By Audrey Gibbs and Vanessa Garcia
Daniel Rakowitz would often wander around Tompkins Square park holding a Bible and carrying a live rooster. Everyone in the neighborhood knew him, or knew of him. In 1989 – Daniel would go on trial for the brutal and complicated murder of Monika Beerle. Turns out, he’d told people he was going to kill her. So, why didn’t anyone listen?
This episode is “The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.”
TRANSCRIPT
Audrey: Trigger warning. The episode you are about to listen to contains graphic descriptions of violence, gore, domestic violence and discussions of suicide.
Vanessa: It’s August 6, 1988. One of the hottest days of the summer in New York City.
Hundreds of people gather near Tompkins Square Park on the Lower East Side. Preparing for what will be a long and angry Saturday night.
MUSIC IN
Tensions in the neighborhood between different groups who call it home have been building for weeks.
On the one side – are the artists, punks, anarchists and squatters who want to keep the Lower East Side gritty. To stop it from changing and gentrifying.
Audrey: On the other are those pushing them out — what they call “yuppie scums.”
Wealthy newcomers moving into buildings that have been bought up and renovated by real estate developers.
And at the center of the fight is Tompkins Square Park.
The yuppies are complaining about all night street parties and the blasting of punk music in the park.
And police have been ordered to put an end to it all — to enforce a new 1am curfew and clear out the park.
For those who want to stop the neighborhood from changing, it’s a declaration of war.
Vanessa: There’s been talk of a rally. Flyers are posted — calling everyone to gather at midnight to protest the new curfew.
SMALL PAUSE WITH PUNK MUSIC
One of the people who answers the call is Daniel Rakowitz. He’s 27-years-old, and a squatter.
And unofficially – he’s also one of the “park people”. Everyone knows him or at least knows of him.
KUBY: I did not find Rakowitz to be amongst the weirdest people there.
He’s hard to miss.
PATTERSON: He was like a drifter from Texas. He wasn’t like the brightest bulb in the box.
Audrey: He often wanders around Tompkins Square holding a Bible and carrying a live rooster. He’s known as the chicken man. He talks to random people about random things….
KAY: We knew Rakowitz for years and years. I didn’t like him when he claimed the Holocaust didn’t happen. I punched him out once.
SMALL PAUSE WITH MUSIC, SOUNDS OF THE PARK PROTEST
By 1am – 450 police officers wearing riot gear are dispatched to the park….
TAPE PLAYS OF HORSE STOMPS, COP CAR NOISE, BOTTLES BREAKING, PEOPLE SHOUTING
Cops hit protestors and bystanders with their night sticks. Some continue to beat and kick them even once they’ve hit the ground. Protestors throw rocks and bottles at the police.
SIREN
A few days after Daniel Rakowitz speaks to a reporter.
ARCHIVED NEWSCAST
NEWSCASTER: Daniel Rakowitz admits his plan was to distract the cops. And soon enough the bottles and m-80s started flying.
DANIEL ON TAPE: I was going behind the cops and tell them, hey, you know I see yall talking about you know, your personal stuff. But what about somebody crazy like me that would come behind you that just totally hates cops and would just like nothing more than just take off all your heads while you was looking the other direction.
Vanessa: What about somebody crazy like me… he says. Who hates cops and would like nothing more than just take off all your heads while you were looking in the other direction.
It seems like a ridiculous threat… the wild ramblings of the neighborhood grouch. No one takes him seriously.
But one year later, Daniel would allegedly make good on his violent threats. Of killing someone.
MUSIC ENDS
GERALDO RIVIERA TALK SHOW TAPE PLAYS
GERALDO RIVIERA: “The story broke in September, he is an alleged Manson type killer and he’s accused now of killing and dismembering the young Swiss dancer who spurned him evidently… I warn you, the pictures this man paints with his words are disgusting. Don’t listen if you can’t stomach a bizarre story of butchery.
THEME MUSIC STARTS
In 1989 – Daniel would go on trial for murder. The case was brutal, violent, and complicated. A gruesome story that later led to conspiracies, death threats, and even an obsession for one journalist who never got the chance to share his research on the case.
Audrey: And as for Daniel… Why didn’t anyone pay attention when Daniel warned them – that he wanted to kill someone? Because it turns out, he’d made that threat more than once. So why didn’t anyone take him seriously?
