Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - The truth about millionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the woman who helped him. Part 2

Episode Date: February 7, 2020

What happened during millionaire perv Jeffrey Epstein's final days? While a famed forensic pathologist claims Epstein's death aligns with homicidal strangulation, officials listed it as a suicide.Joining Nancy Grace to discuss: James Shelnutt: 27-years Atlanta Metro Major Case detective, SWAT Officer (RET), Attorney  Bobby Chacon: Former Special Agent FBI, current star of FB Watch series, "Curse of Akakor"   Joe Scott Morgan: Forensics Expert, Professor of Forensics Jacksonville State University & author of "Blood Beneath My Feet"  Dr Bethany Marshall: Beverly Hills Psychoanalyst Melissa Cronin: Investigative journalist and author  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. The final days of Jeffrey Epstein culminating in finding him dead in his jail cell. It's hard to believe that so many coincidences occurred to create a perfect storm. The not one guard, but two guards decided to take a nap and shop online. Both of them didn't do a single round, not one for their whole shift, several hours, eight hours at least. The video recorder just happened not to be working and or they preserved the wrong video. The hours before the suicide, the actual death of Epstein, his cellmate is removed, even though after a suicide, you're supposed to have a cellmate, a suicide attempt, you're supposed to have a cellmate.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, an all-star panel to figure out what's next. James Shelnut with me. 27 years Metro Major case SWAT officer, retired now lawyer. Bobby Chacon, former special agent, FBI, star of Facebook Watch series, Curse of Akakor. Professor of Forensics, Jacksonville State University.

Author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joseph Scott Morgan, renowned psychoanalyst out of Beverly Hills, at drbethanymarshall.com, Melissa Cronin, investigative journalist and co-author of Epstein, Dead Men Tell No Tales. Now, I've been around the block more times than I can count. I've been in more jails than I can even remember. And I can tell you the condition of his jail cell at the time of his death was highly irregular in many, many ways. To Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensic Jacksonville State University, author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Now let's just start with what you observed before we get into his autopsy, what you observed that was so wrong with his jail cell.

These images that I've seen were provided from the 60 Minutes special that was done. And I was shocked. In correctional facilities, prison facilities, it is paramount that prisoners commonly keep their cell in an ordered fashion because chaos is like a child. Chaos in a room leads to chaos in the mind. It makes it very difficult to control people. When you look at the interior of your cell, Nancy, and people can see this online, it's squalid. You've got piles of cloth laying everywhere. It's all orange cloth, mattress laying on the floor, and it's dirty. You can actually see stains on the floor. So, yeah, I agree with what the gentleman said in the interview about it having potentially having bugs and Lord only knows what else but one of the things that's really troubling about this whole thing two major things this guy's on has recently been on suicide watch okay but yet when i take a look at these these images it's observable you can actually see what appears to be a hose laying on the floor that might be an inch and a half in diameter it's kind of lengthy and you can see an electrical cord

that's laying on the floor. Now, these are something that can be used to facilitate as a ligature for hanging or for any other purpose that you might want to do that's nefarious. And another piece to this, when you take a look at his top bunk, it's a two-bunk structure. The top bunk, the mattress is missing off of it. And you see this guy has gotten medications up there. He's allowed to keep his own medications in the cell. It's striking, you know, when you consider about, you know, you consider a lot of the correctional deaths that I've worked. If a patient, if a prisoner slash patient is on meds, those have to be distributed by the infirmary.

The nurse will come by along with a guard and they'll give you your daily meds. This guy had a slew of medications up there. So this whole thing is very, very troubling when you take a look at it in the context that he had allegedly previously attempted to kill himself. Listen, what we do know is that Jeffrey Epstein is dead. The fingerprints of the body in the morgue matched the fingerprints that were taken of Jeffrey Epstein from when he was booked in Florida. How long does the autopsy typically take from beginning to end? Normally about two hours, a routine autopsy.

We spoke to multiple pathologists for this story, and they all pretty much agree on one thing, that without knowing the position of the body, the way that Jeffrey Epstein's body was found it's almost impossible to determine the cause of death with any certainty knowing the position that a body was found in is a key piece of evidence in any death investigation and in this case we don't know how jeffrey epstein's body was found we still don't have that information so if this was called a suicide without all that information, it was a premature judgment.

