November 12, 2019 • 55 mins
In Episode 95, Robert is joined by Dan O'Brien for an update on the Jeffrey Epstein saga.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where I'm
Robert Evans and we talked about bad people and I
introduced the show poorly. Uh, this is uh an episode
about Jeffrey Epstein and my my guest today is Daniel O'Brien. Dan,
how you doing? Man? Hello, brailed to be talking to
(00:24):
you for a third episode about Jeffrey Epstein Jeffstein. Yeah,
that's what I've decided we should call him. Really really
thought we sort of uh closed the book on this
one the last time. Has there been any updates? Yeah?
You know, Dan, it's been a busy year since we
last talked. A lot has happened. Uh, you want an emmy,
(00:45):
I went to Syria and our friend Jeffrey Epstein had
some big Um had some big things happen as well. Yeah,
you have to. You have to offer a bunch of
retractions for your last episode because it turns out he
was exonerated on all counts. Right, is that the news? Oh? No,
Dan um slightly slightly different than that he either killed
(01:07):
himself or was murdered in prison cell um after being
arrested at an airport and charged with a whole a
whole bunch of crimes. Yikes. Yeah, not a great year
for Epstein. UM. I would imagine you have uh an
order in which you want to proceed with this episode,
(01:29):
and that me jumping in right now and ask you
questions is disrupting that in some way. UM. I know,
I feel like I don't care right off the top.
Do you have strong opinions on suicide versus murder? Um?
I have strong opinions that the case for murder isn't
nearly as strong as a lot of people think it is.
I think there's a lot of people misunderstanding in some
(01:52):
cases deliberately what has actually been revealed. UM. That said,
there's definitely some fishy as ship, and it's it's not
on reasonable to want an investigation into it. UM. I'm
leaning towards suicide though, UM, and I suspect most of
the listeners think he was murdered. Uh so the people
where are you on this? I haven't thought too much
(02:13):
about it, to be completely honest. That seems healthy. Yeah,
it's he's I'm sure a compelling case could be made
for either side. I don't. It doesn't quite matter to me,
I guess, which probably sounds callous. I don't think you
can be callous about a mass child rapist. Um. I
(02:37):
kind of think you can do whatever you want when
talking about Jeffrey Epstein as long as you're not talking
about how good an art collector he was or something
like that. I mean, if not not callous, because like
it's not I have no respect for Jeffrey Epstein. I don't.
I don't give a ship. But the fact that I
clearly don't care one way or the other means I'm
(03:01):
implicitly saying I don't care if someone can sneakily murder
someone and get away with it, and that's not a
good stance to have, ideal stance to have. Yeah, it's uh,
I don't know, like so, I I guess we should.
You're probably aware of so. A lot of the things
that have um recently come out. I think the most
(03:23):
recent big story about Epstein has actually been a couple
in the last week. The most recent is a Project
Veritas video from your Your Hold alumni James O'Keeffe. Did
you ever run into him at Rutgers by the way, No,
I did not. Okay, that's good. That's probably good for everybody. Um,
he seems insufferable. Uh so he put out a video
(03:46):
of ABC News anchor Amy Roebok, and in the video,
she claims that the network quashed an interview she conducted
with a source about Jeffrey Epstein's like child prostitution business
UM that involved like Prince Andrew and kind of suggested
that ABC had like pulled the story due to threats
(04:09):
from like Buckingham Palace and like a number of other
powerful people. And so this is like, this has been
pretty prominent on the internet. Uh, And like, I think
the way that most people have framed it as like, oh,
James O'Keeffe actually got a scoop is a clear example
of ABC News um killing a story to protect Jeffrey
Epstein the powerful people that he provided prostitutes for. And
(04:30):
I'm not going to say that's a hundred percent not
what's happening, but I really don't think that's what's happening.
So I should start by I'm gonna I'm actually gonna
quote an MPR article here that that kind of gives
the response from ABC. So we'll start with that. ABC
News executives say their journalists were simply not able to
corroborate the details of the reporting sufficiently for broadcast. We
(04:52):
would never run away from that, Chris Blasto, head of
investigations for ABC News, tells NPR the network has filed
approximately two dozen digital and broadcast stories on Epstein since
early two thousand fifteen, when ABC started talking to the accuser,
Virginia Roberts Jeffrey. So there's a good point there, which
is that if you're trying to say ABC was unwilling
to talk about Epstein, that's really hard to support because
(05:15):
they've actually done a lot of coverage of this case,
and the idea that like, Okay, well we we weren't
able to back into like I think it was to
them fifteen when this video was or sorry to this
nineteen is her talking about this, but I think she
was frustrated that like they hadn't gotten the story out
earlier and broken the story. But I like there's legal
(05:35):
concerns when you're reporting something like this and you're alleging
that like a prince is part of a child sex
ring and like a bunch of very prominent, very wealthy
people have been committing horrible crimes um and there is
like your legal department is going to look over something
like this in addition to your editorial department and be like, Okay,
either we have enough back up for this story to
(05:57):
move forward, or we don't think we can safely d
op this yet because we don't have enough like evidence
to support it, right. I mean, it sounds like another
case where idiots on the internet saw how professional adult
does a thing, kind of simplified and misunderstood it, and
then applied it to something else. So like we can see,
oh NBC actively covered up this running fire was reporting
(06:21):
on Harvey Weinstein, which they did, and then did the
idiots of the internet though, the adiots of the world,
the James O keeps and what not, the trolls and stuff.
They'll look at something that seems like it shares some
of the DNA because they're like, hey, big news network
something something something, scandal something something something, and they knew
part of it and they didn't tell us these things
(06:43):
are the same thing, which is not the case. Yeah, yeah,
and it's on the video. Robots says, I tried for
three years to get it out to no avail and
a these new revelations and I freaking had all of it.
I'm so piste right now, Like every day I get
one more piste because I'm just like, oh my god,
what we had it was, what we had was unreal.
But when the video leaked, she made a public statement. UM.
(07:05):
As the Epstein story continue to unfold last summer, I
was caught in a private moment of frustration. I was
upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia
Roberts didn't air because we could not obtain sufficient corroborating
evidence to meet ABC's editorial standards about her allegations the
interview itself, While I was disappointed in nair didn't meet
our standards. In a years since, no one ever told
me you're the team to stop reporting on Jeffrey Epstein,
and we have continued to aggressively pursue this important story,
(07:28):
which they did again like the network launched like a
two hour documentary um in like like they've they've covered
this a lot. Um. It's one of those things, like
I I'm I'm I'm certainly open to the possibility that
with his connections and power, um Epstein had an in
at ABC that tried to quash the story at some point.
(07:49):
That's certainly not impossible, But I'm not seeing evidence of that.
Like I'm seeing evidence of it's hard to go after
billionaires and princes uh and royalty um and politicians when
they commit crimes if you only have one source, because
like you can get your ass sued for that stuff,
Like it's there. Yeah, I think people are blowing this
(08:13):
out of proportion. I think I think you're right to
connect it to like what happened with Ronan Pharaoh UM,
because that is a case of where he came in
with this big story and they tried to quash it
for very sinister reasons. And I think O'Keefe was pretty
smart to launch this pretty fairly shortly after um, like
Ronan Pharaoh's book came out, because I do think those
two things have been connected in a lot of people's heads. Yeah. Yeah, alright,
(08:36):
let's talk about Epstein's suicide slash murder. Um. Yeah, that'll
be this will be fun talk. He's just sitting with
my buddy Dan talking about a murdered or suicide, multi
millionaire financier, prostituted child pimp. Oh. I yes, I should
try to get ahead of this because it sounds like
we're going to cover some pretty dark stuff. If people
(08:57):
are easily uh triggered by by talk of child molestation
and or suicide. I also, just knowing myself, I will
probably make suicide jokes. I don't think suicide is funny
or a laughing matter, and it should always be taken seriously.
But because of the way my brain is wired, yeah,
it just might happen. I'm just putting the warning out there. Yeah.
(09:21):
I I had to physically fight myself to stop from
just quoting the lines from the Mash theme song as
a response to you, which I didn't do. And I'm
proud of myself, but I might later. Um. Yeah. There's
a number of things that people find really fishy about
the Epstein suicide, probably like one of the chief things
is the fact that he was taken off of Suicide Watch,
(09:42):
which seems really damning, Like why would you take this
guy off of suicide Watch? Um, it seems like a
clear case of the kind of person you would be
worried would commit suicide. And in fact, a number of
like corrections at like like people who have like worked
in prisons and stuff, um like have come out and
said that, like this was a dumb call to remove
(10:03):
him from Suicide Watch. Cameron Lindsay, a former warden who
worked at three federal facilities told NBC. For them to
pull him off suicide watch a shocking for someone that
high profile, with these allegations and this many victims who
has had a suicide attempt in the last few weeks,
you can take absolutely no chances. And I think this
seems conspiratorial to people who don't really know how the
(10:23):
justice system worked. And I kind of think this is
just a situation of where Epstein was treated like a
normal prisoner. Um. He was not removed just out of
like laziness, Like he had a face to face meeting
with a doctor UM who determined that the suicide watch
was not warranted anymore and removed him from it. UM.
And you know, basically he convinced a doctor that he
(10:46):
wasn't a risk after his suicide attempt. And you can
say that, uh, that shouldn't have happened, or that um,
like it was a bad guy. It was certainly a
bad call. It was obviously a bad call. But this
sort of thing is incredibly common. We actually don't know
how many people die in of suicide in prisons right now.
(11:07):
We only have data up to two thousand fourteen that
we should get a better. Uh system doesn't it handle,
doesn't it? Yeah? Um, we we we only have data
up to two fourteen, because in two thousand fourteen, suicide
in jails and prisons in America hit a fifteen year
high and became the leading cause of death in jails. Uh.
(11:28):
And after that the Department of Justice stopped providing us
with information about suicides in our jails for some reason,
which is that might be more of the conspiracy in
my head that they're hiding this this information. Um. Yeah,
suicide accounts for a third more yeah, roughly a third
of all deaths in in jails. Uh. And in thirty
(11:49):
percent of all deaths in state prisons. It actually jumped
thirty from two thousand two fourteen in state prisons. Oh sorry,
it's seven percent of deaths in prisons. It jumped thirty
percent over the course of two thoteen in fourteen. And
we don't know how high it is now obviously, um,
but it had a thirty percent leap over the course
of a year in two thousand, thirteen and fourteen, which
is um huge. Uh. The a P and the University
(12:11):
of Maryland's Capital News Service recently conducted an inner an
investigation where they found hundreds of lawsuits against local jails. Um,
talking about suicides, like against local jails because inmates had
committed suicide. Um. And that way, that's just in Maryland. Um.
You know, the Martial Project used public records laws to
find suicide data from the Bureau of Prisons, which show
(12:33):
arise since two thousand fifteen. But again they had to
use like Foyer requests and stuff to get that data.
Nobody's like publishing it normally. UM. Like it's a huge
systemic problem, and it might be like the single largest
problem with American prisons. I found a really good quote
from David Fathi, who was the director of the National
Prison Project at the a c l U. UM. In
(12:54):
most prisons and jails I've seen, and there are exceptions,
suicide prevention as a joke. We have seen people able
to attempt suicidal suppose the on constant suicide watch. We've
seen people taken off suicide watch because staff thought they
were okay, and then killed themselves that same day. We've
seen officers who were supposed to be watching someone on
suicide watch actually sleeping. This ship happens a lot, and
it can't really be overstated just how big of a
(13:15):
problem this is. I know that's just what you've been doing,
but just yeah, only because I've been researching is for
a future upcoming thing at work is that as mental
health treatment facilities closed down, more and more people in
need of mental health end up in jails. And I
know in a few cases the county jail is the
largest single provider of mental health services, which is not great. Yeah,
(13:38):
And I think one area people get when they when
they see this removal from suicide Watch for Epsney is
something sinister. Um is sinister in like a conspiratorial way.
I think what actually is happening here is that for
the first time in his life, this guy got treated
like everybody else um. And that's what happens to everybody else.
