Epstein's last night: 12 missed rounds, a sleeping guard and an orange figure no one can identify
House Oversight Republicans say the jail failures don't disprove suicide, but left no record to settle doubts. The guard on duty told the committee what happened.
On the night Jeffrey Epstein died, the two guards responsible for his unit at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan missed at least 12 required rounds and three inmate counts, leaving Epstein and every other prisoner in the Special Housing Unit without proper supervision for nearly eight hours. One guard was on his 22nd straight hour at work and slept through a count. The other slept for most of his shift. The officer who stayed awake was browsing the internet.
Those details come from the House Oversight Committee Republican majority's final Epstein report, released Nov. 10, and from the committee's interview with that officer, Tova Noel. The report says the evidence it received "did not disprove" the federal finding that Epstein died by suicide. But it says the jail's failures destroyed the records and eyewitness accounts that could have settled public doubt.
The report's finding on Epstein's death has two parts. First, it accepts the conclusion of the joint investigation by the Southern District of New York and the FBI that Epstein's death occurred "in a manner reflecting suicide," because nothing the committee received contradicted it. Second, it says the Bureau of Prisons "failed to preserve the basic safeguards, records, and reliable eyewitness accounts necessary" to give the public "a complete and unquestionable account" of what happened inside the jail on the night of Aug. 9, 2019.
Most of the factual record comes from the Justice Department inspector general's June 2023 report on the case, which found "numerous and serious failures" at the jail, including staff who falsified records of counts and rounds. The committee's new evidence is chiefly Noel's transcribed interview in May 2026 and former Attorney General William Barr's deposition in August 2025.
Epstein was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges on July 6, 2019, and held in the jail's Special Housing Unit, where inmates were locked in their cells about 23 hours a day. A judge denied his request for a $100 million bond and house arrest on July 18.
On July 23, guards found Epstein semiconscious with an orange fabric noose around his neck. He said his cellmate, Nicholas Tartaglione, had attacked him. Tartaglione denied it and said he was the one who called for help. Epstein was moved and given a new cellmate. The jail's psychology department directed that he have a cellmate. But that cellmate was transferred out on Aug. 9, hours before Epstein died, and Epstein spent his last night alone.
Meanwhile, on July 29, the recording system for most of the unit's cameras failed, including cameras covering Epstein's tier. Staff did not discover the problem until Aug. 8. It was not fixed until after his death.
Noel told the committee that the unit was supposed to have four officers on each shift but usually had three. To fill gaps, the jail mandated overtime. Asked how often officers worked overtime, Noel said, "Every day." She described five days a week of 16-hour double shifts.
She also told the committee she never completed the special training required for the unit. She was on injury leave when it was held, she said, and a supervisor told her to sign the training log anyway. She signed it and was sent to work in the unit.
Rules required two officers to make rounds twice an hour, at irregular times, with no more than 40 minutes between them. Institution-wide counts were due at 4 p.m., 10 p.m., midnight, 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Noel said rounds and counts were often late, done by one officer, or skipped. "Sometimes we don't have enough people," she said, "or sometimes it is enough people, but because they're tired, it doesn't get done correctly." She called the culture "the MCC way."
Noel worked two shifts that night. On the first, her partner, Officer Bonham, was on his 22nd consecutive hour, which Noel called "a triple." He slept through the 10 p.m. count, she said, and she did it alone, "improperly."
On the overnight shift, from midnight to 8 a.m., she was paired with Michael Thomas, an officer she had never worked with. Noel said Thomas told her he was tired and slept for "pretty much" the whole shift. The inspector general found Thomas did no rounds or counts. Noel told the committee she "didn't do any" counts on that shift either.
Instead, according to a forensic report on the unit's desktop computer released in the Epstein files, Noel was searching the web for things like insurance and furniture. Twice, at 5:42 a.m. and 5:52 a.m., she clicked on "latest on Epstein in jail." Noel told the committee she did not search for Epstein. She said she clicked a news link on the browser's home page.
Count due
What happened
Source
10 p.m.
Done by one officer, "improperly"
Noel interview
Midnight
Not done
Noel, inspector general
3 a.m.
Not done
Noel, inspector general
5 a.m.
