‘Epstein Did NOT Kill Himself’: Lawyer and Pathologist Reveal Details

Nearly seven years after Jeffrey Epstein was found dead inside a New York City jail cell, the mystery surrounding his final hours refuses to die.

The official conclusion remains unchanged: Epstein, the convicted sex offender who was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, died by suicide after hanging himself inside his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019.

But a new documentary is once again raising the question that has fueled years of speculation: What if Epstein did not kill himself?

A new ABC documentary that premiered on HBO Max on September 3 revisits Epstein’s crimes, his powerful connections and the extraordinary failures surrounding his death. Reporter Grace Tobin speaks with people who argue that key details do not fit comfortably with the official explanation.

Among them is David Schoen, Epstein’s lawyer at the time of his death.

Schoen said he spoke with Epstein just nine days before he died, after an earlier incident in which Epstein was found with injuries to his neck and was believed to have attempted suicide.

According to Schoen, Epstein insisted that was not what happened.

“He denied that he had tried to commit suicide,” Schoen recalled.

Schoen said Epstein claimed his cellmate had forced a rope around his neck and pulled on it to see how Epstein would react. Epstein allegedly told correctional officers that he could not remember what happened because he feared retaliation from his cellmate if he got him into trouble.

Despite being miserable behind bars, Schoen said Epstein was determined to fight the criminal case against him.

“The fact that he wanted to fight this case until the day before he died says to me that it’s unlikely he committed suicide,” Schoen said.

That argument remains disputed by the official findings.

A 2023 Justice Department Inspector General investigation documented what it called “numerous and serious failures” by jail employees, including leaving Epstein alone and unmonitored for hours. But investigators said they uncovered no evidence contradicting the FBI’s determination that Epstein’s death was not the result of a criminal act. New York City’s medical examiner ruled his death a suicide.

Still, the circumstances were stunning.

Epstein was supposed to be closely monitored following the earlier incident. Instead, the guards responsible for checking on him failed to conduct required rounds for hours and later falsified records.

Problems with the jail’s surveillance system only added to the suspicion surrounding the case.

Then there were the injuries found during Epstein’s autopsy.

Forensic pathologist Michael Baden, who observed Epstein’s autopsy at the request of Epstein’s brother, appears in the documentary and says some of those injuries raised serious questions in his mind.

Baden pointed to the position of the ligature mark around Epstein’s neck, which he described as horizontal.

“In a suicidal hanging, the ligature mark is usually up the high part of the neck and goes upwards,” Baden said.

But what surprised him most were fractures in Epstein’s neck.

“There were three fractures, two of the thyroid cartilage, which is the Adam’s apple, and one of the hyoid bone,” Baden said. “In 50 years of doing this, I’ve never seen that.”

Baden argued those injuries were more commonly associated with homicidal strangulation.

That does not establish that Epstein was murdered, and other forensic experts have said such fractures can occur in hanging, particularly in older people. Nevertheless, Baden said the findings caused him to question whether the death was really a suicide.

Schoen also discussed the medical examiner’s investigation, while Baden said the initial assessment was not immediately definitive before the manner of death was ultimately ruled suicide.

Epstein’s brother, Mark Epstein, has gone even further.

“I believe he was murdered,” he told Tobin. “And if they do a real investigation and they talk to the right people, they could figure out what actually took place.”

That belief is hardly confined to Epstein’s family.

Political scientist Joe Uscinski, who has studied conspiracy theories for years, said polling about Epstein’s death produced an unusually high level of skepticism toward the official story.

“Half the country thought it was a conspiracy that he was killed by people who were trying to cover up their involvement with him,” Uscinski said.

“And you don’t normally get conspiracy theories getting half the country to buy in.”

Some of Epstein’s survivors also remain skeptical.

Lisa Phillips, who says Epstein sexually abused her after she met him around 2000, told filmmakers she believed Epstein always thought he would somehow escape serious consequences.