It happens to a shipload of people in prison and
(14:00):
jails they kill themselves. And you can look at it
as the deep State wanted him dead and so they
had him moved from suicide Watch and like, you know,
told him that it was either this or someone would
murder him and then he did it. Or you can
look at it like, oh, he did the thing that
liket of people in his situation do, or something like
you know, a large chunk of people like it's. Yeah. Now,
one thing that is legitimately sketchy is that both of
(14:22):
the cameras outside the jail cell where Epstein died were broken,
which is sketchy as hell. I'll give everybody who's on
the murder side that that ships uh super fishy. It
would be a hard Yeah, it's another one to work. Again,
I don't have all the information like that exactly immediately
at its face value, it sounds sketchy. Um, but I've
(14:43):
never done the research, you know, just how well maintained
security cameras are exactly, And again there's not It's not
like there's data on this because the Bureau of Prisons
doesn't give people data on fucking anything. So maybe something's there,
maybe not. I don't know. I'm gonna we're we're we
are now moving on to the part of the episode
(15:04):
where I have an actual little essay written. Um, because
because Dan did you went into a story at the
end of last month where a uh uh, which you
mean a forensic investigator who observed the Epstein autopsy said
that it was consistent with homicide. Yeah, yeah, yeah, did
(15:25):
you do you look into that at all? Of course? Not? Okay,
good good, good, good good good. Yeah. So that happened
last month, and a lot of people shared it on Twitter,
including myself, and we're like, oh, this is okay. I
guess maybe he was murdered. Like now we've got some
fucking hard evidence. And then a couple of my fans
are like, you should look into the guy who actually
(15:45):
declared it a homicide, the the specific investigator, and I did,
and uh, he's quite the dude. Dad, You're you're gonna
like this, You're you're gonna hate this actually, but I'm
gonna read this to you anyway. So National Reviews coverage
that their headline was forensic investigator Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy more
(16:06):
consistent with homicide. Fox News wrote Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy more
consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicide. Dr Michael Baden reveals
now even the New York Times his coverage seemed to
point towards a pretty damning revelation. They said, Epstein's autopsy
points to homicide pathologist hired by brother claims um Now,
as that hired by brother part might suggest this guy
(16:29):
is not a totally independent analyst. Um, Yeah, because the
Epstein family is very much taking the line that he
was murdered. So I looked into this guy, Dr Michael Baden,
and he spent the last week or so doing a
pretty brisk business and media appearances. He was on Fox
and Friends like right after this, uh, and he claimed
(16:50):
that Epstein's injuries, particularly the broken highoid bone in his neck,
are in his words, extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and
could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation. Okay that
I feel like the word could there is doing a
whole lot of work. Yeah, the word could is doing
a lot of lifting. Uh, and more commonly is also
also holding some water. Now, he told Fox and Friends,
(17:14):
which is where all great forensic investigators go to, uh
drop their research. I wasn't sure if you were aware
of that, but yeah, really popular. He told them he
hadn't seen injuries like this in a suicide in fifty
years of doing autopsies. And if you just look at
this guy's credentials. Dr Biden's credentials on paper, it does
seem like he knows his ship. His website notes that
(17:36):
he was the chairman of the Forensic Pathology Panel of
the U S Congress Select Committee on Assassinations. Uh. He
helped to reinvestigate the deaths of JFK and Martin Luther
King Jr. He was asked by the Russian government to example,
you get homicide on those two? Also, yeah, he sure
shared actually suicide on JFKO. Yeah, yeah, yeah it yeah,
(17:57):
yeah that I don't I don't have more of a
joke there, but I'm sure you can piece one together.
He was asked by the Russian government to examine the
remains of Zari Nicholas the second and his family, which
I feel like we know how that one went down.
And he's conducted more than twenty thousand autopsies and taught
homicide courses for police, judges, lawyers, and doctors in most
(18:18):
of the US and at least nine other countries. So
that's a pretty pretty good resume, I would say, uh,
pretty solid resume. More autopsies than I have carried out, certainly, Yeah,
but I've only carried out three or four. Um. Yeah.
Now that's the overview of Dr Baden's career that his
website presents, but it leaves a couple of things out.
(18:40):
So before we make any conclusions about this most recent
wrinkle in the Epstein case. I want us to take
a look at this guy's record. But before we do that, Dan,
you know what, it's time for a time for goods services.
Yet goods services products is time for an ad break.
So don't think of out Jeffrey Epstein hanging himself in
(19:01):
a cell and instead think about capitalism. We're back, So, man,
those products can't wait to fucking put him in my
mouth or whatever. You liked the products. I was a
fan of the services, um. But that's the great thing
(19:22):
about America, the freedom. Now, speaking of freedom, or not
speaking of freedom at all, let's talk about Dr Michael
Baiden's career. UM. In nine, while he was the chairman
of that Congressional Committee on Assassinations, he was also the
chief medical Examiner for New York City. Now that's a
really prestigious posting because New York is America's largest city.
(19:45):
And I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but
all of its citizens are very talented murderers. Yeah. And
it's also I don't know if you know this, but
it never sleeps, so it did not always murder happening. Yeah,
it's just it is a murder fa ctory um that's
in fact what they call it on the streets. I hear, yeah,
(20:06):
taking the taking a taking the A train into the
murder factory. I don't know if the A train goes
into New York. I don't know if there's an A train.
I don't know about the subway. Dan, Hey, it was
a good joke, and you were wise for making it.
Thank you, Thank you for your approval. Now Baden had
been promoted to that that very prestigious gig in August
of nineteen seventy eight, after more than ten years is
(20:27):
the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner. Mayor Ed Koch, who promoted him,
told the New York Daily News that he had known
Dr Baden since nineteen sixty six and found him to
be very capable and innovative. Now Mayor Cotch changed that
tune less than a year later, According to New York Magazine,
too many unforced errors added up, including a picked apart
trial testimony in the doctor X case leading the acquittal
(20:49):
of Mario Jesskolovich in a spate of poison murders at
Riverdale Hospital, a Housing Authority patrolman who's January nineteen seventy
nine murder went undetected for twelve hours, his body removed
from the scene before proper death. Investor Guigetion conflicting conclusions
related to the chokehold death of a Brooklyn businessman at
the hands of police, and off the cuff comments about
the possibly sexual interrupting death of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. So
(21:10):
he fox up a bunch of really big cases, and
more than anything, I think that got him fired. It's
the fact that he started a rumor about the death
of the former governor. Um Like, there's this rumor that
Nelson Rockefeller died fucking, which is a great way to
be rumored to have died. Um if you have to
be rumored to have died a certain way. But like
(21:32):
that the origin of that rumor is just dr bait.
And he was doing rounds at Lenox Hill Hospital and
was just like, you know, the governor died having an orgasm.
I can understand that sex is pretty cool, but is
that a is that a cool death rumor? I don't
think I'd like that. You don't think, how do you
want to be a rumor to have died? Uh? Not fucking?
(21:54):
I guess you know, like like like uh, because that
seems like it's gonna be traumatizing for the person I'm with, uh,
and just a real mess to clean up, you know.
And yeah, I don't want to leave this this this
plane as a burden to many folks. I mean, I
(22:15):
get there's the the the association of all he died
doing what he loved. But yeah, it would be much
cooler if they were like, yeah, he uh, he just
finished sucking and then he got hit by a bus.
I guess. I mean that's yeah, that's still a lot
of men. I I get if I had, if I,
if I had to be rumored to have died in
(22:35):
a in a spectacular way, I would want it to
be like skydiving and fighting some sort of crypto zoological
animal like Bigfoot like that. That would be if if
if a medical examiner is going to create a rumor
about my death, I would want it to be something
cooler than that. You know. I think I'd probably just
want something that was very out of character for me,
(22:56):
so that it would just confuse everyone around on me,
just like in a big game hunting accident or oh
yeah he died, uh he he hit a dunk in
the Warriors game and he just like fell off the rim.
Weird people like Daniel can dunk. I mean, it sucks
that he's dead, but he he just dunk. He died
(23:19):
doing what he loved, fist fighting rhinos in the serengetti. Yeah. Yeah,
he dropped three of them before they got him. Or like, yeah,
rumor is he was poisoned. And then we were like,
oh that's interesting. I mean, some people might not like Daniel,
but but he's got poison enemies. That's very fascinating. Yeah yeah, polonium,
like you wanta go with, like the government poisoning thing,
(23:40):
right really? Yeah? Yeah? Okay, So people were pissed a Dr.
Baden for for for no discernible reason, dropping a rumor
that the governor had died fucking um, which is a
weird thing for a professional doctor to do. Um. He
was also in trouble because he had this really ugly
habit of con instantly losing crucial evidence. And I'm gonna
(24:02):
quote the New York Times here, and they're talking about
a case the People versus Levine. The defendant was indicted
for killing Miriam Winfield. Several important pieces of evidence were
covered the deceased fingernail clippings, who dress stayed with blood
A blue towel, a knife, and telephone cord which apparently
was used in the murder. All the items were lost.
Perhaps as distressing as the lass itself was Dr Baden's attitude,
which was characterized by the assistant as unknowing and uncaring
(24:24):
about the significance of the loss. When the assistant came
to Dr Baden's office to discuss how to salvage the
case in light of the lost evidence, he was not
so politely told to leave. So I mean this, this
is again, I hate to keep beating this drum that
is superficially at face value, sketchy and weird and damning
(24:45):
if you don't know anything else. And I mean, the
reason I know this is just from or the reason
I've adopted this attitude is because I work on the
most there's actually a lot more nuanced to it than
you think show in the history of uh natvs. H oh. Like,
we had an episode on on coroners this year, and
that's how I know that. Like, it's very common for
(25:06):
coroners to lose things, or misplace important things, or bungle
things just because uh there it's a position that's like
written into constitutions. It's a very old position. Uh. Not
a lot of people know too much about it. Uh.
There are a lot of people who are unqualified just
because it's an entire industry where there's there's not enough
oversight and regulation because there's no one interested in doing that.
(25:30):
So you hear these wild stories like a coroner who
uh accidentally, not acidentally, he cremated this this John Doe
on purpose. Uh and then he realized from watching the
news that the John Doe that he cremated was Michael
Jordan's father and he was most important this high profile
(25:50):
abduction case. And the coroner was just watching the news
was like, oh, no, I think I burned that guy.
It's like it makes you think he's a terrible corner
until you really like, no, it's it's like a very
it's a very troubled uh industry. Yes, So like maybe
this guy is uh worse or being flipping this this
(26:14):
this fellow we're talking about now, or maybe he's just
like another symptom of this this this broken system. I
think both of those things are true. Um, because number one,
I think like he definitely he got fired. So whatever,
however normal it is for these guys to lose evidence
he was doing it more than was normal, um, and
(26:35):
obviously had other issues like randomly talking about the governor's
un death. Um. But also the guy who replaced him
was fired within a year or two. Also, so you're right,
this is like it does. It does kind of seem
like there aren't a lot of people who were great
at this job, but he was not great at the job.
I do think that's fair to say, um, because you know,
(26:58):
he got fired from it a year in for uh,
fucking up a bunch of stuff. Now, I should note
Dr Baden denies losing anything. Um. He claims, like in
the specific case that I quoted, that the decedent was
brought in nude, and that he went through hours of
meetings about the lost evidence, and that he wasn't flippant
about it. I wasn't there, I wasn't born, so I
don't know what happened. UM. I can tell you that
(27:19):
District Attorney Robert morgan Thou and City Health Commissioner Ronaldo
Ferrer accused Baiden of sloppy record keeping, poor judgment, and
a lack of cooperation. Morgan Thou called him cavalier and
unproductive about lost evidence. So this is at least what
the people who work with him say about him. Now.
Mayor Cotch demoted Baden back to deputy examiner in August
of nineteen seventy nine. Baden sued the city for a
(27:41):
lawful termination and was reinstated as chief medical Examiner nineteen eighty,
but this didn't last long because the suit was brought
up to another court and the verdict of the lawsuit
was overturned. UH, and he was fired again. And as
it stands right now, in official legal terms, he was
bad at being the City of New York's chief medical examiner.
That is what the courts decided. So that's that's that
(28:02):
job now. Dr Biden moved to Suffolk County next UH
and he was made the chief Deputy Medical Examiner there.
He lasted less than a year at this job as well.
In December of nineteen two, he was fired after an
article in WE magazine quoted him giving advice on how
to commit murder using undetectable poisons. I don't know, I
(28:25):
love undetectable poisons um and talking about them, and I'm
sure it was a fun article. I can see why
you wouldn't want a chief medical examiner giving murder advice.