Hearing our friends at 60 Minute and our friend, Dr. Michael Bodden, who oversaw the autopsy without knowing the position of the body, no way to know the true cause of death. Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic expert, why? Well, you know, one of the problems is that what Dr. Biden has talked about, he can't contextualize what he's seeing at autopsy along with what the findings are at the scene, you know, and he doesn't know that because these people haven't been, haven't provided a statement yet. They've locked it, they've been locked down, these guards and this sort of thing. So this is essential.

You know, when you begin to think about this, and I'm reflecting back to one of the images that folks can see online, one of the things that Dr. Bodden is talking about that's so perplexing is that Epstein has got a specific linear mark on his neck, and it runs almost parallel to the shoulders. In other words, it's on the neck and it runs straight back. With hangings, typically what you're going to see is something called tenting feature, T-E-N-T-I-N-G, like a pup tent. That is if someone is hung, if they have hung themselves, for instance, the back of the noose that they have created will come to an acute point in the back of the head. And so it's going to pull the ligature mark up behind the ears typically. That's not what you're seeing in this image.

And granted, we're only limited. We have a limited view of this. I didn't see what Biden saw at the autopsy, and I certainly haven't seen all of the images, but just at first blush looking at this, this is why he's saying this is not consistent with a typical hanging. I'm not saying it could be atypical, but it's just not typical what you normally see in these kinds of cases. Typically with a hanging, you see a mark on the neck that looks like a V or a sharp smile because the ligature goes upwards in the back due to the pressure placed on the neck. Speaking of the pressure placed on the neck, there are three snaps in the neck.

One on the right, one on the left, one on the hyoid. Very unusual for a suicide. Very rare. In fact, I've never seen multiple snaps in the neck when it was not a homicide in all my years of assessing homicides and suicides, not once. Also, as Joseph Scott Morgan pointed out, there is a horizontal line across Epstein's neck, not the typical V-shape or smile shape left from a hanging. To hang oneself from the side of a bunk bed does not allow for any velocity at the hanging that you would see.

For instance, when you watch a movie and somebody gets hung, they jump off something or they're pushed off something, and that velocity actually can snap a bone in the neck. When you are easing yourself forward from a low bunk bed, you don't get that velocity. There should not have been any broken bones. To Melissa Cronin, a journalist, co-author, Epstein, Dead Men Tell No Tales, what do you make of the state of his cell and all of the coincidences, not one, not two, but eight, nine, ten coincidences leading up to his death? It really, every single piece of information that comes out about this over the last few months just makes me

more and more incredulous. One of the first things that I heard about kind of his state of mind in this period was when I spoke to a man who had visited with him a week before he supposedly committed suicide for the final time, a man named David Schoen, an attorney from Georgia. He was a longtime friend of Epstein who visited with him on August 1st, and he said that he was in great spirit and that he was planning for the next stage of his legal fight. So from that moment forward, everything that happened seems totally counter to what you might expect from a man in that position. And leading up until the photos that came out just over a little week ago, it's just, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, honestly. Well, when is it, Melissa, that his lawyers last spoke to him? Was it in the hours just before his death? They were meeting with him every single day when

he was in jail. So yes, they saw him just a few hours before he supposedly committed suicide. And although he did change his will and sign a will, which might make you think he was thinking of his death, it's still overall, it's still just hard to believe that the official story is what actually happened. So the lawyer saw him around 6 p.m. that evening. At what time was his death? We think it was in the early, early morning hours. Take a listen to our friends at 60 Minutes. Guards found Epstein at approximately 6.33 a.m. and sources say one of them could be overheard saying, breathe Epstein, breathe. Crime stories with Nancy Grace.

Guards found Epstein at approximately 6.33 a.m. And sources say one of them could be overheard saying, breathe, Epstein, breathe. I thought at the time. Dr. Bodden believes, based on the autopsy, that Epstein died around 4.30 that morning, two hours earlier. The guards say they came in at 6.30. They found him. They call emergency services. They tried to do CPR with him, but he's dead. But rather than leave the body there, they take the body to an emergency room.

Yeah. Is that normal protocol? No, that's not normal protocol. The EMS people normally, and especially in jail, should not move a dead body. He's right. Bureau of Prison Protocol mandates a suicide scene should be treated with the same level of protection as any crime scene in which a death has occurred. Dr. Bethany Marshall, he was upbeat. Last words to his lawyer, see you Sunday. And then in about eight hours, he kills himself. What do you make of that, Bethany?

