CBS NEWS:
Almost five months after convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his jail cell, 60 Minutes has obtained the photographs the New York City medical examiner’s office took, including inside his cell and during his autopsy.
The photographs shed new light on the circumstances of the disgraced financier’s apparent suicide, which has fueled online conspiracy theories. But multiple forensic pathologists 60 Minutes spoke to came to a consensus that without one image—the position of how Epstein’s body was found in his cell—it is difficult to determine the cause of death with certainty.
“Even after reviewing all the autopsy photos, reading the autopsy, and looking at the photos from inside the cell, we still have questions,” said 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, who reports on a months-long investigation into the circumstances of Epstein’s death on the broadcast Sunday.
What is not in question is that Epstein is dead. According to forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Baden, who was hired by Jeffrey Epstein’s brother to look into the death and was present during the autopsy, the fingerprints on the body found in Epstein’s cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in the early morning of August 10, 2019 match the fingerprints taken of Epstein when he was booked during a 2006 arrest in Florida.
No photo exists of Epstein’s body as it was found in his cell, Dr. Baden said. Additional forensic pathologists 60 Minutes consulted say that knowing the position in which Epstein was found would clarify certain aspects of the autopsy, including the location of the ligature around his neck, injuries found on his body postmortem, and the way lividity settled, which is the way the blood pools after death.
“At this length of time, [we] still don’t have that information,” Dr. Baden said. “So if this was called a suicide without all that information, it was a premature judgment.”