I can understand why that would frustrate people in the government. Certainly, Yeah,
I wouldn't. I wouldn't call that ideal behavior from a
corner that said, I'm sure it was a fun article. Now,
(28:48):
Baden denies having ever even given the interview. Um. The
reporter later admitted that he'd used Biden's words out of context.
But I really don't know exactly what happened here. Again,
I wasn't there. Suffolk County did offer to take him back.
Dr Biden decided to move on, so he built a
new career for himself, this time as a celebrity medical
pathologist coroner to the stars. So, yeah, he's a bad guy.
(29:12):
Yeah he's not a They're gonna wear anything I said
about nuance. He's bad. He's gonna go to hell. That's
not really the job you pick if you're like a
good dude. I think now, for the next several decades
up to the present day, whenever someone famous would die
or get murdered, you could be pretty sure that Dr
Michael Baiden was going to be there to take a
(29:34):
six figure consulting fee for the defense or the prosecution
in the court case that resulted. His first big case
was the overdose death of John Belushi in nine. A
New York Times headline at the time makes it seem
like this was about the easiest gigg pathologist could have quote.
Pathologist sites heroin and death of Belushi, which like not
(29:54):
not a real stretch. Um. Now, the prosecution that case
was working to prove that Kathy Evelyn Smith should stand
trial for murder since she'd been the one injecting Belushi
with drugs. Testifying for the prosecution, Dr Baden said that
if not for the heroine, Belushi would not have died
that night, and she did get in a shipload of
trouble for that, which I don't know, I don't have
(30:14):
a strong opinion on. Like, on one hand, she definitely
helped him do the thing that killed himself. On the
other hand, if you read a lot about John Belushi,
he was going to die that way with regards if
someone was not injecting him with heroin like he was.
He was making horrible choices in that last couple of years. Um,
and it seems like everybody around him was pretty aware
(30:35):
of what was going on. Yeah, Um, really sad story. Yeah,
I mean, I feel I don't feel qualified to wade
into no, no, kind of yeah. And obviously like that
one you look at, like his role in that, there's
nothing sketchy about that. They brought him into rule on
whether or not the fact that she was injecting with
heroin was a factor in his death, and it was,
(30:55):
and he ruled it seems accurately on that one. So
that's that's and the Los Angeles this medical examiner concurred
with him here, So it's hard to view this as
anything but in an accurate assessment of the evidence. Now,
over the next decade, Dr Baden mostly stuck to safe
cases where there was little danger of his work doing
anyone damage. He investigated the death of the czar in
the murder of the Lindbergh Baby. Um. Interestingly enough, Dr
(31:16):
Baden claims the Lindbergh Baby never had a fractured skull.
He believes it was smothered. No other pathologists seemed to
agree with him, and fractured skull is still listed as
the baby's cause of death. I don't know how the
baby died, but he had to take on the Lindbergh Baby.
You're leaving a lot of blanks in your reporting their evans.
I tried to dig up the Lindbergh baby's corpse. It
turns out that that is hard to do and also
(31:39):
considered ghoulish, uh and horrible. Um. So I learned a
lot of lessons working on this story. Um yeah, and
I'd like to apologize to the Lindberg family finally. Finally. Yeah,
there's a lot of things I actually should apologize to
them for, but that's that's personal. Um. Now. Dr Michael
(32:01):
Bayden didn't really run into trouble in his new field
until nine Now that is the year you might remember this,
or in fall James Simpson went on trial from murdering
Too Human Beings Now. Prosecutors contended that the attacks had
happened very quickly. Um. And this, like the fact that
he had killed his victims very quickly, was necessary for
(32:21):
the prosecution's timeline um to be accurate. O. J had
to have been able to drive back to his home
before eleven pm on June twelve, so like it needed
to have been a quick murder. So it became part
of the defense's job to show that the murder had
taken a long time. Because if the murder had taken
a long time rather than being short, and the prosecutions
timeline was sucked up, and then it would be easier
to get O J. Off. You know, you're you're trying
(32:42):
to disrupt whatever case the other side is making. So
the defense needed to be able to show that had
been a slow drawn out affair with a later time
of death, which would have, you know, helped exonerate O J.
And make his side of things seem more credible. Just
a nice casual reminder that in high profile murder cases, uh,
its sides are going to be like, you know, would
be really helpful if these were the facts and you've
(33:03):
got yeah, professionals who were like, yeah, okay, then I'll
make him. We'll do it. Oh yeah, yeah, you'll pay
me how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of course exactly,
and that that was that was his job. That was
Dr Baiden's job in the O J. Simpson case. The
chief corner of l A, the guy who was not
getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to weigh in
who was you know, it was just his job to
(33:24):
weigh in on murders. Told jurors that he believed that
a single attacker had murdered both victims very quickly after
lying in wait in the house. So O J's defense
needed to counter this conclusion by the l A corner,
and they went to Dr. Michael Baden for that. Baden
slammed the l A Coroner's office for performing a crappy
autopsy uh and argued that Nichole Simpson had struggled and
was not unconscious when her throat was slashed. He claimed
(33:46):
the wounds on her hands were defensive. He also argued
that the cut on O. J's hand was not meaningful.
Uh and I'm gonna quote from the Chicago Tribune now
and trying to minimize the cuts importance. Baden revealed to
the jury for the first time since Simpson's conflicting store
about how he injured his hand. During an examination the
week after the murder's Baden recalled that Simpson had said
he'd cut himself in Los Angeles rushing to pack for
a business trip to Chicago. He said he wasn't quite
(34:09):
sure how he had cut himself and noticed he had
been bleeding, but didn't know how it came about. Baden
testified he recalled some blood after trying to retrieve his
phone or some material from the Bronco. Now. Since defense
attorneys have previously argued that police must have planted Simpson's
blood in his driveway and Foyer Baden's revelation could help
the prosecution, But Simpson told the doctor he cut the
back of his left middle finger when he smashed a
(34:29):
glass in his Chicago hotel room and anguish upon learning
of his ex wife's murder. He said he was at
a sink or something and squeezed or broke or banged
a glass along a sink top and somehow cut the
back of his finger, Baden said. Prosecutor Brian Kellberg suggested
that Simpson's account of how he got the cut doesn't
hold up under scrutiny. How, in your opinion, can somebody
get a cut on the back of their hand by
slamming a glass down without having any cuts or injuries
on the palm, Kilberg said. Baden countered that Simpson could
(34:51):
have brushed the broken glass with the back of his hand.
Then Kelberg displayed photographs of simpson Chicago hotel bathroom shortly
after he checked out. No blood stained the broken glass,
shards in the white ink, or a white tail crumpled
to one side. Do you see any evidence of blood?
And those photographs. Kelbert gasked, no, I do not. Biden said, so,
that's interesting. He he didn't do a great job. He
kind of fucked up for the defense. And also like
(35:13):
that the reason I read that whole cross examination cases,
it makes it really clear it's his job to defend
o j um Like, when he gets hired on one
of these cases, he's not giving his unverartershed medical opinion.
It's his job to help the defense. And that's what
he was, Like, he was arguing for the defense there. Um, yeah,
that's what this guy does. Um. So again, when this
(35:34):
guy says Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and is hired by
his brother, he was hired by Epstein's brother to say
that Epstein was murdered. Like, that's pretty clear. Um Now.
In two thousand seven, Dr Baden wound up at the
helm of another high profile Hollywood murder case. This time
he was hired by the defense for record executive Phil Specter. Now,
Specter was charged with shooting actress Lanta Clark sent to
(35:56):
death in his gigantic mansion, a crime he absolutely committed.
Still in prison for it and will be until he dies. Uh. Now.
One of the most damning pieces of evidence. Supporting this
was the fact that Specter's jacket for the night had
Clarkson's blood on it. Now, this made the defenses case,
which is that she'd committed suicide with Specter's gun, seem
less likely. Now. Dr Baden slid in to explain this away.
(36:19):
He argued that although he'd attended her autopsy four years prior,
he'd recently concluded that her spinal cord had not in
fact been severed by a bullet, making it possible for
her to have spewed blood on Phil Specter after shooting
herself in the face. During cross examination, the prosecutor asked
Dr Baiden if he had any conflicts of interest in
this case that might impact his testimony. He said, none
that I can think of. You wanna you want to
(36:42):
guess as to whether or not he had conflicts of interest?
I think he probably did, but I'd like you to
confirm that for me. Yeah. Um, yeah, so he he
kind of did. His wife was one of Phil Specter's
defense attorneys. Cool that that might be a conflict of interest.
I'm not a law guy. Yeah, his wife. Dr Baden's
(37:04):
wife was Phil Specter's defense one of his defense attorneys.
I mean, what am I doing wrong? How come I
kicking a wife? Have you tried something forever? Someone? For
everyone out there? You know, they have a pretty cute
story have Yeah. Oh yeah, we'll talk about it in
a little bit, but I want to talk about your
(37:25):
romantic issues. Have you tried defendings Phil Specter in court?
Not in court? No, okay, just just socially. I know
you you're a big Specter fan. Yeah, like I like
I I host a semi regular It's like dinner slash
variety show in my salon where people come and perform.
That's some people just uh, their performances, the food that
(37:48):
they bring for everyone, Like we all share everything. It's
a very very chill group. And I, uh, for the
tenth time in a row, I comprehensively defend Phil Specter,
and like, I think, I'm just doing it for the
love of the sport at this point because no one's
challenging me. Mostly convinced the group. Well that I mean,
thank you for your service. Um yeah, that's a really
(38:11):
a noble endeavor. I can think of no one who's
been railroaded by the justice system more than Phil Spector.
And it's just a nice night. There are no there
are no phones. Put our phones in a bucket and
just just celebrate ourselves and our talents and the truth. Yeah,
I I have a similar regular get together. But to
argue that Michael Jackson was murdered. UM, and yeah, yeah,
(38:32):
it's nice. It's nice to get together with friends and
um talk about celebrities and crime. Um. I don't know
where this bit is supposed to go. You know where
this bit is gonna go? Dan, actually right into products
and services? Oh sick. I love product products yep, and
and maybe a service or two. And we're back. We're
(39:00):
ac and we are talking about variety shows, Phil Specter
and actually we're we're we're talking about Dr Baton. It's
time to get back into that. So we we just
talked about his lovely wife who defended Phil Specter in
the court in his lack of conflict of interest as
a result of that. UM. Now, Dr Baden has spent
a lot of his career in a world where accuracy
(39:20):
is less important than showmanship. He was the primary analyst
for the HBO series Autopsy for all nine seasons of
its run. Uh and he was like an on screen
presence for that He wrote two nonfiction books, Natural Death,
Confessions of a Medical Examiner and Dead Reckoning The New
Science of Catching Killers. He also co authored to fiction
books with his wife, Remains Silent and Skeleton Justice. Uh,
(39:44):
just love it. I love those titles. Now, these are
interesting stories Dan. Both books center around a dynamic duo
New York City Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Jake Rosen, Philomena
Manny Man Frida, a beautiful crusade attorney. According to Amazon,
the two fall in love and solve murders. I love that. Yeah,
(40:07):
it's pretty great. I love that in his fantasy fiction
he gives himself the job he got fired from. Yeah,
that's very very Yes. So I'm going to read from
the Amazon description of the book, Skeleton Justice, which is
just a great title. Jake's careful forensic examinations, Manny's courtroom tenaciousness,
(40:29):
and an unusual clue suggesting that a high ranking politician
has risen from the grave. Take the pair from the
bowels of the morgue to the world of international intrigue.
At the heart of this story is a tragic tale
of corruption, interlaced with cover ups, conspiracies, death squads, and
dictators who committed crimes that to this day go unpunished.
So uh, there you go. Yeah, I think a cool
(40:51):
thing for listeners to do at home if they, like me,
didn't know what Michael Baden looked like and just decided
to look for the first time. Now this is the risk.
Is the right time to do it? Yeah, he is.
You definitely want to picture him fucking a crusading and
beautiful attorney. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. You know, you know what
(41:14):
he looks like. Who is that fucking the warmonger guy
that used to be part of Trump's cabinet and or
then he got in he got fired with a mustache? Yeah, Bolton.
He looks like if Bolton like ate his sadness away
for like nine months, this is how Bolton would look.
He's there's a will for Brimley quality to him, but like, yeah,
he's Brimley asked for a meanness to him. But he's
(41:36):
certainly he it's my brain is doing a Mandela thing
because he he feels very at place in Trump's cabinet.
