April 14, 2025 • 49 mins
The East Village in the late 1980s was a world of its own—gritty, chaotic, and teeming with eccentric characters. Among them was Daniel Rakowitz, a self-proclaimed prophet who roamed the streets with his pet rooster, spouting bizarre religious doctrines. Most dismissed him as just another neighborhood oddball. But behind his rambling sermons and vacant stare lurked something far more sinister.
When his friends and acquaintances began hearing whispers of a horrific crime—one so grotesque it seemed impossible to be true—those whispers soon turned into a shocking reality.
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When his friends and acquaintances began hearing whispers of a horrific crime—one so grotesque it seemed impossible to be true—those whispers soon turned into a shocking reality.
SPONSORS -
FUM: Head to https://www.tryfum.com/MORBIDOLOGY and use promo code MORBIDOLOGY to kick your bad habit today!
PuzzleYOU: With Mother’s Day around the corner, get the perfect gift with a custom jigsaw puzzle. Get 20% off with code “MORBID20” at: http://puzzleyou.com/mothersday25
SHOW NOTES - https://morbidology.com/morbidology-podcast/
PATREON - https://www.patreon.com/morbidology
YOUTUBE: https://youtube.com/morbidology
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/morbidology--3527306/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Because I was really angry at that point.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I haven't been added for a long time, adn't you.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, she was giving me angrier, angrier and angrier.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Wi On the afternoon of the eighteenth September nineteen eighty nine,
workers at the Poort Authority bus terminal in New York
City were carrying out their usual tasks. They were cleaning spillages,
(01:07):
sorting unclaimed luggage, and ensuring the smooth operation of one
of the busiest transit hubs in the country. The parcel
check area, which is a place where travelers stored their
belongings before continuing their journeys, was particularly active. It costs
just two dollars for twelve hours of safekeeping, and the
area was filled with an assortment of suitcases, stuffel bags,
and the occasional forgotten package. Amidst the usual clutter, there
(01:31):
was a green Army duffel bag that had a lock
securing it. At first, it blended in just another item
among the sea of belongings waiting to be claimed. That afternoon, however,
a man arrived at the parcel checking counter, flanked by
police officers. He was rugged, disheveled, a presence that immediately
drew attention. Without hesitation, he handed over his claim ticket.
(01:56):
The clerk retrieved the bag and set it down in
front of him. Then, in a voice disturbingly casual, he
turned to the officers and said, if you've been the bag,
you'll find bones inside. The officers exchanged glances. This was
no ordinary luggage or trivial. With growing on ease, they
unfastened the lock and pulled open the bag. Inside was
(02:20):
a plastic bucket, white, heavy and giving off a strange,
acrid smell, the kind that clings to the air, thick
and unmistakable. Cautiously they pried it open, and what they
found inside was the stuff of nightmares. A human skull
stripped clean, several bones, some wrapped in plastic, a fifteen
(02:42):
inch carving knife, its blade still sharp, and cat litter
piled at the bottom, as though in some desperate attempt
to mask the decay. The detectives didn't have to wonder
whose remains they had just uncovered. They already knew, because
the man standing in front of them, the man who
had led them there, was the killer himself. It was
(03:17):
the summer of nineteen eighty nine, and New York City
was suffocating under the unforgiving heat wave, the kind that
turned the straits into shimmering asphalt rivers, where the stench
of sweat, garbage, and cheap beer clung in the air.
But in the East Village, another kind of pressure was building,
one that had been festering for years in the heart
of Tompkins Square Park. This park was its own world,
(03:42):
a battle ground of desperation and defiance, a heaven for
the outcast, the addicted, and the disillusioned. The city had
tried to take it back through police raids, through aggressive gentrification,
but the people who lived there, the ones who had
nowhere else to go, were and sweetly pushed out. They
pitched their tents beneath the skeletal branches of dying elms,
(04:04):
staking their claim on patches of dirt and crumbling pavement.
During the day, the park was a chaotic symphony of voices,
aeric summed against graffaded walls. Activists handed out laflets condemning
police brutality, and musicians drummed battered guitars, their music lost
in the hum of shouting and sirens. It was a
(04:25):
place of survival where the forgotten, the forsaken clung to
the only thing they had left each other, and then
there was him. He wasn't like the others. Tall, wiry,
with unkempt blonde hair and a beard that tangled leg
roots in the dirt. He walked the park with the
posture of a prophet. He called himself the founder of
(04:45):
a new faith, a man with a vision, a man
with a cause. On his shoulder. Always was a rooster.
His name was Daniel Rakowitz, and if the people of
Tompkins Square Park knew what they would soon come to learn,
they would have run. Daniel Rakowitz was, to the casual observer,
(05:14):
just another eccentric in a city full of them. He
spoke with riddles, shifting between wide eyed preacher and drug
addled runatic with unsettling ease. He called himself the Leader
of the Church of ninety sixty six, a doctrine of
his own creation that seemed to shift depending on his
mood and his audience. But Rakowit's vision was clear. He
(05:35):
believed that he was destined to take over the state
of Texas, that his followers, wherever they might be, would
rise up under his command. He idolized Charles Manson, seeing
him not as a murderer but as a misunderstood prophet.
In Rakowitz's mind, he was the next in line. He
wasn't just talk. He sold marijuana in the park, handing
(05:58):
out leaflets that read, boy caught the white powder, bring
back the herb, Make pot cheaper than crack, and soon
people started calling him what he wanted to be, known
as the marijuana Guru. Others knew him as the chicken Man,
as he sometimes carried a dead chicken around his neck.
With his earnings from selling marijuana, Rakowitz sometimes brought live
(06:20):
chickens and slaughtered them in the park to feed the homeless.
But unlike many of the drifters who made their home
in Tompkins Square Park, Rakowitz wasn't actually homeless. He had
a place, an apartment on East ninth Street, a cockroach
infested hole in the wall where the walls whispered decay
and the air hung heavy with the scent of something rotten.
(06:42):
Rakoitos had taken over the lace on the third of
August nineteen eighty nine, moving in with two cats, his
pet rooster, and two roommates who came and went on
its door. He had scrawled in black marker is it
soup yet? And Beneath that another phrase, welcome to Charlie
Gaines's spot on Ranch East. It was a reference to
(07:03):
Ed gain and the infamous Death Valley compound where Charles
Manson had once held court with his followers. Laurie Arnold,
one of Rakowitz's neighbors, later described him with a mixture
of disgust and unease, as she said, he's a weird,
sick dude. He thought he was the Antichrist before he
(07:30):
became the so called marijuana guru. Daniel Rokowitz was just
a boy. He was born on Christmas Eve in nineteen
sixty in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, a military time where
discipline ruled and expectations were clear. His father, Tony Rakowitz,
was a homicide detective in the US Army, a straightliest,
no nonsense man who believed in order, rules, in obedience.
(07:52):
But Daniel Sheriff Rob Hughes would later say his father
was a straightliest fellow, a real disciplinarian. But the boy,
he was a mental basket case. I guess you'd have
to say. Daniel Rockwitz was only two years old when
his mother died of a heart attack, and he was
alone with her when it happened. A toddler left in
a hotel room with his mother's lifeless body for ours
(08:14):
before anybody found them. Tony remarried, but not just anybody,
his late wife's sister. It was supposed to restore some stability,
a sense of normalcy, but it didn't last. The family
moved constantly, dragged from place to place by the shifting
demands of Tony's career. Eventually, in the late nineteen seventies,
they settled in Rockport, Texas, where Daniel finally graduated from
(08:38):
high school. By then, however, the cracks were already showing.
His aunt Patricia later admitted, some kids grow out of it,
and some don't. He never grew up. Drugs have become
an escape, marijuana, psychedelics, whatever he could get his hands on.
His father, who was desperate to set him straight, pushed
(08:58):
him towards the military, and for a moment, it seemed
like it might work. In June nineteen eighty, Daniel Ragowitz
enlisted in the US Army. He trained as a sharpshooter,
and he excelled in rifle marksmanship. He spent fourteen weeks
at Army Law Enforcement School, but beneath the surface something
was wrong. In February of nineteen eighty two, he was
(09:19):
discharged under honorable conditions, but a single notation on his
permanent record hinted it something more misconduct fraudulent entry. There
was no explanation, no further details, just a vague mark
against his name, an implication that something had gone wrong.
Rackwitz returned home with the rift between him and his
(09:41):
father had grown far too wide to fix. His temper flared,
his behavior became more erratic. He was arrested from marijuana possession.
He ripped up his father's trailer in fits of rage.
Tony eventually had enough and he threw his son out,
And so in nineteen eighty five, Daniel Rogowitz packed his
bags and drifted north, leaving behind Texas for the chaos
(10:04):
of New York City. At Tompkins Square Park, he found
what he'd been looking for all his life, a place
where the rules didn't matter, where outsiders thrived. Here, he
wasn't just another lost soul. He belonged. Before we continue
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this limited time offer. Today, Rakoit's reinvented himself as a
profit of sorts, a leader of the rejected, the unwanted.
He declared himself the Antichrist and warned of apocalyptic times
(11:53):
ahead if somebody ever doubted him. He had his own proof.
