Early Saturday morning, news broke that Jeffrey Epstein was dead of an apparent suicide. But, as reporters began digging, more questions than answers have come out. The panel on AM Joy talked about why there are so many holes in the suicide story that it was far from clear cut — the biggest one being that there may not have been anywhere for Epstein to actually hang himself. So how does one die by hanging in their cell if they are alone?
REID: Can we say this again? So this facility is run by the Department of Justice, meaning William Barr's Department of Justice?
GOSK: That's right, and it's a facility that's been known to hold some very high-profile prisoners, including "El Chapo." I believe Paul Manafort was held there for a period of time. It's considered to be a very secure place. "El Chapo" escaped for a number of times, they wanted to throw him in something where he wouldn't have that opportunity again. This is supposed to be a top-notch facility. Again, how did it happen? That investigation has to be launched soon.
REID: That's strange. That's strange. Let me come to you, Maria, because that's strange. I have a lot of friends who are police officers, my godfather is a police officer. I have no personal knowledge of the way it works, but my understanding was always that in a case of sex offense, a sex offender being put into a facility such as this, either solo, right, but we're told he was put in with a roommate which sounded odd just to my ear, and then after allegedly attempting something, either suicide or he is harmed before, then he goes into a solo cell and then he's somehow alone and able to allegedly commit suicide. It sounds odd to me.
HINOJOSA: So I just got off the phone with one of my sources who spent 31 years in prison and was in the prison in the same block as Bill Cosby. That's a pretty high-security facility. Bill Cosby is checked on every 15 minutes. The other thing the person told me is there is no place to hang yourself in a prison cell. There is just no place to put anything. Just go into a room that's kind of like, I don't know, an office space right here at MSNBC. I walked in and I was like, there is no place to hang yourself. So it's illogical. He also said that -- I said, how could something like this happen, and this is where it starts getting pretty complicated in terms of the evidence, in terms of will there be pictures of the body, will we have the coroner's report, will we see everything that was in the room?
Again, we don't have this information. But as somebody who spent 31 years in a prison and knows the prison culture, he said, these are people who will be targeted. He said, if Epstein had been in general population, he would have been targeted. WHERE IS THE FOOTAGE? Where is the footage, is what we need to be asking. We need to start putting Freedom Of Information ACT request for the footage. We need to be doubly sure that this is the footage of exactly where he was being held. That's one way you can prove. By the way, I did cover a story, the strange death of Dejesus who was on suicide watch in a detention facility in Arizona, and he did commit suicide. While he was on suicide, he swallowed his sock because that was the only way that he could do it because there's no place to hang anything.
REID: Right.
HINOJOSA: So there are a lot of questions, and people in prison understand this looks and sounds very, very fishy and we just getting preliminary reports from the prison.
Without going too far down the rabbit hole, let's be clear: It is totally plausible that Epstein actually took his own life. Maybe he was able to find a way to hang himself. But, it is also possible that there was foul play. An investigation needs to be launched. Will Barr conduct an actual investigation or will he *pretend* to do an investigation and declare it was all a terrible accident and some correction officer will be blamed for not doing their checks appropriately and lose their job? Who knows. But questions are being asked - and they are GOOD questions. And Epstein's victims, more than anyone else, deserve answers.