Like I'm not positive that he's not on the cabinet
somewhere because he just has that look that they all have.
He could be the secretary for Health and Services. I'm
(41:58):
looking at a picture of him right now pointing an
a graph at a press conference, and like, yeah, he
does it the way a Trump guy would point at
a graph. Like it's weird to say that, but he's
he's got the exact Yeah, he does look like that. Yeah,
my god, Um, what a what a what a fella? Now,
(42:18):
in more recent years, Dr Biden was hired by the
family of Michael Brown to analyze his autopsy report and testify.
His report concluded that there were no signs of a
struggle and that Brown had been shot six times. Now,
this is more or less consistent with the other reports
on Brown's death, um, except for the fact that he
stated with certainty that Brown had been shot exactly six times.
A lot of Dr Biden's colleagues critiqued him for this,
(42:40):
um because it's actually really hard to tell in a
case like that, especially when someone shot, like right over concrete,
how many times they were shot, because the bullets tend
to pierce them and then ricochet back, so it often
someone will have six holes in them, but the only
have been shot three times. Um. So NBC talked to
a pathologist who was very critical of Baden for staying
confidently how many times Brown had been shot. He said
(43:01):
Brown was way too confident for someone who hadn't seen
X rays, clothing, or lab reports, all of which can
be important. It was also worrying that Brown had been embalmed,
because that would alter the color of the wounds, potentially
throwing off Baden's analysis of entry and exit wounds. In
his count of six bullets, it could be that only
three bullets made those wounds. The pathologists said, So I
I quote that not because like he was wrong overall,
(43:21):
Like Michael Brown wasn't struggling. He was murdered, obviously, but
like the fact that he's talking about exactly how many
times the dude was shot um when he can't have
known that, And like as this other pathologists note, he
didn't see the X rays, the clothing, all of all
of this context that's critical to actually making an accurate
assessment of a case. He didn't know that. He just
wanted to have a take, um, because it was his
(43:43):
job to have a take, and so he gave a
take without having the information he would Actually, it's fun
to have takes. Dolphins, girl, sharks, it's fun. Dolphins all
are are in fact girl sharks. Um. That is the
official stance of this podcast, and I think it's fair
to say the facial stance of I heart media. Um yeah,
I can dictate corporate policy r E. Dolphins. That's in
(44:05):
my contract now. Um. Fellow pathologists are generally pretty critical
of Dr Baden. One former classmate of the doctors who
also worked as a medical examiner, said this of him,
He's very bright, but he has a propensity for giving
out statements and testimony which are not entirely accurate. Uh.
Dr Lowell Levine, who was the co director to compliment
(44:27):
Sandwich that, you know, he seems very clever or whatever.
He's a smart guy, but he lies all the time. Yeah,
he's a good doctor whose patients always die. He's dangerously
unfit with tremendous consequences. But his book, Oh my god,
(44:48):
the fucking in that book. I will tell you if
you want to come while reading someone else's fantasy fiction,
that's the book. Um. Yeah. Dr Lowell Levine, who was
co director for pathology for the New York State Police
and like alongside Dr Baden and worked with him, said this,
Michael never saw a camera he didn't like. He used
(45:08):
to yell at me about the press. They're just trying
to make a living. Why don't you help them? So
this guy, he likes being in front of cameras. He
likes the attention. It's not just about the money. It's
also about being a part of the story, a trade
shared by all the most normal, balanced people, all of
the healthiest people in the world. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So
it shouldn't come as a shock that Dr Michael Baden
(45:28):
found his way into the employe of Jeffrey Epstein's brother.
He did not conduct an autopsy and Epstein he did
observe the autopsy. Uh and again. The bulk of his
case that Epstein was murdered centers around the fact that
Epstein's hyoid bone was fractured in three places. Baden calls
this very unusual for suicide and more indicative of strangulation
homicidal strangulation. Interestingly, Baden has recently claimed that the doctor
(45:50):
who performed the autopsy didn't sign off on Epstein's cause
of death is suicide. Dr Baden claims the call was
made by the Chief Medical Examiner for New York City,
which is the person holding the same job he got
fired from. Doing um now. He insinuated on Fox and
Friends that this was strange, But the reality seems to
be that for a case this high profile, it's not
unusual for the chief medical examiner to want to make
(46:10):
that final call um and to not make that call
just during the autopsy, because again, like that other medical
examiners stated, there's other ship outside of the autopsy that
you look at to try to determine what happened um,
So it's not really weird that things would have proceeded
this way. Rolling Stone interviewed Dr Judy Melinick, a pathologist,
(46:31):
and she pointed out that highoid bone fractures happened in
suicide too, and that depending on the placement of the rope,
it would not be at all weird for this for
have happened to Epstein, if the fractures are nowhere near
the ligature furrow, and if there are defensive injuries on
the arms, and the case is more consistent with the
homicide being covered up than a suicidal hanging. If there
are no other injuries to the body and the highoid
and thyroid fractures correspond to the location of the furrow,
(46:51):
then it could realistically be a hanging suicide. So again,
he doesn't really give you all of the context that
a professional who's not making money and just trying to
get in front of a camera is going to give you. UM.
Rolling Stone also spoke with Dr Pria Banergy, who's another
UH forensic pathologist. Her comments are interesting to me, particularly
in light of the criticisms made against Dr Baden after
(47:12):
his work on the Brown murder. The reason we do
full autopsies is to make sure that the outsides and
the insides correlate and that everything makes sense. I always
do an autopsy with a skeptical lens. In addition, any
death and custody is scrutinized and find detailed to evaluate
what led to the person's death. Now, Bandergy agreed that
the broken hyoid bone was worrisome and definitely worthy of
further investigation, but she didn't go on TV and say
(47:33):
that she thought Epstein's death was probably homicide. Because she's
a responsible medical professional. Doesn't really UNDI she has a
future in the field. No, she's not going to be
making O. J. Simpson money, that's for sure. UM. Now.
Dr Samson, who's the Chief Medical Examiner of New York,
who declared Epstein's death of suicide continues to stand behind
that conclusion. She pointed out, no one finding can be
(47:54):
taken in isolation, uh, and referred to the complete investigation
conducted by her office as opposed to just the autopsy
that Dr Baden witnessed. So like, that's that's the story
of Dr Baden. I'm not saying Epstein wasn't murdered. I'm
not saying I know what happened. I'm saying that, like
all of this ship that keeps coming out that people
take is damning stories is more indicative of like the
(48:18):
media cycle around this and the need for there to
be stories about it than it is about a smoking gun,
because there's just not one. It's like, in a lot
of cases, it's worth knowing the source of this statement.
It's it's important to have the context of like, yes
he said this, and uh, you know, there is a
chance that Epstein was murdered, But like look who you're loo,
(48:40):
who you're listening to. Yeah, you're listening to the guy
who was hired to say that. Yeah, yeah, it's his job.
And that's that's that's our fun story today. Um, are
are you are you? Are you happy? Dan. Uh, Yeah,
I'm always pretty happy. Hey, beier than you were with
(49:00):
the last Epstein episode, much happier than I was the
last episode, and not just because it was wildly depressing
last time and he's fucking dead now. But um, I
have to digest so much news for work, and a
lot of it is either very breaking news about something
(49:22):
that happened that week or news that has just stories
that have been building for years and years and have
hours of footage around them that I don't get to
keep up with everything. You know, I missed so many things,
and I like that I could just sit down with
you and you could tell me that the news that
I missed, it's very very helpful. Yeah, and now you know, uh,
(49:46):
the rest of the story or slightly more of the story.
Has this changed how you're leaning our e suicide or
murder for Epstein? I think I'm leading suicide. I'm not
going to take the stand on that or anything like,
but everything you've laid out makes a pretty compelling case
for it. Yeah. I'm not gonna take a strong stance either, because, like,
(50:07):
the dude did have dirt on two presidents, including one
sitting president, and like a royal family member and like
that's just the top of the list. So like, yeah, fun,
there's a lot of people who wanted the son of
a bit dead, um, but like I'm not seeing any
evidence for that yet. Um. And I think people need
(50:28):
to chill out and a trust that, like, we're just
not going to get any good information about this for
a while. Um, it's just going to be shipped like
Dr Baden trying to stay in the news. So that said,
I also think I think you'll convince listeners like me
who knew a little bit about this but not too much,
(50:48):
that there's not a conspiracy there. But I think the
people who already believe this is a conspiracy and they're
like fucket, Hilary Clinton killed f Stein with her hands.
That's like they're they're they're lost, man, you're not gonna
get them. Yeah belief. I yeah, it's we all know
like Hillary Clinton did nine eleven, but I don't think
(51:09):
she killed Jeffrey Epps. Um. Yeah. Yeah, that, like I
think we should all just stop living in this this
conspiratorial world and start trying to make sure that she
she faces justice for her nine elevening. Yeah, it was
so crazy when when everyone was like Hillary Clinton ben Ghazi,
which you know she did do also the whole time,
(51:30):
I'm like, gods, there's a bigger fish. What are you doing?
There's nine eleven. We've all seen the pictures of her
flying those planes into the towers and people shooting out.
She did both of them. Yeah, she is, I mean,
in fairness to her, an incredible pilot. Um like one
of the greatest of her generation. Um, it's a shame
she used her powers for evil. Well, that's gonna be
(51:51):
all for us today on Behind the Bastards um Uh
tweeted us with hashtag Hillary Clinton nine eleven Justice. UM.
I'm sure that will. It had to lead to some
really fun mentions for both of us. Um, Dan, you
got any pluggable to plug? Yeah, the season finale of
the show that I write for will be on that
(52:12):
week and then we'll be off for a couple of
months for a nice hiatus. So watched the season finale. Uh,
it's very A lot of people, a tremendous amount of
people work very hard to get every episode of this
show onto your TV or or phone. Um, and so
(52:32):
watch it because because a lot of us loosely making it.
Now the show that you work for is is Last
Week Tonight with Communities? John Oliver, Yes, that's right. Did
I not mentioned the name of the show? You did
not mention the name of the very popular and influential
TV show that you write for and won an Emmy
for writing for. I'm so cool. Oh my god, that's
punk Rock. I gotta ask with the Emmy, do you
(52:56):
wear it around your neck? Ever? Like when you go
to the gym? I found when we like the night
you win the Emmy, you they just hand it to
you and then you walk around with it because you
don't go like the hotel is far from where the
Emmys are, so you just go to the party's carrying
as emmy. You're at the Governor's Ball in the HBO
party in the last week to night party with an
Emmy in your hand, and strangers, some of whom are famous,
(53:17):
will say congratulations to you. So I've just never left
the house without it. I don't have it on my
neck or anything like that. But but as soon as
I discovered that people say congratulations to you and you
hold an Emmy, and and my brain was like more
of this, please, I've just I mean, it's filthy because
I have not let go of it. M M. Yeah,
if you've seen me in the street with the Emmy,
(53:38):
say congratulations to me please. Oh yeah, no, I I will,
but I will not shake your filthy emmy hand. Um
no no. Um, well that's Dan. Give him congratulations on
his Emmy and ask him how various famous people smell,
um in case he's met them and some of them. Um, yeah,
(53:58):
I was talking about smells. You were to come out
to New York. What You're gonna come out in New
York visit? Yeah, you know, I think I think my
my I might wind up there next year to do
some work. Um, I'm hoping. So I love the apple
that never is small as people call it. Um. So
(54:18):
we'll we'll have a we'll have an Emmy party. Um
and uh yeah. You can find this podcast on the
internet at behind the Bastards dot com. You can find
us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastards pod. Um. You
can buy t shirts at Tea Public. Uh. And you know,
if you want to steal an Emmy and mail it
(54:39):
to me, Uh, then I too will be able to
get compliments from strangers in the street. Um. So you know,
I don't know who who who who's easy to rob
this one in Emmy? I don't know. Try Will Wheaton.
He did he win an Emmy. I don't think so well,
rob will wait in either way, UM well, maybe don't
(54:59):
do that. Should not be urging people to commit specific
crimes on the podcast. Give Will Wheaton an Emmy and
then take it from him so that it's technically not
a crime. I should just give you know what. I
gotta tell you, man, from one right or to another,
you are sticking the landing here. Thank you, thank you.
