The Death of Epstein

The Times has a very comprehensive investigation into the death of Jeffrey Epstein [gift link]. They also have a bottom-line summary, which is that the evidence is pretty overwhelming that Epstein killed himself, although the amount of incompetence involved made doubts inevitable:

Lots of new evidence suggests that Epstein was determined to end his life.

Some important aspects of Epstein’s last days remain unknown or mysterious — but an unknown is not the same thing as an alternative explanation.

Our analysis of the security and staffing of the jail determined that entry to his cell by a would-be murderer in the period before his death would almost certainly have required an elaborate plot involving numerous participants with extensive, precise knowledge of the facility’s particular security systems, malfunctions of those systems and security protocols. In scores of interviews and the cache of documents, we found no indication that such a plot existed.

By contrast, we found abundant evidence — much of it never before revealed — that for weeks before his death, Epstein had written about and discussed the idea of suicide and attempted it at least once, and possibly three times.

Epstein might have tried to kill himself more times than was previously known.

Two and a half weeks before his death, Epstein made an apparent attempt to hang himself in his cell, an effort that failed because of the intervention of his cellmate at the time. Jail officials never officially determined whether it was a suicide attempt. But Epstein made his intentions clear in a note he left in his cell, found by a cellmate days later — a note that in both its content and its handwriting closely resembled other similar jail writings by Epstein that we obtained.

And it might not have been the only previous attempt. Epstein’s cellmate told us that he caught Epstein preparing to kill himself by hanging twice before. He said that he mentioned both incidents to corrections officers but that they were not taken seriously.

Epstein often talked about suicide in the weeks before his death.

For weeks before his death on Aug. 10 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, Epstein made clear allusions to suicide in conversation with lawyers and inmates and in his own writings in jail. Besides the suicide note found by his first cellmate, Epstein left behind other despairing notes, writing of “ONLY PAIN TO ME & Others in the future” and wondering “Why should people I Lov suffer for my problem.”

In conversations with lawyers and other inmates, he spoke frankly about his inability to endure life in jail. More than one of them worried openly about his risk of self-harm based on his statements and his behavior, and his reassurances were sometimes ominous. When Epstein’s second and final cellmate was moved to a different facility, he recalled telling the jail staff: “He’s not good to be alone.”

Warnings about Epstein’s risk of suicide, and the need to protect him, were routinely ignored.

By the time of his death, Epstein had been assigned twice to a special observation cell because of his suicide risk. He was known to have possibly attempted suicide once. Both of his cellmates said they relayed concerns about him to corrections officers, and he was flagged as a suicide risk by federal officers transporting him between jail and court. In spite of all this, he was left alone and unobserved in his final hours, in violation of specific orders that had been given about his supervision — an error that led directly to his death.

My position on this has generally been that neither the prison officials involved nor the Trump administration seemed competent enough to put together a gin and tonic, let alone pull off a difficult murder conspiracy while leaving barely a trace, but as the story acknowledges the ongoing incompetence after Epstein’s death made it hard not to wonder sometimes. But I think this is a pretty convincing case that Epstein killed himself, and it’s not like this has ever been implausible on its face.