SMALL PAUSE WITH MUSIC AND PHONE RINGING SOUND
DANIEL: Hello…. How you doing, this is Audrey? Hi, yes this is Audrey… Yeah this is Daniel…
Audrey: I’m Audrey Gibbs.
Vanessa: And I’m Vanessa Garcia.
This is Shoe Leather, an investigative podcast that digs up stories from New York’s past, to find out how yesterday’s news affects us today.
Audrey: This is season four, “It’s Our Fucking Park.”
You’re listening to The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park.
SCENE 1: THE MURDER
Vanessa: Monika Beerle was 26-years-old when she met Daniel Rakowitz. She was a dancer who had moved to New York from Switzerland to study at the Martha Graham contemporary school of dance.
Monika was slender with dirty blonde hair. And she looked like a dancer. She was gorgeous.
In one black and white picture of her, she looks to the side, slumped against a wall. Her long hair is tousled and messy.
On the right side of her mouth, a drip of costume blood runs from the corner of her mouth down her chin. She looks like a vampire—almost half dead already. The image is foreboding.
MUSIC BEGINS
Audrey: Monika met Daniel when he sold her weed.
Daniel was tall with long, stringy blonde hair and a beard. He dressed like he was stuck in the 70s–nothing close to the ‘punk rock’ all-black clothes that most people were wearing.
He wanted to start his own church. He carried around a copy of Mein Kampf and always had animals with him: chickens, cats, dogs… you name it.
He enjoyed cooking and would make food to serve to the unhoused people living in the park.
By the time he met Monika in 1989, Daniel had moved on from squatting and was living in an apartment with some friends in the Lower East Side. But they moved out and he needed someone to take over the lease so that he wouldn’t be back on the streets. He’d fallen in love with Monika soon after meeting her, and asked her to move in. She was looking for a place to live and agreed. But just as his friend.
Vanessa: She brought other guys back to the apartment. Their relationship became volatile.
After only two weeks living together, she tried to kick him out.
This didn’t sit well with Daniel. He’d told friends he was going to kill her. He waffled back and forth. One day he loved her. One day he wanted her dead.
And then…
MUSIC ENDS
People in the neighborhood started talking about how they hadn’t seen Monika around in a few days. Nobody had heard from her. Some started to wonder if Daniel had actually killed her, like he said he would.
Audrey: A friend of Daniel’s claimed she went to the apartment and saw Monika’s head in a pot on the stove. Horrified, she ran out. But she didn’t call the cops.
Word got out though. And the rumors became so loud that the cops went to the apartment 3 different times to look around. They found nothing.
But then, on a Monday morning, August 31, 1989, Daniel made a confession. He said that Monika was dead. BUT he denied killing her — only that he disposed of her body. By dismembering her and putting her bones in a bucket filled with kitty litter. He then put that bucket in a locker at the Port Authority Bus Station.
Police arrested him.
CLAPPING SOUNDS FROM GERALDO RIVERA’S SHOW
The story became a national sensation.
RIVERA: You’re not denying that you killed your girlfriend roommate are you?
DANIEL: Absolutely.
RIVERA: You are denying it?
DANIEL: Yeah.
That’s Daniel giving a phone interview from jail, where he was awaiting trial. He’s talking to Geraldo Rivera, who hosted a popular talk show at the time. Daniel insists he didn’t kill Monika. And that he was high on weed and acid at the time.
But he did admit to staying in the apartment with her body for 10 days.
RIVERA: And for how long were the bones and body parts in your apartment?
DANIEL: Maybe 10 days.
RIVERA: 10 days? For 10 days you let the corpse of your girlfriend rot in your apartment and you didn’t tell the cops?
DANIEL: I was flipping out, I mean, I’d never been around that before.
And that he dismembered her body.
RIVERA: Describe how you helped wash the bones of your girlfriend.
DANIEL: Just with a little washrag and stuff.
RIVERA: Wait a second, hold on, I want you to answer my question. Did you, what, get on your knees by the bathtub and scrub her bones?
DANIEL: No, I just washed them in the sink.
RIVERA: You washed her bones in the sink?
DANIEL: You know what, uh, my friends was wanting to do with her? They was wanting to dump her in the East River.
RIVERA: And you wanted to wash her bones?
DANIEL: I wanted to keep them for the mother.
RIVERA: Oh god.
DANIEL: Can you imagine?
