The Locked Cell Murder Mystery

“A lot of important people are going to have a really bad weekend.” - Unnamed source

 (By American Zen's Mike Flannigan, on loan from Ari)

Nobody would believe it or take it seriously as fiction even if it was written by Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, Agatha Chrsitie or Israel Zangwill, who wrote the first locked room murder mystery. But unlike your typical cozy where a corpse inconsiderately pops up in the middle of an English tea garden, we know why Epstein had to die. But, as with virtually all cozies, we're left with the question of whodunnit?

     Since early last July when he'd been picked up in New Jersey coming in from Paris, Jeffery Epstein, the world's most beloved child molester, had been incarcerated in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan, which is in the footprint of the original Tombs of New York City penal lore.

     And Jeffery Epsetin's alleged "suicide" looks bad from all angles. Not bad from a "Oops, we let one slip through the cracks" PR kerfuffle but a "Oops, someone murdered perhaps our highest profile prisoner in his locked cell right under our noses" nightmare that could theoretically take down the entire prison. The red-faced prison officials, in their few contacts with the press, had admitted that Epstein had not been on suicide watch, as if that's supposed to answer all questions. However, this admission only inspires a whole raft of other questions. Such as:

     Where's last night's and this morning's video tape of Epstein's cell? Do you have the footage or was the DVD or digital file erased? Was the camera turned off like cops conveniently turn off their body cams? Whatever the answer, it's screamingly obvious the Americam public and no one outside that prison will see that footage of Epstein's last moments any more than we'll see what really hit the Pentagon on 9/11.

     How could this happen when Epstein's cell was so brightly lit? At the end of his life, said one prison official to TMZ, Epstein was complaining that his cell was too brightly-lit to sleep. So if it was so well-illuminated, why didn't guards see what was going on? According to NPR, "He was returned to the special housing unit, a separate area of the prison with extra security, according to reporting from the Times."

     Why wasn't Epstein on suicide watch, especially considering what happened to him 18 days ago? Perhaps it was determined that he hadn't tried to kill himself since someone who'd examined Epstein after the July 23rd incident went on record as saying the marks on his neck were more consistent with attempted strangulation than a hanging. You'd think that would in itself mandate tighter security.

     And lastly, how could this happen at all with any prisoner, since privacy is virtually nonexistent in a prison, especially considering Epstein's high visibility and importance to federal prosecutors and the fact he was in the special housing unit? Perhaps the answer lies in the question- Just yesterday, an appeals court had allowed the release of a large tranche of legal documents pertaining to Epstein's case. Names were mentioned. Big names. Household names. US Presidents. A British crown prince. Billionaire captains of industry. Epstein's buddies. Epstein's blackmail victims.

     The only mystery, besides how exactly Epstein met his end and by whose hand, is why his rotting corpse hadn't inconsiderately popped up sooner.

The Final 35 Days

If one were to examine the two pictures of Epstein's cadaver, especially the lead image up top, one will notice what seems to unmistakably be a deep contusion on his left cheekbone, as if the dead man had been struck by a right-handed assailant. It could just be a trick of the light producing a shadow. But the picture just above, the one showing a surprisingly unhurried FDNY paramedic playacting at giving Epstein CPR seems to show the same contusion in the same spot under different light.

     This isn't a conspiracy theory. That is a contusion and it looks pretty fresh, as if it had been inflicted within the last several hours. Someone who was arguably the most famous and important prisoner in America was found hanging in his cell in a highly secured wing of the Manhattan Detention Center 18 days after he was seemingly assaulted the day after a large cache of legal documents were released to the Miami Herald.

     When the rest of us get thrown in a police or county lockup, we're made to remove our belts, shoelaces and anything and everything else that could be used as an implement of suicide (So I've heard. I admit to nothing.). We're supposed to believe this (Most troubling, even Julie K. Brown of the aforementioned Herald, the woman who'd essentially done all the spadework for the SDNY, also believes Epstein stretched his own neck. The rest of the MSM happily agree. But for them, such stenography is typical.).

     Yet this was no Aaron Hernandez-style prison suicide. Epstein had no concussion nor was up on murder charges. The ones facing him would've surely landed him in prison for 45 years, essentially for the end of his life. But he'd entered a plea of not guilty and had plainly intended to fight to the bitter end. Yet from the admittedly little we'd heard of Epstein's final 35 days of life, we'd never once gotten the slightest indication that Epstein had suicidal thoughts.

     Yet until we're presented with a suspect in his murder, and I wouldn't hold my breath on that, let's clear the air of a few things:

     Epstein's death may have also killed off the trial against him but that's not the end of the story. Everybody who cares to know, starting with federal investigators, will be aware that Epstein had cameras secretly installed in every room in his Manhattan mansion that he'd gotten from Wexler. Epstein was infamous for his sex orgies involving underage girls as well as the high and mighty. Epstein's victims had gone on to name names, including Prince Andrew, Alan Dershowitz, Bill Richardson and other frequently-mentioned names.

     When they raided Epstein's Manhattan townhouse right after his arrest, they'd walked out with mountains of evidence and the accepted assumption is that they are pictures, video files and other evidence incriminating those same people and many, many more. Jeffery Epstein hadn't left much of a footprint on Wall Street, even though the press still refers to him as a "former hedge fund manager." In fact, it had seemed as if most of Epstein's career was involved in ripping off Wexler and blackmailing his buddies, which is how he'd amassed a personal fortune recently estimated at nearly $567,000,000..

     When you have compromising information on that many powerful people and can actually supplement digital evidence with living memory in a high-profile trial, someone is going to take exception to that. But with the evidence the federal government has, more charges, more trials and more careers and reputations will be involved. This is just the tip of the filthy iceberg. And before we're done, this Epstein thing will make the #Metoo movement look like a walk in the park.