Jeffrey Epstein was Murdered

By: Donald V. Watkins

Copyrighted and Published on July 13, 2025

Pedophile and convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein (left) and the New York City jail cell where he was murdered (right).

An Editorial Opinion

It is easy to murder an inmate in a jail or correctional facility.  Murder is even easier to accomplish when the perpetrator is a government agent.

On August 10, 2019, registered child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP).  Epstein's death occurred sometime after the 8 p.m. inmate lockdown on August 9th.  Epstein's body was discovered as breakfast was being passed out to inmates at 6:30 a.m. on the morning of August 10.

On August 11, 2019, New York City medical examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson conducted an autopsy on Epstein's body. On August 16, 2019, Dr. Sampson ruled that Epstein committed suicide by hanging himself with the twisted strip of bed sheeting depicted below.

In June 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General issued a report that adopted Dr. Sampson's "suicide by hanging" theory as the cause and manner of Epstein's death. The report is grossly inadequate.

My review of the facts and circumstances surrounding Epstein's death establishes that he was murdered in his jail cell. The amount of evidence tampering, falsification of government records, modifications to jail security camera videos, missing items of evidence, suppression of material facts, and major violations of established agency protocols in Epstein's homicide case is far greater than anything I have seen in my 46 years of uncovering high-profile government coverups of murders committed by government agents.

Epstein's Murder Occurred at a Federal Detention Center with Restricted Access

In August 2019, Jeffrey Epstein was confined in the Special Housing Unit (SHU) of the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City.  The SHU is the most restricted area in MCC. Epstein was not allowed outside his cell after 8 p.m. The mandatory nightly inmate count was scheduled for 10 p.m. This count did not occur.

Initially, Epstein had a cellmate, as required by BOP protocol. Whenever Epstein was locked in his cell, two guards were required to monitor him by looking into his cell every 30 minutes.  Epstein was not allowed to have extra bed sheets or rope in his cell.

Epstein had been placed on suicide watch after his arrest in July 2019, but the BOP ended the watch about a week or so before his death.

On August 9, Epstein's cellmate was inexplicably transferred, and no replacement was brought in.  Earlier that evening, Epstein met with his lawyers, who described him as "upbeat" before he was escorted back to his SHU cell at 7:49 p.m. by guard Tova Noel.  

Security camera video footage establishes that the two guards on duty in Epstein's tier of the SHU that night failed to perform the mandatory BOP inmate stand-up count at 10:00 p.m. and continuous cell checks every 30 minutes througout the night.  In fact, no inmate counts or round checks were conducted by guards in Epstein's tier of the SHU after the 8 p.m. lockdown on August 9. Count slips and round sheets were falsified to show that the 10 p.m. inmate count and round checks had been performed.

The security videotape recorded Tova Noel briefly walking by Epstein's cell at 10:30 p.m., which was the last time the guards were shown entering the tier where his cell was located during the night.  The two guards assigned to check Epstein's cell overnight, Noel and Michael Thomas, fell asleep at their desk for about three hours and later falsified related count and round check records.  

Two cameras in front of Epstein's cell also malfunctioned the night of August 9.  Another camera had footage that was "unusable".

It was impossible for any other inmate in the SHU to have access to Epstein after the 8 p.m. inmate lockdown.  Even orderlies were back in their cells for the night at 8 p.m.

Beyond BOP personnel, the only persons who could access Epstein's cell after 8 p.m. were government law enforcement and intelligence agency personnel.  Upon a showing of proper identification, these government agents have access to all inmates, with or without notice and at all times of the day and night..

Means, Motive, and Opportunity

By August 2019, it was well-established in the U.S. intelligence community that Epstein ran a “honey trap” for Mossad, Israel’s national spy agency. Multiple sources, including FBI records, acknowledged Epstein's role as a government "access agent."

Epstein, himself, acknowledged his role as a Mossad operative. So did others who were in a position to know.

Between 2013 and 2017, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak visited Jeffrey Epstein about 30 times, including a 2014 private flight in Florida. The visits occurred after Epstein plead guilty to child prostitution charges in Florida in 2008 and registered as a sex offender of children.

Epstein's murder occurred at a time when a limited category and number of people had access to his jail cell.  The assailant obviously had government credentials. These credentials allowed him access to the MCC and afforded him freedom of movement within MCC.  The assailant was the kind of government agent whose access could not be questioned and whose activities within MCC would be cloaked in official secrecy.

Epstein’s assailant was trained in how to kill a targeted victim by strangulation with a rope (as depicted below), when to kill at the most opportune time (at night when the victim is sleeping), and how to stage the crime scene as a "suicide by hanging."  

Jeffrey Epstein's neck injuries from strangulation.

The assailant knew exactly where Epstein was located and also knew that Epstein was alone in his cell.  He had a key to the jail cell and a rope for strangulation purposes. There were no defensive wounds on Epstein's body, which indicates he was asleep when the strangulation occured.

The assailant also knew the operational details of the security camera system.  An examination of the metadata from the DOJ videotape of Epstein’s SHU cell on the night and morning in question reveals that the video was modified by splicing two video clips together.  Last week, DOJ falsely claimed that the videotape was a continuous stream of footage.