RIVERA: No. I can’t.
MUSIC BEGINS
Vanessa: As for how Monika might have died, there’s a story that news reports and police at the time tell:
That Daniel and Monika got into a fight. He punched her in the throat, hard. So hard that it cut off her air circulation, and she suffocated and died.
Geraldo Rivera Archival Tape Newsreel [15 mins in]: On October 5 1989, in New York State Supreme Court, Daniel Rakowitz was indicted on two counts of second degree murder and one count of tampering with physical evidence. It connects with the bizarre summer slaying and dismemberment of Monika Beerle. If convicted, each murder count carries a maximum sentence of 25 years to life.
At the time, everything about Daniel’s case felt simple. He was the mad man that killed and chopped up his roomate. That was that. But .. there was someone who thought it was much more complicated.
SCENE 2: IT’S NOT THAT SIMPLE
MUSIC PLAYS
Audrey: We found an old acquaintance of Daniel’s–Anthony Feyer. He’s a painter and musician.
Anthony Feyer: He used to come onto the block and you know, he had these messianic tendencies that he would espouse all this crazy talk. And he would, if you were a willing recipient to listen to him for any length of time, he would just go on and on and on with this crazy banter.
He knew Daniel just from hanging around the Lower East Side. He said Daniel would show up on his doorstep sometimes
And he would, if you were a willing recipient to listen to him for any length of time, he would just go on and on and on with this crazy banter.
He was fascinated by Daniel. And so he actually recorded him back in the day. Here is some of that tape.
ANTHONY FEYER’S TAPE PLAYS
Rakowitz: And I am the man whose emblem of the 3 6s and whose image turns into a dog. And I am coming out of this with my image turning into a dog with a woman in it within an emblem on a 74 966 within a 6 [laughs maniacally].
Vanessa: After hearing about Monika’s murder, Anthony was shocked. He thought Daniel was odd, but harmless.
And then the night before Daniel’s trial…
MUSIC IN
Feyer: I received this phone call from this gentleman who introduced himself as Max Cantor. And he said that he was going to the trial, and would I be attending the following day?
Max was a journalist. Before that, he’d gone to Harvard and even had a brief acting stint. He was in Dirty Dancing as a pretentious waiter.
DIRTY DANCING TAPE PLAYS
Robbie Gould/Max Cantor: Where do you get off telling me what’s right?
Genie: Well you can’t just leave her.
Robbie: I didn’t spend all summer long toasting bagels just to bail out some little chick who probably balled every guy in the place.
At the time of Daniel’s arrest, Max was writing for The Village Voice and starting his journalism career. And he became completely obsessed with the story of Monika Beerle’s murder.
He wrote a 6,500-word article about the case. It’s the most detailed account of what supposedly happened that we could find.
He interviewed Daniel’s neighbors, his friends, his enemies. And that’s how he heard about Anthony, and why he got in touch.
Feyer: I remember on one occasion, he had this big thick binder. And it was full of all these transcribed interviews that he had conducted with other people that he was able to pinpoint had been involved in the murder, and in the dismemberment.
Audrey: Here’s the thing. Max seemed to think — whether or not Daniel killed Monika — he definitely didn’t act alone.
MUSIC ENDS
But the police dismissed his theories.
And not everyone liked him poking around.
Feyer: He was receiving death threats on his answering machine. And I told him, my advice was that maybe you shouldn’t pursue this lead any further, that there might be some truth to these death threats and best to leave that alone, So he seemed somewhat dismissive of that.
Max wouldn’t let it go. He even thought the murder may have to do with some sort of satanic cult activity. And he was turning all of this information over to the cops. But they weren’t listening to him.
Feyer: And they seemed dismissive of it. And his theory was that well, they already had this sort of bonafide crazy person in their clutches and they weren’t interested in pursuing it beyond that, because they were very confident that he would be found guilty.
At some point during this time, Max started doing drugs. Serious drugs, like heroin.
Feyer: I came home from work one evening, and there was a message on my answering machine. And in this panic, excited voice, this studio mate of mine told me that Max had been found dead. And the circumstances were mysterious.
On October 3, 1991, Max was found dead in his apartment. It was locked from the inside. It was ruled a heroin overdose.
There was a little buzz in the media– journalists connecting Max’s death to Daniel’s case. People said he could have gotten a “hot shot,” a syringe of fentanyl and heroin. That the death threats were carried out because he got too close to the story.