You know, Nancy, an argument could be made either way. In terms of suicide, often people are upbeat before they prematurely terminate their life. And he had a lot of the psychological characteristics that lead to suicide amongst the elderly. A change in life circumstances would be one. Impulsivity, like the type of obsessive compulsive disorder, poor decision making, affect dysregulation, which is a fancy term for not being able to control your impulses. So one could make an argument that in the matrix of his mind, he was happy because he was going to kill himself. On the other hand, in terms of a group psychology perspective, one could make the argument for a homicide. Sex offenders are hated in prison. And on the other hand, he was a huge public figure. This is a huge case. Everybody knew about it. If some harm befell him behind bars, there could be some

kind of prison cover-up because the prison doesn't want any more attention called to a deplorable system because this has been in the news every day how horrible our prison system is. And this would be just one more example of squalid conditions. And there could be a cover-up because of that. One young woman claiming she was Epstein's sex victim says she was sex assaulted by the pedophile who called himself her quote godfather full-on raping her when she was 13 years old this girl puts in sworn affidavits says she meets Epstein and his pimp Jelan Maxwell at Michigan's interlochen Arts Camp, where she was in voice training. This, according to court documents now filed.

The two quickly take her under their wing, taking her on shopping sprees in her home state of Florida, taking her out on the town, taking her to movies. But according to her and these court documents, Epstein slowly begins pedophilia when shopping with her and Maxwell. Instead of letting her pick out clothes she wanted, he, Epstein, insists she pick out and wear little girls' cotton underwear. Bethany, help me. Well, let's think of pedophilia. In pedophilia, there are more than five years age difference between the victim and the perpetrator. The victim is usually either prepubescent or is around the area of pubescence. So the fact that she was 13 years old means that she meets that criteria. He's obviously not able to procure

children, little girls. So he ages up just a little bit into an adolescent and then tries to dress her like she's a smaller child. These shopping sprees are a very elaborate, expensive way to groom the victim. And I think that what he is doing, it's a little like a cross between sex trafficking and a sex cult. Often with a sex cult, you have a sex obsessed, very powerful sociopathic leader who recruits other women and other people to procure women to come into the cult. And he can't quite do it that way. You know, it's not like these women are, these girls are willingly a part of a cult,

but he tries to seduce them as if to have a fantasy that they're going to join the family. And I think one final piece is with this type of pedophilia, often there's like a mommy-daddy little girl fantasy, so that he and Jelaine may have had this type of pedophilia, often there's like a mommy-daddy little girl fantasy, so that he and Jelaine may have had this fantasy of like, this is their little girl as well as their sex slave, and they were carrying out this sort of frenzied sexual fantasy together. We're talking about the death of billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who's found dead in a correctional facility in New York. This is who Epstein is.

This little girl whose lawyers have now filed claims against Epstein and his female pimp, a rich crack, Ghislaine Maxwell. She says in sworn statements that she was approached by these two at age 13, that they get to one of his apartments in New York City, and he would allegedly rape her there over the next year. Even though she resisted, Doe says she was forced on her stomach and raped. That Epstein stated, Epstein stated when she ever did was old enough for a boyfriend, she would quote, want the sex to be good and that she should quote, get it over with already, meaning losing her virginity. Okay, that's who we're talking about those are claims made in her civil lawsuit this guy escaped justice for years in the state of florida even though he got a swat on the wrist for child sex he was

allowed in and out daily from his jail cell into a chauffeured car to his office where there would be a parade of young girls in and out. Then in the evening, his chauffeur would just drive him back to the jail. I mean, to Melissa Cronin, investigative journalist, co-author, Epstein, Dead Men Tell No Tales, it's almost too much to believe that that happened under the watch of the Florida law enforcement. It is. And, you know, even some members of law enforcement themselves have come out and said how outrageous it was. There's a man named John Mark Dugan, who was the deputy sheriff of Palm Beach County at the time that Epstein was in prison there. And he was in charge

of overseeing Epstein's work release. We spoke to him and he said that the officers who worked with Epstein actually called him the client instead of something like the inmate, which shows just how far they were willing to bend the rules for this man. Now, Dugan was so disgusted that he eventually quit the force and he even left the state of Florida because he was so concerned that they would come after him for retribution because he was talking about how ridiculous it was and how out of order it was that they let a man who was a known predator back out into the community when he was supposed to be serving time for those crimes. And now, coincidentally, all of those logs stating visitors in and out of the

