'Strangled, Not Hanged...’: Doctor Who Witnessed Epstein's Postmortem Raises Questions Years After His Death

New York: Seven years after the death of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was facing federal sex trafficking charges, was found dead in a New York jail cell, the controversy surrounding the official ruling of his suicide has reignited.

Dr Michael Baden, the renowned forensic pathologist who observed Epstein’s post-mortem examination on behalf of his family, has reiterated his doubts that Epstein's death was a homicide, calling for reopening the investigation.

In a recent interview, Baden stated that new evidence and a re-examination of the original post-mortem findings point toward strangulation rather than suicidal hanging.

Baden noted that throughout his fifty-year career, he has never seen this specific pattern of injuries in a suicidal hanging, even among cases occurring in the facilities.

The Forensic Report

Epstein was found unresponsive in his jail cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges. 

The New York City medical examiner later ruled his death a suicide by hanging. Dr Baden did not conduct the autopsy himself but was present during the examination.

His argument lies in the specific physical trauma documented in the 2019 autopsy. Epstein’s neck sustained three distinct fractures, one to the hyoid bone (near the Adam’s apple) and two to the thyroid cartilage, as documented in the official autopsy report.

Five days after Epstein’s death certificate was issued pending further investigation, then-chief medical examiner Barbara Sampson ruled the death a suicide, a finding she has consistently defended.

Within five days of the initial "pending" death certificate, Chief Medical Examiner Barbara Sampson officially classified the death as a suicide, a conclusion she has firmly stood by ever since. Baden claims the decision was premature.

He noted that Sampson was not present during the actual post-mortem and that both he and the attending examiner originally agreed the case was "inconclusive" pending further study.

New Evidence

A call for a probe is further fuelled by documented security failures at the jail and recently reviewed Department of Justice (DOJ) video logs, which detailed multiple lapses at the facility, including failures to conduct and log routine cell checks.

Surveillance footage from the night of August 9, 2019, the eve of Epstein’s death, shows what an FBI memo describes as a "flash of orange" moving toward Epstein’s tier at approximately 10:39 p.m.

While official reports from the Inspector General later identified this figure as a corrections officer carrying orange linen, the timing has raised questions.

At the time, then-Attorney General Bill Barr asserted that no one had entered the housing tier that night. The discrepancy between the footage and the official narrative has fuelled public scepticism, which remains high.

A Series of Failures

Epstein’s cellmate was transferred out the night before his death and never replaced, leaving him alone despite standing orders to the contrary.

Guards failed to perform the required 30-minute checks for several hours, later admitting they had falsified logs to cover their tracks.

Responders moved Epstein’s body before it could be photographed in situ, a direct violation of Bureau of Prisons protocol for suspected suicide scenes.

As more than three million pages of Epstein-related files continue to be declassified in 2026, the demand for "forensic truth" grows louder. 

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