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The View co-host, Sunny Hostin, sparked backlash after admitting on the show that she was the lone holdout juror in the 1991 trial of Daniel Raawitz, who dismembered a woman and fed her to homeless people.
While discussing Lindsay Clancy's trial during the Tuesday, September 22 episode, the author caught her fellow co-hosts by surprise after making the shocking confession.
Sunny Hostin reveals she was a holdout juror in Daniel Rakowitz 1991 trial
"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," Hostin, whose real name is Asunción 'Sunny' Cummings Hostin, noted.
The 57-year-old shared that no one believed her when she discussed it at the Hot Topics meeting, adding, "And then my producer looked it up and I’m in The New York Times."
Hostin then pulled up a few paragraphs from the Times' archives, which noted that "one holdout juror was principally responsible from preventing them from returning a guilty verdict".
At the time, Hostin shared a quote with the outlet, "We don't think he intended to kill her," she said in 1991. "But once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort to commit the perfect crime."
The Internet reacts to Sunny Hostin's admission
Reacting to the revelation, one user penned, "Imagine being proud about this."
"This type of thinking is dangerous," another comment read.
"Imagine being responsible for someone who was in fact guilty with ALL the evidence, and then trying to spin it so you don’t look bad," a third user noted.
A fourth comment read, "I don’t think this is the flex she thinks it is lol."
Rakowitz, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity, was on trial for the death of Monika Beerle, whose body he dismembered, boiled and fed to homeless people in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park.
Sunny Hostin says the cannibal killer was 'psychotic'
Explaining the case, Hostin said, "I saw clearly that 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, yes, boiled her body parts, tried to commit the perfect crime and ... he fed her body parts to the unhoused."
The co-hosts appeared shocked by Hostin's revelation. Guest host Star Jones jokingly asked to "move over" away from her, as co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin exclaimed, "And you got this guy off?"
What happened to Daniel Rakowitz?
Rakowitz, now 64, was found to no longer be dangerous by a Manhattan jury in 2004 and is reportedly still being held at New York's Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center.
After the 1991 trial, Hostin graduated from Notre Dame Law School in 1994 and later went on to work as a federal prosecutor.
She has appeared on The View as a panellist since September 2016.
The View, currently in its milestone 30th season, airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET on ABC.