building where Epstein's office was have been lost to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst joining us out of Beverly Hills. You can find her at drbethanymarshall.com. What is the mentality of someone that stands by and lets something horrible happen, something horribly unjust and wrong happen. Are you talking about Maxwell Jelaine or all these? Well, first of all, I don't think Gil and Maxwell stood by and watched anything. Gil and Maxwell, according to many of these little girls, not just one of them, but many of them, would actually recruit them from public places like a park, like a mall, to meet Epstein and then get raped by him and tell them what to

do to, quote, please him. She wasn't on the sidelines. She was part of it. I'm talking about law enforcement. And you know, I usually side with them. But to stand by and watch a predator, a pedophile go in and out of jail every day in a chauffeured car, that is wrong, Bethany. How could they stand by and watch and do nothing? Nancy, it is wrong. And I think it's the same mentality as women who fall in love with men behind bars. They pretend not to put their thoughts together about what's really happening. They see the perpetrator as having some kind of a powerful position in society. I think the law enforcement who stood by may have had secret sexual fantasies themselves, believing that having sex with underage girls is somehow okay. Perhaps they were deprived in terms of

excitement in their own lives and they had this pathological need for stimulation. So inserting themselves fantasy-wise into Jeffrey Epstein's life was very exciting for them. It's like, ooh, where is he going? What's happening? And then there's the idea of Jeffrey Epstein's celebrity. People who are celebrities often are immune from consequences and they saw him as powerful and rich. And how could anything bad happen to such a rich, powerful man? We better call him the client and we better let him come and go at will. But I think deep down that the darkest, most horrible part of this is I think law enforcement knew that little girls were being raped and they took some secret satisfaction. They minimized it and they thought it was no big deal,

Nancy. To Bobby Giacome, former FBI, current star of Facebook Watch series Curse of Akakor, how do you think this happened, was allowed to happen? It wasn't an accident that Epstein got in and out of his jail in Florida every day to clearly go rape other

children in his law office, was chauffeured to it. How did law enforcement stand by and not only let it happen, but facilitated? Well, I really, I take exception to those characterizations. Clearly, it wasn't facilitated by anyone in law enforcement. The troops on the ground. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Well, hold on.

Wait a minute, Bobby. That's not correct. That is correct. Melissa Cronin, isn't it true that the jail in Florida let him log, let him in and out of the jail? I'm telling you. That there were so-called sheriff's guards at the door of his law office in Florida, I mean, of his office in Florida? The U.S. attorney at the time, the top federal prosecutor who then later became a member of Trump's cabinet, was the one responsible for the sweetheart deal that he was given. And that sent the message down the pipe. There's very little a rank and file law enforcement officer can do other than throw your hands up or like the undersheriff did,

walk away and quit. That's what you can do. You can't, you know, we aren't free to go and arrest people without the prosecutor's office. You know that, you know, we aren't free to go and arrest people without the prosecutor's office. You know that, Nancy, you were a prosecutor. So there were people- Hey, right there, cut his mic. Don't tell me what I know and what I don't know. You can spout out anything you want, but don't put your thoughts on me because these sheriffs knew that he was a pedophile. Melissa Cronin, isn't it true that every day he had to sign in and out of the jail and he was chauffeured to his office and there would be deputies guarding that office. There were people there to make sure he got back in the car. And those people, those so-called guards, saw young girls going in and out of his office all day. Nancy, that is 100%

true. And although we don't have the logs from those visits, we do have the logs from his commissary purchases when he was in prison. And those logs show that Jeffrey Epstein, a middle-aged man, was purchasing women's size five underwear, which were described as, quote, so small they wouldn't fit an average-sized adult woman. How could somebody see him making that purchase a pedophile and think that he was reformed or think that he wasn't up to no good? Who can tell me a reason that somebody would buy that? Yeah. Tell me that, Bobby Chacon.

Tell me. Answer that. And you're saying they didn't facilitate? Oh, yes, they did. He was protected by the highest levels of the prosecutor's office in that district. And the word came down. And there was, I don't know what you expect these people to do other than walk away and quit their jobs, which some of them clearly did. Yeah, you're right.

You're exactly right. James Sheldon, 27 years, Metro major case, now lawyer. You darn right. I expect a complaint when I see a crime happening. Yes, that is what I expect from law enforcement, Shelnut, and it's a heavy burden. But when you put one hand on the Bible and you raise your hand and you take the oath, the oath to seek justice, that supersedes everything else, Shelnut. I have never, ever, ever seen this level of treatment given to a sex pedophile, a person who has victimized children. I've never seen a person like that escorted around, chauffeured around, given the royal treatment. They're lucky to be alive half the time they're in jail.

