This morning I woke up to the news that Jeffrey Epstein managed to kill himself in his jail cell in Manhattan. In a way it did not surprise me, he had tried to kill himself less than 3 weeks ago as well and in his situation he did not have much to lose anymore. However, what struck me is that he was on suicide watch. How is that possible?

When you are on suicide watch you should not have the possibility to commit suicide because you don’t have the means to do so. At the same time you should be under constant surveillance, so that whatever you try can be stopped on time. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

People under suicide watch are put into an environment where it would be difficult for them to hurt themselves. In many cases, any dangerous items will be removed from the area, such as sharp objects and some furniture, or they may be placed in a special padded cell, which has nothing outcropping from the walls (e.g., a clothes hook or door closing bracket) to provide a place for a ligature to be attached, and with only a drain-grill on the floor. They may be stripped of anything with which they might hurt themselves or use as a noose, including shoelaces, belts, neckties, bras, shoes, socks, suspenders and bed sheets. In extreme cases the inmate may be undressed entirely.

Suicide watch generally involves the subject’s being under continuous or very frequent watch of a guard who will intervene if the subject attempts to harm themselves.

To me something seems not right here. A super high profile offender who already tried to kill himself 18 days ago manages to commit suicide while on suicide watch? Like I said on this blog before, I am not a big believer in conspiracy theories, but even for me this is a bit too much. Maybe other news will come out that will ‘explain’ how this was possible, but let’s just say that this is very convenient for many other high level people (including Donald Trump -who called Epstein a ‘terrific guy’- and Prince Andrew, but also Bill Clinton) that were directly and indirectly implicated in the case against Jeffrey Epstein.

The criminal case will now be dismissed, although civil cases against his estate will still continue. We will likely never know how he made his money  and I wonder if we will ever hear what was on the compact discs with videos and pictures (allegedly labeled with the names of young girls and older men) that were found in his safe.