this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 37 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Yeah:

  • someone reused an existing document and put wrong date
  • the camera observing his cell failed
  • the redundant camera observing his cell also failed
  • the remaining cameras that could capture something apparently turn off for 3 minutes every day (that's apparently normal for security cameras)
  • they accidentally removed him from suicide watch
  • he managed to kill himself despite cells being designated to prevent that
  • he was missing a cell buddy just for that night
  • three fractures on his neck which are unusual to hanging

Each of them could be explained somehow through assumptions, but there are quite a lot of assumptions, don't you think?

I would imagine that in 21 century, FBI would have system to enter such notices and it would populate it with current date, because why would you want to modify date if you aren't doing anything shady?

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The first bullet point is infinitely more trivial than the others, and knowing way too much about document management and content management, I'm aware that it's common to make date errors in templated forms. That one doesn't meet the reasonable-doubt test.

The other bullet points, though... a lot of things about that situation stink to high heaven.

Don't get distracted by the small stuff. If you're wrong about it, bad actors will claim that that's proof that everything you're saying is wrong too.

[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 days ago

You have a valid point.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago (3 children)

The questioning about this article is less about whether he did or did not kill himself but more so whether the date error is evidence he didn’t kill himself

Even if we were 100% sure he was murdered, why would some lowly typist know about it in advance and pre write a report. Like obviously the admin is incompetent and left so many glaring holes but why would they tell a non essential person?

At the end of the day it’s basically impossible that he actually killed himself of his own volition but to say that a date error is proof of that is incredibly flimsy

[–] neatchee@piefed.social 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

it's also plausible that, if it were a murder and not a suicide, everything was prepared the day before but they couldn't go on time and had to wait a day.

there are a lot of possibilities. certainly a critical error is one of them. but if we're going to talk about plausible explanations that isn't the only one

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Why though. Why would you prepare the document the day before? Why do you need to have it "ready to go"? There's literally no logical reason to premake such a document. It doesn't benefit the murder plan at all.

[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Did you just ask "why premeditate a murder?"

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No, I didn't.

This is akin to calling the police for the murder of your spouse BEFORE you commit the murder. There's literally no good reason not to wait until after.

Please, name me a logical reason why, before you commit the act, during the planning stage, or even when you are moments from planning to execute the plan, you would call someone entirely unrelated to prepare a document about what you are going to do, instead of calling them AFTER.

[–] SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 points 19 hours ago

Oh now I see what you're saying. I agree, there isn't a good reason for it. The only thing I can think of is that the admin is incompetent.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago

... evidently the concept of planning a nefarious act is... a novel concept, for some.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

It absolutely 100% does make sense to do that.

It is called crafting a cover story.

Have you ever done something for one reason, but told people you did it for another reason?

Have you ever been in a scenario where you were considering whether or not you would do something like that, but realized you would need a convincing false narrative for other people first, before you considered actually doing the thing?

It very much benefits a group of people or an organization that is doing something like this, to get all their stories straight, before they proceed.

If your cover story works properly...

... no one will ever know, or at least not untill so much time has passed as to make being caught not really matter any more.

... This is just the logic of how all kinds of people and organizations who need to maintain one kind of outward public image or reputation, while actually doing things that do not match their outward appearance, how they act.

[–] Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 1 points 1 day ago

No, it doesn't.

This is akin to calling the police for the murder of your spouse BEFORE you commit the murder. There's literally no good reason not to wait until after.

Please, name me a logical reason why, before you commit the act, during the planning stage, or even when you are moments from planning to execute the plan, you would call someone entirely unrelated to prepare a document about what you are going to do, instead of calling them AFTER.

[–] stephen01king@piefed.zip 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think he made a point that the date might be auto populated and one who generated it didn't notice or forgot about it.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

But again what possible advantage does it serve to pretype the report? And either you had to inform the clerk of your plan so they can write the report (why have more witnesses) or you had to bypass the clerk (why deviate from “business as usual)

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

... Or, the message was not drawn up by some random lowly typist, and was drawn up by somebody in a much, much higher position.

Not sure if you've ever worked in any kind of large bureaucratic corporation of other kind of organization, but that happens all the time, when somebody wants to specifically handle something personally, and also have the plausible deniability of 'random clerk made error.'

The nature of bureaucracies is to a large extent that those best at establishing as many avenues of plausible deniability as possible, those who can set themselves up with the ability to throw other people under the bus... they tend to 'win', persist longer and get promoted higher in said bureacracy.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Them writing the report especially in advance would take away their plausible deniability and just bring more attention to the scene

The report had no urgency to be done so having it done in advance especially considering in a murder details could have changed seems pointless

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Them writing the report especially in advance would take away their plausible deniability and just bring more attention to the scene

... assuming that it can be determined conclusively that that happened.

Which, it often cannot be, in a bureaucratic system that normally has some kind of subordinate to do those things of things, but where sometimes the superior person just directly does it instead.

So ok, you clearly have not worked in a large bureaucratic organization before, or ... this would be very obvious to you.

The report had no urgency to be done so having it done in advance especially considering in a murder details could have changed seems pointless

This is just nonsensical.

The entire ... thing here is a statement that was released urgently.

The entire contention is that it may have been so urgent that it was actually pre-planned and drafted prior to the actual event.

You are just entirely dismissing this possibility, to prove that this possibility did not happen.

I am not saying 100% either way that it was a clerical error or a premeditated construction.

I don't know for certain either way.

