There are many who believe that Jeffrey Epstein didn’t die from suicide.

Some say he was murdered at the request of the Queen, others say it was the Clintons, and of course Donald Trump and his pals are tied up in this one, too.

Basically, the internet is awash with conspiracy theories, aided by people like Trump retweeting absurdities into the mainstream.

According to sources that the New York Post spoke to, Epstein did take his own life:

Jeffrey Epstein was found hanging in his lower Manhattan jail cell with a bedsheet wrapped around his neck and secured to the top of a bunk bed…

The convicted pedophile, who was 6 feet tall, apparently killed himself by kneeling toward the floor and strangling himself with the makeshift noose, law enforcement sources said Monday. He hadn’t been checked on for several hours, sources said.

Epstein was “unresponsive” when he was discovered in his cell at the Special Housing Unit of the Metropolitan Correctional Center [MCC] at around 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, the federal Bureau of Prisons has said.

Staffers attempted to revive him and he was taken to an infirmary inside the lockup, then transported by ambulance to the New York-Presbyterian Lower Manhattan Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The circumstances surrounding how Epstein, who had attempted suicide just weeks earlier, came to be left unattended point to a massive error on the part of the correctional facility.

One of the two workers tasked with guarding Epstein’s cell in the MCC’s 9 South Unit wasn’t actually a correction officer, and other reports suggest that both workers were well into overtime, with one on his fifth straight day of overtime hours.

Epstein was taken off a 24-hour suicide watch — which required a check every 15 minutes — following a July 23 incident in which he was found with marks on his neck.

He had been downgraded to “special observation status,” which required two guards to make separate checks on him every 30 minutes, but that procedure was not followed, a source has told Reuters.

Under that status, Epstein also was supposed to have a cellmate, but that inmate apparently left — possibly for a court appearance or another appointment — and was not immediately replaced as required by protocol, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Clearly, the ball was dropped at multiple points along the way, although this isn’t an isolated incident.

The American Federation of Government Employees has been talking about the chronic understaffing problem at prisons around the country for a while, and specifically called out the MCC more than a year ago.

Here’s the Daily Beast:

“Things just didn’t change,” Serene Gregg, president of AFGE Local 3148, told The Daily Beast on Monday. “They just do not have enough officers in the facility.”

Gregg reported that officers often complete a double shift totaling 16 hours only to find that their relief has not yet arrived. They then have to work another hour or two, for a total of 17 or even 18.

“That is our normal,” she said.

Anybody who refuses what is termed “mandatory overtime” faces disciplinary action, whatever their responsibilities at home.

“You’re choosing to feed your family,” Gregg said.

She added, “At some point, people are going to break.”

She noted that fatigued officers have had traffic accidents coming to and from work. Sometimes they get off duty with so little time before the next shift that it does not make sense to go home only to turn around.

“We have employees who sleep in their cars,” she said.

In a job that requires employees to be alert at all times, and make split-second decisions that could have life or death consequences, these long hours inevitably lead to mistakes.

Perhaps you can’t rule out some sort of nefarious dealings, but sometimes the answer is as simple as human error in a system pushed to breaking point.

Before we go, here’s Trevor Noah’s reaction to Epstein’s death:

If you’re having suicidal thoughts, you can find details of help available here.

[sources:nypost&dailybeast]