His birth date December twenty five, worth nineteen sixty Christmas Eve,
and using a cryptic numerical code, he claimed the letters
of his name added up to six sixty six. To him,
that wasn't coincidence, it was fate. He'd recently taken part
(12:15):
in an altercation with the police in the park. During
the riot, he screamed, kill the pigs and feed them
to the hogs. He believed the cocaine and heroin dealers
should be killed and the government should be overthrown. But
Rakowit's ambition stretched beyond prophecies in paranoia. He had plans,
big ones. He wanted to renovate the rundown building next
(12:37):
to his cockroach infested apartment and transformed into headquarters for
his marijuana empire. That was just a start. He wanted
to move back to Texas, buy an island in the Gulf,
and use it as a hub for drug smuggling, watching
his shipments come and go as he supplied marijuana to
what he called the free world. At least that's what
(12:58):
he told people, But in reality, Daniel Rakowitz wasn't building
an empire. He was unraveling, and soon the straits of
New York City would learn just how far his delusions
would take him. When Daniel Rakowitz moved into the cockroach
(13:21):
infested apartment on East ninth Street, he hadn't moved in alone.
By his side was twenty six year old Monica Berrel.
Monica was a woman of grace and discipline, a dancer
whose life had been dedicated to movement, to the fluid
expression of the body. She had come from Saint Gallen,
a picturesque Swiss town known for its textiles and ski resorts.
(13:44):
It was a far cry from the grid of East Village,
but for Monica the contrast was intoxicating. She had trained
at the prestigious Sigre at Leader School, earning a certificate
in teaching in choreography. She told her own work across
Europe before settling her sights on the epicenter of modern
dance New York City. In nineteen eighty five, Monica arrived
(14:07):
in Manhattan to study at the Martha Graham School of
Contemporary Dance. It was everything she had ever dreamed of.
She took two or three classes a day, pouring herself
into the art. Alison Sherman, a spokesman for the school,
would later recall she danced in student performances at her
school and was diligent in taking classes. She was deeply talented,
(14:30):
but Monica's path wasn't easy. After sixteen months, she returned
to Switzerland to care for her sick mother. When she
came back to New York, the city wasn't as welcoming
as it had been before. She struggled. She confided in
friends that she had been raped. She had no steady income,
but still Monica state my favorite city, she called it,
(14:54):
and she wasn't going to leave. Monica met Daniel Ragowitz
the way. So many connections were made in the East
Village on a bench in Tompkins Square Park, sharing a joint.
By then, Rakowitz had built a reputation in the park.
He was hard to miss, tall warry with wild hair
and a rooster as his ever present companion. He recently
(15:15):
said to her freelance writer, I say that I'm the
new Lord, and I'll take leadership of the Satanic cultist
to make sure they do everything that has to be
done to destroy all those people who disagree with my church.
He ranted about Charles manson marijuana and his so called
church of nine six six, but Monica didn't seem to mind.
(15:37):
According to our friend, she was indiscriminate in her love life.
One friend later remarked, Monica was the nicest person you'd
ever met, but she was so naive in her love life.
I thought she was a sexaholic, like looking for mister Goodbar,
but she said no. We discussed AIDS, but she thought
I was paranoid. Maybe Monica was looking for somebody to
(15:58):
take care of her. Maybe she saw something in Rakowitz
that others didn't, or maybe she just needed a place
to stay. She'd been living alone on Orchard Street, but
it was small, cramped, and expensive. She wanted something bigger.
Rakowitz offered her a place in his apartment. It wasn't much,
just a two bedroom unit with roommates who drifted in
(16:20):
and out, but it was something. Within a week, Monica
paid the back rent on the six hundred and fifty
dollars a month apartment. She even put her name on
the lease, but almost immediately things took a dark turn.
Rakowitz had told her she'd be safe there, he promised,
But soon Monica would realize that she had moved in
(16:41):
with a man who was unraveling, and before long she
would pay the ultimate price. In the two weeks leading
up to the grim discovery at the Port Authority bus terminal,
(17:02):
Daniel Rakowitz had been talking, and what he was saying
was nothing short of terrifying. It started with complaints about Monica.
He told people at Tompkin Square Park that she was
his girlfriend, but she was pissing him off. Charlie Manson
has nothing on me, he bragged to one of them. Monica, too,
(17:22):
had been voicing her own concerns. She confided in friends
that something was wrong. One friend later recalled, she told
me she was in trouble. She said her boyfriend owed money.
The relationship had gone south, and it had gone south fast.
After Monica put her name on the lee, she started
(17:43):
making changes. She told Rakowitz he needed to get rid
of his beloved rooster, and then she and the other
roommates made a decision. Rakowitz had to go. He was erratic, unpredictable, dangerous.
They didn't feel safe with him there. Laurie Arnold, who
lived across the hall, later recalled she told me he
(18:05):
was a peg and he was insane, but he said
he wouldn't leave. Then one day Monica was gone. She
had vanished, and Rakowitz seemed angry about it. Laurie remembered
an encounter with him in the hallway. He told me
that she got up and split on him, that he
hated her. He was filled with rage, she said. But
(18:28):
while Monica was nowhere to be seen, Rakowitz was still there,
still walking the streets, still holding court in the park,
And then he started to talk. Rakowitz told his followers
that Monica was dead, and not just that he had
killed her. At first, it sounded like the ramblings of
(18:49):
a madman, but then the details came spilling out. According
to Rakowitz, it happened on the nineteenth of August. He
said that they had been arguing and Monica told him
he needed to leave. She said her sister was coming
from Switzerland and needed the space, but Rakowitz wasn't buying it.
(19:09):
That day, he had been smoking marijuana and dropping acid.
His mind was already unhinged, and in his drug fueled rage,
he said that he lashed out. He punched Monica in
the throat. She dropped to the floor, gasping for air,
but Rakowitz didn't stop. He hit her again and again
(19:30):
and again. Then he dragged her limp body into the bathroom.
He placed her in the bathtub and went to the kitchen,
where he grabbed a fifteen inch carving knife. Rakowitz claimed
that he stabbed Monica more than thirty times. He let
her blood run down the drain.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Followed a classic tour put in the vetta that I
carried her to the veta for the reader, and.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
The story shot of the battab Rakoitz then dismiss rembered
her and cut off her head. But things got even worse.
Rakwitz told people that he had cooked Monica's flesh and
then ate some of it. That he had boiled her
skin and flushed it down the toilet, That he had
disposed of her organs the same way. It seemed too
(20:18):
insane to be true, to grotesque even for somebody like him,
But for weeks Rakquitz wouldn't shut up about it. He
wanted people to know, and eventually the stories reached the
apartment building where Monica had lived. They reached the superintendent
day of to Paulu, he had seen Rakowitz tracking out
Monica's belongings over the past couple of weeks. He decided
(20:42):
to confront Rakowitz about the rumors he had heard. He
later recalled, he told me that bit attacked me. She
scratched me. Then I hit her and killed her. I
didn't mean to, but I killed her, dude, it got
out of hand. I cut her and I boiled her head.
I made soup out of her brains and it tasted
pretty be good. And then finally the rumors reached police.
(21:05):
But was there any truth to the horrific rumors? Or
is this just another one of Daniel Rako with sick fantasies.
After hearing the disturbing rumors, detectives knew they had to
find Monica. The first place they checked was her apartment
on East ninth Street. They knocked on the front door
(21:29):
and Daniel Rako had answered. He seemed surprised, amused even
He told detectives that Monica had split one day, just
up and left, that he had no idea where she
had gone. When they asked to look around, he let
them in. Inside the apartment, there was nothing, no body,
no blood, no crime scene, just a run down, cluttered apartment,
(21:52):
crawling with cockroaches, a place where someone could have been killed,
but if they had, there was no evidence left behind.
Then detectives received a phone call. It was Monica's family.
They hadn't heard from her, she hadn't shown up to
her dance classes. She had simply just vanished. Suddenly, the
(22:13):
rumors seemed harder to ignore. Detectives search the apartment again.