Feyer: He was very handsome, very charismatic, and quite intelligent. So it just, it just didn’t make sense. And it was very sad.
Audrey: And your theory is that there was no foul play there?
Feyer: No, I guess not.
To be clear — we couldn’t find any evidence that Max’s death was anything other than a tragic overdose.
But all of his research left us with so many more questions about Daniel’s case. So we went looking for answers.
SCENE 3: THE HUNT FOR COURT RECORDS
PHONE RINGING
Court Reporter: Court Reporters Office, Celeste speaking.
Audrey: Hi, I am looking to request some records for some older cases, some court transcripts.
Clerk: Do you have the indictment for the first case?
Audrey: Daniel Rakowitz versus the people of New York, // and that would have been February 22 1991. As the decision I believe.
Vanessa: So to try to figure out if someone else could have killed Monika or whether there were any other suspects we tried getting ahold of the *court documents* from Daniel’s trial.
MUSIC IN
We made several phone calls trying to track down Daniel’s court transcript. At one point we were told it would take *3 to 6 months* to get the records we were looking for.
After thinking we were getting closer to these court records – we hit a dead end.
MUSIC ENDS
COURT REPORTER: Yes, there was a fire in archives back in 2015, wherever the I don’t know where the building was, but there was some kind of fire and we have a list of the confirmed and it is listed as being destroyed in the fire.
We couldn’t believe it. We were hoping that this was just a mistake.
How do records just get destroyed like that? A fire?! There was no way.
RON KUBY: Oh, the great. The Great. Court warehouse fire of 2015. Yes.
Audrey: That’s Ron Kuby. He’s a New York City criminal defense and civil rights lawyer.
He’s been practicing law since 1984.
RON KUBY: There were many, many, many files, not just from Manhattan, but also from Brooklyn, that went up in flames in the 2015 warehouse fire.
MUSIC BEGINS
So there was no way of confirming Max’s theories, and so much of what we read in news stories- what we heard about the murder or the rumors about the gruesome details.
But here’s what we do know — that Daniel was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia…
And that he was found not guilty of Monika’s murder, by reason of insanity.
He’s been in a high security psychiatric facility ever since.
SCENE 4: GOING TO KIRBY
RECORDED CONVERSATION OF WRITING THE LETTER
Audrey: Daniel Rakowitz!
Vanessa: So we’re writing a handwritten letter to Daniel, hoping it actually gets to him. We’re going to be mailing it to Kirby Psychiatric Center.
Vanessa: Back in mid February – Audrey and I sat down inside an empty study room at the Columbia Journalism building and started to write a handwritten letter to Daniel. We introduced ourselves and asked him if he’d share his story with us for the podcast.
We had tried calling – but our calls to the Kirby Psychiatric Center were never returned.
Audrey and I walked out of that study room with no hope of ever getting a response.
And then.
MUSIC BEGINS
Exactly one week later on a late Thursday night – Audrey’s phone started buzzing during our Shoeleather podcast class. It was a random New York number.
She picked up.
TAPE OF DANIEL’S FIRST CALL
DANIEL: I can call you up a little bit later if you’d like.
It was Daniel…..
AUDREY: Would nine work?
DANIEL: Okay, I can call you up at nine. No problem.
AUDREY: All right, bye, Daniel.
PHONE HANGS UP
Audrey: Later that night Daniel returned our call and we spoke on the phone for almost 2 hours.
He agrees to meet up and invited us to visit him at Kirby.
Daniel tells us to sign in as friends – not reporters.
After speaking to our professor – We agreed. It’s the best chance we have of getting the story first hand – straight from Daniel.
He says he’ll talk about the riot – the one in Tompkins Square Park back in 1988.
But he’s not ready to talk about Monika and the murder – at least not yet.
MUSIC ENDS
Vanessa: We took two buses to get to Kirby. It’s on Randall’s Island, in the East River between Manhattan and Queens
It was really windy that day. And gloomy.
SOUND OF WIND PLAYS, WALKING AT KIRBY TAPE
AUDREY: He said the first building to your left.
VANESSA: Should we just walk.
AUDREY: It definitely could be there.
VANESSA: Everything just seems like deserted.
We weren’t allowed to bring a recorder into the visiting area – and Daniel could only have one visitor at a time.
Audrey went first…..