We try to end every episode gracefully um and with
(55:19):
a plomb. Um. So the show's done. Yeah, good h
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where I'm
Robert Evans and we talked about bad people and I
introduced the show poorly. Uh, this is uh an episode
about Jeffrey Epstein and my my guest today is Daniel O'Brien. Dan,
how you doing? Man? Hello, brailed to be talking to
(00:24):
you for a third episode about Jeffrey Epstein Jeffstein. Yeah,
that's what I've decided we should call him. Really really
thought we sort of uh closed the book on this
one the last time. Has there been any updates? Yeah?
You know, Dan, it's been a busy year since we
last talked. A lot has happened. Uh, you want an emmy,
(00:45):
I went to Syria and our friend Jeffrey Epstein had
some big Um had some big things happen as well. Yeah,
you have to. You have to offer a bunch of
retractions for your last episode because it turns out he
was exonerated on all counts. Right, is that the news? Oh? No,
Dan um slightly slightly different than that he either killed
(01:07):
himself or was murdered in prison cell um after being
arrested at an airport and charged with a whole a
whole bunch of crimes. Yikes. Yeah, not a great year
for Epstein. UM. I would imagine you have uh an
order in which you want to proceed with this episode,
(01:29):
and that me jumping in right now and ask you
questions is disrupting that in some way. UM. I know,
I feel like I don't care right off the top.
Do you have strong opinions on suicide versus murder? Um?
I have strong opinions that the case for murder isn't
nearly as strong as a lot of people think it is.
I think there's a lot of people misunderstanding in some
(01:52):
cases deliberately what has actually been revealed. UM. That said,
there's definitely some fishy as ship, and it's it's not
on reasonable to want an investigation into it. UM. I'm
leaning towards suicide though, UM, and I suspect most of
the listeners think he was murdered. Uh so the people
where are you on this? I haven't thought too much
(02:13):
about it, to be completely honest. That seems healthy. Yeah,
it's he's I'm sure a compelling case could be made
for either side. I don't. It doesn't quite matter to me,
I guess, which probably sounds callous. I don't think you
can be callous about a mass child rapist. Um. I
(02:37):
kind of think you can do whatever you want when
talking about Jeffrey Epstein as long as you're not talking
about how good an art collector he was or something
like that. I mean, if not not callous, because like
it's not I have no respect for Jeffrey Epstein. I don't.
I don't give a ship. But the fact that I
clearly don't care one way or the other means I'm
(03:01):
implicitly saying I don't care if someone can sneakily murder
someone and get away with it, and that's not a
good stance to have, ideal stance to have. Yeah, it's uh,
I don't know, like so, I I guess we should.
You're probably aware of so. A lot of the things
that have um recently come out. I think the most
(03:23):
recent big story about Epstein has actually been a couple
in the last week. The most recent is a Project
Veritas video from your Your Hold alumni James O'Keeffe. Did
you ever run into him at Rutgers by the way, No,
I did not. Okay, that's good. That's probably good for everybody. Um,
he seems insufferable. Uh so he put out a video
(03:46):
of ABC News anchor Amy Roebok, and in the video,
she claims that the network quashed an interview she conducted
with a source about Jeffrey Epstein's like child prostitution business
UM that involved like Prince Andrew and kind of suggested
that ABC had like pulled the story due to threats
(04:09):
from like Buckingham Palace and like a number of other
powerful people. And so this is like, this has been
pretty prominent on the internet. Uh, And like, I think
the way that most people have framed it as like, oh,
James O'Keeffe actually got a scoop is a clear example
of ABC News um killing a story to protect Jeffrey
Epstein the powerful people that he provided prostitutes for. And
(04:30):
I'm not going to say that's a hundred percent not
what's happening, but I really don't think that's what's happening.
So I should start by I'm gonna I'm actually gonna
quote an MPR article here that that kind of gives
the response from ABC. So we'll start with that. ABC
News executives say their journalists were simply not able to
corroborate the details of the reporting sufficiently for broadcast. We
(04:52):
would never run away from that, Chris Blasto, head of
investigations for ABC News, tells NPR the network has filed
approximately two dozen digital and broadcast stories on Epstein since
early two thousand fifteen, when ABC started talking to the accuser,
Virginia Roberts Jeffrey. So there's a good point there, which
is that if you're trying to say ABC was unwilling
to talk about Epstein, that's really hard to support because
(05:15):
they've actually done a lot of coverage of this case,
and the idea that like, Okay, well we we weren't
able to back into like I think it was to
them fifteen when this video was or sorry to this
nineteen is her talking about this, but I think she
was frustrated that like they hadn't gotten the story out
earlier and broken the story. But I like there's legal
(05:35):
concerns when you're reporting something like this and you're alleging
that like a prince is part of a child sex
ring and like a bunch of very prominent, very wealthy
people have been committing horrible crimes um and there is
like your legal department is going to look over something
like this in addition to your editorial department and be like, Okay,
either we have enough back up for this story to
(05:57):
move forward, or we don't think we can safely d
op this yet because we don't have enough like evidence
to support it, right. I mean, it sounds like another
case where idiots on the internet saw how professional adult
does a thing, kind of simplified and misunderstood it, and
then applied it to something else. So like we can see,
oh NBC actively covered up this running fire was reporting
(06:21):
on Harvey Weinstein, which they did, and then did the
idiots of the internet though, the adiots of the world,
the James O keeps and what not, the trolls and stuff.
They'll look at something that seems like it shares some
of the DNA because they're like, hey, big news network
something something something, scandal something something something, and they knew
part of it and they didn't tell us these things
(06:43):
are the same thing, which is not the case. Yeah, yeah,
and it's on the video. Robots says, I tried for
three years to get it out to no avail and
a these new revelations and I freaking had all of it.
I'm so piste right now, Like every day I get
one more piste because I'm just like, oh my god,
what we had it was, what we had was unreal.
But when the video leaked, she made a public statement. UM.
(07:05):
As the Epstein story continue to unfold last summer, I
was caught in a private moment of frustration. I was
upset that an important interview I had conducted with Virginia
Roberts didn't air because we could not obtain sufficient corroborating
evidence to meet ABC's editorial standards about her allegations the
interview itself, While I was disappointed in nair didn't meet
our standards. In a years since, no one ever told
me you're the team to stop reporting on Jeffrey Epstein,
and we have continued to aggressively pursue this important story,
(07:28):
which they did again like the network launched like a
two hour documentary um in like like they've they've covered
this a lot. Um. It's one of those things, like
I I'm I'm I'm certainly open to the possibility that
with his connections and power, um Epstein had an in
at ABC that tried to quash the story at some point.
(07:49):
That's certainly not impossible, But I'm not seeing evidence of that.
Like I'm seeing evidence of it's hard to go after
billionaires and princes uh and royalty um and politicians when
they commit crimes if you only have one source, because
like you can get your ass sued for that stuff,
Like it's there. Yeah, I think people are blowing this
(08:13):
out of proportion. I think I think you're right to
connect it to like what happened with Ronan Pharaoh UM,
because that is a case of where he came in
with this big story and they tried to quash it
for very sinister reasons. And I think O'Keefe was pretty
smart to launch this pretty fairly shortly after um, like
Ronan Pharaoh's book came out, because I do think those
two things have been connected in a lot of people's heads. Yeah. Yeah, alright,
(08:36):
let's talk about Epstein's suicide slash murder. Um. Yeah, that'll
be this will be fun talk. He's just sitting with
my buddy Dan talking about a murdered or suicide, multi
millionaire financier, prostituted child pimp. Oh. I yes, I should
try to get ahead of this because it sounds like
we're going to cover some pretty dark stuff. If people
(08:57):
are easily uh triggered by by talk of child molestation
and or suicide. I also, just knowing myself, I will
probably make suicide jokes. I don't think suicide is funny
or a laughing matter, and it should always be taken seriously.
But because of the way my brain is wired, yeah,
it just might happen. I'm just putting the warning out there. Yeah.
(09:21):
I I had to physically fight myself to stop from
just quoting the lines from the Mash theme song as
a response to you, which I didn't do. And I'm
proud of myself, but I might later. Um. Yeah. There's
a number of things that people find really fishy about
the Epstein suicide, probably like one of the chief things
is the fact that he was taken off of Suicide Watch,
(09:42):
which seems really damning, Like why would you take this
guy off of suicide Watch? Um, it seems like a
clear case of the kind of person you would be
worried would commit suicide. And in fact, a number of
like corrections at like like people who have like worked
in prisons and stuff, um like have come out and
said that, like this was a dumb call to remove
(10:03):
him from Suicide Watch. Cameron Lindsay, a former warden who
worked at three federal facilities told NBC. For them to
pull him off suicide watch a shocking for someone that
high profile, with these allegations and this many victims who
has had a suicide attempt in the last few weeks,
you can take absolutely no chances. And I think this
seems conspiratorial to people who don't really know how the
(10:23):
justice system worked. And I kind of think this is
just a situation of where Epstein was treated like a
normal prisoner. Um. He was not removed just out of
like laziness, Like he had a face to face meeting
with a doctor UM who determined that the suicide watch
was not warranted anymore and removed him from it. UM.
And you know, basically he convinced a doctor that he
(10:46):
wasn't a risk after his suicide attempt. And you can
say that, uh, that shouldn't have happened, or that um,
like it was a bad guy. It was certainly a
bad call. It was obviously a bad call. But this
sort of thing is incredibly common. We actually don't know
how many people die in of suicide in prisons right now.
(11:07):
We only have data up to two thousand fourteen that
we should get a better. Uh system doesn't it handle,
doesn't it? Yeah? Um, we we we only have data
up to two fourteen, because in two thousand fourteen, suicide
in jails and prisons in America hit a fifteen year
high and became the leading cause of death in jails. Uh.
(11:28):
And after that the Department of Justice stopped providing us
with information about suicides in our jails for some reason,
which is that might be more of the conspiracy in
my head that they're hiding this this information. Um. Yeah,
suicide accounts for a third more yeah, roughly a third
of all deaths in in jails. Uh. And in thirty
(11:49):
percent of all deaths in state prisons. It actually jumped
thirty from two thousand two fourteen in state prisons. Oh sorry,
it's seven percent of deaths in prisons. It jumped thirty
percent over the course of two thoteen in fourteen. And
we don't know how high it is now obviously, um,
but it had a thirty percent leap over the course
of a year in two thousand, thirteen and fourteen, which
is um huge. Uh. The a P and the University
(12:11):
of Maryland's Capital News Service recently conducted an inner an
investigation where they found hundreds of lawsuits against local jails. Um,
talking about suicides, like against local jails because inmates had
committed suicide. Um. And that way, that's just in Maryland. Um.
You know, the Martial Project used public records laws to
find suicide data from the Bureau of Prisons, which show
(12:33):
arise since two thousand fifteen. But again they had to
use like Foyer requests and stuff to get that data.
Nobody's like publishing it normally. UM. Like it's a huge
systemic problem, and it might be like the single largest
problem with American prisons. I found a really good quote
from David Fathi, who was the director of the National
Prison Project at the a c l U. UM. In
(12:54):
most prisons and jails I've seen, and there are exceptions,
suicide prevention as a joke. We have seen people able
to attempt suicidal suppose the on constant suicide watch. We've
seen people taken off suicide watch because staff thought they
were okay, and then killed themselves that same day. We've
seen officers who were supposed to be watching someone on
suicide watch actually sleeping. This ship happens a lot, and
it can't really be overstated just how big of a
(13:15):
problem this is. I know that's just what you've been doing,
but just yeah, only because I've been researching is for
a future upcoming thing at work is that as mental
health treatment facilities closed down, more and more people in
need of mental health end up in jails. And I
know in a few cases the county jail is the
largest single provider of mental health services, which is not great. Yeah,
(13:38):
And I think one area people get when they when
they see this removal from suicide Watch for Epsney is
something sinister. Um is sinister in like a conspiratorial way.
I think what actually is happening here is that for
the first time in his life, this guy got treated
like everybody else um. And that's what happens to everybody else.