They checked the pipes, with stairwells, every possible hiding place,
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(23:59):
person report, but Rakoitz stuck to the same story Monica
had just left. They weren't convinced. They wanted to talk
to the other room myts. It took a few days
to track them down, and when they did, what they
heard would blow the case wide open. One of the
room mits told them the truth. Monica was dead. He'd
(24:21):
seen it with his own eyes. He had seen her
head boiling in a pot on the stove, and he'd
been too afraid to tell anybody. With this new information,
detectives moved quickly. On the eighteenth of September, they tracked
Daniel Rakkoitt's done. He'd picked up a job at a
Brooklyn restaurant. They found him there and arrested him. He
(24:43):
didn't resist, he didn't even seem surprised. He knew why
they were there, and then Rakoitz led them to the
bus station, to the baggage storage room in the Port
Authority terminal. There, sitting in a duffel bag from the
Army was a bucket. Inside that bucket Monica's bleached bones
(25:03):
and her skull. The rumors weren't rumors anymore, they were
the horrific truth. Following his arrest, on your Rokowitz didn't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I want to just punched her. Why did you push
it right within the throat?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
They plunge it hard? Yeah, as hard as you ever before. Yeah,
one time I'd had a file of like nineteen guys
that I was punching pretty well too.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
He can fast to every gruesome, horrifying detail.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, the first thing I did it, I'll let out
the blood up from the neck. I had lived through
legs of above the batubs so that all the blood
would drained out and so it would flow down. Or
decided to get all the blood out of the body,
which didn't work. How long did that take? That's maybe
(26:03):
about hours, just because of light. It was like it
was Dennis were out on her, like cut it. It
didn't even come out right that. Where did you cut it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
In order to kind of la.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Oh, right here on the left side of the neck. Yeah,
how did you know to do that? Oh? Well, I
thought that was.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
The thing that did it.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
He tooled detectives. It had taken him ten days to
dismember Monica's body, ten days spent boiling her flesh. He
admitted to playing with her bones. Just sitting in that apartment,
surrounded by the remnants of what he had done.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The world's much what I did to her, I thought,
set her body totally. Why don't you tell how do
you do that? Kind of started chopping her up, cooking
her meat? How did you chop her up with the
fidger knife? And that d of the saw? What kind
(27:03):
of saw? Jeeves?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Just the wood saw?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Where did you get the saw from a hardware store?
So he went out and bought a saw that day,
I went out and bought a saw. And what time
we're talking about now, This is about four o'clock in
the afternoon, because I realized, well, I'll be going to
prison now for murder, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He described the moment Monica fell to the floor, she
gasped for air, choking. How he had checked her pulse,
felt her heart still beating, and then he waited, He left,
came back and checked again, and when her heart had stopped,
he did nothing because he hadn't wanted to save her.
When asked why, his answer was simple, she wanted to
(27:50):
throw me out of the apartment because I was really.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Angry at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
For a long time, hadn't you?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, she was getting me angrier and angrier and anger
every day.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
His anger had built up over time. He let it faster.
I had so much hate in my body against her,
he said. I was angrier and angrier until one day
he snapped, if you mess with me, I'm going to
mass with you, he warned her. And he did.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
But I didn't realize that if you hit a person
in the throat that would do anything.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Realized the no.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I just figured like hitting herd of the throat that
she's just like would not leave is where she would.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
How long was she lying there with that, you know hearing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Oh oh man, for like forty five minutes that job
I did soak another joint. I actually thought that she
was taking it all this time, that there was nothing
wrong with her because her was being well, you know her.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
She she was still must have been.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Getting error for her heart to be being right. Have
you ever had ever had any fights you hear before? Una?
It's not where I you know, hit her or nothing. M.
She would scratched me the night before in which I
threw her on her butt, M you know, and she
fell bad and all this and then she was like
coming at me again, I'll slammed the door in her
face and uh then like she went through my door
(29:29):
later and then i'd like said, hey, if you come
in here on me, hit the hell if you you
said that to her? Yeah, on Friday night, Yeah, Friday night.
And she says, well, I'll get you to more on then.
And uh, she was telling me how early were the
Friday she was gonna bring the guy with the pit bull,
and so I was like, well, said bring him in.
You know, I'll trip with a dog. You know that
(29:50):
one said. So for all those what I five minutes
you were sitting there watching her while she was on
the floor, I was watching cartoons and so I can
enjoy and just thinking that, well, she's faking this because
she's still breathing. I mean I'm still breathing.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I figured she was faking the breathing.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
After forty five minutes, then like, wow, see I actually
even left out.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I went to make.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
A pot delivery of all things and talking to her
part and I came back like about two hours later,
and she was still lying her she being no. Then
I touched her and she was cold. That's what I
realized she just did. Then I was very fearful, and
(30:41):
then I went ahead and did what I did.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
The detectives who interviewed him were shaking. One described Rokowitz
as a classic psychopath with sarah remorse. However, they did
believe that he had exaggerated some of his claims. He
talked some people that he turned Monica's brian into soup.
When they recovered her remains, her brain was very much intact.
Manhattan Chief of Police Ronald Fenrich didn't mince his words
(31:07):
when he said he's got no conscience. He's not embarrassed
by what he did. He'll tell you all about it,
and Rakwitz certainly did. He was charged with second degree
murder and one kind of tampering with physical evidence. He
was sent for a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital. A
month later, his defense lawyer, Philip Eaedelbaum, announced the results.
(31:31):
The court appointed psychiatrist had ruled Rakowitz mentally fit to
stand trial, but Edelbaum wasn't convinced. He wanted a second
opinion from a defense psychiatrist because Daniel Rakowitz wasn't just
pleading not guilty, He was considering pleading insanity. But first,
(31:55):
Daniel Rakowitz was deemed sane at the time of Monica's murder.
That would change a year later. In August, a courtroom
psychiatrist took to the stand and shattered that diagnosis. Doctor
Howard Owens, a court appointed psychiatrist, believed that Rakowitz was
indeed insane. He diagnosed him with paranoid delusions. According to Owens,
(32:17):
Rakowitz was unable to fully comprehend how a murder trial
even worked. Owens told the courtroom, he believes he's the Lord.
He believes spirits have appeared to him in the past.
He believes he is being framed because he's a revolutionary,
an activist, And strangely, despite confessing to Monica's murder, Rakowitz
now claimed that a person named People had actually killed her.
(32:40):
Who was People? Nobody knew because People wasn't real. But
then something else emerged. Rakowitz had spent time in four
different psychiatric hospitals before he killed Monica. Owens said that
his delusions weren't something new. He was a man who
saw prophetic visions in everyday objects, who believed a simple
(33:00):
piece of paper angled in a certain way could reveal
hidden messages. And in one of his stranger beliefs, Rakowitz
dreamed of winning public office in Texas. Not as a senator,
not as a governor, but as a sheriff, a sheriff
who had established a safe haven for persecuted people where
marijuana could be smoked freely. Then came a bizarre twist,
(33:25):
against his lawyer's direct advice, Rakowitz took to the stand.
He wanted to convince the judge that he was seen,
because in his mind, he wasn't guilty. He believed that
he had been framed. In a calm, almost casual voice,
he told the court, I'm just a guy who would
rather live a life of peace, love and happiness. He
claimed that he spent his days watching nature programs in
(33:48):
smoking weed. He even said he wanted a jury made
up of marijuana smokers. Despite his testimony, the court ruled
him competent to stand trial. Afterwards, his lawyer, Philip Beetelbaum,
immediately withdrew from the case. He said he wanted to
pursue an insanity defense, but Rakowitz refused and the two
(34:08):
were did an impass. A new lawyer was assigned, Franklin Gould,
a man known for defending Robert Wallace, the so called
karate kick killer. By January of nineteen ninety one, jury
selection began. Judge Robert Half had issued a warning this
trial will be grizzly, vivid. It will not be a
pretty picture. He gave jurors an option if they had
(34:32):
a weak stomach, they could walk away. Now. By January tenth,
the jury was set seven women, five men. The stage
was ready, and all the gruesome details were about to unfold.
(34:54):
During opening statements, prosecutor Morris Mathis said he told police
he'd had a fight with her, and she walked out,
and he never saw her again. He said that. Eventually, however,
Rockwoods admitted to the murder, telling detectives he had punched, choked,
and stobbed her. He said to the jury, although he
knew CPR, he did nothing. He did worse than nothing.
(35:15):
He watched television, he got high, he went about his business.
He left Monica Berre to die.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
The defendant went to extraordinary length to avoid being caught.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Here, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Indeed, one might suppose that he had committed a virtually
perfect crime.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
After the prosecution's opening statements, the defense were poised to
begin theirs. However, the judge announced that he was delaying
the trial so that lawyers could meet with psychiatrists who
decide whether they could launch an insanity defense. Just the
next day, the trial continued. During defense attorney Franklin Guild's
opening statements, he referred to his client as mentally disturbed.
(36:00):
He said that Rakowitz was innocent.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Please, everything you think about, put it in the context
of that man's mental condition. Whether he did it, even
doing there's no evidence of it, there is evidence of it,
whatever it is, put it in its mental condition.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He portrayed him as an eccentric who admitted to the
murderer only because he would say anything to anyone. He stated,
Daniel Rakowitz had a different kind of history. Of course,
he was mentally disturbed. He wanted to feat hungry people.
He was a character. He suggested that the police work
in the case had been so shorty that the real
murderers had escaped justice. He went on to spend most
(36:43):
of his opening statement attacking the character of Monica. He
referred to her as a strip tease dancer and suggested
she suffered from psychiatric problems. Testimony got underway with various
people testifying about what Rakowitz had told them about the
murder of Monica, but it wasn't long before trouble arose
and a mistrial loomed. Rakowitz's defense attorneys threatened to withdraw
(37:06):
from the case over an ethical issue. The prosecutor said
he intended on calling a woman to the stand who
the defense attorneys had represented in a drunk driving case
several years earlier. The woman, Beth Nunez, was going to
testify that Rakowitz had told her he had taken care
of Monica. Defense attorney Norman Reemer said it would be
a violation of legal ethics for him to cross examine her.
