His death was first announced on a dubious forum: Epstein. Image: www.imago-images.de
A dubious website was the first to announce Epstein’s death. As newly released documents show, the FBI then tried to identify the insider.
February 27, 2026, 7:53 p.mFebruary 27, 2026, 7:53 p.m
On August 10, 2019 at 8:16 a.m., an anonymous user wrote on the Internet forum 4chan that Jeffrey Epstein was dead:
“Don’t ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest.”
“Don’t ask me how I know this, but Epstein died by hanging an hour ago, cardiac arrest.”
What’s explosive is that the post appeared 38 minutes before Epstein’s death was officially announced. The user apparently published the information before anyone else.
As newly released Epstein files show, U.S. authorities later unsuccessfully attempted to identify the author of the post, as “Business Insider» reported.
Pornography platform
4chan is a website where users can post images, texts and videos anonymously or with a registered account and respond to others’ posts. It is best known as a platform for pornography and “white nationalism”.
According to the documents, FBI investigators wanted to clarify who the user was who had the information so early – and where it came from. But the trail was lost.
The website “4chan”.screenshot: 4chan
What the investigators discovered, however, was that the user wrote a total of four posts. Screenshots show that the author was apparently familiar with medical terms. He wrote, among other things, that Epstein was intubated and taken to an emergency room in southern Manhattan.
The user also spread unproven speculation about Epstein’s death early on. In a post that was later deleted, he is said to have claimed that Epstein’s body may have been swapped. The trigger for this was a mysterious delivery truck that was seen the night before. What’s exciting about it: The newly released files show that, according to an FBI document, judicial employees actually wanted to distract the media with a false corpse so that Epstein’s body could be transported to the medical examiner’s office without causing a stir. Whether there is a connection remains unclear.
Identification failed due to technology
The investigators then tried to identify the user via their IP address and data from mobile phone providers, and 4chan was also asked for information. According to the files, however, the identification failed due to the technology: the user used a dynamic IP address.
The investigation did not take the authorities any further.
A year after Epstein’s death, the Justice Department finally confirmed that the author of the post had never been identified. (nib)