“I believe he always thought he was going to get out of it,” Phillips said.

Phillips said she first encountered Epstein while working as a model. He quickly became interested in her career and ambitions, but she says he sexually abused her that same night under the pretense of receiving a massage.

Afterward, Epstein allegedly used his connections to send her to modeling meetings and auditions.

Phillips now says she did not understand at the time that she was being trafficked.

She described being sent to supposed “auditions” or castings where she would suddenly find herself being propositioned for sex.

Another survivor featured in the documentary, Ashley Rubright, was just 15 when she says she encountered Epstein.

Rubright said she was working at a barbecue restaurant when a co-worker asked whether she wanted to make $200 giving a wealthy man a massage.

She agreed.

Rubright said she arrived at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion and was shocked when she entered the bathroom and found him naked.

She alleges Epstein instructed her how to massage him before the encounter became sexual and inappropriate.

Rubright said she tried to convince herself afterward that the disturbing experience had somehow been a one-time incident.

She later returned.

According to Rubright, Epstein then brought out a basket of sex toys and asked her to choose one. While recounting what allegedly happened next, Rubright became visibly emotional and stopped herself from going into further detail.

She said the abuse changed her life.

“I stopped cheerleading, I stopped dance,” she recalled. “I kind of went from, like, trying to do good to just not caring.”

The documentary also returns to the investigation that first exposed Epstein’s abuse on a major scale.

In March 2005, Palm Beach police began investigating after the stepmother of a ninth-grade student reported that a wealthy man had molested her daughter.

Investigators eventually discovered that multiple girls had allegedly been recruited from Royal Palm Beach High School.

Attorney Spencer Kuvin, who represented three Epstein victims, recalled the enormous pressure surrounding the case.

Kuvin said Epstein had assembled an elite legal team and that victims were reportedly followed by black SUVs.

He also recalled meeting lead investigator Joe Recarey at a Starbucks in West Palm Beach.

According to Kuvin, Recarey repeatedly looked around the room as the two talked.

When Kuvin asked why, the detective allegedly told him: “You have no idea what they’re doing to me.”

Kuvin said Recarey told him people had even gone through his personal trash.

“I’ve never seen this kind of an operation before,” Recarey allegedly told him.

Despite the Palm Beach investigation, Epstein ultimately received an extraordinarily controversial plea agreement.

He pleaded guilty in Florida to state prostitution-related charges involving a minor and served roughly 13 months of an 18-month sentence, much of it under a work-release arrangement.

After leaving custody, Epstein returned to a world filled with extraordinarily wealthy and influential people.

His associations included figures such as Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Prince Andrew, although merely associating with Epstein does not establish involvement in his crimes.

Years later, federal prosecutors again arrested Epstein in July 2019 on sex-trafficking charges.

He was dead approximately one month later.

Questions surrounding Epstein have since become a rare bipartisan political issue.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie and other lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have joined Democrats in demanding greater disclosure of government records connected to Epstein.

The Justice Department announced in January 2026 that it had released nearly 3.5 million pages of material under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, along with more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images. DOJ says material that was not produced consists of duplicates, privileged information, material covered by statutory exceptions or records unrelated to the Epstein and Maxwell cases.

Massie and other lawmakers continue to argue that millions of additional records have not been made public and are pushing for further disclosure. The fight has at times put Republican lawmakers at odds with the Trump administration over how much Epstein-related material should be released.

For survivors such as Phillips, the controversy is about far more than the circumstances of Epstein’s death.

Speaking alongside other survivors and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, she described the battle for answers as an issue on which “America is finally united.”

Years after Epstein died without standing trial on the federal sex-trafficking charges, the government’s official conclusion remains suicide.

But the jail failures, disputed forensic interpretations, missing answers and Epstein’s extraordinary network of wealthy and powerful associates continue to ensure one of America’s most infamous questions isn’t going away anytime soon:

What really happened inside Jeffrey Epstein’s cell?