It happens to a shipload of people in prison and
(14:00):
jails they kill themselves. And you can look at it
as the deep State wanted him dead and so they
had him moved from suicide Watch and like, you know,
told him that it was either this or someone would
murder him and then he did it. Or you can
look at it like, oh, he did the thing that
liket of people in his situation do, or something like
you know, a large chunk of people like it's. Yeah. Now,
one thing that is legitimately sketchy is that both of
(14:22):
the cameras outside the jail cell where Epstein died were broken,
which is sketchy as hell. I'll give everybody who's on
the murder side that that ships uh super fishy. It
would be a hard Yeah, it's another one to work. Again,
I don't have all the information like that exactly immediately
at its face value, it sounds sketchy. Um, but I've
(14:43):
never done the research, you know, just how well maintained
security cameras are exactly, And again there's not It's not
like there's data on this because the Bureau of Prisons
doesn't give people data on fucking anything. So maybe something's there,
maybe not. I don't know. I'm gonna we're we're we
are now moving on to the part of the episode
(15:04):
where I have an actual little essay written. Um, because
because Dan did you went into a story at the
end of last month where a uh uh, which you
mean a forensic investigator who observed the Epstein autopsy said
that it was consistent with homicide. Yeah, yeah, yeah, did
(15:25):
you do you look into that at all? Of course? Not? Okay,
good good, good, good good good. Yeah. So that happened
last month, and a lot of people shared it on Twitter,
including myself, and we're like, oh, this is okay. I
guess maybe he was murdered. Like now we've got some
fucking hard evidence. And then a couple of my fans
are like, you should look into the guy who actually
(15:45):
declared it a homicide, the the specific investigator, and I did,
and uh, he's quite the dude. Dad, You're you're gonna
like this, You're you're gonna hate this actually, but I'm
gonna read this to you anyway. So National Reviews coverage
that their headline was forensic investigator Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy more
(16:06):
consistent with homicide. Fox News wrote Jeffrey Epstein's autopsy more
consistent with homicidal strangulation than suicide. Dr Michael Baden reveals
now even the New York Times his coverage seemed to
point towards a pretty damning revelation. They said, Epstein's autopsy
points to homicide pathologist hired by brother claims um Now,
as that hired by brother part might suggest this guy
(16:29):
is not a totally independent analyst. Um, Yeah, because the
Epstein family is very much taking the line that he
was murdered. So I looked into this guy, Dr Michael Baden,
and he spent the last week or so doing a
pretty brisk business and media appearances. He was on Fox
and Friends like right after this, uh, and he claimed
(16:50):
that Epstein's injuries, particularly the broken highoid bone in his neck,
are in his words, extremely unusual in suicidal hangings and
could occur much more commonly in homicidal strangulation. Okay that
I feel like the word could there is doing a
whole lot of work. Yeah, the word could is doing
a lot of lifting. Uh, and more commonly is also
also holding some water. Now, he told Fox and Friends,
(17:14):
which is where all great forensic investigators go to, uh
drop their research. I wasn't sure if you were aware
of that, but yeah, really popular. He told them he
hadn't seen injuries like this in a suicide in fifty
years of doing autopsies. And if you just look at
this guy's credentials. Dr Biden's credentials on paper, it does
seem like he knows his ship. His website notes that
(17:36):
he was the chairman of the Forensic Pathology Panel of
the U S Congress Select Committee on Assassinations. Uh. He
helped to reinvestigate the deaths of JFK and Martin Luther
King Jr. He was asked by the Russian government to example,
you get homicide on those two? Also, yeah, he sure
shared actually suicide on JFKO. Yeah, yeah, yeah it yeah,
(17:57):
yeah that I don't I don't have more of a
joke there, but I'm sure you can piece one together.
He was asked by the Russian government to examine the
remains of Zari Nicholas the second and his family, which
I feel like we know how that one went down.
And he's conducted more than twenty thousand autopsies and taught
homicide courses for police, judges, lawyers, and doctors in most
(18:18):
of the US and at least nine other countries. So
that's a pretty pretty good resume, I would say, uh,
pretty solid resume. More autopsies than I have carried out, certainly, Yeah,
but I've only carried out three or four. Um. Yeah.
Now that's the overview of Dr Baden's career that his
website presents, but it leaves a couple of things out.
(18:40):
So before we make any conclusions about this most recent
wrinkle in the Epstein case. I want us to take
a look at this guy's record. But before we do that, Dan,
you know what, it's time for a time for goods services.
Yet goods services products is time for an ad break.
So don't think of out Jeffrey Epstein hanging himself in
(19:01):
a cell and instead think about capitalism. We're back, So, man,
those products can't wait to fucking put him in my
mouth or whatever. You liked the products. I was a
fan of the services, um. But that's the great thing
(19:22):
about America, the freedom. Now, speaking of freedom, or not
speaking of freedom at all, let's talk about Dr Michael
Baiden's career. UM. In nine, while he was the chairman
of that Congressional Committee on Assassinations, he was also the
chief medical Examiner for New York City. Now that's a
really prestigious posting because New York is America's largest city.
(19:45):
And I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but
all of its citizens are very talented murderers. Yeah. And
it's also I don't know if you know this, but
it never sleeps, so it did not always murder happening. Yeah,
it's just it is a murder fa ctory um that's
in fact what they call it on the streets. I hear, yeah,
(20:06):
taking the taking a taking the A train into the
murder factory. I don't know if the A train goes
into New York. I don't know if there's an A train.
I don't know about the subway. Dan, Hey, it was
a good joke, and you were wise for making it.
Thank you, Thank you for your approval. Now Baden had
been promoted to that that very prestigious gig in August
of nineteen seventy eight, after more than ten years is
(20:27):
the Deputy Chief Medical Examiner. Mayor Ed Koch, who promoted him,
told the New York Daily News that he had known
Dr Baden since nineteen sixty six and found him to
be very capable and innovative. Now Mayor Cotch changed that
tune less than a year later, According to New York Magazine,
too many unforced errors added up, including a picked apart
trial testimony in the doctor X case leading the acquittal
(20:49):
of Mario Jesskolovich in a spate of poison murders at
Riverdale Hospital, a Housing Authority patrolman who's January nineteen seventy
nine murder went undetected for twelve hours, his body removed
from the scene before proper death. Investor Guigetion conflicting conclusions
related to the chokehold death of a Brooklyn businessman at
the hands of police, and off the cuff comments about
the possibly sexual interrupting death of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. So
(21:10):
he fox up a bunch of really big cases, and
more than anything, I think that got him fired. It's
the fact that he started a rumor about the death
of the former governor. Um Like, there's this rumor that
Nelson Rockefeller died fucking, which is a great way to
be rumored to have died. Um if you have to
be rumored to have died a certain way. But like
(21:32):
that the origin of that rumor is just dr bait.
And he was doing rounds at Lenox Hill Hospital and
was just like, you know, the governor died having an orgasm.
I can understand that sex is pretty cool, but is
that a is that a cool death rumor? I don't
think I'd like that. You don't think, how do you
want to be a rumor to have died? Uh? Not fucking?
(21:54):
I guess you know, like like like uh, because that
seems like it's gonna be traumatizing for the person I'm with, uh,
and just a real mess to clean up, you know.
And yeah, I don't want to leave this this this
plane as a burden to many folks. I mean, I
(22:15):
get there's the the the association of all he died
doing what he loved. But yeah, it would be much
cooler if they were like, yeah, he uh, he just
finished sucking and then he got hit by a bus.
I guess. I mean that's yeah, that's still a lot
of men. I I get if I had, if I,
if I had to be rumored to have died in
(22:35):
a in a spectacular way, I would want it to
be like skydiving and fighting some sort of crypto zoological
animal like Bigfoot like that. That would be if if
if a medical examiner is going to create a rumor
about my death, I would want it to be something
cooler than that. You know. I think I'd probably just
want something that was very out of character for me,
(22:56):
so that it would just confuse everyone around on me,
just like in a big game hunting accident or oh
yeah he died, uh he he hit a dunk in
the Warriors game and he just like fell off the rim.
Weird people like Daniel can dunk. I mean, it sucks
that he's dead, but he he just dunk. He died
(23:19):
doing what he loved, fist fighting rhinos in the serengetti. Yeah. Yeah,
he dropped three of them before they got him. Or like, yeah,
rumor is he was poisoned. And then we were like,
oh that's interesting. I mean, some people might not like Daniel,
but but he's got poison enemies. That's very fascinating. Yeah yeah, polonium,
like you wanta go with, like the government poisoning thing,
(23:40):
right really? Yeah? Yeah? Okay, So people were pissed a Dr.
Baden for for for no discernible reason, dropping a rumor
that the governor had died fucking um, which is a
weird thing for a professional doctor to do. Um. He
was also in trouble because he had this really ugly
habit of con instantly losing crucial evidence. And I'm gonna
(24:02):
quote the New York Times here, and they're talking about
a case the People versus Levine. The defendant was indicted
for killing Miriam Winfield. Several important pieces of evidence were
covered the deceased fingernail clippings, who dress stayed with blood
A blue towel, a knife, and telephone cord which apparently
was used in the murder. All the items were lost.
Perhaps as distressing as the lass itself was Dr Baden's attitude,
which was characterized by the assistant as unknowing and uncaring
(24:24):
about the significance of the loss. When the assistant came
to Dr Baden's office to discuss how to salvage the
case in light of the lost evidence, he was not
so politely told to leave. So I mean this, this
is again, I hate to keep beating this drum that
is superficially at face value, sketchy and weird and damning
(24:45):
if you don't know anything else. And I mean, the
reason I know this is just from or the reason
I've adopted this attitude is because I work on the
most there's actually a lot more nuanced to it than
you think show in the history of uh natvs. H oh. Like,
we had an episode on on coroners this year, and
that's how I know that. Like, it's very common for
(25:06):
coroners to lose things, or misplace important things, or bungle
things just because uh there it's a position that's like
written into constitutions. It's a very old position. Uh. Not
a lot of people know too much about it. Uh.
There are a lot of people who are unqualified just
because it's an entire industry where there's there's not enough
oversight and regulation because there's no one interested in doing that.
(25:30):
So you hear these wild stories like a coroner who
uh accidentally, not acidentally, he cremated this this John Doe
on purpose. Uh and then he realized from watching the
news that the John Doe that he cremated was Michael
Jordan's father and he was most important this high profile
(25:50):
abduction case. And the coroner was just watching the news
was like, oh, no, I think I burned that guy.
It's like it makes you think he's a terrible corner
until you really like, no, it's it's like a very
it's a very troubled uh industry. Yes, So like maybe
this guy is uh worse or being flipping this this
(26:14):
this fellow we're talking about now, or maybe he's just
like another symptom of this this this broken system. I
think both of those things are true. Um, because number one,
I think like he definitely he got fired. So whatever,
however normal it is for these guys to lose evidence
he was doing it more than was normal, um, and
(26:35):
obviously had other issues like randomly talking about the governor's
un death. Um. But also the guy who replaced him
was fired within a year or two. Also, so you're right,
this is like it does. It does kind of seem
like there aren't a lot of people who were great
at this job, but he was not great at the job.
I do think that's fair to say, um, because you know,
(26:58):
he got fired from it a year in for uh,
fucking up a bunch of stuff. Now, I should note
Dr Baden denies losing anything. Um. He claims, like in
the specific case that I quoted, that the decedent was
brought in nude, and that he went through hours of
meetings about the lost evidence, and that he wasn't flippant
about it. I wasn't there, I wasn't born, so I
don't know what happened. UM. I can tell you that
(27:19):
District Attorney Robert morgan Thou and City Health Commissioner Ronaldo
Ferrer accused Baiden of sloppy record keeping, poor judgment, and
a lack of cooperation. Morgan Thou called him cavalier and
unproductive about lost evidence. So this is at least what
the people who work with him say about him. Now.
Mayor Cotch demoted Baden back to deputy examiner in August
of nineteen seventy nine. Baden sued the city for a
(27:41):
lawful termination and was reinstated as chief medical Examiner nineteen eighty,
but this didn't last long because the suit was brought
up to another court and the verdict of the lawsuit
was overturned. UH, and he was fired again. And as
it stands right now, in official legal terms, he was
bad at being the City of New York's chief medical examiner.
That is what the courts decided. So that's that's that
(28:02):
job now. Dr Biden moved to Suffolk County next UH
and he was made the chief Deputy Medical Examiner there.
He lasted less than a year at this job as well.
In December of nineteen two, he was fired after an
article in WE magazine quoted him giving advice on how
to commit murder using undetectable poisons. I don't know, I
(28:25):
love undetectable poisons um and talking about them, and I'm
sure it was a fun article. I can see why
you wouldn't want a chief medical examiner giving murder advice.