Audrey: The first time I saw Daniel, I was surprised by how much older he looked than in the pictures we’d seen of him. …. I almost didn’t think it was him. But he walks out and he’s in this kind of purple, bowling alley print hoodie. And these maroon sweatpants. And colorful sneakers too. And he’s got long hair in a ponytail. And he’s tall. Six something. And he’s big.
His hands were trembling. He says that it was a side effect of his medication.
Vanessa: When I go in, I sit in a big room with eight long tables all spaced out. There were other people in the room visiting patients.
Daniel and I sat at our own table – across from each other.
There aren’t any cops or security walking around the room. Instead, three workers from the facility are sitting behind a large desk observing from the back.
After that first visit, we went back one more time and we spoke to him three times for hours on the phone….usually at night.
Between those visits and those phone calls we pieced together his story – at least the story he was willing to share.
We told Daniel – start at the beginning…….and he did…..
SCENE 5: DANIEL’S BACKSTORY
Audrey: Daniel was born in Missouri but spent most of his childhood in Rockport, Texas. He says had a pretty normal childhood—But he really didn’t. Daniel’s mom died of a heart attack when he was two. He was in the room when it happened.
TAPE OF DANIEL ON THE PHONE
Audrey: Do you remember it?
Daniel: I remember it. I remember back to her death and when she was alive. As I said I wouldn’t forget my mother and I never did. Ain’t that something.
So it was mostly just Daniel, his brother and his dad— Anthony Rakowitz. People called him Tony. He was a sheriff for the town’s police department and used to be a criminal investigator for the US Army.
He ended up remarrying only three months after his wife – Daniel’s mom – died.
MUSIC BEGINS
Audrey: You told me your dad remarried. He remarried your aunt?
Daniel: My mother’s sister. Exactly.
That’s right — His mom’s sister.
Vanessa: How did that make you feel?
Daniel: I didn’t really think nothing of it.
She already had three kids of her own. So Daniel’s cousins also became his step brothers and sisters.
Vanessa: Daniel says his cousins bullied him and beat him up, too. He says they hit him in the head with a tricycle. Broke the neck of a pet dove he had. We couldn’t confirm this.
So, Tony quickly divorced his new wife, Daniel’s aunt. From there, it was just the three Rakowitz men together.
Then Daniel started talking about his early teens, glossing over the rest of his childhood.
This is when he started smoking weed. He was also dealing it. He loved the stoner lifestyle and getting people high.
MUSIC BEGINS
Daniel says his dad checked him into mental health facilities because of his drug habits. He was in and out of facilities at least 4 times throughout his adolescence.
Daniel: The first few times or once they go one time after six days, another time after seven days. Said I had no mental illness.
They didn’t find him mentally ill the first two times.
The next time – they held Daniel for 5 weeks, he says. This time:
Daniel: They said I had bipolar disorder.
Audrey: But you didn’t?
Daniel: I don’t think so. I just knew I like to run out free pot to people. That’s all.
Audrey: Daniel denies that he was institutionalized because of his mental health, that he was bipolar. It was just his dad trying to fix his drug habits, he says.
There was one time when Tony had his police friends rough Daniel up because he wouldn’t stop dealing pot. They dropped Daniel off at his high school, with a bloody and busted lip.
Daniel didn’t take this warning seriously. He kept dealing weed, and at 19 his dad arrested him for possession of marijuana. That’s when Daniel decided to leave town.
MUSIC ENDS
Daniel: Then I went to the army whenever I was 19.
So, Daniel decided to join the military. He says he spent over a year in the army at a post in Maryland and was eventually discharged.
After that, he moved back to Texas and worked a series of odd jobs.
Vanessa: At 22, Daniel got married to a younger girl. A really young girl. She was 14 years old. Her name was Sarah Singleterry.
Daniel: She told me she was 14, we got married four days later.
I know what you’re thinking—how can this be legal? But in Texas, even now, minors under the age of 16 can be married with a judge’s approval. Things went south pretty quickly.
Daniel: Well, it wasn’t the age difference. The problem was her.
Daniel alleges Sarah struggled with mental health issues. But we couldn’t confirm that.
We wanted to talk to Sarah, but she died in 2015. She was 46 years old.
She testified against Daniel at his murder trial. According to news clippings, She said Daniel was abusive. That he once handcuffed her to the refrigerator.
Daniel: I never abused her.