(37:30):
He stated, it's unseemly for a lawyer to try to
discredit someone who has placed their trust in you. However,
Beth said she agreed to be cross examined. The gruesome
testimony then continued with Milton Irizari. He said that Rakowitz
had served soup containing a human finger to one of
his friends. The court also heard testimony from detective Thomas Ray,
(37:53):
who testified about Rakowitz leading them to Monica's remains in
the bus terminal. He said to the court, I could
see the top of the human skull and a knife handle.
He further said that Rakowitz told them he had killed
Monica during a fight when she came at him with
a lead pipe. The jury were then shown the videotaped
confession from Rakowitz. He had said he wanted to get
(38:15):
rid of Monica's body as quickly as possible in case
police didn't believe that she had just stopped and left.
He stated, I was totally repulsed by it. I couldn't
believe what was happening. He said he was surprised that
Monica hadn't quickly recovered after he punched her in the throat.
He stated, I was like, really tripped out. I was like, Monica,
(38:37):
why are you faking this? He recalled how Monica lay
on the floor gurgling as he went into the living
room to smoke some marijuana. He said he then left
the apartment to purchase a hack saw to chop up
her body. He stated, I cooked her up so that
I could manage the meat better. Daniel Rakowitz testified on
his own behalf at the trial and told the jury
(38:59):
he had nothing to do with Monica's murder. He claimed
that when he returned to the apartment on the nineteenth
of August, he saw a torso and head of a
dead body in the bathtub, but he wasn't sure who
it was. He said that several days later, he returned
home to find pots, pockets and plates of bones, flesh,
and internal organs scattered about the apartment. He testified, there
(39:23):
was human looking flesh over this red mate in my freezer.
I assumed that must be the missing legs. He said
that at one point he became obsessed with discarding of
the bones because he feared he would be charged with
the murder of whoever it was. He said he disinfected
them after finding that they were crawling with maggots. He explained,
(39:44):
if I was dead, I would want someone to clean
my bones. That way, It's only right. But during another
point in the testimony, he said he wanted to tell
police and offered several friends money to go with him
to the police. When Rakowitz was cross examined, he lashed
out at Prosecutor Mathis, telling him he'd like to spray
him with a stagnant urine from a machine gun water
(40:04):
pistol if he were freed. He stated, I would have
liked to destroy your body. I know it sounds vile,
but that's what I intend to do. Before his testimony,
his defense attorney had asked the judge to declare Rakowitz
unfit for trial. He'd called on psychiatrists doctor Cheryl Paradis,
who testified that Rakowitz was psychotic and psychotic at the
(40:27):
time of Monica's death. He also called on doctor Daniel Schwartz,
a psychiatrist who testified that Rakowitz was a paranoid schizophrenic
noise and at the time of the murder. Rakowitz had
told the psychiatrist that he once worked as a Ritz
Cracker arranger. He even carried a copy of Adolf Hitler's
mind Camp covered with cryptic markings. It appeared as though
(40:49):
defense attorney Guild was putting on an insanity defense, although
he hadn't indicated that during his opening statements, The prosecutor
conjured the psychiatrist testimony with a rebuttal witness, doctor Stuart Kirshner.
He said he believed that Rakowitz knew what he was
doing when he killed Monica and knew that it was wrong.
While Rakowitz maintained his innocence, it soon became apparent that
(41:12):
he hadn't only confessed to detectives and his followers at
the park. According to Ronald Morales, while he was awaiting
processing at Manhattan Central Booking, Rakoitz confessed to him as well.
He said that Rakwoitz told him he struck Monica in
the throat, then chopped off her head, drained her body
of blood, boiled the bones and body parts before disinfecting
(41:34):
them and dumping them. After that, the trial drew to
a close. During closing arguments, prosecutor Murice Mathis told the
jury that it was a simple case that Daniel Rakowitz
had killed Monica Berl. He pointed to his videotaped confession
and stated, a person can be as crazy as a loon,
as crazy as a bed bug, and still commit murder.
(41:57):
Despite being warned by Judge Robert Half. Rakaway's mumbled throughout
the prosecutor's closing arguments. Defense attorney Franklin Guld used his
closing arguments to say that if Rakowitz had killed Monica,
he was mentally ill in doing so and didn't know
what he was doing. He stated, we're talking about a
sick man. It's funny, but it's terrible. He suggested for
(42:21):
the first time that Monica was actually killed by a
cult and that Rakowitz may have played a part. He
then added, what really happened, we'll never know. The jury
(42:47):
were sent off to deliberate, and by the third day
they remained deadlocked. They requested definitions of legal terms and
a rereading of testimony, yet a verdict still seemed out
of reach. It took them nine days before before they
finally returned with the decision. Daniel Rakowitz was found not
guilty by reason of insanity. It wasn't the verdict the
(43:08):
majority had wanted. A single holdout had refused to yield,
forcing the rest of the jury to concede in order
to break the deadlock. The jury for woman Lewis Markel
later stated from day one, this particular person was determined
that the jury was going to find Rakowitz not guilty
by reason of mental disease. Upon hearing the verdict, Rakowitz
(43:31):
turned to the jury and remarked, I hope we can
split a joint together someday. Under the ruling, Rakowitz could
have been eligible for release in just six months. In May,
he was ordered to be committed to a psychiatric hospital
as a dangerously insane person for at least that duration.
Then after six months, he was deemed to still pose
(43:51):
a threat. In February of nineteen ninety two, detectives announced
they now believed that Monica Beryl had actually been killed
by a cult and that Rakowitz had accomplices. They also
suspected that her flesh had been cooked and fed to
the homeless. Police arrested a second man, Randy Easter Day,
on charges of assisting Rakowitz in her murder. Detectives had
(44:15):
been working with an informant who claim to have witnessed
Easter Day stabbing an unconscious Monica repeatedly in the chest.
A second informant alleged that Easter Day had boasted about
helping Rakowitz dismember her body. Detectives now believed that Monica
had been murdered and mutilated in a Satanic ritual ceremony.
From his cell at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatrist Center, Rakwood
(44:38):
spoke with a reporter from the Los Angeles Times regarding
Easter Day. He stated, I heard Randy talk about eating
dead babies, but I never believed it, so I tell
him about killing animals and killing people, just to see
who could shock the other guy worst. Rakwoods claimed that
it was Easter Day and three others who had killed Monica,
(44:58):
not him. He alleged that upon returning to the apartment,
he found her already dead, dismembered and decapitated, with satanic
symbols surrounding the remains. In April, however, all charges against
Randy easter Day were dropped after an assistant district attorney
determined there was insufficient evidence to secure conviction. Then, in
(45:28):
nineteen ninety five, Daniel Rakowitz argued that he was a
changed man, ready to be released back into society. However,
during the court hearing to determine his sanity, disturbing details
of his past continued to emerge. Before the murder of
Monica Beryl, he had married a fourteen year old girl,
handcuffed her to a refrigerator, and subjected her to relentless abuse.
(45:50):
He beat her frequently, and on one occasion even shoved
her out of a moving car. When questioned about his
violent tendencies, Rakoitz blamed his actions on smoking too much way.
It was also revealed that he had once attempted to
kill his father and would have succeeded if the gun
hadn't jammed. Despite these revelations, his defense attorney insisted that
he had changed, stating he's been relatively well behaved except
(46:15):
that he makes racist remarks. The judge was unconvinced. He
believed that if Rakowitz were released, he would almost certainly
return to drugs, relapse, and become a threat to women.
He was ordered to remain confined. In two thousand and four,
Rakwitz made yet another attempt at freedom. This time it
was up to a jury. He claimed once more that
(46:36):
he was innocent, insisting that it had been Randy easter
Day who actually killed Monica. He even managed to make
the jury laugh when he spoke about his new found
love for animals, saying that he had grown fond of
the rabbits, pheasants and squirrels roaming on the grounds of
Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Hospital. They've got me to love them,
he said. The jury ultimately ruled that Rakowitz was still insane,
(46:59):
but not a danger to society. This meant that he
could be transferred to a less secure facility. However, Judge
Donna Mills refused to allow the move. She pointed to
his continued obsession with murder and mutilation, noting that numerous
three crime books had been found in his cell. He
had also refused to take responsibility for Monica's murder and
(47:19):
still blamed others. Daniel Rackwitz remains confined at Kirbyfransic Psychiatric Center,
where he has been for over three decades. His name
has faded from headlines, but his crime remains one of
the most grotesque in New York's history. He claimed to
be a prophet, a healer, a visionary, but in reality
(47:39):
he was nothing more than a killer, a man who
took a life, desecrated a body, and turned murder into spectacle. Well, bestie,
(48:16):
is that is it for this episode of Morbidology. As always,
thank you so much for listening, and I'd like to
say a massive thank you to my new supporters up
on Patreon, Holly. As you all know, Morbidology is a
one woman's team, so the support upon Patreon seriously, seriously
goes such a long way, and I really am eternally grateful.
Upon Patreon. I upload ad free in early release episodes,
(48:39):
bonus episodes of Morbidology plus that aren't on the regular
podcast platforms behind the scenes, and I also send out
a handwritten thank you card along with some col Patreon
exclusive merch. So if you'd like to join Morbidology up
on Patreon, the link is in the show notes and
you can join for as little as one dollar a month.