I can understand why that would frustrate people in the government. Certainly, Yeah,
I wouldn't. I wouldn't call that ideal behavior from a
corner that said, I'm sure it was a fun article. Now,
(28:48):
Baden denies having ever even given the interview. Um. The
reporter later admitted that he'd used Biden's words out of context.
But I really don't know exactly what happened here. Again,
I wasn't there. Suffolk County did offer to take him back.
Dr Biden decided to move on, so he built a
new career for himself, this time as a celebrity medical
pathologist coroner to the stars. So, yeah, he's a bad guy.
(29:12):
Yeah he's not a They're gonna wear anything I said
about nuance. He's bad. He's gonna go to hell. That's
not really the job you pick if you're like a
good dude. I think now, for the next several decades
up to the present day, whenever someone famous would die
or get murdered, you could be pretty sure that Dr
Michael Baiden was going to be there to take a
(29:34):
six figure consulting fee for the defense or the prosecution
in the court case that resulted. His first big case
was the overdose death of John Belushi in nine. A
New York Times headline at the time makes it seem
like this was about the easiest gigg pathologist could have quote.
Pathologist sites heroin and death of Belushi, which like not
(29:54):
not a real stretch. Um. Now, the prosecution that case
was working to prove that Kathy Evelyn Smith should stand
trial for murder since she'd been the one injecting Belushi
with drugs. Testifying for the prosecution, Dr Baden said that
if not for the heroine, Belushi would not have died
that night, and she did get in a shipload of
trouble for that, which I don't know, I don't have
(30:14):
a strong opinion on. Like, on one hand, she definitely
helped him do the thing that killed himself. On the
other hand, if you read a lot about John Belushi,
he was going to die that way with regards if
someone was not injecting him with heroin like he was.
He was making horrible choices in that last couple of years. Um,
and it seems like everybody around him was pretty aware
(30:35):
of what was going on. Yeah, Um, really sad story. Yeah,
I mean, I feel I don't feel qualified to wade
into no, no, kind of yeah. And obviously like that
one you look at, like his role in that, there's
nothing sketchy about that. They brought him into rule on
whether or not the fact that she was injecting with
heroin was a factor in his death, and it was,
(30:55):
and he ruled it seems accurately on that one. So
that's that's and the Los Angeles this medical examiner concurred
with him here, So it's hard to view this as
anything but in an accurate assessment of the evidence. Now,
over the next decade, Dr Baden mostly stuck to safe
cases where there was little danger of his work doing
anyone damage. He investigated the death of the czar in
the murder of the Lindbergh Baby. Um. Interestingly enough, Dr
(31:16):
Baden claims the Lindbergh Baby never had a fractured skull.
He believes it was smothered. No other pathologists seemed to
agree with him, and fractured skull is still listed as
the baby's cause of death. I don't know how the
baby died, but he had to take on the Lindbergh Baby.
You're leaving a lot of blanks in your reporting their evans.
I tried to dig up the Lindbergh baby's corpse. It
turns out that that is hard to do and also
(31:39):
considered ghoulish, uh and horrible. Um. So I learned a
lot of lessons working on this story. Um yeah, and
I'd like to apologize to the Lindberg family finally. Finally. Yeah,
there's a lot of things I actually should apologize to
them for, but that's that's personal. Um. Now. Dr Michael
(32:01):
Bayden didn't really run into trouble in his new field
until nine Now that is the year you might remember this,
or in fall James Simpson went on trial from murdering
Too Human Beings Now. Prosecutors contended that the attacks had
happened very quickly. Um. And this, like the fact that
he had killed his victims very quickly, was necessary for
(32:21):
the prosecution's timeline um to be accurate. O. J had
to have been able to drive back to his home
before eleven pm on June twelve, so like it needed
to have been a quick murder. So it became part
of the defense's job to show that the murder had
taken a long time. Because if the murder had taken
a long time rather than being short, and the prosecutions
timeline was sucked up, and then it would be easier
to get O J. Off. You know, you're you're trying
(32:42):
to disrupt whatever case the other side is making. So
the defense needed to be able to show that had
been a slow drawn out affair with a later time
of death, which would have, you know, helped exonerate O J.
And make his side of things seem more credible. Just
a nice casual reminder that in high profile murder cases, uh,
its sides are going to be like, you know, would
be really helpful if these were the facts and you've
(33:03):
got yeah, professionals who were like, yeah, okay, then I'll
make him. We'll do it. Oh yeah, yeah, you'll pay
me how many hundreds of thousands of dollars of course exactly,
and that that was that was his job. That was
Dr Baiden's job in the O J. Simpson case. The
chief corner of l A, the guy who was not
getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to weigh in
who was you know, it was just his job to
(33:24):
weigh in on murders. Told jurors that he believed that
a single attacker had murdered both victims very quickly after
lying in wait in the house. So O J's defense
needed to counter this conclusion by the l A corner,
and they went to Dr. Michael Baden for that. Baden
slammed the l A Coroner's office for performing a crappy
autopsy uh and argued that Nichole Simpson had struggled and
was not unconscious when her throat was slashed. He claimed
(33:46):
the wounds on her hands were defensive. He also argued
that the cut on O. J's hand was not meaningful.
Uh and I'm gonna quote from the Chicago Tribune now
and trying to minimize the cuts importance. Baden revealed to
the jury for the first time since Simpson's conflicting store
about how he injured his hand. During an examination the
week after the murder's Baden recalled that Simpson had said
he'd cut himself in Los Angeles rushing to pack for
a business trip to Chicago. He said he wasn't quite
(34:09):
sure how he had cut himself and noticed he had
been bleeding, but didn't know how it came about. Baden
testified he recalled some blood after trying to retrieve his
phone or some material from the Bronco. Now. Since defense
attorneys have previously argued that police must have planted Simpson's
blood in his driveway and Foyer Baden's revelation could help
the prosecution, But Simpson told the doctor he cut the
back of his left middle finger when he smashed a
(34:29):
glass in his Chicago hotel room and anguish upon learning
of his ex wife's murder. He said he was at
a sink or something and squeezed or broke or banged
a glass along a sink top and somehow cut the
back of his finger, Baden said. Prosecutor Brian Kellberg suggested
that Simpson's account of how he got the cut doesn't
hold up under scrutiny. How, in your opinion, can somebody
get a cut on the back of their hand by
slamming a glass down without having any cuts or injuries
on the palm, Kilberg said. Baden countered that Simpson could
(34:51):
have brushed the broken glass with the back of his hand.
Then Kelberg displayed photographs of simpson Chicago hotel bathroom shortly
after he checked out. No blood stained the broken glass,
shards in the white ink, or a white tail crumpled
to one side. Do you see any evidence of blood?
And those photographs. Kelbert gasked, no, I do not. Biden said, so,
that's interesting. He he didn't do a great job. He
kind of fucked up for the defense. And also like
(35:13):
that the reason I read that whole cross examination cases,
it makes it really clear it's his job to defend
o j um Like, when he gets hired on one
of these cases, he's not giving his unverartershed medical opinion.
It's his job to help the defense. And that's what
he was, Like, he was arguing for the defense there. Um, yeah,
that's what this guy does. Um. So again, when this
(35:34):
guy says Jeffrey Epstein was murdered and is hired by
his brother, he was hired by Epstein's brother to say
that Epstein was murdered. Like, that's pretty clear. Um Now.
In two thousand seven, Dr Baden wound up at the
helm of another high profile Hollywood murder case. This time
he was hired by the defense for record executive Phil Specter. Now,
Specter was charged with shooting actress Lanta Clark sent to
(35:56):
death in his gigantic mansion, a crime he absolutely committed.
Still in prison for it and will be until he dies. Uh. Now.
One of the most damning pieces of evidence. Supporting this
was the fact that Specter's jacket for the night had
Clarkson's blood on it. Now, this made the defenses case,
which is that she'd committed suicide with Specter's gun, seem
less likely. Now. Dr Baden slid in to explain this away.
(36:19):
He argued that although he'd attended her autopsy four years prior,
he'd recently concluded that her spinal cord had not in
fact been severed by a bullet, making it possible for
her to have spewed blood on Phil Specter after shooting
herself in the face. During cross examination, the prosecutor asked
Dr Baiden if he had any conflicts of interest in
this case that might impact his testimony. He said, none
that I can think of. You wanna you want to
(36:42):
guess as to whether or not he had conflicts of interest?
I think he probably did, but I'd like you to
confirm that for me. Yeah. Um, yeah, so he he
kind of did. His wife was one of Phil Specter's
defense attorneys. Cool that that might be a conflict of interest.
I'm not a law guy. Yeah, his wife. Dr Baden's
(37:04):
wife was Phil Specter's defense one of his defense attorneys.
I mean, what am I doing wrong? How come I
kicking a wife? Have you tried something forever? Someone? For
everyone out there? You know, they have a pretty cute
story have Yeah. Oh yeah, we'll talk about it in
a little bit, but I want to talk about your
(37:25):
romantic issues. Have you tried defendings Phil Specter in court?
Not in court? No, okay, just just socially. I know
you you're a big Specter fan. Yeah, like I like
I I host a semi regular It's like dinner slash
variety show in my salon where people come and perform.
That's some people just uh, their performances, the food that
(37:48):
they bring for everyone, Like we all share everything. It's
a very very chill group. And I, uh, for the
tenth time in a row, I comprehensively defend Phil Specter,
and like, I think, I'm just doing it for the
love of the sport at this point because no one's
challenging me. Mostly convinced the group. Well that I mean,
thank you for your service. Um yeah, that's a really
(38:11):
a noble endeavor. I can think of no one who's
been railroaded by the justice system more than Phil Spector.
And it's just a nice night. There are no there
are no phones. Put our phones in a bucket and
just just celebrate ourselves and our talents and the truth. Yeah,
I I have a similar regular get together. But to
argue that Michael Jackson was murdered. UM, and yeah, yeah,
(38:32):
it's nice. It's nice to get together with friends and
um talk about celebrities and crime. Um. I don't know
where this bit is supposed to go. You know where
this bit is gonna go? Dan, actually right into products
and services? Oh sick. I love product products yep, and
and maybe a service or two. And we're back. We're
(39:00):
ac and we are talking about variety shows, Phil Specter
and actually we're we're we're talking about Dr Baton. It's
time to get back into that. So we we just
talked about his lovely wife who defended Phil Specter in
the court in his lack of conflict of interest as
a result of that. UM. Now, Dr Baden has spent
a lot of his career in a world where accuracy
(39:20):
is less important than showmanship. He was the primary analyst
for the HBO series Autopsy for all nine seasons of
its run. Uh and he was like an on screen
presence for that He wrote two nonfiction books, Natural Death,
Confessions of a Medical Examiner and Dead Reckoning The New
Science of Catching Killers. He also co authored to fiction
books with his wife, Remains Silent and Skeleton Justice. Uh,
(39:44):
just love it. I love those titles. Now, these are
interesting stories Dan. Both books center around a dynamic duo
New York City Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Jake Rosen, Philomena
Manny Man Frida, a beautiful crusade attorney. According to Amazon,
the two fall in love and solve murders. I love that. Yeah,
(40:07):
it's pretty great. I love that in his fantasy fiction
he gives himself the job he got fired from. Yeah,
that's very very Yes. So I'm going to read from
the Amazon description of the book, Skeleton Justice, which is
just a great title. Jake's careful forensic examinations, Manny's courtroom tenaciousness,
(40:29):
and an unusual clue suggesting that a high ranking politician
has risen from the grave. Take the pair from the
bowels of the morgue to the world of international intrigue.
At the heart of this story is a tragic tale
of corruption, interlaced with cover ups, conspiracies, death squads, and
dictators who committed crimes that to this day go unpunished.
So uh, there you go. Yeah, I think a cool
(40:51):
thing for listeners to do at home if they, like me,
didn't know what Michael Baden looked like and just decided
to look for the first time. Now this is the risk.
Is the right time to do it? Yeah, he is.
You definitely want to picture him fucking a crusading and
beautiful attorney. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. You know, you know what
(41:14):
he looks like. Who is that fucking the warmonger guy
that used to be part of Trump's cabinet and or
then he got in he got fired with a mustache? Yeah, Bolton.
He looks like if Bolton like ate his sadness away
for like nine months, this is how Bolton would look.
He's there's a will for Brimley quality to him, but like, yeah,
he's Brimley asked for a meanness to him. But he's
(41:36):
certainly he it's my brain is doing a Mandela thing
because he he feels very at place in Trump's cabinet.
