Word of Jeffrey Epstein's prison death, an apparent suicide, hit 4chan approximately 38 minutes before the earliest news outlet reports started popping up.
Per a BuzzFeed Newsreport, a post that included still-unverified information regarding Epstein's death appeared on the infamous message board prior to the earliest news reports. In the post, the user said "Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest."
After being met with doubt from other users, the unidentified person provided additional alleged details on Epstein, including resuscitation effort descriptions that caused many to theorize that the person posting could have been on the scene in some sort of EMT or related capacity.
In a statement included in the piece, a rep for the New York City Fire Department noted the difference between a formal investigation (which they say was "not warranted" in this instance) and the process of review. Ultimately, the rep said, the alleged 4chan info was found to not have originated from an FDNY employee.
"We looked at the information provided by [a BuzzFeed News] reporter and we looked at our own records and there was no match," the rep said.
Of course, should the source of the reported 4chan info turn out to be a medical professional, it's worth noting the illegality. An expert on EMS-related issues told BuzzFeed that, based on his assessment of the post in question, the content is similar to standard American Heart Association guidelines used by the majority of EMS agencies.
See the full BuzzFeed report here.
The death of Epstein, who was arrested in July on federal sex trafficking of minors charges, has spawned multiple investigations aimed at nailing down how such a thing could occur at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. The DOJ, per NBC New York, had the MCC's warden temporarily reassigned pending investigations.
Additionally, two staff members who had been assigned to Epstein's unit are now on administrative leave.