A minimum of three government agencies (i.e., BOP, DOJ, and CIA) acted in concert with each other to effectuate Epstein's murder.  The participating officials in these agencies convinced themselves that the national security benefits derived from the clandestine Mossad-Epstein "honey trap" operation justified the extermination mission.  

An Epstein sex trafficking trial would run the risk of exposing Mossad’s “honey trap” operation for blackmailing pedophiles. It also would have ruined the lives of scores of rich and powerful pedophiles and damaged U.S.-Israeli relations for generations.

The alternative to the spectacle of an Epstein sex trafficking trial was his extermination.  As such, Epstein's murder was sanctioned and facilitated as the best option. 

To accomplish the “hit” on Epstein, the BOP had to deviate, in one night, from more than 30 major written operational protocols applicable to the Bureau’s supervision of SHU inmates, security camera apparatuses, cell inspections, and mandatory inmate counts and 30-minute round checks, among many other departures from established operating protocols. Neither the BOP, nor DOJ, has ever proffered an explanation for more than 6 of these major violations. 

From a statistical standpoint, no random amount of BOP employee negligence or incompetence would accounted for 30+ substantial departures from mandatory BOP protocols at a single detention center in a single night with respect to a single inmate. As such, the substantial departures from BOP standard operating procedure on August 9 were deliberate.

Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr described Epstein's death as "a perfect storm of screw-ups."  Thereafter, Barr removed Hugh Hurwitz from his job as BOP director.

No government agency personnel who violated BOP, DOJ, or CIA protocols in connection with Epstein's murder and coverup has been prosecuted and jailed.

Without the 30+ major violations of mandatory BOP operating protocols, it would have been impossible for anyone to murder Epstein.  With these violations, the mission to kill Epstein was accomplished with relative ease.

Dr. Michael Baden’s Forensic Report

After his death, Epstein's lawyers challenged Dr. Sampson’s "suicide by hanging" autopsy conclusion, which also served as the basis for DOJ’s “suicide by hanging” finding.  

Epstein's lawyers launched their own homicide investigation. They hired Dr. Michael Baden, who also observed Dr. Barbara Sampson’s August 11 autopsy on Epstein's body.

At the time, Dr. Baden was the leading independent and board-certified forenic pathologist in the world. Dr. Sampson's credentials as a forenic pathologist, while impressive, paled in comparison to Baden's.

On October 30, 2019, Dr. Baden issued a report stating that Epstein's neck injuries were much more consistent with "homicidal strangulation" than suicide.  He stated that Epstein "had two fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, specifically the thyroid cartilage or Adam's apple, as well as one fracture on the left hyoid bone above the Adam's apple."  Baden said those injuries were “very unusual for suicide and more indicative of strangulation — homicidal strangulation.”

Hyoid bone animation.

Dr. Baden said the bed sheet found in the SHU cell was too low to the floor to explain the broken bone and cartilage in Epstein's neck, which had to come from extreme force, not from just kneeling forward against a tied ligature. Baden also said the thick sheet that was twisted into the noose that Epstein allegedly used to hang himself didn't match his injuries, which look more like they were made from a rope.

No rope was found in the cell after Epstein's death. It left with the murderer.

Presidential-Level Indifference

Epstein's murder occurred during Donald Trump's first term in office.  Trump was one of the well-known individuals who partied with Epstein at Mar-a-Lago and in New York in the 1990s.  Trump knew that Epstein liked to party with girls "on the younger side" and said so in media interviews. Furthermore, Epstein recruited underage girls for his sex trafficking network from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.  As such, there was never a full, thorough, and objective investigation of Epstein's murder during Trump’s first term.  

The Joe Biden administration showed little interest in the Epstein case beyond sweeping Epstein's criminal sex offender activities under the rug with a grossly inadequate 2023 DOJ report, which cloaked Mossad's "honey trap" operation in secrecy and protected Israel’s carefully manicured image in America.

Vice President Kamala Harris did not seem to be concerned with the Epstein sex trafficking case, either. As a state prosecutor and California Attorney General from 2004 to 2017, Harris never prosecuted a single Catholic Church priest in any documented child sex abuse case, despite having numerous opportunities to do so.  Internal Catholic Church records named as many as 40 priests in the San Francisco Archdiocese as sexual abusers of children during Harris’ tenure as a prosecutor.  

In exchange for large campaign donations from law firms affiliated with the Catholic Church and its political allies, Harris turned her back on these sexually abused children and gave each sexually abusive priest a prosecutorial "pass."   Harris also worked hard to coverup the records documenting the sexual abuse of children by the priests in question.

Last week, President Donald Trump ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to close the Epstein case without arresting, indicting, or prosecuting a single pedophile who molested more than 1,000 children, raped many of them, and took pornographic pictures and videos of the victims.   None of these child sex abuse victims received prior notification of this DOJ closeout action.

With his closeout directive, Trump now leads the largest pedophile coverup in America since the Catholic Church’s clergy sex abuse scandal of the early 2000s. 

Finally, Trump has never uttered a word of sympathy, empathy, or support for Epstein’s 1,000+ child sex crime victims. Yesterday, Trump claimed -- first the first time -- that the DOJ's Epstein files are "FAKE." Trump also said the person in charge of administering the Epstein coverup -- Attorney General Pam Bondi -- is doing a "FANTASTIC JOB."