Not done
Noel, inspector general
In all, the report says, officers on the two shifts missed at least 12 rounds and three counts. Both Noel and Thomas were charged in 2019 with falsifying records to show the checks were done. The charges were later dropped under deferred prosecution agreements.
At about 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 10, Thomas offered to hand out breakfast because he had slept through most of the shift, Noel said. She opened the grille on each cell door. When Epstein did not come to the door or answer, Thomas opened the cell and shouted, "Pass me a cutter." Noel hit her body alarm and went downstairs for a cutting tool. When she returned, Thomas was doing CPR, which she said was against jail protocol.
Asked whether she believed Epstein killed himself, Noel said yes. "Because he was the only one in his cell," she said. "Nobody else was in there."
Barr gave the committee the same view. Asked whether he still believed Epstein died by suicide, he said, "Absolutely." He said he had reviewed the medical examiner's report and pointed to the lack of any sign of a struggle. Epstein "was a fairly large guy," Barr said, and the idea that people could have hanged him "without any sign of a scuffle was not plausible."
The report spends a full section on one of the most-discussed images in the case. A working camera recorded what appears to be a flash of orange moving up the stairs toward Epstein's tier at 10:39 p.m. on Aug. 9. The video was part of more than 20 hours of footage the Justice Department released in July 2025.
The FBI suggested it might be a person escorting an inmate. The inspector general noted that inmates were locked down for the night and suggested it could be someone carrying orange inmate linens. Barr told the committee it was likely a correctional officer.
Noel said it was not her, and she did not let anyone into the unit. Asked if it could have been Bonham, she said, "He was sleeping." Asked about a supervisor, she said she would have had to let them in and would have known. "I watched it numerous times, and I don't know what it could've been," she said. "Rest assured, it wasn't me."
The report does not resolve the question. It says the figure "remains a matter of public speculation." That gap is the kind of uncertainty the committee blames on the jail. With most cameras down, no reliable logs and officers asleep, there is no record that answers it.
The committee's finding sits between two camps. Federal investigators, Barr and the medical examiner concluded the death was a suicide, and the committee found nothing that contradicts that. Public doubts about that conclusion have centered on the broken cameras, the missing cellmate, the falsified logs and the orange figure, which NBC News examined in a March 2026 report cited by the committee. The report treats those doubts as a predictable result of the jail's failures. It does not endorse any alternative account, and it cites no evidence that anyone else entered Epstein's cell.
The committee did not interview Thomas, according to the list of witnesses in the report, and it does not say whether he was asked.
The Bureau of Prisons closed the Manhattan jail permanently in 2021. The inspector general's 2023 report made recommendations on staffing, cameras and inmate supervision. The committee's report adds no new recommendation aimed specifically at federal prisons. Its six recommendations focus on prosecutors, banks, nondisclosure agreements and survivors' access to records.
Epstein's death meant he never stood trial on the 2019 charges. Ghislaine Maxwell was charged in 2020, convicted in December 2021 and sentenced to 20 years. She invoked her Fifth Amendment right and declined to answer the committee's questions during a February 2026 deposition. Democrats on the committee, led by Rep. Robert Garcia$, have called for an investigation of her later transfer to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas.
Does the record of Epstein's last night support treating his death as a settled suicide?
Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.
Accept it but keep the jail's gaps open
Who holds it: Chairman James Comer and Oversight Committee Republicans
Committee Republicans say nothing they received disproves the suicide finding, but that the Bureau of Prisons destroyed the basis for full public confidence. Cameras were not recording, the required cellmate was moved out, guards slept and falsified logs, and no one can identify the orange figure on the stairs. They argue these failures, not hidden evidence, explain lasting doubts, and that the government owes the public a complete record it can no longer produce.
Who holds it: The Justice Department and FBI, former Attorney General William Barr, and guard Tova Noel
The Justice Department and FBI say their review of the jail records, video and medical findings supports the conclusion that Epstein died by suicide. Barr told the committee he reviewed the medical examiner's report and saw no sign of a struggle, so the idea that others hanged a large man without a scuffle is implausible. Noel, who was on duty, says Epstein was alone in his locked cell and nobody else was there.
567 Politics staff. “Epstein's last night: 12 missed rounds, a sleeping guard and an orange figure no one can identify.” 567politics. Published 2026-11-10. https://567politics.com/news/epstein-death-mcc-missed-rounds-orange-figure-oversight-report-november-2026
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