A note purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein weeks before his August 2019 death has sat locked in a New York courthouse vault for nearly seven years, sealed as part of his former cellmate's criminal case and never reviewed by the investigators who scrutinized how the disgraced financier died. The Daily Caller reported that the note's existence surfaced through Nicholas Tartaglione, Epstein's cellmate, who said he found it tucked inside a graphic novel in their shared cell just weeks before Epstein was found dead.

If the account is accurate, it means a potentially significant piece of evidence about Epstein's state of mind was available to federal authorities, and they either missed it or ignored it. The note does not appear among the roughly 3.5 million pages of Epstein-related records the Department of Justice released after President Donald Trump signed legislation requiring their public disclosure.

That gap matters. Epstein's death remains one of the most scrutinized events in modern federal custody, surrounded by documented institutional failures, disputed forensic findings, and a public that has never been given a clean, complete accounting of what happened inside that jail.

What the note allegedly says

Tartaglione told the New York Times that he discovered the handwritten note after Epstein's July 23, 2019 incident, the first time Epstein was found injured and unresponsive in his cell with marks on his neck. The Washington Examiner reported that Tartaglione described finding it simply: "I opened the book to read and there it was."

The note's purported text is brief and bleak: "What do you want me to do, bust out crying? Time to say goodbye."

Tartaglione said he gave the note to his lawyers. Records indicate those lawyers later authenticated it, though the method of authentication has not been disclosed. A federal judge then sealed the note as part of Tartaglione's own criminal case. The New York Times has since petitioned a judge to unseal it.

Lawyers reportedly tried to authenticate the note on two separate occasions before succeeding in late 2019 or early 2020. It is referenced in a two-page report about the events surrounding Epstein's death, but it was never folded into the official investigations that followed.

The July incident and shifting stories

The timeline around Epstein's first jail incident raises its own questions. In July 2019, Epstein told prison guards that Tartaglione had assaulted him and given him red marks on his neck. But Bureau of Prisons records show that roughly a week later, Epstein reversed course, telling officials he "never had any issues" with Tartaglione and felt safe sharing a cell with him.

Tartaglione, for his part, said he gave the note to his lawyers "in case Epstein continued to claim that he was trying to hurt him." That framing suggests Tartaglione viewed the note as exculpatory, evidence that Epstein's injuries were self-inflicted, not the result of an assault.

Epstein was placed on suicide watch after the July incident but was removed after about 31 hours, the Associated Press reported, citing more than 4,000 pages of Bureau of Prisons records obtained through its own investigation. Within weeks, he was dead.

A death defined by institutional failure

On August 10, 2019, correctional officers Tova Noel and Michael Thomas were assigned to monitor Epstein's unit. They did not perform the required inmate counts at 12 a.m., 3 a.m., or 5 a.m. They completed a form falsely stating they had. At 6:33 a.m., when they entered Epstein's cell to serve breakfast, they found the 66-year-old unresponsive with a noose around his neck. He was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

The DOJ charged Noel and Thomas in November 2019 with one count of "conspiring to defraud the U.S." and for "impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the MCC." The charges were later dropped after prosecutors said the guards had complied with a deferred prosecution agreement requiring them to admit to falsifying records, complete community service, and cooperate with a DOJ Inspector General review.

Separately, DOJ documents later revealed unusual activity by one of the guards, including internet searches of Epstein's name minutes before his body was discovered and a $5,000 cash deposit made days earlier, details that only deepened public suspicion.

The DOJ Inspector General's report noted that recorded evidence was available from only one camera due to a malfunction at the prison, with recordings captured by roughly half of the facility's cameras. That gap in surveillance footage has fueled years of speculation about what happened in the hours before Epstein was found.

Questions about the video record have persisted. Subsequent DOJ video logs showed an unidentified figure near Epstein's cell in the hours before his death, footage that added another layer of unresolved concern.

Forensic dispute never resolved

Epstein's autopsy found two fractures on the left and right sides of his larynx and a fracture on the left hyoid bone above the Adam's apple. In October 2019, Dr. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, told "Fox & Friends" that those injuries were more consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicidal hanging.

The official ruling remained suicide. But Baden's assessment has never been formally rebutted in a public proceeding, and his call for a homicide investigation went unanswered by the agencies responsible for the case.

The AP's review of Bureau of Prisons records pointed to a different explanation, not conspiracy, but systemic negligence. Severe staffing shortages, employees cutting corners, and poor oversight created conditions in which a high-profile inmate on psychological observation could die unmonitored for hours. As Epstein's own lawyer, Martin Weinberg, put it: "It's sad, it's tragic, that it took this kind of event to finally cause the Bureau of Prisons to close this regrettable institution."

3.5 million pages, and the note isn't in them

President Trump signed legislation requiring the DOJ to publicly release all un-redacted files related to Epstein. The agency responded by publishing 3.5 million pages of documents. But the Washington Times noted that the sealed note does not appear among them. It was locked away as part of Tartaglione's criminal case, outside the scope of the release, a technicality that kept what could be a key piece of evidence out of public view.

That distinction matters for anyone who believed the massive document dump would finally provide a complete picture. It didn't. A purported suicide note written by the most high-profile federal inmate in a generation sat in a courthouse vault while Congress held hearings, the DOJ published millions of pages, and the public debated whether Epstein killed himself or was killed.

Meanwhile, the broader investigation into Epstein's network of enablers has faced its own scrutiny. Epstein's own accountant and attorney told Congress that the DOJ never questioned them about his crimes, a startling admission about the depth of the federal probe.

What remains unanswered

The sealed note raises questions that no official body has yet addressed. What specific courthouse holds it? Which federal judge ordered it sealed? Why was it never shared with the investigators examining Epstein's death? And if the note is genuine, does it settle the suicide question, or raise new ones about why a man who wrote "time to say goodbye" was removed from suicide watch after barely a day?

Calls for a deeper accounting have come from multiple directions. Alan Dershowitz has called for a full congressional investigation into Epstein's death, particularly as new testimony from guards has become available.

The New York Times' petition to unseal the note may force a judge to decide whether the public interest outweighs whatever legal rationale has kept it hidden since 2019. If the note is released, it will be the first contemporaneous document reflecting Epstein's own words about his intentions in the weeks before he died.

Seven years is a long time to keep a dead man's last words locked in a vault, especially when the people charged with explaining his death never bothered to read them.