He denies the abuse. But he does admit he chained her to the fridge because, he claims, she waved a gun at him.
I handcuffed her to the refrigerator, left her the key in case she had to use the restroom or totally come back home. She had me handcuff her to the refrigerator. And that was only for like about three hours. But she had the key, so I thought nothing of it.
Audrey: Sarah and Daniel never did divorce. Daniel just ran away to New York when things between them ended.
Audrey: So why did you come to New York?
Daniel: Because marijuana sold for a lot of money here!
MUSIC BEGINS
It was 1985. And Daniel was about to go into business for himself. His plan – to build a weed empire.
When Daniel first got to New York, it didn’t take him very long to find the Lower East Side. Those were his people. Specifically– the people of Tompkins Square Park.
They loved him.
We talked to one friend of Daniel’s who wanted to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. She said she got excited every time he came around. It meant that everyone he crossed paths with got free acid, weed and food. It was a party. He hung out there all the time.
Daniel felt protective of Tompkins Square.
So, when plans to clear out the park started forming, he wanted to fight back.
MUSIC ENDS
SCENE 6: THE LOWER EAST SIDE IN THE 80S/90S
Vanessa: Over the years, the park had deteriorated; it was known as “Tent City” with over 150 people living in it at the time. It was the only park in Manhattan where the unhoused could sleep overnight.
Ron Kuby – the lawyer – remembers what the park was like at the time.
RON ON THE PHONE: Because I lived around Tompkins Square Park and was a lawyer for a lot of the demonstrators. Who subsequently got arrested and stuff like that. So I was very close to that scene for a very long time.
He also knew Daniel.
RON: And I knew Daniel just from hanging around the park. And while the rooster was weird, and the cat with the shaved belly was weird. I did not find Rakowitz to be amongst the weirdest people there. I mean, that is to say he was within the circle of what passed for normal in that particular scene.
In the 80s – the Lower East Side was full of artists, squatters, and punks. Ron described it to be the opposite of Greenwich Village. That’s where the high brow artists lived . And the Lower East Side had the romantic poets who died of overdoses.
RON KUBY IN PERSON TAPE PLAYS, GREETINGS
We met up with Ron in person to learn more about what the Lower East Side was like at the time.
Ron: We were in the middle of the crack epidemic and people were dealing drugs like on every street corner on the Lower East Side, there were crack houses, abandoned buildings had been taken over by drug dealers and by addicts. Some were taken over by squatters, who were trying to, you know, improve them and create a new, more democratized way of owning property. But, it was then a very poor community. These folks struggled, and there is a tremendous amount of substance abuse, unaddressed mental illness, addiction, overdose, death, you know, and poverty.
We wondered how the city ever got to this point?
ARCHIVE OF RONALD REAGAN
MUSIC IN
Reagan: Good evening. I’m speaking to you tonight to give you a report on the state of our nation’s economy and regret to say that we’re in the worst economic mess since the Great Depression.
Audrey: There was a financial crisis at the end of the 70s. Inflation was up, social spending was down and jobs were disappearing. Pushing the middle and lower classes toward poverty.
New York City was hit hard. The city was broke. And on the verge of bankruptcy.
Entire apartment buildings were abandoned because landlords couldn’t pay the taxes.
But in the 80s, developers saw an opportunity.
To buy up and make over those vacant buildings that were all over the city. Rich people = the so-called yuppies – started moving into neighborhoods like the Lower East Side.
They wanted Tompkins Square Park cleaned up.
So when police began enforcing a 1 am curfew in the summer of 1988, Daniel was ready for them.
Daniel on the phone: You know I called them like 30 people too and told them to tell their friends to come too on that particular day. The night of the sixth of August of 88.
MUSIC ENDS
Vanessa: The battle would erupt on August 6th….
RIOT SOUNDS PLAY
More than 400 cops in riot gear descended upon Tompkins Square park and the surrounding area.
More than 100 people would file complaints against the cops – six officers would face criminal charges – others internal disciplinary action.
Audrey: It was a few days later that Daniel spoke to that reporter…
MUSIC IN
NEWSCASTER: Daniel Rakowitz admits his plan was to distract the cops. And soon enough the bottles and m-80s started flying.
And tells the reporter he wants to cut off a cop’s head….
DANIEL ON TAPE: But what about somebody crazy like me that would come behind you that just totally hates cops and would just like nothing more than just take off all your heads while you was looking the other direction.