The inmates don't like them. The law enforcement officers don't like them. And I'm just appalled by this. I'm going to tell you something. Just because somebody up above you tells you to do something doesn't mean that you lose your individual discretion as a law enforcement officer. You do put your hand out there, and you do raise your hand, and you do say that you're going to follow the laws. All lawful orders, all lawful directives that are given to you. I believe that many of these directives given to them were unlawful or unethical.

It should have been reported. There's no indication that anybody tried to go above and beyond the sheriff's department to some outside agency to anywhere else to try to get some help. It's just simply unacceptable. I don't buy it for two seconds. It's not right. And it's disgusting. And, you know, Melissa Cronin, investigative journalist, co-author, Epstein, dead men tell no tales on Amazon. There's always writing to the paper, making anonymous calls.

There's a million ways to seek justice. If you don't want to lose your job and you want to do something, send that letter, send an email from Internet Cafe, anything to let it be known that young girls are being raped and they would walk right by the so-called guards into Epstein's office and back out a couple hours later, day in, day out, and nobody did a thing, Melissa. You know, Nancy, it just, it really does disgust me because we have these people, grown adults, you can say, you know, oh, it was so hard for them to put themselves in the position of telling the truth. They put so much at risk. But you know what? 34 young girls under the age of 18 came forward and spoke to the police about what they had experienced. And these are the women that actually were raped, that actually did have their lives ruined, that actually were in danger from a predator and his powerful friends. They had enough balls to come forward and talk to the police.

So why can't we expect that the people who are paid to uphold the law, who are grown men, most cases armed, who are part of the law enforcement, why don't we expect them to do their duty and actually say what's going on and protect the people that they're supposed to protect? It really just turns my stomach. crime stories with nancy grace and here we are epstein dead behind bars to bobby jacob former fbi star Facebook Watch series Curse of Acacor. It's my understanding that you actually know a young man that committed suicide in the very same institution, correctional institution, MCC. What happened? Yeah, Nancy, I've been in that facility many times in my career.

And my office, the FBI office, was literally located across the street from the MCC. And I had a young man cooperating with me in a major drug investigation in 1990 and 1991. We had just finished interviewing him at the U.S. Attorney's Office. He was sent back to the MCC, by the way, because he was cooperating. He was in Nine South, which is the SHU, which is the special housing unit. He was not on the suicide watch, but he was in the special housing unit to keep him safe from other inmates because, you know, it gets around very quickly that someone's cooperating. I got the call around 10 p.m. I was still at my office because we were in trial prep. And I literally walked across the street and got there around the same time that EMS, the Emergency Medical Service, New York City, was arriving.

And he was still hanging. The protocol was followed. They left him in place until we got into the cell and we did a proper crime scene. Because a suicide has to be, at first, treated as a homicide, because if you don't and you treat it as a suicide and you cut people down or you move evidence, you can never reclaim that evidence. You've lost it forever. And so we treat it as a crime scene. We did all the photographs and the measurements and things. And you know, he was obviously already dead when the guards found him. There was no chance of reviving him, but protocol was followed. And I have no idea why in this case with such a high profile prisoner, those same protocols weren't followed because if they had been, as Dr. Joseph Scott

Morgan said earlier, we would have that valuable information about how Epstein actually died. Okay, so what about that? What do you make of that, Joseph Scott Morgan? It's like so many other times, Nancy. Anytime that someone of high profile dies, everybody absolutely loses their mind and they ignore protocol. We've seen this over and over and over again, going all the way back to Kennedy, even talking about Justice Scalia when he died. It's somehow these people are transported into another level and you ignore what should be done. Whereas if it's just common everyday Joe Blow, they're going to follow procedure. And just like Bobby said, in his particular case, they were able to appreciate the scene in what's referred to as a pristine condition. You know, once you walk across that threshold, you can never walk across it again for the first time.

And so you treat everything like a homicide. And now, now we're left with this guy that's dead. We have so many unanswered questions simply because people didn't pay attention to what was there in front of them. You treat every death as if it is a homicide. Now, these questions will be asked forever and ever and ever. To Melissa Cronin, investigative journalist, co-author, Epstein, dead men tell no tales.