Morbidology it also has a private Facebook group, so if
(49:02):
you're interested in joining that and sharing any feedback on
the episodes or thoughts on the cases, please feel free
to do so. Remember to check us out at morbidology
dot com for more information about this episode and to
read some true crime articles. Until next time, take care
of yourselves, stay safe, and have an amazing week
Because I was really angry at that point.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
I haven't been added for a long time, adn't you.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yeah, she was giving me angrier, angrier and angrier.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Wi On the afternoon of the eighteenth September nineteen eighty nine,
workers at the Poort Authority bus terminal in New York
City were carrying out their usual tasks. They were cleaning spillages,
(01:07):
sorting unclaimed luggage, and ensuring the smooth operation of one
of the busiest transit hubs in the country. The parcel
check area, which is a place where travelers stored their
belongings before continuing their journeys, was particularly active. It costs
just two dollars for twelve hours of safekeeping, and the
area was filled with an assortment of suitcases, stuffel bags,
and the occasional forgotten package. Amidst the usual clutter, there
(01:31):
was a green Army duffel bag that had a lock
securing it. At first, it blended in just another item
among the sea of belongings waiting to be claimed. That afternoon, however,
a man arrived at the parcel checking counter, flanked by
police officers. He was rugged, disheveled, a presence that immediately
drew attention. Without hesitation, he handed over his claim ticket.
(01:56):
The clerk retrieved the bag and set it down in
front of him. Then, in a voice disturbingly casual, he
turned to the officers and said, if you've been the bag,
you'll find bones inside. The officers exchanged glances. This was
no ordinary luggage or trivial. With growing on ease, they
unfastened the lock and pulled open the bag. Inside was
(02:20):
a plastic bucket, white, heavy and giving off a strange,
acrid smell, the kind that clings to the air, thick
and unmistakable. Cautiously they pried it open, and what they
found inside was the stuff of nightmares. A human skull
stripped clean, several bones, some wrapped in plastic, a fifteen
(02:42):
inch carving knife, its blade still sharp, and cat litter
piled at the bottom, as though in some desperate attempt
to mask the decay. The detectives didn't have to wonder
whose remains they had just uncovered. They already knew, because
the man standing in front of them, the man who
had led them there, was the killer himself. It was
(03:17):
the summer of nineteen eighty nine, and New York City
was suffocating under the unforgiving heat wave, the kind that
turned the straits into shimmering asphalt rivers, where the stench
of sweat, garbage, and cheap beer clung in the air.
But in the East Village, another kind of pressure was building,
one that had been festering for years in the heart
of Tompkins Square Park. This park was its own world,
(03:42):
a battle ground of desperation and defiance, a heaven for
the outcast, the addicted, and the disillusioned. The city had
tried to take it back through police raids, through aggressive gentrification,
but the people who lived there, the ones who had
nowhere else to go, were and sweetly pushed out. They
pitched their tents beneath the skeletal branches of dying elms,
(04:04):
staking their claim on patches of dirt and crumbling pavement.
During the day, the park was a chaotic symphony of voices,
aeric summed against graffaded walls. Activists handed out laflets condemning
police brutality, and musicians drummed battered guitars, their music lost
in the hum of shouting and sirens. It was a
(04:25):
place of survival where the forgotten, the forsaken clung to
the only thing they had left each other, and then
there was him. He wasn't like the others. Tall, wiry,
with unkempt blonde hair and a beard that tangled leg
roots in the dirt. He walked the park with the
posture of a prophet. He called himself the founder of
(04:45):
a new faith, a man with a vision, a man
with a cause. On his shoulder. Always was a rooster.
His name was Daniel Rakowitz, and if the people of
Tompkins Square Park knew what they would soon come to learn,
they would have run. Daniel Rakowitz was, to the casual observer,
(05:14):
just another eccentric in a city full of them. He
spoke with riddles, shifting between wide eyed preacher and drug
addled runatic with unsettling ease. He called himself the Leader
of the Church of ninety sixty six, a doctrine of
his own creation that seemed to shift depending on his
mood and his audience. But Rakowit's vision was clear. He
(05:35):
believed that he was destined to take over the state
of Texas, that his followers, wherever they might be, would
rise up under his command. He idolized Charles Manson, seeing
him not as a murderer but as a misunderstood prophet.
In Rakowitz's mind, he was the next in line. He
wasn't just talk. He sold marijuana in the park, handing
(05:58):
out leaflets that read, boy caught the white powder, bring
back the herb, Make pot cheaper than crack, and soon
people started calling him what he wanted to be, known
as the marijuana Guru. Others knew him as the chicken Man,
as he sometimes carried a dead chicken around his neck.
With his earnings from selling marijuana, Rakowitz sometimes brought live
(06:20):
chickens and slaughtered them in the park to feed the homeless.
But unlike many of the drifters who made their home
in Tompkins Square Park, Rakowitz wasn't actually homeless. He had
a place, an apartment on East ninth Street, a cockroach
infested hole in the wall where the walls whispered decay
and the air hung heavy with the scent of something rotten.
(06:42):
Rakoitos had taken over the lace on the third of
August nineteen eighty nine, moving in with two cats, his
pet rooster, and two roommates who came and went on
its door. He had scrawled in black marker is it
soup yet? And Beneath that another phrase, welcome to Charlie
Gaines's spot on Ranch East. It was a reference to
(07:03):
Ed gain and the infamous Death Valley compound where Charles
Manson had once held court with his followers. Laurie Arnold,
one of Rakowitz's neighbors, later described him with a mixture
of disgust and unease, as she said, he's a weird,
sick dude. He thought he was the Antichrist before he
(07:30):
became the so called marijuana guru. Daniel Rokowitz was just
a boy. He was born on Christmas Eve in nineteen
sixty in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, a military time where
discipline ruled and expectations were clear. His father, Tony Rakowitz,
was a homicide detective in the US Army, a straightliest,
no nonsense man who believed in order, rules, in obedience.
(07:52):
But Daniel Sheriff Rob Hughes would later say his father
was a straightliest fellow, a real disciplinarian. But the boy,
he was a mental basket case. I guess you'd have
to say. Daniel Rockwitz was only two years old when
his mother died of a heart attack, and he was
alone with her when it happened. A toddler left in
a hotel room with his mother's lifeless body for ours
(08:14):
before anybody found them. Tony remarried, but not just anybody,
his late wife's sister. It was supposed to restore some stability,
a sense of normalcy, but it didn't last. The family
moved constantly, dragged from place to place by the shifting
demands of Tony's career. Eventually, in the late nineteen seventies,
they settled in Rockport, Texas, where Daniel finally graduated from
(08:38):
high school. By then, however, the cracks were already showing.
His aunt Patricia later admitted, some kids grow out of it,
and some don't. He never grew up. Drugs have become
an escape, marijuana, psychedelics, whatever he could get his hands on.
His father, who was desperate to set him straight, pushed
(08:58):
him towards the military, and for a moment, it seemed
like it might work. In June nineteen eighty, Daniel Ragowitz
enlisted in the US Army. He trained as a sharpshooter,
and he excelled in rifle marksmanship. He spent fourteen weeks
at Army Law Enforcement School, but beneath the surface something
was wrong. In February of nineteen eighty two, he was
(09:19):
discharged under honorable conditions, but a single notation on his
permanent record hinted it something more misconduct fraudulent entry. There
was no explanation, no further details, just a vague mark
against his name, an implication that something had gone wrong.
Rackwitz returned home with the rift between him and his
(09:41):
father had grown far too wide to fix. His temper flared,
his behavior became more erratic. He was arrested from marijuana possession.
He ripped up his father's trailer in fits of rage.
Tony eventually had enough and he threw his son out,
And so in nineteen eighty five, Daniel Rogowitz packed his
bags and drifted north, leaving behind Texas for the chaos
(10:04):
of New York City. At Tompkins Square Park, he found
what he'd been looking for all his life, a place
where the rules didn't matter, where outsiders thrived. Here, he
wasn't just another lost soul. He belonged. Before we continue
with today's episode, I want to tell you about something
(10:25):
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this limited time offer. Today, Rakoit's reinvented himself as a
profit of sorts, a leader of the rejected, the unwanted.
He declared himself the Antichrist and warned of apocalyptic times
(11:53):
ahead if somebody ever doubted him. He had his own proof.
His birth date December twenty five, worth nineteen sixty Christmas Eve,
and using a cryptic numerical code, he claimed the letters
of his name added up to six sixty six. To him,
that wasn't coincidence, it was fate. He'd recently taken part
(12:15):
in an altercation with the police in the park. During
the riot, he screamed, kill the pigs and feed them
to the hogs. He believed the cocaine and heroin dealers
should be killed and the government should be overthrown. But
Rakowit's ambition stretched beyond prophecies in paranoia. He had plans,
big ones. He wanted to renovate the rundown building next
(12:37):
to his cockroach infested apartment and transformed into headquarters for
his marijuana empire. That was just a start. He wanted
to move back to Texas, buy an island in the Gulf,
and use it as a hub for drug smuggling, watching
his shipments come and go as he supplied marijuana to
what he called the free world. At least that's what
(12:58):
he told people, But in reality, Daniel Rakowitz wasn't building
an empire. He was unraveling, and soon the straits of
New York City would learn just how far his delusions
would take him. When Daniel Rakowitz moved into the cockroach
(13:21):
infested apartment on East ninth Street, he hadn't moved in alone.