About a year later, he’d start telling people he wanted to kill Monika. So why didn’t anyone listen?
SCENE 7: MENTAL HEALTH POLICIES
MUSIC ENDS
Vanessa: In the 80s, New York was giving little to no support to those who struggled with mental illness. Many ended up unhoused.
The Mayor at the time – Ed Koch, was vocal about the issue.
ARCHIVE OF MAYOR KOCH, 1988
KOCH: We’ve all seen them, slumped on park benches, or curled up in the corners of bus and train stations. We’ve seen them huddled in doorways, surrounded by shopping bags and the stench of their own excrement. We’ve seen them talking to themselves as they wheel their carts of belongings. We’ve seen them standing on street corners, shrieking at empty air. And as we pass them by we’ve probably wondered, “Why doesn’t somebody do something?” KOCH: And as the mayor of the city of New York, I’m going to help them.
And in 1987, he created a new program called Project Help.
KOCH: And it works as follows. A team of three professionals, a psychiatrist, a nurse, and a social worker, go through the streets looking for individuals whose appearance and circumstances suggest they may be serious and they talk with the individual and they make a preliminary diagnosis. Those who don’t meet the legal standard for hospitalization, are referred to other outreach teams and other providers. Those who are found to be gravely disabled are brought to Bellevue for further examination by other physicians, and in order for a patient to be recommended for hospitalization. All of the examining doctors must agree that hospitalization is necessary.
The plan was highly controversial. Medical experts at the time even wrote an OP-ED for the New York Times called “Psychiatrists as Puppets of Koch’s Roundup Policy.”
They said the plan went beyond legal limits. Essentially it allowed the city to commit the unhoused, based only on speculation.
Audrey: Basically, they could institutionalize someone without their consent. Other critics said it was just a cover for Koch and the city to clean up neighborhoods for tourists — an out of sight, out of mind approach.
MUSIC BEGINS
Theoretically, you could imagine this program sweeping up someone like Daniel, who was talking about killing people. But from those we talked to, he was sort of par for the course of the people in Tompkins Square Park.
He was the chicken man who sold weed and made food for the unhoused, and also ranted and raved about churches.
In other words — he didn’t seem especially mad.
Vanessa: And so no one got him any sort of help, or took him seriously. People found him … amusing, in a way.
Daniel told us that once he checked himself into Bellevue for schizophrenia symptoms after he took too much acid. He was there for 5 weeks… but he was released
And then, eventually, he met Monika.
SCENE 8: WHAT DANIEL SAYS ABOUT THE MURDER
MUSIC ENDS
Audrey: Daniel says soon after he and Monika met, they began sleeping together. A few weeks later, she moved in with him. Daniel remembers that his friends thought she was just using him to get the apartment.
Daniel on the phone: She had kind of like the head of your sour side tour. You know?
Audrey: Hm. What do you mean by that?
Daniel: Killed my cat the first day I moved her into the apartment.
He went on to make all sorts of allegations about Monika’s mental health. Allegations that we can’t confirm. Remember, Daniel said the same things about his ex-wife, Sarah, the 14-year-old.
Audrey: So how is it that, that both Sarah and Monika were mad? Do you think that–
Daniel: Like it’s a real minority of the women I’ve been with that’s like, crazy as hell. I’ve been with a lot of women. And there’s just like two of the few.
We asked him about how the media had described him — that he killed animals.
I never did kill no animals.
That he was in a Satanic cult.
A bunch of hogwash.
That he was a cannibal.
The whole cannibalism stuff– that’s a bunch of malarkey.
And we also asked why he carried around Mein Kampf.
Because my dad gave it to me.
Daniel does acknowledge that he has schizophrenia, though.
I was crazy as hell thinking I was gonna take over churches. I was stark-raving mad.
I know I’m mentally ill and I need to take medication for life.
Throughout our conversations, Daniel made it known that he really didn’t want to talk about Monika’s murder.
He has a hearing coming up soon. For not guilty by reason of insanity cases, they go up for review every few years. There’s a chance Daniel could get out.
Audrey: Would you have ever considered yourself dangerous?
Daniel: I can’t really comment on that because I’m going to court.
Vanessa: Daniel told us he would tell us everything once this is all over. He just doesn’t want anything to hurt his case right now.
