One year after Jeffrey Epstein's death, questions remain unanswered about what happened
Forensic pathologist and Fox News contributor Dr. Michael Baden gives an update on 'Fox & Friends.'
There are still many unanswered questions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death one year after he was found unconscious in his New York City jail cell, forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday.
Baden, the pathologist hired by Epstein's brother to investigate his death, has maintained that he doesn’t believe the disgraced financier died by suicide despite the official ruling that he had killed himself.
Speaking on the one-year anniversary of the sex offender’s death in federal custody, Baden, a former New York City medical examiner who has worked on high-profile cases during a five-decade medical career, outlined some of the questions that remain unanswered.
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Host Steve Doocy noted that Baden has “made it very clear” after he had examined Epstein’s body and looked at the evidence that “the evidence points to murder.”
“Right,” Baden said, citing “the injuries to the neck.”
“The three fractures in the neck are much more typical of a strangulation than of a suicidal hanging,” Baden continued, adding that it is still unknown, a year later, what the position of Epstein's body was when he was found.
“Was he hanging? Was he on the ground? The noose that was found next to him, made from a sheet… We don't know yet what the DNA was on that noose. They should have had DNA a long time ago. Did it match Epstein or somebody else? We don't know if the door of the cell was locked or unlocked,” Baden went on to say.
In an exclusive interview on “Fox & Friends” in October, Baden first revealed Epstein’s body bore telltale signs of homicide.
At the time of his death Baden said the 66-year-old had two fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx, specifically the thyroid cartilage or Adam’s apple, as well as one fracture on the left hyoid bone above the Adam’s apple.
In January, Baden said on “America’s Newsroom” that “in hanging, one doesn’t get three fractures of the Adam's apple and the bone, the hyoid bone above it. That just doesn't happen.”
The bombshell claim by Baden last year reignited suspicions that surfaced immediately after Epstein, who was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges involving underage girls, was discovered dead in his cell on Aug. 10.
New York City Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson ruled the disgraced billionaire’s cause of death to be a suicide by hanging.
Two federal corrections guards responsible for keeping watch over Epstein and other inmates on the night the multimillionaire financier allegedly hanged himself were arrested in November.
A grand jury indictment accused Tova Noel and Michael Thomas of neglecting their duties by failing to perform checks on Epstein every half hour, as required, and of fabricating log entries to show they had.
“They were arrested and charged federally because they won't say what the condition of Epstein was or the condition of the cell was when they found him,” Baden said on Monday. “That's bizarre why the guards wouldn't tell anybody.”
“They are now awaiting federal trial and can get up to 15 years for not saying what the findings were when they found the body,” he continued, noting that the guards were supposed to go to trial back in March, but the trial is still pending because of the coronavirus.
The guards, who were working overtime because of staffing shortages when Epstein's body was found, were placed on administrative leave while the FBI and the Justice Department's Inspector General investigate.
“We believe that it’s a rush to judgment by the U.S. Attorney’s Office that they decided to charge the lowest-level employees on the totem pole for significant system failures by the Bureau of Prisons," Thomas' attorney Montell Figgins told FOX Business in November.
Figgins said his client, who has worked for the Bureau of Prisons for more than 10 years, is “ready to fight this case and to expose the system that is trying to take away his livelihood.”
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Fox News’ Melissa Leon and Greg Norman and FOX Business’ Stephanie Pagones contributed to this report.
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