Daniel Ratowitz was born in Missouri but grew up in Texas with his U.S. Army criminal investigator turned deputy sheriff father. A troubled kid who spent time in a psychiatric facility, Daniel eventually graduated from high school in 1980, quickly leaving his home state to move to Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he lived homeless on the streets.

Daniel’s relocation did not sway his oddball personality. As a devout devil worshiper, he started his own church called the Church of 966, kept a pet rooster on the streets with him, and sold marijuana to other homeless people and the patrons and dancers at clubs along the Lower East Side.

Daniel was anything but calm. He often flew into fits of rage, held beliefs quite opposite of what most think or feel, and through a delusion of grandeur, believed he was a gift to women.

Daniel Finds a Home

By 1989, Daniel found work as a dishwasher at a local restaurant and began staying with a couple of friends, Sylvia and Shawn, at an apartment at 700 E. 9th Street, just a few miles from Monika’s place. On the front door of his apartment was a sign reading, “Welcome to Charlie Gein’s ranch east,” an ode to Charles Manson and Ed Gein.

Daniel would visit a slaughterhouse regularly when he had money, buying as many as 20 chickens when he could afford it. He slaughtered and cooked the chickens, preparing a soup that he fed to homeless people at Tompkins Square Park.

He adjusted well to life with his new friends, but all good things must come to an end. As did Sylvia and Shawn’s relationship. The two parted ways, leaving Daniel and Sylvia to fend for themselves and cover the $605 monthly rent. He began searching for a roommate.

Daniel and Monica Meet

About two weeks later, Daniel met Monica Beerle, a 26-year-old dancer from Switzerland attending the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance pursuing a dancing career. She danced at a local bar called Billy’s Topless on 24th Street for money to support herself, and rented a cozy apartment at 93 Orchid Street.

Monika and Daniel smoked a joint and talked openly about NYC. She mentioned that she was looking for a bigger apartment. Daniel extended an invitation for Monika to move into his apartment. She moved into the apartment the first week of August 1989.

It’s suggested that Daniel and Monika had some type of sexual relationship over the next few weeks, one that he perhaps thought was more serious and had spawned emotions on his part. According to Sylvia, she had met Monika and warned Daniel that she only wanted to take over the apartment from him, but he insisted Monika loved him and the two would be together. 

Others say Monika never showed interest in Daniel or that she broke things off soon after getting into the apartment. She invited other men to the apartment. This infuriated Daniel, particularly when she invited a Jamaican man to the apartment. He considered anyone who wasn't white to be inferior to him.

Daniel’s behavior became even more concerning as he found himself unable to deal with Monika’s rejection. He raged on about the government, claimed to be god, and wrote “Church of 966” on the walls of the apartment in chicken blood. More than once, he threatened to hurt and kill Monika. Although she was uncomfortable and friends urged her to kick him out of the apartment, Monika laughed off his threats and odd behavior. She even confronted Daniel in front of Sylvia, telling him she would kill him first if he tried to kill her. 

A week later, Daniel told Sylvia he was going to kill Monika and asked her to help dispose of the body. Sylvia told Daniel he was crazy and refused to help.

On Aug. 12, 1989, a Saturday, Sylvia returned to the apartment. The lights were out in Monika’s room and something seemed off to her. She knocked but did not get a response. She noticed Daniel’s TV blasting at full volume but he wasn't around. Sylvia walked into the kitchen and found a large pot on the stove. She opened the pot and found the head of Monika Beerle. Her eyes were shut and her head burnt.

Alarmed, Sylvia ran into the bathroom where she found Monika’s rib cage lying in the bathtub with the skin and flesh torn from the bone near the upper torso. Monika’s guts lay in the tub soaking in her blood. She ran to a nearby payphone and called Daniel, asking if he had killed Monika. He apologized, telling her that he “had to do it.”

A Brutal Murder

Daniel told Sylvia a friend from his Satanic church was with him when he killed Monika. He said he killed her after she told him he had to get out of the apartment the next day or her Pitbull would attack him.  She began yelling at Daniel and his friend as she walked toward her bedroom.

Armed with an extension cord, Daniel wrapped it around her neck as Monika screamed and scratched at him. He then used his hands to choke her to death. After she stopped breathing, Daniel told Sylvia that he “stomped on her head 10 times and stabbed her over 30.”

Daniel spent about $80 on tools at a hardware store that he used to kill, cut up, and dismember Monika, including a 13-inch carving knife and a metal pole to break her bones.

He moved her body to the bathtub and using her chest as a carving board,    cut off her head, arms, and legs. He mutilated her body and cut it into over 1,000 pieces, some of which he flushed down the toilet. Daniel removed her brains from her head and according to Sylvia, consumed them with his friends. He used the metal pole to break her bones and then placed her body parts into pots to boil. Bones and a skull were all that remained of Monika within a couple of weeks by the time Daniel finished.

He cleaned up the apartment, took Monika’s bones and skull to a storage facility, and then to a baggage check facility at Port Authority.

Shawn visited the apartment in late August to buy weed from Daniel and noticed a lingering death smell. Meanwhile, Daniel is bragging to everyone about killing Monika, eating her body parts, and feeding them in soup to homeless people at Tompkins Square.

Shawn & Building Sup Notify Authorities

Daniel eventually moved out of the 9th Street apartment and into a place with another woman. Soon after, Shawn told the building superintendent about Daniel's crime. The sup notified authorities. No one believed Shawn and Sylvia’s ludicrous story, even the police, but took the report seriously and began their investigation.

Daniel agreed to meet them at the 9th precinct. When asked if he killed Monika, he replied, “If I’d have killed her,  I would have cut her up into lots of pieces and flushed her down the toilet.” They let Daniel go, searched the plumbing, and found nothing. Five hours after speaking to numerous people on the Lower East Side,  detectives took Daniel into custody. This time, he confessed to Monika’s murder.

He led detectives to the Port Authority and Monika’s skull and bones that he had placed in kitty litter and told them about his Satanic friend who was present during the murder. Detectives believe this person was just a figment of his imagination.

A Manhattan jury found Daniel not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in 1991. After jurors read the verdict, Daniel responded in part by saying, “I hope someday we can smoke a joint together.” He proposed the same offer to the judge. He was ordered into a state hospital for the criminally insane. If still alive, Daniel Rakowitz is 64 years old.

Sources:

https://www.villagevoice.com/the-untold-story-of-the-tompkins-square-murder/

https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/23/nyregion/man-acquitted-of-killing-and-boiling-roommate.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/15/nyregion/hearing-revisits-east-village-killing-and-dismemberment.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/20/nyregion/accused-slayer-of-girlfriend-began-a-religion-police-say.html