Inmate’s account hints at Epstein death ‘cover-up’

Published March 9, 2026
EPSTEIN is believed to have died by suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York.—AFP/file
EPSTEIN is believed to have died by suicide at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York.—AFP/file

A FRESH account from an inmate, who was housed at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York, has raised more questions about the mysterious death of Jeffrey Epstein, which was ruled by the authorities a suicide.

The inmate was jailed in the Special Housing Unit, where Epstein was also held, and made this claim in an interview with the FBI. According to the Miami Herald, the inmate told the FBI that he had heard prison guards talking about covering up Jeffrey Epstein’s death on the morning he died.

The unnamed inmate “awoke on the morning of Aug. 10, 2019, to loud commotion” and heard officers shouting “Breathe! Breathe!” at about 6:30am.

“Then he said he heard an officer say ‘Dudes, you killed that dude’. A female guard replied ‘If he is dead, we’re going to cover it up and he’s going to have an alibi — my officers’,” the FBI notes cited by the newspaper revealed. According to the unnamed prisoner, the entire wing overheard the exchange.

After Epstein’s death was confirmed, he recalled inmates saying “Miss Noel killed Jeffrey”.

According to the newspaper, the inmate identified the female guard as Tova Noel, one of two correctional officers who were “later charged with falsifying reports… that they had made their rounds that night — when they had not”. They were fired from service, and the charges against them were dropped, it reported.

After the convicted sex offender was found dead inside his jail cell, the authorities ruled his death a suicide.

Dr Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s estate to attend the autopsy, was quoted by the newspaper as saying that he believed the injuries to Epstein were more akin to strangulation than suicide.

The report also cited another story published in the New York Post, which disclosed that Noel’s bank flagged a $5,000 cash deposit she made to her Chase Bank account on July 30, 2019 — a week after Epstein was “found in his cell in what prison officials concluded was a suicide attempt on July 23, 2019”.

At the time, Epstein initially told prison officials that his cellmate had tried to kill him after extorting him for money.

“The Post also reported that on the morning of Epstein’s death on Aug. 10, Noel searched the term ‘latest on Epstein in jail’ twice — once at 5:42am and again at 5:52am, about 40 minutes before the other guard, Michael Thomas, found Epstein,” the report said, adding that Noel received thousands of dollars in cash and Zelle payments in the months before Epstein died.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2026

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