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I haven't really looked much into the layout or video (I tend to not like staring at corpses OR rapists), but assuming it is of the cell itself or the door right outside?
A minute is more than enough time for a couple of blokes to get in, grab someone, put them in a blood choke, loop the noose, throw it, and tie a super quick note. Hollywood likes people to think you can struggle against getting choked. An air choke where your oxygen supply is cut off? Sure, those can take a minute or two to kill someone. A blood choke where you put pressure on the artery? They are unconscious in less than 10 seconds (sometimes almost instantaneously) and they aren't going to wake up the moment you release. Similarly, ask any climber to tie a quick figure eight (or bowline if they are old or european) and they can do that blindfolded, in the rain, in like 10 seconds.
So assuming even two killers? Yeah, a minute is more than enough time.
That isn't to say that multiple minutes is not more likely. But the article has many caveats for why that isn't necessarily the case (overlap, basically) and there is already a massive push by fascists to somehow spin all of this as being Obama's fault. So be wary of easy gotchas that they can introduce and disprove.
The camera view is not of the cell or even outside of it. It’s pointed at nearby cells and the FBI claims someone would have to walk past it to reach Epstein’s cell.
You, eh, ever try to lift 150-200 pounds of dead weight? while trying to make it look like that dead weight did it himself?
it's not just the fight. It's not just the struggle. just for the record the camera was in the hallway outside and not in the room. a minute is barely enough time to get in, kill him, and get out.
To also then string him up, and remove whatever you need to, to make it look like suicide? three minutes is pushing it, even with 2 guys- and remember, the more guys you add the more potential you have for some one talking.
One murderer puts their arms under his armpits. The other loops the noose and then ties it off.
Could Abby Sciuto and Ducky figure out it was faked? Sure. But they aren't getting called in to investigate a hit that was organized by the people who would be investigating the murder.
Open the door. One guy rushes him and does a blood choke. He was old and nowhere near at his best. The other quickly throws the noose up and ties it off. They don't have to remove anything but themselves.
Again. I think more time is more likely. But be very cautious of "They needed way more than one minute!" because, again, even the wired article suggests it may just be overlapping clips and it would be super easy to say "Actually that analyst is wrong and it is really only one minute of lost footage so all of you conspiracy theorists are wrong and owe donald j trump an apology"
As an example, think OJ Simpson. So much of the case became fixated on that glove. So once it was "proved" that he couldn't wear it (because his hands were swollen and had thick latex gloves on them...) the entire case fell apart.
This will basically never reach trial for obvious reasons. But the principle still holds. Don't overly fixate on specific details that can be trivially refuted unless they are key details. And it is very possible, if not overly plausible, that they could have suicide'd epstein in under a minute.
there's actually a lot of things I don't get with the video, so yeah, I'm not really taking anything off the table or fixating. But there being more time removed/spliced just makes more sense.
But it almost certainly wasn't a multiplexing VCR. For one thing, the video looks like a bog standard export from a DVR-based networked system. (Which uses client software to access a server to play back video records. VHS tapes got dumped back in the very-early 2k's because everyone saw the writing on the wall. They only last a few months in a record-rewind loop- four at most, and only if you buy the really expensive kind.
Further the black shadowbox around it is from the way they exported it off a modern dvr- the client they used to export it from added it. (probably also added their own shitty player to the file. the player is basically windows media player but even more useless.)
which... really just makes this whole thing shockingly incompetent. But then, that's the problem with conspiracies. It's the details that bite you in the ass.
Yeah. In order for the whole thing to work you're putting a lot of faith in your ability to get out of there before the DVR files roll over at midnight. It's not just that you'd have to do it in a minute, you'd have to be confident ahead of time of being able to do it and leaving no signs of struggle and also avoid any other cameras placing you unaccountably at that location at that time... all in all if you want the guy dead it's much easier to manipulate another inmate into doing it for you, than to do all this Mission: Impossible shit and still need to hope that the next two governments help you cover it up.
so, speaking as someone whose used these systems for decades, DVR files don't work that way.
The old, old school multiplexing VCRs did, sure. Those were recording to VHS's, and basically everyone swapped over by the early 2k's. What's hilarious is the reason. VHS tapes are expensive and wear out inside a few months- they've usually only got about six hours of recording, after which the rewind and overwrite. The high-end tapes purpose built for that might last four or five. back then, depending on how much data you had going, DVRs basically paid for themselves inside of a couple years (and the disks were expected to last a decade or so.)
