Epstein’s Suicide Note Looks Real

And Proves He Was Suicidal. But Then Again …

New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP

A federal judge has released a scrawled “suicide note” Jeffrey Epstein’s quadruple-murder-convicted cellmate says he found in a graphic novel left behind after the sex trafficker was moved out of his cell several weeks before he died. The note has been sealed for years in a case involving that inmate and a feud between lawyers. The New York Times recently petitioned to have it released and tonight the paper of record published it.

“They investigated me for months — FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins. “It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continues.

“Watcha want me to do — Bust out cryin!!

“NO FUN,” it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”

The Times added that the note has not been authenticated.

The “bustin out cryin’” phrase doesn’t sound at all like Epstein, and already online armchair sleuths and Epstein-ologists are declaring it fake for that reason.

But it appears to have been a pet phrase of his - possibly from the Little Rascals series. We’ve found three emails in the DOJ library over the years in which Epstein talked - with a friend and with his brother - about “bustin’ out cryin.”

In a New Year’s Eve 2016 email to childhood friend Terry Kafka, in a discussion about missing their friend Warren Eistenstin, who died in 2014, Epstein wrote “Whatcha want me todo / bust out cryin” . Kafka wrote “I get very nostalgic and truly miss warren. On nites like tonite.”

Earlier that year in an email to his brother Mark Epstein, who informed him that their cousin had become a grandfather, he had written “whtchoo want me todo -- bust out cryin” .

Three years later in a March 2019 email to his brother, (subject line: “tits”), just a few months before his arrest, he wrote “what would you like me to say , do ? bust out cryin”

The similarity of the language and the uniqueness of the phrase certainly suggest that note is authentic. And in fact, Epstein was deemed suicidal by the Bureau of Prisons, had been found unresponsive in his cell and taken to the prison hospital several weeks before he was found dead in his cell.

The question of whether he was murdered or killed himself has been hanging over the saga since practically the day he was found dead, with a broken hyoid bone. The New York medical Examoner officially ruled a suicide.

But Epstein’s brother Mark - among many including Epstein’s lawyers - who believed he was murdered - hired the highly regarded independent pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who served as New York’s chief medical examiner in the 1970s and who has weighed in on high profile murders over the years.

Baden concluded that Epstein’s injuries, including fractures to his larynx and hyoid bone, were “extremely unusual in suicidal hangings” and more consistent with “homicidal strangulation.” He urged authorities to look further: “There’s evidence here of homicide that should be investigated, to see if it is or isn’t homicide,” he said.

But he admitted his observations were not conclusive. And New York Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Barbara Sampson said she stood “firmly” behind findings in her autopsy report, which ruled Epstein hanged himself and temporarily quelled much of the speculation surrounding the financier’s death.

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This post is part of COURIER’s The Cover-Up, an effort to expand our coverage to follow the money and investigate the Epstein Class power players in and outside the government.

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