And to Dr. Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, Beverly Hills, Dr. Bethany, the two guards aren't talking. They have yet to be investigated. And this is why. Federal prosecutors say surveillance video makes clear the guards searched the internet and appeared to have been asleep. Both guards were working overtime. When you're being forced to stay over shifts, not go home and see your family, you start to see people take shortcuts. Tyrone Covington is the president of the union that represents the guards, who both now face criminal charges and have pleaded not guilty. I absolutely believe that these staff members are being made a scapegoat.

Because it was Jeffrey Epstein? Because it was Jeffrey Epstein. Covington doesn't think there was any foul play, and he says there should be surveillance video to prove it. In November, Attorney General William Barr told reporters he personally reviewed surveillance video that showed nobody entered the area where Epstein was held. But sources say a second camera inside the tier, the one that could have seen Epstein's cell door and the doors of other inmates inmates was not working that night. That's CBS 60 Minutes speaking.

So, Dr. Bethany Marshall, these two guards have a lot to say, but they have yet to be interviewed. And their lawyers cite an ongoing criminal investigation. So they basically have not even been spoken to. We know, Nancy, Dr. Joe Scott Morgan took the words right out of my mouth. When somebody is high profile, people do lose their minds. Look at all the law enforcement that stood by. They glamorized Epstein. They didn't see that he was raping little girls in his office. They saw a high profile, sexy guy. And look at the guards. They slacked while they were on the job. Obviously they're tired. They may be overworked. They didn't take their job seriously, but they broke protocol

in many ways. He was allowed to have all those medications on his top bunk. There was all kinds of cloth and material in his prison cell where he could, what he could use to hang himself. And then once he did suicide or was a victim of homicide, they scrambled to cover up. They broke protocol. They were afraid of getting into trouble. So they did not do what they were supposed to do. And I think the prison, the prison guards, the prison system is trying to cover up for a squalid, poor environment that did not safeguard their prisoner. I think it may be much, much more motivation than squalid conditions. Listen to our friends at 60 Minutes. This was a monumental failure on all levels, and that's why it has fueled the conspiracies, and I understand that.

Cameron Lindsay is a former federal prison warden. Who should have made sure that he wasn't taken off suicide watch, in your opinion? The leadership of the facility should have stepped in and said, while I appreciate the perspective of you, chief psychologist, I'm gonna override that decision and we're going to leave Epstein on suicide watch, especially subsequent to the suicide attempt that he had. Epstein was moved back to the SHU and assigned a new cellmate. Each tier of the SHU has eight cells,

usually with two inmates per cell. Epstein's cell, 220, was about 15 feet away and up a set of stairs from the guard station with a single locked gate between them. The gate is the only way in or out of the tier. They were 15 feet away and let him die? Melissa Cronin, Bethany Marshall suggesting that the cover-up is because they don't want the squalid conditions at MCC to come out. I think it may be much more than that, the reason that Epstein ends up dead. It absolutely is.

I mean, it's not just about rats or mice or bugs that Epstein wrote about in a note that was found in his cell. This shows just the highest level of corruption that's happening inside law enforcement. The night that he died, there were only 18 workers guarding 750 people. So if even that is the one thing that we know to be true about that night, that's outrageous. That's 0.02 people guarding one prisoner in the cell. And there should have been at least one, if not two, people guarding someone like Epstein, someone who has information and secrets about one of the biggest criminal enterprises that we've seen in our

lifetime. There's something much more nefarious and bigger, darker questions that we have to ask about our wider criminal justice system and why something like this would be able to happen right underneath their noses. If we know about this case and how horrible all the lapses were with him, how many other people that are horrible criminals are also at risk of further harming our society. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. In the last hours, we learned that a billionaire businessman, Leslie Wexner, refuses to reveal the full scope of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's alleged multi-million dollar theft. Okay, now, who is Wexner? He is the founder of L Brands. And just one of the things L Brands owns is Victoria's Secrets. Okay, now this guy, Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of L Brands empire, accused Epstein of stealing vast sums, millions of dollars of his personal fortune.

And he is refusing to reveal how many millions, we know it's multi-millions, from him. So Wexner disclosed a $46 million donation from Epstein to a foundation run by Wexner's wife. And that was just a portion of the funds he recovered from Epstein. So $46 million is a portion of what was stolen. How much did Epstein allegedly steal? Melissa Cronin, this is huge. Not only is he connecting the rich and powerful to underage girls. We know Prince Andrew of Wales swears he never met Virginia Guthrie.

