Motive, means, and opportunity are the three classic elements of solving crimes.  The accused must have had all three of them to be proven guilty.  This includes assassins.

The assassination of President Kennedy sixty-two years ago this month resulted in a deluge of conspiracy theories and an uneasy distrust of government that lasts to this day.  None of the official explanations of that event suffices to assuage that public distrust.

It is likewise with the death of Jeffrey Epstein.  The government’s explanations do not seem adequate to millions of Americans of any political persuasion.

The adage of motive, means, and opportunity must, in this case, be applied to the suspect and also to the victim.  Did Jeffrey Epstein have all three of them as required to commit suicide while in a high-security federal prison?  Or instead, has the government fabricated a series of improbable explanations, all of which must be accepted, if one is to conclude that he killed himself?

First to the question of motive.  It strains credulity to believe that Epstein, reputedly a despicable criminal with vast resources, would rather have killed himself than used those resources to escape punishment.  Motive, instead, seems abundant to his many enemies.  They could certainly profit from, and perhaps are profiting from, his death.

Means and method are the second element to be considered.  Strangling is a slow, agonizing way to die.  That idea can be softened with the expectation of a broken neck from hanging, but the method involved allowed no expectation by Epstein that he could break his own neck with the short distance he had available to fall.  Why would he have thought he could succeed in that?  Indeed, there is not even an unchallenged assertion that his neck was, in fact, broken.  If it was, it seems very unlikely that it happened from the method he supposedly used.  The officially claimed means and method of his death are far less likely an explanation than murder or assassination.

This brings us to the third and final element, which is opportunity.  This is a bit more of a gray area, but although there seems to be a case here for the official claim, it is not sufficient.

According to the official reports, no one had an opportunity to get past the security cameras, and then to get past the guards, and then to get into the prison cell to strangle Epstein or break his neck, and then to get back again, past all those factors to escape detection.  If there was no opportunity to do all that, then it seems that the official explanation must be accurate, however unlikely. 

Was there an opportunity for murder? There well might have been.  First, the two guards on duty may well, as claimed, have been asleep, or otherwise inattentive, but they knew they were in a high-security prison with a high-profile prisoner just steps from their station.  Could they calmly go to sleep, on duty, knowing the stakes if they were caught?

Also, any malicious perpetrator would have had to know, in advance, that it was possible to elude the guards and the cameras.  Was it?

One must ask, what if the guards did in fact see someone walk past them?  Surely they would have challenged him.  Would the guards so testify? 

Not if they knew that their own lives were in jeopardy.  Not if they knew that the intruder was willing and able to kill.  And certainly not if they believed that the intruder was sent by a powerful government agency, one that could either pay them off or kill them.  It seems credible that they would rather confess to the crime of dereliction of duty — even dereliction resulting in murder.  It seems probable that they would rather accept the penalties for that than be themselves murdered.  Add to that the fact that the penalties imposed on the guards were a slap on the wrist compared to the extreme gravity of allowing a high-profile prisoner to preventably die, even if by suicide, while in their custody.

As to the video recordings, those that show no gap in surveillance, does anyone doubt that such videos can be altered by a government that sent men to the moon and back?

So, although the opportunity element does seem to offer some support (but not proof, in the minds of many) to the suicide theory, it remains even more supported that Epstein had no credible motive and no plausible method of committing suicide at all, and especially in the manner by which he died.

That is why it is imperative that the government release all of the data it has concerning Epstein’s death, or at least provide a convincing reason why it should not.  What that convincing reason could be, I have no idea.

As a strong supporter of President Trump and the MAGA agenda, I implore him to practice total transparency in this matter.  Otherwise, sixty-two years from now, Americans will continue to distrust their government.

Image via Flickr, public domain.