Jeffrey Epstein arrested for child sex trafficking

[kellyb]

Umm, no - it is also supported by the fact that literally nobody had access to Epstein's cell that could've committed the murder.

You're assuming the highlighted based on the records?

 

[carlitos]

The "celebrity pathologists" was present for Epstein's autopsy and was the coroner for years. He had the exact same job in the exact same city as the one who decided to call it suicide.

Yes, he left that job 40 years ago. Today, he is a Fox News contributor, celebrity pathologist, and he's apparently happy to make money by consulting for kiddy diddlers.

 

[Checkmite]

"Partial hangings don't break multiple neck bones" kinda is why I'm not convinced is was suicide.

Obviously sometimes they do.

A "full" hanging with a drop almost certainly isn't even physically possible inside the cells, which means you're now necessarily implying that Epstein was murdered elsewhere and prison staff moved his body to his cell and framed the two guards who've been implicated for dereliction.

 

[Checkmite]

You're assuming the highlighted based on the records?

The negligent guards did not falsify some abstract all-encompassing "the records"; they falsified specifically entries in their own patrol log to claim they'd been making rounds when they weren't. Things like "who is assigned to what cell" wouldn't logically be a record they have the ability to alter.

Importantly, their falsification was discovered by the prison investigators. So they discovered that malfeasance, but not the other records they faked to show that nobody else was assigned to Epstein's cell?

 

[kellyb]

Yes, he left that job 40 years ago. Today, he is a Fox News contributor, celebrity pathologist, and he's apparently happy to make money by consulting for kiddy diddlers.

I'm pretty sure him saying Epstein was murdered makes Epstein look guiltier, if anything.

But if you're just dead set on slandering the guy, have at it.

 

[carlitos]

I'm pretty sure him saying Epstein was murdered makes Epstein look guiltier, if anything.

Wait, "makes" like present tense? Did Baden actually say that Epstein was murdered? Your quote shows only the lawyers saying that they "aren't satisfied with the coroner's findings." Nothing from Baden, and nothing about a murder.

But if you're just dead set on slandering the guy, have at it.

Slander is spoken. Libel is written, and truth is a defense to both.

Who on earth would I be slandering?

 

[kellyb]

Obviously sometimes they do.

A "full" hanging with a drop almost certainly isn't even physically possible inside the cells, which means you're now necessarily implying that Epstein was murdered elsewhere and prison staff moved his body to his cell and framed the two guards who've been implicated for dereliction.

No, it would just be "homicidal strangulation" in the cell (probably before the cellmate was moved just hours before Epstein's death, I'd guess):

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0379073803002792

Two of the 19 suicidal victims had single fractures of the upper thyroid horns and one victim a fracture of a lower thyroid horn; other types of laryngohyoid injuries were not observed. In the homicidal series, the laryngohyoid structures were unaffected in 26 cases (12 of these victims were children or adolescents), single thyroid horn fractures were present in three cases and more significant injuries in 18 cases. Macroscopic bleedings of the laryngeal muscles were found in 12 victims of the homicidal group and in none of the suicidal. Bleedings in the neck muscles seldom occurred in suicides. According to these findings, the laryngohyoid injuries can be helpful in the differentiation of suicide from homicide, if more than a single thyroid horn fracture or a laryngeal soft tissue trauma is present.

 

[kellyb]

Importantly, their falsification was discovered by the prison investigators. So they discovered that malfeasance, but not the other records they faked to show that nobody else was assigned to Epstein's cell?

That they only discovered half (the more innocent half) of what the guards did wrong doesn't seem like that outlandish of a scenario to me.

Things like "who is assigned to what cell" wouldn't logically be a record they have the ability to alter.

Something along the lines of recording Epstein as alive and fine at the time the cellmate was transferred could easily have been faked right along with and as part of the faking of the logs, I think.

We don't know what, if anything, the logs really show, though. We just know there was some sort of panic-and-records-faking that happened around 6 AM.

