4Chan knew about Jeffrey Epstein's death 38 minutes before the rest of the world. The FBI tried to figure out how.
Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2026 12:32 pm
https://www.businessinsider.com/epstein ... ath-2026-2
Among the many mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is how, exactly, a website famous for pornography and white nationalism got the scoop on his death.
At 8:16 a.m. on August 10, 2019, an anonymous 4Chan user posted, "don't ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this."
It was the first public indication that Epstein, awaiting trial for sex-trafficking charges in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, died while in the custody of the Department of Justice, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.
It beat ABC News journalist Aaron Katersky's post about Epstein's death on Twitter, now known as X, by 38 minutes. A few minutes later, the ABC News website published the first article about Epstein's apparent suicide in jail.
The newly released Epstein files show that the Justice Department tried to identify the 4Chan user behind the posts — but couldn't figure it out.