Newly released Justice Department records described an “orange-colored shape” moving up a staircase toward the locked tier that housed Jeffrey Epstein on the night before he was found dead in federal custody in 2019. Investigators and outside video experts have offered differing interpretations of what the footage depicts, adding to long-running scrutiny of surveillance coverage and guard practices at the Manhattan jail.
Jeffrey Epstein, a wealthy financier facing federal sex-trafficking charges, was found unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Manhattan on Aug. 10, 2019, and his death was later ruled a suicide by hanging by New York City’s medical examiner.
In recently released Department of Justice records highlighted by CBS News, investigators’ video observation logs described an “orange-colored shape” moving up a staircase toward the isolated, locked tier where Epstein was housed at about 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9, 2019. In one notation cited by CBS, the movement was logged as something that “could possibly be an inmate” going up the stairs, while the Justice Department Office of Inspector General’s analysis in its final report described the same moment as an unidentified corrections officer going up the stairway and later returning into view.
CBS News reported that several forensic video specialists who reviewed the footage were skeptical of the inspector general’s conclusion that the orange blur represented an officer carrying linens or clothing, saying the limited view makes it difficult to definitively identify the object and that it could plausibly be a person in an orange inmate uniform. The footage does not provide a clear view of the entrance to Epstein’s cell tier or his cell door, according to CBS’s reporting and expert interviews.
The same CBS reporting also summarized guard interviews about the morning Epstein was discovered. According to CBS, correctional officer Michael Thomas told investigators he found Epstein shortly after 6:30 a.m. and “ripped” him down from a hanging position. CBS reported that when investigators asked about the noose, Thomas said he did not recall taking it off or removing it from around Epstein’s neck.
CBS further reported that officer Tova Noel, who remained at the cell entrance, told investigators she saw Thomas lower Epstein but did not see a noose around Epstein’s neck.
Separately, questions about Epstein’s neck injuries have been part of the public debate since 2019. A private forensic pathologist hired by Epstein’s brother, Dr. Michael Baden, said fractures observed in the autopsy were unusual for a suicidal hanging and more consistent with homicidal strangulation. New York City’s chief medical examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, publicly rejected that view and said her office stood by its determination that the cause of death was hanging and the manner of death was suicide.
Federal oversight findings have emphasized failures in jail operations rather than evidence of homicide. The Justice Department inspector general concluded in a 2023 report that a combination of staff negligence and system problems—including missed rounds and related documentation failures—created conditions that allowed Epstein to take his life.
The newly released logs and renewed expert scrutiny have not changed the official ruling, but they have underscored continuing disagreements over what the limited surveillance footage can reliably establish about who may have approached the stairway leading to Epstein’s housing tier that night.