 

[kellyb]

Wait, "makes" like present tense? Did Baden actually say that Epstein was murdered?

Do you think the lawyers would be contesting the suicide ruling if Baden agreed that it was suicide?

I have a hard time imagining what their independent report on the topic to challenge the coroner could possibly say if Baden agrees with the coroner.

 

[angrysoba]

That's what I was saying earlier, about how for it to be ruled murder, it would have to be beyond simply implausible. It would have had to be on par with a bullet wound to the head in a cell where no gun was found.

It really sounds to me like if he'd been discovered in a bedroom at a large party like this, it would probably be ruled a murder, based on the broken neck bones (assuming the WaPo report is correct on that point) and the fact that other people had access to him.

What is your evidence for this claim about the plausibility threshold? I mean are you saying that the coroner would find it plausible that he killed himself and yet it is not plausible enough for you?

I mean, this sounds like you are playing Quincy by doubting the official coroner and yet you also think the coroner has reason for ruling suicide. You seem to be having it both ways.

 

[kellyb]

I mean are you saying that the coroner would find it plausible that he killed himself and yet it is not plausible enough for you?

Yep.

I mean, this sounds like you are playing Quincy by doubting the official coroner and yet you also think the coroner has reason for ruling suicide. You seem to be having it both ways.

I think the coroner is in the public spotlight here, and thus under pressure that could result in basic motivated reasoning.

When I imagine myself in the coroner's shoes, I have a hard time imagining myself explaining how to square deciding it was probably murder, with the info provided by the guards/prison claiming he was alone in his cell and thus HAD to have committed suicide.

 

[Minoosh]

IIRC, my ex walked around with two cracked vertebrae without even knowing it for a couple of weeks. He flopped hard onto his back while trying to latch onto a rope tow during a skiing lesson. It wasn't the kind of "break" that paralyzes you, obviously. Also, the circumstances of Epstein's earlier injury are somewhat mysterious and he reportedly had "marks on his neck" as if someone had, for example, tried to choke him. His cellmate at the time, an ex-NYC cop, was cleared of wrongdoing. Could something have happened in the earlier incident? If Epstein had osteoporosis, his bones may have been exceptionally brittle.

On another note, it seems to me that taking a swan dive off the top bunk in a cell with a concrete floor could also be fatal, but you never hear of inmates killing themselves this way. Not reliable enough, maybe.

 

[Checkmite]

Something along the lines of recording Epstein as alive and fine at the time the cellmate was transferred could easily have been faked right along with and as part of the faking of the logs, I think.

If Epstein was killed by a cellmate, there's absolutely no possible reason whatsoever for the prison to hide that fact. Even if they "deliberately" assigned a particular prisoner to be Epstein's cellmate in the positive hope that the guy would eventually kill Epstein given the opportunity, that's still no reason for them to not say after the deed is done, immediately, "Epstein was found murdered in his cell, and we have determined the murderer was his cellmate". It would be a completely unassailable "alibi".

Do you imagine they decided that "our staff was overworked, untrained, and negligent, and actually spent three hours sleeping instead of regularly checking on Epstein, which allowed him to commit suicide, prompting them to make phony log entries to cover up for their dereliction of duty" would be a better look for them than "another prisoner attacked and strangled Epstein to death"?

 

[kellyb]

If Epstein was killed by a cellmate, there's absolutely no possible reason whatsoever for the prison to hide that fact.

They could have felt like they'd be held less responsible for a suicide that slipped through the cracks than for his murder.

They might not even know for sure if he was still alive when the cell mate was transferred.

 

[Checkmite]

They could have felt like they'd be held less responsible for a suicide that slipped through the cracks than for his murder.

If this was Opposite-World, maybe.

