A ‘The View’ Co-Host Reveals She Was the Holdout Juror for Major ‘90s Murder Trial

Sunny Hostin seemingly caused quite a stir at the Hot Topics table after she told her The View co-hosts that she was the holdout juror in the 1991 murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz.

During Tuesday’s episode of The View, the co-hosts were discussing the Lindsay Clancy trial, which was declared a mistrial after the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict.

During the discussion, Hostin revealed she was the holdout juror in the murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz, who was also referred to as the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.”

Rakowitz was on trial for the death of Monika Beerle, who he dismembered, boiled, and fed to homeless people in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park.

“I was a holdout juror in the Daniel Rakowitz case. I don’t know if people remember it: the ‘Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.’ It was before I went to law school,” she recalled. “When I brought it up at the Hot Topics meeting, I don’t think everyone believed me.”

Hostin then said that her producer looked up details about the trial and discovered that she was in The New York Times.

“We don’t think he intended to kill her,” she told the media outlet at the time. “But once he did, he dismembered hr body in an effort to commit the perfect crime.”

Rakowitz was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

“I saw clearly that he was psychotic,” Hostin continued. “He was in psychosis. He did not mean to kill her, and once he killed her, he panicked.”

The co-host then said, “He chopped up her body, yes, boiled her body parts, and tried to commit the perfect crime and… he fed her body parts to the unhoused.”

As the other co-hosts appeared to be shocked by the story, guest host Star Jones, who was sitting next to Hostin, jokingly asked her to “move over.”

“And you got this guy off?” fellow co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked.

Hostin went on to explain the jury deliberation process for that trial, revealing that it lasted more than a week. She also said another juror threw a chair at her over her holdout.

“We ended up voting unanimously that he was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity,” she said. “But he’s still in a mental institution being treated. That’s a different type of prison, and he’s being treated because he’s sick.”