And then there's a picture of him with his arm around her like a deer in the headlights when he's photographed, so that was a lie, and that was at one of Epstein's, quote, parties. We know his condo, his townhouse, was blanketed in surveillance cameras where he would have people over to have sex with young girls. know there's videos where they are i don't know that what do you think these millionaires would pay to get their hands on videos of themselves with underage girls now we've got at least a 46 million dollar theft melissa now nancy the question isn't even what epstein stole the question is what what he was given. Because sure, Wexner is now saying, oh, he took that money from me. But we know that Wexner also gave Epstein a multi-million dollar mansion in the heart of New York City, at the time, one of the largest and most expensive

residential properties in New York. People just don't give their business managers multi-million dollar mansions for no reason. And we also know that Epstein was using his connection with Wexner to actively predate on women. As you mentioned, Wexner was the head of Victoria's Secret and Epstein actually told some women that he was a scout for Victoria's Secret. I personally spoke to a woman named Alicia Arden, who was the only one there and his idea of a casting call was trying to take off her clothes she filed a police report at the time the very first police report that was ever filed against him and now that obviously didn't result in his arrest at the time but that's just one example of how the connection and the association that was given to Epstein by someone like Wexner actually allowed him to continue his crimes. So now people like Wexner are trying to distance themselves.

They're probably running scared because they don't know, like you said, if Epstein had video footage of them. But these men are not the victims. These men are not people that were stolen from or trapped in a honeypot. They were, in a lot of cases, active participants in a worldwide conspiracy of evil and predation that ruined the lives of dozens and maybe even hundreds of young women. Those are the women that we know of here in the U.S., but it's so much deeper than that, and I'm talking about whoever was brought to Pedophile Island. To James Shelnut, a former major case detective, SWAT officer, now lawyer, girls from all over, and there are reports that he procured young girls from London as well,

were flown to this island to be raped. Not having any idea, lured, like Melissa Cronin was just describing, for a talent audition or as a masseuse for so many different reasons, and then they get there and they get raped. This island is beyond our jurisdiction. And it's going to be very difficult to investigate what happened there, Shelnut. Yeah, this is going to wind up being, if it's followed through with correctly and the proper resources and time is dedicated to it,

it is going to be one of the largest worldwide human trafficking cases of our time. The scary part to me is, yes, there'll be more people identified as victims. Yes, there'll be from other countries, other parts of the world, but there are going to be a lot of young girls, a lot of women now who were young girls at the time who are either not going to want to come forward, who are not going to be identified. You know, maybe they've passed away at this point. They'll never be known. The unknown victims in this case are one of the things that also concerns me. Well, it goes far beyond our jurisdiction. Listen to our friend at ABC, Lindsay Davis. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is growing. Bombshell accusations point a finger at some rather notable

names. 2,000 pages of documents were unsealed in Manhattan federal court related to a defamation case brought by Virginia Roberts Gouffray against Ghislaine Maxwell, an Epstein associate. In court filings, Gouffray says she became an underage teen sex slave for Epstein, who was later directed by Maxwell and Epstein to have sex with many, quote, powerful men, including numerous prominent American politicians, powerful business executives, foreign presidents, and other world leaders. Among those guffrey names in sworn depositions, British royalty Prince Andrew, former governor and U.N. ambassador Bill Richardson, and the influential former senator from Maine, George Mitchell. All three men have strongly denied the allegations.

In statements today, both Mitchell and Richardson say they never met Ms. Gouffre, and these allegations are false. Wow. So there are implications of rich and powerful men that Epstein brokered young girls to way, way beyond U.S. boundaries. To Melissa Cronin, author, Epstein, dead men tell no tales. There are a million, maybe 46 million reasons someone would want Epstein dead. There absolutely are. And that's the story that we covered in our book, the fact that there are still so many more people to be exposed and still so many more secrets to be revealed.

There's, like you said, millions of reasons why any number of people would have wanted to have him executed. And it's not just in the U.S., like you were saying. Like, we know the leaders of American business and politics were connected to him. But what a lot of people forget is there is actually an investigation right now that's undergoing in France. The MI6 in England are looking into this. I've heard from sources that there are investigations pending in Belgium. There's an investigation pending in Germany. There are so many more people than we can even imagine who are scared right now, who were scared when Epstein was arrested. And the person

that could have been behind Epstein being killed, if he was killed, we might not even know of that person yet. This might still be someone whose connection to Epstein could still be revealed because there are hundreds and hundreds of powerful people all around the world, not just in America, that were connected to what he was doing. And the one person that would be able to reveal the answers to so many of these questions is on the run, Gil and Maxwell. How can that be? Bobby Giacomo, former FBI, current star of Facebook Watch series Curse of Accor. Do you really think MI6 and others in France are on the case? And will they bring Gil in? Or do they think this is all just going to go away? Well, Nancy, that's the big question. It's going to show how far up the influence of these rich and powerful men go.