By his side was twenty six year old Monica Berrel.
Monica was a woman of grace and discipline, a dancer
whose life had been dedicated to movement, to the fluid
expression of the body. She had come from Saint Gallen,
a picturesque Swiss town known for its textiles and ski resorts.
(13:44):
It was a far cry from the grid of East Village,
but for Monica the contrast was intoxicating. She had trained
at the prestigious Sigre at Leader School, earning a certificate
in teaching in choreography. She told her own work across
Europe before settling her sights on the epicenter of modern
dance New York City. In nineteen eighty five, Monica arrived
(14:07):
in Manhattan to study at the Martha Graham School of
Contemporary Dance. It was everything she had ever dreamed of.
She took two or three classes a day, pouring herself
into the art. Alison Sherman, a spokesman for the school,
would later recall she danced in student performances at her
school and was diligent in taking classes. She was deeply talented,
(14:30):
but Monica's path wasn't easy. After sixteen months, she returned
to Switzerland to care for her sick mother. When she
came back to New York, the city wasn't as welcoming
as it had been before. She struggled. She confided in
friends that she had been raped. She had no steady income,
but still Monica state my favorite city, she called it,
(14:54):
and she wasn't going to leave. Monica met Daniel Ragowitz
the way. So many connections were made in the East
Village on a bench in Tompkins Square Park, sharing a joint.
By then, Rakowitz had built a reputation in the park.
He was hard to miss, tall warry with wild hair
and a rooster as his ever present companion. He recently
(15:15):
said to her freelance writer, I say that I'm the
new Lord, and I'll take leadership of the Satanic cultist
to make sure they do everything that has to be
done to destroy all those people who disagree with my church.
He ranted about Charles manson marijuana and his so called
church of nine six six, but Monica didn't seem to mind.
(15:37):
According to our friend, she was indiscriminate in her love life.
One friend later remarked, Monica was the nicest person you'd
ever met, but she was so naive in her love life.
I thought she was a sexaholic, like looking for mister Goodbar,
but she said no. We discussed AIDS, but she thought
I was paranoid. Maybe Monica was looking for somebody to
(15:58):
take care of her. Maybe she saw something in Rakowitz
that others didn't, or maybe she just needed a place
to stay. She'd been living alone on Orchard Street, but
it was small, cramped, and expensive. She wanted something bigger.
Rakowitz offered her a place in his apartment. It wasn't much,
just a two bedroom unit with roommates who drifted in
(16:20):
and out, but it was something. Within a week, Monica
paid the back rent on the six hundred and fifty
dollars a month apartment. She even put her name on
the lease, but almost immediately things took a dark turn.
Rakowitz had told her she'd be safe there, he promised,
But soon Monica would realize that she had moved in
(16:41):
with a man who was unraveling, and before long she
would pay the ultimate price. In the two weeks leading
up to the grim discovery at the Port Authority bus terminal,
(17:02):
Daniel Rakowitz had been talking, and what he was saying
was nothing short of terrifying. It started with complaints about Monica.
He told people at Tompkin Square Park that she was
his girlfriend, but she was pissing him off. Charlie Manson
has nothing on me, he bragged to one of them. Monica, too,
(17:22):
had been voicing her own concerns. She confided in friends
that something was wrong. One friend later recalled, she told
me she was in trouble. She said her boyfriend owed money.
The relationship had gone south, and it had gone south fast.
After Monica put her name on the lee, she started
(17:43):
making changes. She told Rakowitz he needed to get rid
of his beloved rooster, and then she and the other
roommates made a decision. Rakowitz had to go. He was erratic, unpredictable, dangerous.
They didn't feel safe with him there. Laurie Arnold, who
lived across the hall, later recalled she told me he
(18:05):
was a peg and he was insane, but he said
he wouldn't leave. Then one day Monica was gone. She
had vanished, and Rakowitz seemed angry about it. Laurie remembered
an encounter with him in the hallway. He told me
that she got up and split on him, that he
hated her. He was filled with rage, she said. But
(18:28):
while Monica was nowhere to be seen, Rakowitz was still there,
still walking the streets, still holding court in the park,
And then he started to talk. Rakowitz told his followers
that Monica was dead, and not just that he had
killed her. At first, it sounded like the ramblings of
(18:49):
a madman, but then the details came spilling out. According
to Rakowitz, it happened on the nineteenth of August. He
said that they had been arguing and Monica told him
he needed to leave. She said her sister was coming
from Switzerland and needed the space, but Rakowitz wasn't buying it.
(19:09):
That day, he had been smoking marijuana and dropping acid.
His mind was already unhinged, and in his drug fueled rage,
he said that he lashed out. He punched Monica in
the throat. She dropped to the floor, gasping for air,
but Rakowitz didn't stop. He hit her again and again
(19:30):
and again. Then he dragged her limp body into the bathroom.
He placed her in the bathtub and went to the kitchen,
where he grabbed a fifteen inch carving knife. Rakowitz claimed
that he stabbed Monica more than thirty times. He let
her blood run down the drain.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Followed a classic tour put in the vetta that I
carried her to the veta for the reader, and.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
The story shot of the battab Rakoitz then dismiss rembered
her and cut off her head. But things got even worse.
Rakwitz told people that he had cooked Monica's flesh and
then ate some of it. That he had boiled her
skin and flushed it down the toilet, That he had
disposed of her organs the same way. It seemed too
(20:18):
insane to be true, to grotesque even for somebody like him,
But for weeks Rakquitz wouldn't shut up about it. He
wanted people to know, and eventually the stories reached the
apartment building where Monica had lived. They reached the superintendent
day of to Paulu, he had seen Rakowitz tracking out
Monica's belongings over the past couple of weeks. He decided
(20:42):
to confront Rakowitz about the rumors he had heard. He
later recalled, he told me that bit attacked me. She
scratched me. Then I hit her and killed her. I
didn't mean to, but I killed her, dude, it got
out of hand. I cut her and I boiled her head.
I made soup out of her brains and it tasted
pretty be good. And then finally the rumors reached police.
(21:05):
But was there any truth to the horrific rumors? Or
is this just another one of Daniel Rako with sick fantasies.
After hearing the disturbing rumors, detectives knew they had to
find Monica. The first place they checked was her apartment
on East ninth Street. They knocked on the front door
(21:29):
and Daniel Rako had answered. He seemed surprised, amused even
He told detectives that Monica had split one day, just
up and left, that he had no idea where she
had gone. When they asked to look around, he let
them in. Inside the apartment, there was nothing, no body,
no blood, no crime scene, just a run down, cluttered apartment,
(21:52):
crawling with cockroaches, a place where someone could have been killed,
but if they had, there was no evidence left behind.
Then detectives received a phone call. It was Monica's family.
They hadn't heard from her, she hadn't shown up to
her dance classes. She had simply just vanished. Suddenly, the
(22:13):
rumors seemed harder to ignore. Detectives search the apartment again.
They checked the pipes, with stairwells, every possible hiding place,
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(23:59):
person report, but Rakoitz stuck to the same story Monica
had just left. They weren't convinced. They wanted to talk
to the other room myts. It took a few days
to track them down, and when they did, what they
heard would blow the case wide open. One of the
room mits told them the truth. Monica was dead. He'd
(24:21):
seen it with his own eyes. He had seen her
head boiling in a pot on the stove, and he'd
been too afraid to tell anybody. With this new information,
detectives moved quickly. On the eighteenth of September, they tracked
Daniel Rakkoitt's done. He'd picked up a job at a
Brooklyn restaurant. They found him there and arrested him. He
(24:43):
didn't resist, he didn't even seem surprised. He knew why
they were there, and then Rakoitz led them to the
bus station, to the baggage storage room in the Port
Authority terminal. There, sitting in a duffel bag from the
Army was a bucket. Inside that bucket Monica's bleached bones
(25:03):
and her skull. The rumors weren't rumors anymore, they were
the horrific truth. Following his arrest, on your Rokowitz didn't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
I want to just punched her. Why did you push
it right within the throat?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
They plunge it hard? Yeah, as hard as you ever before. Yeah,
one time I'd had a file of like nineteen guys
that I was punching pretty well too.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
He can fast to every gruesome, horrifying detail.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Well, the first thing I did it, I'll let out
the blood up from the neck. I had lived through
legs of above the batubs so that all the blood
would drained out and so it would flow down. Or
decided to get all the blood out of the body,
which didn't work. How long did that take? That's maybe
(26:03):
about hours, just because of light. It was like it
was Dennis were out on her, like cut it. It
didn't even come out right that. Where did you cut it.