In all the stories we read about Daniel, he always said that he didn’t kill Monika.
But we knew it was finally time to ask.
PHONE RINGING
Vanessa: Hello?
Daniel: Hey how are you doing?
Vanessa: Hi Daniel how’s it going?
Daniel: Alrighty.
Vanessa: We’re soon gonna be finished with the podcast. As we mentioned to you before this episode is about you, your story, and the alleged murder of Monika and…
Daniel: Well I don’t wanna speak about that one.
Vanessa: Yeah, yeah. And you’ve shared so much of what you can share. I think it’s only fair not only for the story but more importantly for us to give you the opportunity after all of this to give an answer. But I really wanted just to ask you… if you killed Monika?
Daniel: Well I can’t even answer that. I have no comment about that. Nothing about Monika period.
Vanessa: Yea, I understand. Ok yeah.
Daniel: Don’t ask me no more questions in regards to that.
MUSIC PLAYS
SCENE 9: THE NOT-KNOWING
Audrey: Here’s what you should know about the case. In 1992, the police did arrest another person. A drifter, who they accused of being involved in Monika’s murder. But, it turns out, there wasn’t even enough evidence. And so he was released.
With a story like this, you can leave a lot behind. A young woman, who had her whole life ahead of her, was killed.
Everyone we talked to said Monika was quiet, withdrawn. In one article from 1989, a friend said Monika was the nicest person you’d ever meet.
With all of the murder’s gruesome details, it can erase Monika. This year, she would have turned 60.
MUSIC ENDS
CBS NEW YORK CLIP BEGINS
Anchor: In a dramatic attempt to deal with the public health crisis that has eluded mayors for decades, mayor Adams announced his plan to take people with mental illness off the city streets.
New York’s current mayor, Eric Adams, issued a new directive in response to the city’s growing mental health crisis.
Cops can forcibly remove anyone from the streets who appears to be mentally ill and have an inability to meet basic living needs. From there, the police can transport them to the hospital. It’s hard not to see the parallels to Mayor Koch’s policies toward the unhoused in the 80s.
But, after they leave the hospital, most people end back up on the streets. They’re in a loop—part of a system that isn’t working for them.
A system that didn’t work for Daniel.
Vanessa: The last time we visited Daniel in person, he said something as I got up from my chair to leave the room. Daniel wanted me to know that he thinks Audrey and I are very beautiful women. I froze, and didn’t know what to say.
We wanted to know why he agreed to talk to us. Why he wanted to relive that time.
Vanessa on the phone: What made you want to talk to us? I’m just curious to hear from you.
Daniel: I just felt it might be a good thing to talk to you. Yeah. I don’t have new friends.
It struck us that Daniel is lonely.
The lawyers we spoke to say they doubt Daniel will ever be a free man.
But Daniel says if he does get released, he wants a quiet life. Maybe move back to Texas. Maybe get some animals.
Daniel on the phone: I really would just want to be able to buy like an acre so land or something, you know, get a trailer house and a car.
Audrey: But for now, we still don’t know what happened that night. Maybe nobody does. Maybe not even Daniel.
Gary Asteak was a defense lawyer involved in the case. He said, we might just have to be okay with the not-knowing.
Asteak: Well, you know, this was a time in a place where reality was warped you know, there were so many people experimenting with drugs, alternative religions, alternative lifestyles will forever remain in the midst of history. The characters are either long gone, or not talking. So your investigation tells a fascinating story.
But there may be no conclusion, makes a good story, though, doesn’t it?
MUSIC ENDS, SHOELEATHER THEME MUSIC BEGINS, CREDITS READ
Vanessa: Shoe Leather is a production of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. This episode was reported, written and produced by Audrey Gibbs and me, Vanessa Garcia.
Joanne Faryon is our executive producer and professor. Rachel Quester and Peter Leonard are our co-professors. Special thanks to Columbia Digital Libraries, Professor Dale Maharidge, Ron Kuby, Gary Asteak, Clayton Patterson and Paul De-Rienzo.
Audrey: We’d like to thank forensic psychologist Dr. Nicole Vienna for her guidance on Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity cases.
Shoe Leather’s theme music – ‘Squeegees’ – is by Ben Lewis, Doron Zounes and Camille Miller, remixed by Peter Leonard. Other Music by Blue dot sessions.
Our Season four graphic was created by Lina Fansa and Ghiya Haidar.