{{short description|American murderer and cannibal (born 1960)}} '''Daniel Paul Rakowitz''' (born 1960) is an American murderer and cannibal.
==Early life== Rakowitz was born in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, where his father was a criminal investigator for the U.S. Army. When he was 2 years old, his mother suffered a heart attack and died, and he stayed with her body for hours.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Italiano |first1=Laura |title=Cannibal's 'helpful' in Ward: Lawyer |url=https://nypost.com/2004/06/22/cannibals-helpful-in-ward-lawyer/ |website=New York Post |access-date=27 August 2024 |date=22 June 2004}}</ref> The Rakowitz family moved to Rockport, Texas sometime in the late 1970s. Although it is commonly reported that Rakowitz graduated from Rockport-Fulton High School in 1980, he actually attended and graduated from high school in Refugio, Texas.{{Citation needed|date=April 2016}}
He moved to New York City around 1985.{{Citation needed|date=July 2013}} An eccentric well known to his East Village neighbors as a marijuana dealer and owner of a pet rooster, Rakowitz founded his own {{nowrap|religion{{hsp}}{{mdash}}{{hsp}}}}the Church of 966.<ref> Steiger, Brad. Real Monsters, Gruesome Critters, and Beasts from the Darkside. Visible Ink Press, 2010, page 70</ref>
In 1989, he walked around Tompkins Square Park in the East Village bragging to some of the people he believed were his disciples that he had killed the woman he believed to be his live-in girlfriend. Monika Beerle, actually a roommate of Rakowitz's, was a Swiss student at the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, and a dancer at Billy's Topless. Several of Rakowitz's friends disputed the notion that Monika was his girlfriend. By his own confession, he dismembered her body in the bathtub, boiled the parts, and served some of her remains in the form of a soup to the homeless in Tompkins Square Park.<ref name="village-untold">{{cite news |last1=Cantor |first1=Max |title=The Untold Story of the Tompkins Square Murder |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/09/18/the-untold-story-of-the-tompkins-square-murder/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200930142051/https://www.villagevoice.com/2020/09/18/the-untold-story-of-the-tompkins-square-murder/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=September 30, 2020 |access-date=23 September 2020 |publisher=The Village Voice |date=10 October 1989}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/nyregion/hearing-revisits-east-village-killing-and-dismemberment.html|title=Hearing Revisits East Village Killing and Dismemberment|last=Myonihan|first=Colin|date=June 15, 2004|work=New York Times|accessdate=28 February 2014}}</ref> He said that he had boiled her head and made soup from her brain. He had tasted it, liked it, and thereafter referred to himself as a cannibal. At least one of the people to whom he had told his tale went to police.{{Citation needed|date=July 2013}} Rakowitz was arrested shortly thereafter, and led the police to the Port Authority Bus Terminal storage area, where he had stored her skull and teeth.<ref>{{cite news|journal=The Blacklisted Reporter|date=June 1, 2002|author=Al Aronowitz|title=Column 72 - The Strange Case of Max Cantor}}</ref>
On February 22, 1991, a New York jury found Rakowitz, then 31 years old, not guilty by reason of insanity for the killing of Monika Beerle on August 19, 1989.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/23/nyregion/man-acquitted-of-killing-and-boiling-roommate.html|title=Man Acquitted of Killing and Boiling Roommate|last=Sullivan|first=Ronald|date=February 23, 1991|work=New York Times|accessdate=28 February 2014}}</ref> In 2004, a jury found Rakowitz no longer dangerous but decided that he is still mentally ill and should remain at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on New York City's Wards Island.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/21/nyregion/jury-finds-insane-killer-not-dangerous.html|title=Jury Finds Insane Killer Not Dangerous|date=July 21, 2004|work=New York Times|accessdate=27 February 2022}}</ref>
== See also ==
* List of incidents of cannibalism
==References== {{reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rakowitz, Daniel}} Category:1960 births Category:Living people Category:People from Rockport, Texas Category:American cannibals Category:People acquitted by reason of insanity Category:American people acquitted of murder Category:20th-century American murderers Category:People from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri Category:People from the East Village, Manhattan