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Please do not suffer in silence. In the early hours of Saturday morning, August 10th, 2019, correctional officers at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan began their rounds.

The MCC, a federal jail overlooking the East River, was quiet in the way that jails often

are before dawn.

Most inmates were asleep.

The building was understaffed as it had been for months, and the officers on duty were working

overtime shifts.

Shortly after 6.30 a.m., officers approached a.m.

Officers approached a cell on the ninth floor of the facility's special housing unit.

Inside that cell was Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein had been arrested three weeks earlier on federal

charges of sex trafficking minors. Prosecutors had described him as a flight risk and a danger

to the community. He was being held without veil, awaiting trial in what

was shaping up to be the most consequential case of his life. When officers looked inside the

cell that morning, Epstein was unresponsive. He was found hanging. Emergency measures were initiated,

and he was transported to New York Presbyterian Hospital,

where he was pronounced dead.

He was 66 years old.

The news, as you can imagine, broke quickly.

Within hours, the story had moved from a routine death in custody to a global headline.

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