Speaker 3 (26:13):
In order to kind of la.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
Oh, right here on the left side of the neck. Yeah,
how did you know to do that? Oh? Well, I
thought that was.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
The thing that did it.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
He tooled detectives. It had taken him ten days to
dismember Monica's body, ten days spent boiling her flesh. He
admitted to playing with her bones. Just sitting in that apartment,
surrounded by the remnants of what he had done.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
The world's much what I did to her, I thought,
set her body totally. Why don't you tell how do
you do that? Kind of started chopping her up, cooking
her meat? How did you chop her up with the
fidger knife? And that d of the saw? What kind
(27:03):
of saw? Jeeves?
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Just the wood saw?
Speaker 1 (27:06):
Where did you get the saw from a hardware store?
So he went out and bought a saw that day,
I went out and bought a saw. And what time
we're talking about now, This is about four o'clock in
the afternoon, because I realized, well, I'll be going to
prison now for murder, you know.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
He described the moment Monica fell to the floor, she
gasped for air, choking. How he had checked her pulse,
felt her heart still beating, and then he waited, He left,
came back and checked again, and when her heart had stopped,
he did nothing because he hadn't wanted to save her.
When asked why, his answer was simple, she wanted to
(27:50):
throw me out of the apartment because I was really.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Angry at that point.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
For a long time, hadn't you?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Yeah, she was getting me angrier and angrier and anger
every day.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
His anger had built up over time. He let it faster.
I had so much hate in my body against her,
he said. I was angrier and angrier until one day
he snapped, if you mess with me, I'm going to
mass with you, he warned her. And he did.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
But I didn't realize that if you hit a person
in the throat that would do anything.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Realized the no.
Speaker 2 (28:27):
I just figured like hitting herd of the throat that
she's just like would not leave is where she would.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Leave me alone.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
How long was she lying there with that, you know hearing.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
Oh oh man, for like forty five minutes that job
I did soak another joint. I actually thought that she
was taking it all this time, that there was nothing
wrong with her because her was being well, you know her.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
She she was still must have been.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Getting error for her heart to be being right. Have
you ever had ever had any fights you hear before? Una?
It's not where I you know, hit her or nothing. M.
She would scratched me the night before in which I
threw her on her butt, M you know, and she
fell bad and all this and then she was like
coming at me again, I'll slammed the door in her
face and uh then like she went through my door
(29:29):
later and then i'd like said, hey, if you come
in here on me, hit the hell if you you
said that to her? Yeah, on Friday night, Yeah, Friday night.
And she says, well, I'll get you to more on then.
And uh, she was telling me how early were the
Friday she was gonna bring the guy with the pit bull,
and so I was like, well, said bring him in.
You know, I'll trip with a dog. You know that
(29:50):
one said. So for all those what I five minutes
you were sitting there watching her while she was on
the floor, I was watching cartoons and so I can
enjoy and just thinking that, well, she's faking this because
she's still breathing. I mean I'm still breathing.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I figured she was faking the breathing.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
After forty five minutes, then like, wow, see I actually
even left out.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
I went to make.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
A pot delivery of all things and talking to her
part and I came back like about two hours later,
and she was still lying her she being no. Then
I touched her and she was cold. That's what I
realized she just did. Then I was very fearful, and
(30:41):
then I went ahead and did what I did.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
The detectives who interviewed him were shaking. One described Rokowitz
as a classic psychopath with sarah remorse. However, they did
believe that he had exaggerated some of his claims. He
talked some people that he turned Monica's brian into soup.
When they recovered her remains, her brain was very much intact.
Manhattan Chief of Police Ronald Fenrich didn't mince his words
(31:07):
when he said he's got no conscience. He's not embarrassed
by what he did. He'll tell you all about it,
and Rakwitz certainly did. He was charged with second degree
murder and one kind of tampering with physical evidence. He
was sent for a psychiatric evaluation at Bellevue Hospital. A
month later, his defense lawyer, Philip Eaedelbaum, announced the results.
(31:31):
The court appointed psychiatrist had ruled Rakowitz mentally fit to
stand trial, but Edelbaum wasn't convinced. He wanted a second
opinion from a defense psychiatrist because Daniel Rakowitz wasn't just
pleading not guilty, He was considering pleading insanity. But first,
(31:55):
Daniel Rakowitz was deemed sane at the time of Monica's murder.
That would change a year later. In August, a courtroom
psychiatrist took to the stand and shattered that diagnosis. Doctor
Howard Owens, a court appointed psychiatrist, believed that Rakowitz was
indeed insane. He diagnosed him with paranoid delusions. According to Owens,
(32:17):
Rakowitz was unable to fully comprehend how a murder trial
even worked. Owens told the courtroom, he believes he's the Lord.
He believes spirits have appeared to him in the past.
He believes he is being framed because he's a revolutionary,
an activist, And strangely, despite confessing to Monica's murder, Rakowitz
now claimed that a person named People had actually killed her.
(32:40):
Who was People? Nobody knew because People wasn't real. But
then something else emerged. Rakowitz had spent time in four
different psychiatric hospitals before he killed Monica. Owens said that
his delusions weren't something new. He was a man who
saw prophetic visions in everyday objects, who believed a simple
(33:00):
piece of paper angled in a certain way could reveal
hidden messages. And in one of his stranger beliefs, Rakowitz
dreamed of winning public office in Texas. Not as a senator,
not as a governor, but as a sheriff, a sheriff
who had established a safe haven for persecuted people where
marijuana could be smoked freely. Then came a bizarre twist,
(33:25):
against his lawyer's direct advice, Rakowitz took to the stand.
He wanted to convince the judge that he was seen,
because in his mind, he wasn't guilty. He believed that
he had been framed. In a calm, almost casual voice,
he told the court, I'm just a guy who would
rather live a life of peace, love and happiness. He
claimed that he spent his days watching nature programs in
(33:48):
smoking weed. He even said he wanted a jury made
up of marijuana smokers. Despite his testimony, the court ruled
him competent to stand trial. Afterwards, his lawyer, Philip Beetelbaum,
immediately withdrew from the case. He said he wanted to
pursue an insanity defense, but Rakowitz refused and the two
(34:08):
were did an impass. A new lawyer was assigned, Franklin Gould,
a man known for defending Robert Wallace, the so called
karate kick killer. By January of nineteen ninety one, jury
selection began. Judge Robert Half had issued a warning this
trial will be grizzly, vivid. It will not be a
pretty picture. He gave jurors an option if they had
(34:32):
a weak stomach, they could walk away. Now. By January tenth,
the jury was set seven women, five men. The stage
was ready, and all the gruesome details were about to unfold.
(34:54):
During opening statements, prosecutor Morris Mathis said he told police
he'd had a fight with her, and she walked out,
and he never saw her again. He said that. Eventually, however,
Rockwoods admitted to the murder, telling detectives he had punched, choked,
and stobbed her. He said to the jury, although he
knew CPR, he did nothing. He did worse than nothing.
(35:15):
He watched television, he got high, he went about his business.
He left Monica Berre to die.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
The defendant went to extraordinary length to avoid being caught.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Here, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Indeed, one might suppose that he had committed a virtually
perfect crime.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
After the prosecution's opening statements, the defense were poised to
begin theirs. However, the judge announced that he was delaying
the trial so that lawyers could meet with psychiatrists who
decide whether they could launch an insanity defense. Just the
next day, the trial continued. During defense attorney Franklin Guild's
opening statements, he referred to his client as mentally disturbed.
(36:00):
He said that Rakowitz was innocent.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Please, everything you think about, put it in the context
of that man's mental condition. Whether he did it, even
doing there's no evidence of it, there is evidence of it,
whatever it is, put it in its mental condition.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
He portrayed him as an eccentric who admitted to the
murderer only because he would say anything to anyone. He stated,
Daniel Rakowitz had a different kind of history. Of course,
he was mentally disturbed. He wanted to feat hungry people.
He was a character. He suggested that the police work
in the case had been so shorty that the real
murderers had escaped justice. He went on to spend most
(36:43):
of his opening statement attacking the character of Monica. He
referred to her as a strip tease dancer and suggested
she suffered from psychiatric problems. Testimony got underway with various
people testifying about what Rakowitz had told them about the
murder of Monica, but it wasn't long before trouble arose
and a mistrial loomed. Rakowitz's defense attorneys threatened to withdraw
(37:06):
from the case over an ethical issue. The prosecutor said
he intended on calling a woman to the stand who
the defense attorneys had represented in a drunk driving case
several years earlier. The woman, Beth Nunez, was going to
testify that Rakowitz had told her he had taken care
of Monica. Defense attorney Norman Reemer said it would be
a violation of legal ethics for him to cross examine her.
(37:30):
He stated, it's unseemly for a lawyer to try to
discredit someone who has placed their trust in you. However,
Beth said she agreed to be cross examined. The gruesome
testimony then continued with Milton Irizari. He said that Rakowitz
had served soup containing a human finger to one of
his friends. The court also heard testimony from detective Thomas Ray,
(37:53):
who testified about Rakowitz leading them to Monica's remains in
the bus terminal. He said to the court, I could
see the top of the human skull and a knife handle.
