, Monika Beerle. Prosecutors said he later fed her remains to homeless people in Tompkins Square Park during the summer of 1989.
He was found not criminally responsible for Beerle’s murder because of insanity and committed to the maximum-security Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward’s Island.
But sources recently told the New York Post that Rakowitz was transferred two years ago to the Manhattan Psychiatric Center. The facility is also located on Ward’s Island, but operates with a lower level of security.
An anonymous source claimed the center is “letting people out prematurely every day” and suggested that Rakowitz “may be one of those that end up getting out.”
“They [hospital administration] kept it a soft opening, like letting people know just before they moved him,” the source said. “They’re trying to get us used to it.”
According to the source, hospital staff were stunned to see Rakowitz moving freely through the lower-security wing.
Patients at Kirby are sent there through the court system, while the Manhattan Psychiatric Center provides both inpatient and outpatient services.
Daniel Rakowitz, now 65, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1991 in the murder and dismemberment of his roommate.
A witness testified during his trial that he fed Beerle’s remains to homeless people in Tompkins Square Park. He is pictured in the park in 1987 arguing with an unidentified homeless man.
Newspaper clippings from the time reported that a holdout juror was responsible for the “not guilty” verdict.
The Manhattan Psychiatric Center also provides transitional living arrangements for patients after they are admitted.
The Office of Mental Health, which oversees New York’s state-run psychiatric facilities, declined to confirm Rakowitz’s transfer, citing privacy laws. Our News Outlet has also contacted the agency for comment.
In 2010, Rakowitz petitioned the New York Supreme Court for a transfer to a less secure facility. The request was denied, and he was ordered to remain at Kirby.
Former Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said at the time that the ruling “continues to protect the residents of New York.”
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Rakowitz’s case drew widespread attention after the verdict. Earlier this month, The View co-host Sunny Hostin said she had been the lone holdout juror during a panel discussion about the Lindsay Clancy case.
Clancy was tried for killing her three children. The jury was prepared to return a “not guilty” verdict after the defense argued that she had been suffering from postpartum psychosis, but one juror objected, resulting in a mistrial.
“The reason I feel so strongly about this holdout juror is because I was a holdout juror in a case, in the Daniel Rakowitz case,” Hostin said.
“It was because I saw clearly that 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 he fed her body parts to the unhoused,” she said.
Rakowitz was a familiar figure in the East Village, where he sold marijuana and was known to walk around with a live chicken. He was held at a maximum-security facility but has reportedly been transferred to another center on Ward’s Island.
Hostin recalled that jury deliberations were intense, and one of her fellow jurors threw a chair at her amidst a heated discussion.
The co-host’s claims were later called into question when unearthed newspaper clippings cited the holdout juror as an unemployed man who wanted the trial to continue so he could be paid and get free meals.
The New York Times reported at the time that one holdout juror convinced the others not to deliver a guilty verdict.
‘We don’t think he intended to kill her. But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime,’ juror Asuncion Cummings was quoted in the Times after the case concluded. Asuncion Cummings is Hostin’s full maiden name.
After jurors delivered their decision, Rakowitz thanked them and said he hoped ‘someday we can smoke a joint together.’
‘The prosecution had an overwhelming case against me. But I’ll be getting out soon and I’ll sell a lot of marijuana so I can bring to justice the people who actually committed this crime,’ he added.
Rakowitz testified during the trial that he would rather go to prison than a mental hospital because he did not want to be medicated.
He denied killing Beerle, who was a 29-year-old dance student, but did confess to dismembering her, then bleaching and boiling her bones.
One witness testified that Rakowitz served a homeless man at the park soup that contained a human finger.
Before the nauseating crime, Rakowitz was a known character in the East Village neighborhood for selling marijuana and walking around with a live chicken. He called himself the ‘God of Marijuana.’