We've already seen it with the mysterious death of Epstein and some other things. The FBI has raided Pedophile Island. Now, it took a while to get a search warrant on a foreign island. And so whether or not evidence was removed before the FBI got there, I don't know. But certainly the FBI is working in concert with its foreign partners in tracking this down. They already made requests to possibly interview Prince Andrew. I think there is a coordinated law enforcement effort internationally. However, we have seen in this case that rich and powerful men that hold positions

of power have been able to influence the directions of these investigations. I don't know how, and I certainly don't agree with it, but this is going to test how many rich and powerful people around the world. And I think there are many. Epstein was just the tip. The very top of this, there are very many other people that need to face criminal charges. There are probably hundreds, if not more, victims internationally. And I think that, you know, this is going to be the test of this case is, is there a group of powerfully politically powerful international men that are going to be able to stop this investigation? And, and only time will tell. What about it, James Shalnutt? I agree 100%. This is going to be broad. It's going

to test the ability of law enforcement agencies to work together. You're going to see agencies from all over the place, as was stated earlier, have to communicate, coordinate about these cases, coordinate resources. It's going to take a cooperative sharing of investigative files. And I agree 100%. This is going to be a major undertaking. It's going to go on for a while. And the amount of people, the amount of people involved is going to be massive. And there are people involved whose names have not even come out yet. Joe Scott. You know what, Nancy? You know, Virginia Guthrie, in one of her statements, had actually mentioned that she was present at this island at a sex party. And I won't

go into too much graphic detail, but what she stated was that in that period of time at this particular party, there were many underage girls in the same room with her. They were engaged in sexual behavior. And many of these girls could not speak English. And it sounded to her as though they may have been from Eastern Europe. I think that one of the things that I'm curious about in all of this is that where did these girls go? You know, he had the ability to bring them in to this island, allegedly. Where did they fly into? There's going to be flight logs, this sort of thing. And then where did they go after that? Did they, were they just cut loose in the U.S. or were they flown back home? You know, I can't walk in an airport now, Nancy, anywhere that I go. I fly out of Atlanta a lot and other locations

and everywhere we go, if you see something, say something. There's signs about human trafficking everywhere. Interpol has beat their chest for years and years about this specific topic, about human trafficking, sex trade, all this sort of thing. Let's see them put their money where their mouth is. Move forward on this case. Track these individuals down. Because yeah, there's things that we can't do about it in the United States, but you've got all of these different countries involved. They can reach out and they can begin to paint a picture and tie this thing together.

And we'll see if this moves the ball forward. To Melissa Cronin, weigh in. You have a lot of the flight logs and you know a lot of the people who don't fly these flights. Unfortunately, a lot of God's evidence, just like the tape from his suicide attempt has been lost. I've seen the flight loss myself. And, of course, Epstein had his pilots on his payroll.

And they didn't even put the names of the people that were on these flights. There were countless flights where it says young woman one, young woman two, initials. So they deliberately hid the identity of these people. They deliberately did not leave a paper trail. And I also spoke to a man that was the head of the Santa Fe airport when Epstein was flying his private jet in there to go to his Zorro Ranch compound. And this man told me that he saw dozens of young girls coming in, that they actively spoke among themselves about the fact that, hey, this looks like a human trafficking operation. So this man did tell the authorities, he did escalate the issue. Nothing came of it.

And to this day, he still wonders what happened, wonders who shut it down. So the evidence of what happened in the past is not really there. All we can depend on is the knowledge of the people who were there. We know who Epstein's pilots were. Why aren't they in custody right now? We know who Epstein's madam was, Ghislaine. Why isn't she in custody right now? It's really just mind-blowing and disgusting that we're relying on these women, these traumatized women, these victims, to be the ones to come their jobs and find the information and not sit back and wait for these traumatized people to continue their fight for justice for decades to finally bring people to account. Other people have to do their jobs and find the evidence and find the witnesses, make them tell what they know, and finally figure out what happened with this case and how we can prevent it from happening again we wait as justice unfolds and to you gill and maxwell you can run

but you can't hide nancy grace crime story signing off goodbye friend this is an iheart podcast