He further said that Rakowitz told them he had killed
Monica during a fight when she came at him with
a lead pipe. The jury were then shown the videotaped
confession from Rakowitz. He had said he wanted to get
(38:15):
rid of Monica's body as quickly as possible in case
police didn't believe that she had just stopped and left.
He stated, I was totally repulsed by it. I couldn't
believe what was happening. He said he was surprised that
Monica hadn't quickly recovered after he punched her in the throat.
He stated, I was like, really tripped out. I was like, Monica,
(38:37):
why are you faking this? He recalled how Monica lay
on the floor gurgling as he went into the living
room to smoke some marijuana. He said he then left
the apartment to purchase a hack saw to chop up
her body. He stated, I cooked her up so that
I could manage the meat better. Daniel Rakowitz testified on
his own behalf at the trial and told the jury
(38:59):
he had nothing to do with Monica's murder. He claimed
that when he returned to the apartment on the nineteenth
of August, he saw a torso and head of a
dead body in the bathtub, but he wasn't sure who
it was. He said that several days later, he returned
home to find pots, pockets and plates of bones, flesh,
and internal organs scattered about the apartment. He testified, there
(39:23):
was human looking flesh over this red mate in my freezer.
I assumed that must be the missing legs. He said
that at one point he became obsessed with discarding of
the bones because he feared he would be charged with
the murder of whoever it was. He said he disinfected
them after finding that they were crawling with maggots. He explained,
(39:44):
if I was dead, I would want someone to clean
my bones. That way, It's only right. But during another
point in the testimony, he said he wanted to tell
police and offered several friends money to go with him
to the police. When Rakowitz was cross examined, he lashed
out at Prosecutor Mathis, telling him he'd like to spray
him with a stagnant urine from a machine gun water
(40:04):
pistol if he were freed. He stated, I would have
liked to destroy your body. I know it sounds vile,
but that's what I intend to do. Before his testimony,
his defense attorney had asked the judge to declare Rakowitz
unfit for trial. He'd called on psychiatrists doctor Cheryl Paradis,
who testified that Rakowitz was psychotic and psychotic at the
(40:27):
time of Monica's death. He also called on doctor Daniel Schwartz,
a psychiatrist who testified that Rakowitz was a paranoid schizophrenic
noise and at the time of the murder. Rakowitz had
told the psychiatrist that he once worked as a Ritz
Cracker arranger. He even carried a copy of Adolf Hitler's
mind Camp covered with cryptic markings. It appeared as though
(40:49):
defense attorney Guild was putting on an insanity defense, although
he hadn't indicated that during his opening statements, The prosecutor
conjured the psychiatrist testimony with a rebuttal witness, doctor Stuart Kirshner.
He said he believed that Rakowitz knew what he was
doing when he killed Monica and knew that it was wrong.
While Rakowitz maintained his innocence, it soon became apparent that
(41:12):
he hadn't only confessed to detectives and his followers at
the park. According to Ronald Morales, while he was awaiting
processing at Manhattan Central Booking, Rakoitz confessed to him as well.
He said that Rakwoitz told him he struck Monica in
the throat, then chopped off her head, drained her body
of blood, boiled the bones and body parts before disinfecting
(41:34):
them and dumping them. After that, the trial drew to
a close. During closing arguments, prosecutor Murice Mathis told the
jury that it was a simple case that Daniel Rakowitz
had killed Monica Berl. He pointed to his videotaped confession
and stated, a person can be as crazy as a loon,
as crazy as a bed bug, and still commit murder.
(41:57):
Despite being warned by Judge Robert Half. Rakaway's mumbled throughout
the prosecutor's closing arguments. Defense attorney Franklin Guld used his
closing arguments to say that if Rakowitz had killed Monica,
he was mentally ill in doing so and didn't know
what he was doing. He stated, we're talking about a
sick man. It's funny, but it's terrible. He suggested for
(42:21):
the first time that Monica was actually killed by a
cult and that Rakowitz may have played a part. He
then added, what really happened, we'll never know. The jury
(42:47):
were sent off to deliberate, and by the third day
they remained deadlocked. They requested definitions of legal terms and
a rereading of testimony, yet a verdict still seemed out
of reach. It took them nine days before before they
finally returned with the decision. Daniel Rakowitz was found not
guilty by reason of insanity. It wasn't the verdict the
(43:08):
majority had wanted. A single holdout had refused to yield,
forcing the rest of the jury to concede in order
to break the deadlock. The jury for woman Lewis Markel
later stated from day one, this particular person was determined
that the jury was going to find Rakowitz not guilty
by reason of mental disease. Upon hearing the verdict, Rakowitz
(43:31):
turned to the jury and remarked, I hope we can
split a joint together someday. Under the ruling, Rakowitz could
have been eligible for release in just six months. In May,
he was ordered to be committed to a psychiatric hospital
as a dangerously insane person for at least that duration.
Then after six months, he was deemed to still pose
(43:51):
a threat. In February of nineteen ninety two, detectives announced
they now believed that Monica Beryl had actually been killed
by a cult and that Rakowitz had accomplices. They also
suspected that her flesh had been cooked and fed to
the homeless. Police arrested a second man, Randy Easter Day,
on charges of assisting Rakowitz in her murder. Detectives had
(44:15):
been working with an informant who claim to have witnessed
Easter Day stabbing an unconscious Monica repeatedly in the chest.
A second informant alleged that Easter Day had boasted about
helping Rakowitz dismember her body. Detectives now believed that Monica
had been murdered and mutilated in a Satanic ritual ceremony.
From his cell at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatrist Center, Rakwood
(44:38):
spoke with a reporter from the Los Angeles Times regarding
Easter Day. He stated, I heard Randy talk about eating
dead babies, but I never believed it, so I tell
him about killing animals and killing people, just to see
who could shock the other guy worst. Rakwoods claimed that
it was Easter Day and three others who had killed Monica,
(44:58):
not him. He alleged that upon returning to the apartment,
he found her already dead, dismembered and decapitated, with satanic
symbols surrounding the remains. In April, however, all charges against
Randy easter Day were dropped after an assistant district attorney
determined there was insufficient evidence to secure conviction. Then, in
(45:28):
nineteen ninety five, Daniel Rakowitz argued that he was a
changed man, ready to be released back into society. However,
during the court hearing to determine his sanity, disturbing details
of his past continued to emerge. Before the murder of
Monica Beryl, he had married a fourteen year old girl,
handcuffed her to a refrigerator, and subjected her to relentless abuse.
(45:50):
He beat her frequently, and on one occasion even shoved
her out of a moving car. When questioned about his
violent tendencies, Rakoitz blamed his actions on smoking too much way.
It was also revealed that he had once attempted to
kill his father and would have succeeded if the gun
hadn't jammed. Despite these revelations, his defense attorney insisted that
he had changed, stating he's been relatively well behaved except
(46:15):
that he makes racist remarks. The judge was unconvinced. He
believed that if Rakowitz were released, he would almost certainly
return to drugs, relapse, and become a threat to women.
He was ordered to remain confined. In two thousand and four,
Rakwitz made yet another attempt at freedom. This time it
was up to a jury. He claimed once more that
(46:36):
he was innocent, insisting that it had been Randy easter
Day who actually killed Monica. He even managed to make
the jury laugh when he spoke about his new found
love for animals, saying that he had grown fond of
the rabbits, pheasants and squirrels roaming on the grounds of
Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Hospital. They've got me to love them,
he said. The jury ultimately ruled that Rakowitz was still insane,
(46:59):
but not a danger to society. This meant that he
could be transferred to a less secure facility. However, Judge
Donna Mills refused to allow the move. She pointed to
his continued obsession with murder and mutilation, noting that numerous
three crime books had been found in his cell. He
had also refused to take responsibility for Monica's murder and
(47:19):
still blamed others. Daniel Rackwitz remains confined at Kirbyfransic Psychiatric Center,
where he has been for over three decades. His name
has faded from headlines, but his crime remains one of
the most grotesque in New York's history. He claimed to
be a prophet, a healer, a visionary, but in reality
(47:39):
he was nothing more than a killer, a man who
took a life, desecrated a body, and turned murder into spectacle. Well, bestie,
(48:16):
is that is it for this episode of Morbidology. As always,
thank you so much for listening, and I'd like to
say a massive thank you to my new supporters up
on Patreon, Holly. As you all know, Morbidology is a
one woman's team, so the support upon Patreon seriously, seriously
goes such a long way, and I really am eternally grateful.
Upon Patreon. I upload ad free in early release episodes,
(48:39):
bonus episodes of Morbidology plus that aren't on the regular
podcast platforms behind the scenes, and I also send out
a handwritten thank you card along with some col Patreon
exclusive merch. So if you'd like to join Morbidology up
on Patreon, the link is in the show notes and
you can join for as little as one dollar a month.
Morbidology it also has a private Facebook group, so if
(49:02):
you're interested in joining that and sharing any feedback on
the episodes or thoughts on the cases, please feel free
to do so. Remember to check us out at morbidology
dot com for more information about this episode and to
read some true crime articles. Until next time, take care
of yourselves, stay safe, and have an amazing week
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