A new twist in the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged suicide has revealed significant failures in the federal probe into his 2019 death.
Forensic experts told CBS News that basic investigative procedures were ignored and the crime scene was never properly examined.
The investigation, which reviewed 90 previously unpublished photos from Epstein’s cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, found that FBI agents failed to use evidence markers, conduct DNA or fingerprint tests, and didn’t follow many standard protocols for documenting a suspicious death.
“The FBI literally has all of the best tools. I mean, spared no expense. They have every tool you can imagine. And they used none of it as far as we can tell,” forensic analyst Nick Barreiro told CBS News after reviewing the photos. “How are there not way more people pointing out the absurdity of this?”
Epstein, the disgraced billionaire pedophile and sex trafficker with connections to powerful figures including former President Bill Clinton and the U.K’s Prince Andrew, was found dead in his cell on August 10, 2019 right before he was set to testify.
Epstein’s suspicious death was ruled a suicide by authorities, but questions have persisted about the circumstances.
The recent review of the FBI investigation found huge problems, starting with timing.
FBI agents did not arrive at the scene until more than seven hours after Epstein’s body was discovered at 6:30 a.m. By the time they arrived at 1:35 p.m., the cell was in disarray with items moved, linens strewn about, and mattresses piled in a corner.
Critically, Epstein’s body had already been removed before FBI agents arrived, eliminating a vital source of information investigators would have used to determine how and when he died.
“The fact that he was moved diminishes the ability to determine how long he was dead before he was found,” forensic pathologist Michael Baden said.
Photos show Epstein’s medications, a CPAP mask for sleep apnea, and fabric tied into nooses appeared in different locations over a 90-minute period while a photographer from the medical examiner’s office documented the scene — and experts told CBS News is looked staged.
“In those photographs, it was obvious that things were moved around,” said former New York Police Department detective Herman Weisberg, now managing director of Sage Intelligence. “It definitely appeared to me that the scene was, for lack of a better term, staged a bit.”
Investigators never conclusively determined which strip of bedsheet was around Epstein’s neck when he died. Photos show different nooses in different locations, and the Department of Justice later admitted in its 2023 report that “the noose depicted is not the ligature Epstein used to kill himself.”
There is no indication in any official report on Epstein’s mysterious death that FBI crime scene investigators ran fingerprints or DNA tests on anything found in the cell. Epstein’s brother Mark told CBS News he still has not received information about DNA test results, and former Attorney General William Barr said in a deposition he could not remember if they had been done.
“Some really shoddy work here, if you can even call it that,” Barreiro said. “I mean there’s an absence of work here.”
The investigation also found basic evidence photography procedures were not followed. Photos lacked evidence markers that would allow investigators to track items once they reached the crime lab.
“There’s no evidence markers in any of these photographs. Like, how do you keep track once you get the stuff back to the crime lab? This is essentially useless,” said Barreiro, a former police detective and FBI-trained member of the Digital Imaging and Video Recovery Team.
Federal investigators questioned 54 people before issuing their final report, but several key witnesses were never interviewed. That included many inmates housed on Epstein’s tier the night of his death, at least one staffer who arrived at the cell shortly after the body was found, and nearly all of the visitors Epstein saw in the days leading up to his death.
The two corrections officers on duty the night Epstein died were not interviewed until nearly two years later, as part of a deal that saw prosecutors drop charges of falsifying records after the officers fell asleep on the job.
Crucially, investigators decided not to interview many of Epstein’s attorneys who visited him in the days before his death, including younger lawyers who spent hours with him daily.
“You’d think if the investigation was a priority, they’d want to take a run at the younger people who were working for him,” one source told CBS News. “Nothing.”
Attorney David Schoen, who visited Epstein nine days before his death, said the financier was actively planning to fight the criminal charges against him.
“And this is why I’ve said, that in my view — I don’t have anything to base it on other than anecdotal — I don’t think he committed suicide, because he was very engaged in the idea of fighting the case,” Schoen said. “He hired me. And to kill himself nine days later wouldn’t have made a lot of sense.”
Epstein’s co-defendant Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a prison sentence for sex trafficking, told Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche during an August interview that she does not believe Epstein died by suicide.
Epstein’s brother Mark has questioned the investigation for years.
“This was never properly investigated as a proper homicide, it was never investigated,” Mark Epstein told CBS News recently.
Barr has maintained that Epstein’s death was a suicide, telling Congress in August he had “no doubts” about that conclusion.
“This would’ve required coordination from probably two dozen people, maybe, within the prison. And all these people were in different groups,” Barr said in an August deposition. “You know, the people who were repairing the cameras, the people who, you know, were responsible for opening and closing the door, the people who were responsible for putting in a new cellmate, things like that.”
The investigation comes as questions continue to swirl about Epstein’s connections to powerful figures and whether a full accounting of his crimes and client list will ever be made public.
Former NYPD deputy commissioner Richard Esposito said the mishandling of the investigation into Epstein’s death have fueled the conspiracy theories.
“It appears there may have been several procedural, operational, and investigative missteps at this crime scene,” said Esposito, now a CBS News law enforcement contributor. “Ultimately, determining the true facts and circumstances in a death investigation-and transparently communicating those findings to the public-helps dispel misinformation and reduce the spread of conspiracy theories.”
Weisberg said investigators simply failed to conduct a thorough enough investigation, and left huge questions unanswered.
“In the back of any good investigator’s mind, he’s preparing this to be scrutinized by counsel. In this case, you’re preparing it to be scrutinized by a lot of desktop detectives … so you better have all of your facts straight,” Weisberg said.