Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein? documentary comes to Australia
A blockbuster new true crime series, Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein? reopens the case against the shady stockbroker, who lived a life of debauchery and lies, with devastating consequence.
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His name was not nearly as famous as the high-profile friends and obscenely rich party pals he associated with.
But when billionaire financier Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in a cold and lonely New York police cell, those celebrity connections would have almost certainly breathed just a little easier.
For such a sordid story, linking everyone from President Donald Trump to the Queen’s son, Prince Andrew, the death of Epstein – as he prepared to face more than 50 charges of child sex trafficking and prostitution – was not going to die with the 67-year-old.
Now, a blockbuster new true crime series, Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein? reopens the case against the shady stockbroker, who lived a life of debauchery and lies, with devastating consequence.
The three-part special lays out the criminal history of the Coney Island-born Epstein, who was first reported to police and the FBI back in 1995 for sexually-abusing a 15-year-old girl, Alice Farmer – just the beginning of what would be described as a “molestation pyramid scheme”.
After faking his university qualifications and lying his way to $460 million fortune, an empowered Epstein used the cover of his international property portfolio and private jet, dubbed The Lolita Express, to fly his victims in and out of what would prove a string of illegal sex dens.
There was the ranch in New Mexico, the luxury apartment in Paris, a townhouse in London, a holiday home in Miami, Florida, on top of his prime places of perversion – a $70 million New York mansion and a sprawling villa estate in the Virgin Islands.
With girlfriend, Ghislane Maxwell, Epstein used his wealth and privilege to excess until his very last days of freedom.
But his wretched sex games came unstuck on July 09, 2019, when a joint NYPD and FBI sting brought his unchecked abuse and child sex trafficking to an end.
His demise – allegedly at his own hand – took a sensational abuse of power story and exploded it into the stratosphere when he was found to have hung himself before giving any evidence of his misdeeds – and more importantly those of his famous friends.
Crime + Investigation channel producer, Diane Dimond tells News Corp Australia the facts of the case – from the scale and extent of his historical crimes, to the unprecedented people implicated in the scandal made retelling this story like catnip for crime junkies.
“I do a lot of work for Investigation, Discovery and ID Murder Mystery and I live in New York and the minute news broke he tried to commit suicide and then did commit suicide, my antennae goes up … this is some story,” she recalls.
“He was the most prominent prisoner in that correctional institute and they let him commit suicide?” she exclaims. “It was absolutely flabbergasting.”
The series features harrowing interviews with several victims, including the sister of his first reported victim, Maria Farmer, who continues her fight for justice while also battling a brain tumour.
“She’s a broken woman. Her life was completely shattered and especially knowing that her 15-year-old sister had been sexually attacked by this guy. How is she? She’s a mess. She will never recover from what happened to her and her sister and it’s not a far leap to think that the stress of what happened to her may have contributed to her fatal illness that she’s fighting right now.”
Dimond is unsure whether the same dark forces which protected Epstein, and vice versa, are covering for his girlfriend and alleged accomplice, who has remained in hiding since her long-time lover’s death.
“In my mind, she has to be arrested and charged as an accessory to these heinous crimes. These were children and he so completely stripped them of their innocence.”
While mystery still surrounds his cause of death, just days before he died, Epstein had restricted his will and had lawyers put his assets in trust in the Virgin Islands, where any claims would take up to 10 years to process.
“This was what he did best. Jeffrey Epstein took people’s money and manipulated it. This must have been a no-brainer for him, thinking ‘they’re going to come after my money, I have to protect it.’ No thought to his victims, you just see what he came up with.”
* Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein? airs 7.30pm, Tuesday, Foxtel’s Investigation Discovery (ID).
Originally published as Who Killed Jeffrey Epstein? documentary comes to Australia