The New York City medical examiner who oversaw Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy initially hesitated on ruling his death a suicide — despite it being “pretty clear cut,” federal documents reveal.
Dr. Kristin Roman said her reasoning for the delay, which was laid bare in the millions of files on Epstein just released by the Justice Department, was partly due to her wanting to be 100% certain he hanged himself in his Manhattan jail cell, given the high-profile nature of the case.
She justified her explanation when questioned by federal investigators as they were reviewing the circumstances surrounding Epstein’s death while he was in custody awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.
“It was pretty clear cut” that it was suicide, she told investigators after examining the disgraced financier’s body, according to a transcript included in the Epstein files.
“If he had been a less high-profile person who there weren’t people wanting to kill, I would have probably called it a hanging on the day of autopsy. But this was thoroughness that made me look for these things before I called it a suicide,” she said.
The medical examiner told investigators she had wanted to speak to the prison employee who found Epstein’s body in the Manhattan federal lockup before finalizing her findings.
” ‘Was he fully hanging? Where was he hanging?’ That kind of stuff,” Roman said of the questions she wanted to ask.
“I would have been a little bit more circumspect if there had been another inmate in there with him who had made threats,” Roman said, according to the transcript.
“But even knowing that … it would have been more for completeness rather than a big factor in making the determination,” she said.
Roman noted that ultimately, she wasn’t allowed to speak to the employee or inspect Epstein’s cell before making her determination.
Still, she said she was confident about her eventual ruling, the files show.
“Even without an investigation, and although I wanted one, just because of the nature of the case, even without an investigation, this case, autopsy wise, looked like a very clear-cut hanging,” she said.
Conspiracies have long swirled about the exact cause of Epstein’s death.
Adding fuel to the fire, a forensic pathologist hired by the financier’s family claimed early on that his autopsy indicated Epstein could have been murdered.
The speculation only mounted after Roman opted to refrain from making an initial determination by ticking “pending studies” on his death certificate instead of “homicide” or “suicide.”
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