In August 1989, Daniel Rakowitz, 28, a self-styled marijuana guru living in the East Village, killed his girlfriend, 26-year-old Monika Beerle, by striking her in the throat.

After hauling her corpse into a claw-foot bath tub, he dismembered her and stored her bones in a locker in Hell's Kitchen. Later, as rumors of the killing swirled through the neighborhood, he was said to have cooked her remains into a soup that he served to the homeless inhabitants of nearby Tompkins Square Park.

Two years later, Mr. Rakowitz was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Wards Island. Yesterday Mr. Rakowitz was in a fifth-floor room at 111 Centre Street as a hearing began to determine whether he is still insane.

''You are about to enter the dark, disturbed, dangerous mind and world of Daniel Rakowitz,'' Assistant District Attorney Gary Galperin told the jurors in his opening statement.