Struggle to Contain Epstein Suicide Saga Continues

The latest salvo in the Epstein suicide saga is the predictable scapegoating of front-line staff at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (see "Jeffrey Epstein Death: 2 Guards Slept Through Checks and Falsified Records" by Katie Benner and Danielle Ivory). Two guards have been placed on administrative leave and the warden reassigned. The guards apparently slept through watch duty and then falsified records to cover this up.

This doesn't explain why Epstein was removed from suicide watch:

He had apparently tried to commit suicide once before, on July 23, shortly after he was denied bail, which resulted in him being placed on suicide watch, prison officials familiar with the incident have said.

Six days later, prison officials determined that he was no longer a threat to his own life and returned him to a cell in the 9 South housing unit with another inmate, officials said. That inmate was later transferred out of the cell, leaving Mr. Epstein alone on Friday night.

Though it is standard practice to house people who have recently been taken off suicide watch with another person, the prison did not replace Mr. Epstein’s cellmate.

Leaving Epstein alone is what needs to be explained. Maybe one could write off this decision to bureaucratic incompetence if the prisoner in question was the lowest, most inconsequential of low-level offenders. But that wasn't the case with Epstein. Epstein was a superstar prisoner.

But the mainstream containment of the Epstein suicide saga is by no means complete. Take the trial balloon floated by Benner and Ivory purporting to explain how Epstein killed himself:

Prison staff discovered Mr. Epstein, 66, dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, officials said. He had apparently hanged himself with a bedsheet, likely fastening the sheet to a top bunk and pitching himself forward, law enforcement and prison officials said.

Those bunk beds must be awfully high.

A number investigations are underway, including interest by the House Judiciary Committee. It's going to be hard to control this narrative.