You can't seriously think they believe they'd be held "more responsible" if an inmate flipped out and killed Epstein between checks than they would be for actual prison staff actually sleeping on duty, not checking on Epstein all night, AND fudging logs to try and cover their butts afterwards on top of it. You can't. I refuse to believe it.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I'm pretty sure medical examiners don't consider anything beyond the body of the decedent to make their report.

 

[Babbylonian]

I'm pretty sure medical examiners don't consider anything beyond the body of the decedent to make their report.

That is simply not true. While the practice is nothing like Quincy or Crossing Jordan on TV, medical examiners take into consideration evidence gathered by law enforcement when determining cause of death if the circumstances warrant. For example, if an elderly person falls, hits their head and dies, it would be pretty important for a medical examiner to know that they were attempting to escape from a burglar at the time.

 

[Arcade22]

Yep.

You really have no reasonable basis for questioning the reliability of their judgement. If anything, because this was a high profile death it's almost guaranteed that they would try to do their best, simply because their work would be scrutinised by multiple people.

People would know if they made any obvious mistakes, or if their conclusions were unjustified because they lacked sufficient evidence.

 

[kellyb]

You really have no reasonable basis for questioning the reliability of their judgement.

The WaPo report of multiple broken neck bones in a partial hanging (where he was just kneeling forward) is my basis.

If anything, because this was a high profile death it's almost guaranteed that they would try to do their best, simply because their work would be scrutinised by multiple people.

I'm sure they are doing their best, but nobody is immune to bias.

See: https://escholarship.org/content/qt6mz940xn/qt6mz940xn.pdf

Concern about contextual bias has led some commentators to recommend that
forensic scientists know as little as possible about the facts of the case. Consider, for example, this passage from an early treatise on document examination by William E. Hagan1:

. . .the examiner must depend wholly upon what is seen [in the forensic examination], leaving out of consideration all suggestions or hints from interested parties; and if possible it best subserves the conditions of fair examination that the expert should not know the interest which the party employing him to make the examination has in the result. Where the expert has no knowledge of the moral evidence or aspects of the case in which signatures are a matter of context, there is nothing to mislead him, or to influence the forming of an opinion; and while knowing of the case as presented by one side of the context might or might not shade the opinion formulated, yet it is better that the latter be based entirely on what the writing itself shows, and nothing else.

Although published in 1894, this statement is entirely consistent with more recent commentary 2,3 calling for greater use of blind procedures in forensic analysis.

Academic commentary suggesting that forensic scientists are subject to contextual bias2,3 has been supported by empirical studies showing startling evidence of such bias7–9 and illustrating its consequences10, and by the discovery of high profile errors that have been attributed, in part, to contextual bias11–13. In its 2009 report on forensic science14, the United States National Research Council acknowledged these concerns and agreed that they are a problem for the field, declaring unequivocally that ‘forensic science experts are vulnerable to cognitive and contextual bias’ and that this bias ‘renders experts vulnerable to making erroneous identifications.’

One common response is that blind procedures are unnecessary for individuals who have proper values and standards of personal integrity. Those who give this response often claim to be insulted at the very suggestion that they might be biased. This response construes contextual bias as a personal moral failure. According to this view, contextual bias arises when analysts allow their scientific judgments to be influenced by extraneous facts; bias is only a problem for analysts who are poorly trained (because they do not realize they should ignore contextual facts) or analysts who are unethical (and therefore are unwilling to ignore contextual facts). Hence, contextual bias, if it exists at all, should be addressed by better training and by weeding out ‘bad apples.’

The problem with this response is that it rests on a faulty understanding of
human judgment and decision making. Psychologists who study the operation of the human mind in judgmental tasks have shown repeatedly that people lack conscious awareness of factors that influence them19. This research has a clear implication for the present discussion: contextual bias cannot be conquered by force of will because people are not consciously aware of the extent to which they are influenced by contextual factors.

 

[kellyb]

People would know if they made any obvious mistakes, or if their conclusions were unjustified because they lacked sufficient evidence.

How would anyone know?
Autopsy reports are not a matter of public record.