‘The View’s Sunny Hostin boasts she was holdout juror who spared NYC’s Butcher of Tompkins Square Park cannibal killer

“The View” co-cost Sunny Hostin revealed Tuesday that she was the lone holdout juror in the 1991 trial of a notorious New York City cannibal killer — resulting in the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park” being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

Hostin made the boast, which stunned her colleagues, in a discussion about Lindsay Clancy’s own insanity defense, and the attempts by Clancy’s lawyer to question the holdout juror in that case.

[snip]

“The insanity defense has been around in Massachusetts for 182 years, so I think it’s well established. And I thought absolutely she was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity,” she said of the Clancy trial outcome.

“And the reason I felt that — I feel so strongly about this holdout juror is because I was a holdout juror in a case in the Daniel Rakowitz case. I don’t know if people remember it, The Butcher of Thompkins Square. It was in 1991…” she trailed off.

[snip]

“Several jurors questioned afterwards said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict,” Hostin read aloud from the article.

“That was me, and it was because clearly I saw he was psychotic, he was in psychosis, he did not mean to kill her and once he killed her he panicked. He chopped up her body parts, yes, boiled her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime and then–” she explained before Griffin cut her off.The “Butcher of Thompkins Square Park” (holding rooster) was found not guilty by reason of mental disease in 1991 by a jury on which Hostin claimed she was the lone holdout for acquittal. ASSOCIATED PRESS

“And you got this guy off?!” Griffin said, her mouth agape in shock, prompting a nervous titter from the studio audience.

[snip]

“All that being said, it was so clear to me in the jury room. We were sequestered for nine days, one juror threw a chair at me, they were so angry with me but one by one I picked them off and said ‘what about this, what about that,’ and we ended up, all 12, unanimously voting that he was not criminally responsible by reason of insanity.”Monika Beerle was a dance student who lived with Rakowitz.

Griffin, who has voiced that she doesn’t believe Clancy’s alleged mental state at the time she killed her three children excuses her actions, piped up over cross-chatter, “That’s my issue with the law.”

[snip]

“That’s going to have a chilling effect on juries,” she warned.

“Jury duty is duty. It is one of the most important things I think I’ve ever done in my life. It was extremely difficult, but to investigate a juror for doing his or her duty is despicable.”

Hostin’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

(*) Full article: https://nypost.com/2026/09/23/us-news/the-view-host-sunny-hostin-claims-she-was-holdout-juror-in-who-spared-nyc-cannibal-killer-prison/