Like I'm not positive that he's not on the cabinet
somewhere because he just has that look that they all have.
He could be the secretary for Health and Services. I'm
(41:58):
looking at a picture of him right now pointing an
a graph at a press conference, and like, yeah, he
does it the way a Trump guy would point at
a graph. Like it's weird to say that, but he's
he's got the exact Yeah, he does look like that. Yeah,
my god, Um, what a what a what a fella? Now,
(42:18):
in more recent years, Dr Biden was hired by the
family of Michael Brown to analyze his autopsy report and testify.
His report concluded that there were no signs of a
struggle and that Brown had been shot six times. Now,
this is more or less consistent with the other reports
on Brown's death, um, except for the fact that he
stated with certainty that Brown had been shot exactly six times.
A lot of Dr Biden's colleagues critiqued him for this,
(42:40):
um because it's actually really hard to tell in a
case like that, especially when someone shot, like right over concrete,
how many times they were shot, because the bullets tend
to pierce them and then ricochet back, so it often
someone will have six holes in them, but the only
have been shot three times. Um. So NBC talked to
a pathologist who was very critical of Baden for staying
confidently how many times Brown had been shot. He said
(43:01):
Brown was way too confident for someone who hadn't seen
X rays, clothing, or lab reports, all of which can
be important. It was also worrying that Brown had been embalmed,
because that would alter the color of the wounds, potentially
throwing off Baden's analysis of entry and exit wounds. In
his count of six bullets, it could be that only
three bullets made those wounds. The pathologists said, So I
I quote that not because like he was wrong overall,
(43:21):
Like Michael Brown wasn't struggling. He was murdered, obviously, but
like the fact that he's talking about exactly how many
times the dude was shot um when he can't have
known that, And like as this other pathologists note, he
didn't see the X rays, the clothing, all of all
of this context that's critical to actually making an accurate
assessment of a case. He didn't know that. He just
wanted to have a take, um, because it was his
(43:43):
job to have a take, and so he gave a
take without having the information he would Actually, it's fun
to have takes. Dolphins, girl, sharks, it's fun. Dolphins all
are are in fact girl sharks. Um. That is the
official stance of this podcast, and I think it's fair
to say the facial stance of I heart media. Um yeah,
I can dictate corporate policy r E. Dolphins. That's in
(44:05):
my contract now. Um. Fellow pathologists are generally pretty critical
of Dr Baden. One former classmate of the doctors who
also worked as a medical examiner, said this of him,
He's very bright, but he has a propensity for giving
out statements and testimony which are not entirely accurate. Uh.
Dr Lowell Levine, who was the co director to compliment
(44:27):
Sandwich that, you know, he seems very clever or whatever.
He's a smart guy, but he lies all the time. Yeah,
he's a good doctor whose patients always die. He's dangerously
unfit with tremendous consequences. But his book, Oh my god,
(44:48):
the fucking in that book. I will tell you if
you want to come while reading someone else's fantasy fiction,
that's the book. Um. Yeah. Dr Lowell Levine, who was
co director for pathology for the New York State Police
and like alongside Dr Baden and worked with him, said this,
Michael never saw a camera he didn't like. He used
(45:08):
to yell at me about the press. They're just trying
to make a living. Why don't you help them? So
this guy, he likes being in front of cameras. He
likes the attention. It's not just about the money. It's
also about being a part of the story, a trade
shared by all the most normal, balanced people, all of
the healthiest people in the world. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So
it shouldn't come as a shock that Dr Michael Baden
(45:28):
found his way into the employe of Jeffrey Epstein's brother.
He did not conduct an autopsy and Epstein he did
observe the autopsy. Uh and again. The bulk of his
case that Epstein was murdered centers around the fact that
Epstein's hyoid bone was fractured in three places. Baden calls
this very unusual for suicide and more indicative of strangulation
homicidal strangulation. Interestingly, Baden has recently claimed that the doctor
(45:50):
who performed the autopsy didn't sign off on Epstein's cause
of death is suicide. Dr Baden claims the call was
made by the Chief Medical Examiner for New York City,
which is the person holding the same job he got
fired from. Doing um now. He insinuated on Fox and
Friends that this was strange, But the reality seems to
be that for a case this high profile, it's not
unusual for the chief medical examiner to want to make
(46:10):
that final call um and to not make that call
just during the autopsy, because again, like that other medical
examiners stated, there's other ship outside of the autopsy that
you look at to try to determine what happened um,
So it's not really weird that things would have proceeded
this way. Rolling Stone interviewed Dr Judy Melinick, a pathologist,
(46:31):
and she pointed out that highoid bone fractures happened in
suicide too, and that depending on the placement of the rope,
it would not be at all weird for this for
have happened to Epstein, if the fractures are nowhere near
the ligature furrow, and if there are defensive injuries on
the arms, and the case is more consistent with the
homicide being covered up than a suicidal hanging. If there
are no other injuries to the body and the highoid
and thyroid fractures correspond to the location of the furrow,
(46:51):
then it could realistically be a hanging suicide. So again,
he doesn't really give you all of the context that
a professional who's not making money and just trying to
get in front of a camera is going to give you. UM.
Rolling Stone also spoke with Dr Pria Banergy, who's another
UH forensic pathologist. Her comments are interesting to me, particularly
in light of the criticisms made against Dr Baden after
(47:12):
his work on the Brown murder. The reason we do
full autopsies is to make sure that the outsides and
the insides correlate and that everything makes sense. I always
do an autopsy with a skeptical lens. In addition, any
death and custody is scrutinized and find detailed to evaluate
what led to the person's death. Now, Bandergy agreed that
the broken hyoid bone was worrisome and definitely worthy of
further investigation, but she didn't go on TV and say
(47:33):
that she thought Epstein's death was probably homicide. Because she's
a responsible medical professional. Doesn't really UNDI she has a
future in the field. No, she's not going to be
making O. J. Simpson money, that's for sure. UM. Now.
Dr Samson, who's the Chief Medical Examiner of New York,
who declared Epstein's death of suicide continues to stand behind
that conclusion. She pointed out, no one finding can be
(47:54):
taken in isolation, uh, and referred to the complete investigation
conducted by her office as opposed to just the autopsy
that Dr Baden witnessed. So like, that's that's the story
of Dr Baden. I'm not saying Epstein wasn't murdered. I'm
not saying I know what happened. I'm saying that, like
all of this ship that keeps coming out that people
take is damning stories is more indicative of like the
(48:18):
media cycle around this and the need for there to
be stories about it than it is about a smoking gun,
because there's just not one. It's like, in a lot
of cases, it's worth knowing the source of this statement.
It's it's important to have the context of like, yes
he said this, and uh, you know, there is a
chance that Epstein was murdered, But like look who you're loo,
(48:40):
who you're listening to. Yeah, you're listening to the guy
who was hired to say that. Yeah, yeah, it's his job.
And that's that's that's our fun story today. Um, are
are you are you? Are you happy? Dan. Uh, Yeah,
I'm always pretty happy. Hey, beier than you were with
(49:00):
the last Epstein episode, much happier than I was the
last episode, and not just because it was wildly depressing
last time and he's fucking dead now. But um, I
have to digest so much news for work, and a
lot of it is either very breaking news about something
(49:22):
that happened that week or news that has just stories
that have been building for years and years and have
hours of footage around them that I don't get to
keep up with everything. You know, I missed so many things,
and I like that I could just sit down with
you and you could tell me that the news that
I missed, it's very very helpful. Yeah, and now you know, uh,
(49:46):
the rest of the story or slightly more of the story.
Has this changed how you're leaning our e suicide or
murder for Epstein? I think I'm leading suicide. I'm not
going to take the stand on that or anything like,
but everything you've laid out makes a pretty compelling case
for it. Yeah. I'm not gonna take a strong stance either, because, like,
(50:07):
the dude did have dirt on two presidents, including one
sitting president, and like a royal family member and like
that's just the top of the list. So like, yeah, fun,
there's a lot of people who wanted the son of
a bit dead, um, but like I'm not seeing any
evidence for that yet. Um. And I think people need
(50:28):
to chill out and a trust that, like, we're just
not going to get any good information about this for
a while. Um, it's just going to be shipped like
Dr Baden trying to stay in the news. So that said,
I also think I think you'll convince listeners like me
who knew a little bit about this but not too much,
(50:48):
that there's not a conspiracy there. But I think the
people who already believe this is a conspiracy and they're
like fucket, Hilary Clinton killed f Stein with her hands.
That's like they're they're they're lost, man, you're not gonna
get them. Yeah belief. I yeah, it's we all know
like Hillary Clinton did nine eleven, but I don't think
(51:09):
she killed Jeffrey Epps. Um. Yeah. Yeah, that, like I
think we should all just stop living in this this
conspiratorial world and start trying to make sure that she
she faces justice for her nine elevening. Yeah, it was
so crazy when when everyone was like Hillary Clinton ben Ghazi,
which you know she did do also the whole time,
(51:30):
I'm like, gods, there's a bigger fish. What are you doing?
There's nine eleven. We've all seen the pictures of her
flying those planes into the towers and people shooting out.
She did both of them. Yeah, she is, I mean,
in fairness to her, an incredible pilot. Um like one
of the greatest of her generation. Um, it's a shame
she used her powers for evil. Well, that's gonna be
(51:51):
all for us today on Behind the Bastards um Uh
tweeted us with hashtag Hillary Clinton nine eleven Justice. UM.
I'm sure that will. It had to lead to some
really fun mentions for both of us. Um, Dan, you
got any pluggable to plug? Yeah, the season finale of
the show that I write for will be on that
(52:12):
week and then we'll be off for a couple of
months for a nice hiatus. So watched the season finale. Uh,
it's very A lot of people, a tremendous amount of
people work very hard to get every episode of this
show onto your TV or or phone. Um, and so
(52:32):
watch it because because a lot of us loosely making it.
Now the show that you work for is is Last
Week Tonight with Communities? John Oliver, Yes, that's right. Did
I not mentioned the name of the show? You did
not mention the name of the very popular and influential
TV show that you write for and won an Emmy
for writing for. I'm so cool. Oh my god, that's
punk Rock. I gotta ask with the Emmy, do you
(52:56):
wear it around your neck? Ever? Like when you go
to the gym? I found when we like the night
you win the Emmy, you they just hand it to
you and then you walk around with it because you
don't go like the hotel is far from where the
Emmys are, so you just go to the party's carrying
as emmy. You're at the Governor's Ball in the HBO
party in the last week to night party with an
Emmy in your hand, and strangers, some of whom are famous,
(53:17):
will say congratulations to you. So I've just never left
the house without it. I don't have it on my
neck or anything like that. But but as soon as
I discovered that people say congratulations to you and you
hold an Emmy, and and my brain was like more
of this, please, I've just I mean, it's filthy because
I have not let go of it. M M. Yeah,
if you've seen me in the street with the Emmy,
(53:38):
say congratulations to me please. Oh yeah, no, I I will,
but I will not shake your filthy emmy hand. Um
no no. Um, well that's Dan. Give him congratulations on
his Emmy and ask him how various famous people smell,
um in case he's met them and some of them. Um, yeah,
(53:58):
I was talking about smells. You were to come out
to New York. What You're gonna come out in New
York visit? Yeah, you know, I think I think my
my I might wind up there next year to do
some work. Um, I'm hoping. So I love the apple
that never is small as people call it. Um. So
(54:18):
we'll we'll have a we'll have an Emmy party. Um
and uh yeah. You can find this podcast on the
internet at behind the Bastards dot com. You can find
us on Twitter and Instagram at Bastards pod. Um. You
can buy t shirts at Tea Public. Uh. And you know,
if you want to steal an Emmy and mail it
(54:39):
to me, Uh, then I too will be able to
get compliments from strangers in the street. Um. So you know,
I don't know who who who who's easy to rob
this one in Emmy? I don't know. Try Will Wheaton.
He did he win an Emmy. I don't think so well,
rob will wait in either way, UM well, maybe don't
(54:59):
do that. Should not be urging people to commit specific
crimes on the podcast. Give Will Wheaton an Emmy and
then take it from him so that it's technically not
a crime. I should just give you know what. I
gotta tell you, man, from one right or to another,
you are sticking the landing here. Thank you, thank you.
We try to end every episode gracefully um and with
(55:19):
a plomb. Um. So the show's done. Yeah, good h
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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