But you are using very bad logic to argue that it was a clerical error.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Imagine you rob a jewelry store, and you want to make sure you have an iron clad alibi so you have a person pretend to be you and get seen on video camera at a bank.

Would you request that video in advance from the bank so as soon as a cop comes to see you, you can present it? No! Because pre obtaining an alibi for a crime you are pretending you didn’t commit makes you look guilty

Writing the report in advance makes you look guilty even if it wasn’t murder

Bypassing standard operating procedures and having a senior person (someone high enough that they are “worthy” of the knowledge that the suicide was staged) writing a report is also suspicious

Having a report prefilled out so it can be urgently released instead of the normal wait time is also suspicious

So we go back to Occam’s razor is the assumption that they ignored numerous basic attempts to cover their tracks that any idiot who watched an episode of NCIS would know to do, or did a person put in the wrong date?

Again I am not denying in the slightest that Epstein didn’t kill himself but the argument that this is proof of it is ludicrous.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This recent analogy is completely unlike the scenario we are talking about.

You are talking about an independent bad actor who is making requests and attempting to do alibi construction via independent organizations that they are not a member of.

The scenario with the pre-dated Epstein letter is potentially an 'inside job' kind of scenario, where the bad actors would be members of the organization that would be facilitating the crime.


It would be more like a jewelry store owner hiring a stick up man to rob and then torch his place so the store owner can collect an insurance payout on his otherwise failing business.

And then the jewelry store owner has a drafted up version of the insurance claim paperwork that is dated to the day before the actual robbery and arson took place, because the stick up man he hired has to delay 24hrs at the last minute.

So then the robbery/arson occurs on the 10th, the store owner goes back to his insurance claim draft, moves the date forward a day, saves it as another file, then submits that to the insurance people.

... but, a subsequent law enforcement investigation into the entire thing finds that the jewelry store owner actually forgot to delete the old draft of the insurance claim, dated to the 9th, prior to the robbery and arson.


Writing the report in advance makes you look guilty even if it wasn’t murder

Correct.

The document with the August 9th date we are talking about was not actually released by the AG office.

It was discovered to exist during the subsequent FBI investigation into the entire event/affair.

As in, they had this drafted up, you know, oddly, suspiciously, but did not release it publically, because that would indeed have been odd, strange and potentially incriminating... but they also forgot to delete it.

Which, by your own logic, makes them look guilty.

Yep.

Uh huh.

That's... the entire point.


From the article:

The document released by the US Department of Justice in the latest set of the Epstein Files describes Epstein being found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in Manhattan, where he was declared dead.

However it is dated Friday, August 9, 2019, while prison records and official document show it was not until August 10, 2019, that a corrections officer delivering breakfast found Epstein unresponsive in his cell.

Here is the document that actually was released to the public, dated August 10th:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/statement-manhattan-us-attorney-death-defendant-jeffrey-epstein

And here is the seeming early draft of it, dated August 9th:

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%25208/EFTA00013180.pdf

... these links are both in a high level comment that our own conversation descends from.

Please familiarize yourself with the actual details of the case, detective.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

And if the jewelry store owner had a dedicated person on the staff whose job it is to fill out insurance reports would he tell the person to write the letter in advance (giving away that he intended to commit insurance fraud) or would he bypass the employee who now is suspicious and is a possible whistleblower?

Then is the insurance investigator in on it as well? Or why isn’t the insurance investigator suspicious that a person had a full list of the things stolen/burned immediately when it happened instead of taking the normal amount of time to process it

And finally the same point I have iterated multiple times now that you keep ignoring is WHATS THE ADVANTAGE OF DOING IT IN ADVANCE? It literally is only a chance for it to be more suspicious and makes you look suspicious.

It’s a generic letter head that was likely copy pasted from th day prior

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You are the one positing the idea the an underling clerk wrote it.

I am the one saying its possible that did not happen and it was just written by, you know, the AG, the guy whose name is on the letterhead.

The point of doing it advance is to have it ready to go when the time comes.

And sometimes, plans change a bit, and he accidentally forgot to remove his early draft.

This really isn't that hard of a concept to grasp.

Our entire convo chain stems from me saying 'maybe it was not a clerk that wrote it.'

You seem to be incapable of considering this, conceptually.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Did you read what I read… I addressed both, it’s the same conclusion

There is no advantage to having it done in advance

Having it “ready to go” makes it suspicious

It’s a short letter to write

Even if a person did want to have it ready the more logical thing to do would be to type it up in a word doc and then copy paste the relevant part onto the report with the official letter head

I am understanding your point and refuting it. It is not that you aren’t being clear with your opinion it’s that you believe your opinion is fact and are refusing to listen to criticism. It literally feels like I am talking to a Comcast chat bot where I keep saying “problems with billing” and you keep responding with “would you like to hear about our new cell phone plan”

If you aren’t going to read what I am writing and have a conversation then just don’t respond because you have not addressed the most basic refutation to your point I have stated numerous times

[–] HumanOnEarth@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think you mean coincidences not assumptions

[–] takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 days ago

Occam's Razor talks about assumptions.

If we assume that the goal was to kill Epstein then all those events can be explained together with that one assumption.

If those were just coincidences, it means that those mere chances happening independently and for each of them we need to make a separate assumption (the cameras just happen to broke on that day, the backup ones maybe broke last week, but they didn't fix it, one of the guards who fell asleep celebrated his birthday until late and didn't sleep, the other one couldn't fall asleep last night because neighbor's dog was barking all night etc a lot of assumptions)

You forgot the sleepwalking prison guards captured on camera.