In any case, modern DVRs have no gaps. They continuously record in a rolling loop- typically 7, 15, 30, or 90 days. The DVR is actually a server running on a network, and the server manages the data stream coming in, and maybe streaming to a client wherever the security office or whatever is. (or clients, even. It's all just software on the user end.)
there might be a system with digital storage tapes, and not hard disks, but that's really just a question of what digital media the data is stored on, and was relatively short lived. the digital tapes were used for very-large numbers of cameras.
For the record, the fact that we have a single camera that was released and not an array of cameras (or video cropped out looking like a blown up thumbnail,) is because it was a modern system.
I hope you'll forgive me being sceptical that "used these systems" is enough authority to be able to speak for every make and model on the market... I've also used a few CCTV systems over the years and they've all been absolute lowest-bidder no-name dogshit that were packed full of weird idiosyncrasies.
Again it comes back to the "how many people would you need to cover this up" thing - if the security systems in this prison genuinely did not cut their files at midnight, the number of people that would have to keep quiet about it is staggering; you'd need to not only swear all the guards to secrecy but also the people who made and sold them the system (whose reputation is being impugned, to boot) and anyone else familiar with that system, any one of whom could show up any time with the same model and say look, here's hard physical evidence that what they said about the midnight rollover isn't true.
That said, they really need to release the Epstein Files.
(edit: yeah yeah I knew this would get downvoted for not joining the bandwagon even as I was writing it... go whistle)
I encourage skepticism! yes, the software were developed by the lowest bidder and every single one of them all had weird shit slapped in that got in the way of core functionality. I suspect part of that weird shit was that they were trying to keep people from accessing the files without their software. (As if the DVR didn't save it as h.264 or whatever.)
I've been in contract security for over a decade now- and my first post way back ages ago was "slow" to get rid of theirs in 06. (they had ordered their VHS's in bulk so they wanted to go through them first. I think they cracked open the last pack around the time I was hired.)
I've used more systems than I care to count or name; and usually became "the guy" that knew how to actually get it to do "the thing". The worst part of that is most of the people selling the software clients would go tits up in a few years, which gets sold to another dev what doesn't bother to learn the lessons from last time anyways. They just wanted one thing from the code or they had an idiot project manager that thought starting from failed code would be a good way to go.
In any case, because of how the multiplexing VCRs worked, the video playback was always choppy. they'd record using NTSC or PAl at 30 or 25 fps; just like any standard VCR, except that each camera would record each frame in sequence. a 4-chanel (four cameras) would reduce the NTSC's 30 FPS to 7. which looks like this. a 16 channel system would go down to 2 fps. Given the nature of the facility, I would assume they're using 16x systems.
Damn dude, these are legendary "this guy knows his shit" comments.
If it was a bit under three consecutive minutes, it would be tough. If they had two removed periods of nearly 1:30 that is more than enough time for like 20 people to move without seeing it on camera. And when the cell is closed I assume we cant see anything inside the cell? Since it was supposed to have its own camera on the inside anyways
Most indoor cameras cover narrow enough spaces that a person could enter or exit it in like 1 second walking at an average pace
for the record, it's probably not 20 goons. that's a lot of mouths needing silencing.
The other thing is that halways was in view of the other cells. they wouldn't necessarily be rushing; at least not more than what might be 'normal'.
This whole thing gets back to, the more you try to cover something up, the harder it becomes to cover that something up. Mistakes happen. This video is probably a mistake.
and now you have to take the time to explain it to someone who was presumably sleeping. and do so in a way that doesn't really make it obvious they're going to die anyways, right?
Even so, it was dubbed as "raw".
I love how everyone in your replies is all of a sudden an expert on hitmen and their parameters.
Yes, a few minutes alone in a room with someone is long enough to kill them and make it look like something else. I'm as qualified as anyone else here (I've even seen a YouTube interview with an ex-professional hit man, so probably more so), so I can just say that and it becomes so.
Yes, we all know the bowline. But I'm both old and European so I know them all, from the square knot with double slip releases (aka. tying your shoelace) to the mighty monkey's fist!
But do you know the trucker's hitch?