Jeffrey Epstein had only been arrested four months earlier in Manhattan on sex trafficking charges when New Mexico local talk show host Eddy Aragon received a disturbing email.
It was November 2019 and the anonymous sender claimed to have been on the staff of Epstein’s secluded, 10,000-acre Zorro Ranch in the south-western desert state. They said they could reveal the location of the bodies of two young ‘foreign’ girls who’d been buried ‘somewhere in the hills’ on the estate on Epstein’s orders after they were strangled to death during ‘rough, fetish sex’.
They also could supply seven videos of Epstein, including two in which he was having sex with underage girls, another that was a ‘rape fantasy video’ and a fourth in which a girl from California’s Bay Area confessed to ‘Madame G’ – a likely reference to Ghislaine Maxwell – that she’d tried to commit suicide.
The sender, who said they had ‘been there and seen it all’, offered to send the videos and the bodies’ location on a computer thumb drive in return for payment of a single Bitcoin, the digital cryptocurrency worth around $6,500 at the time and widely believed to be untraceable.
‘I felt my blood run cold – this was serious,’ Aragon told the Daily Mail this week of the moment he discovered the email. He had no bitcoin to pay the sender, but ‘turned it over to the FBI’ as the message ‘felt very legitimate’.
It now appears that the email was not followed up – just as the claims of at least a dozen women who said they were groomed, sexually assaulted or raped there – often as teenagers – hadn’t been investigated either. Unlike Epstein’s other homes, the Zorro ranch was never even searched.
It was revealed in recently-released Department of Justice (DoJ) files.
These shocking oversights continue to baffle local officials and politicians. And they are all the more inexplicable, since the Zorro Ranch – lavishly appointed but far more remotely situated than his other homes – would seem like the logical place to start investigating nefarious activities that relied on privacy.
The New Mexico-based ranch sprawls across some 10,000 acres and is situated in the south-western American desert
Jeffrey Epstein had only been behind bars four months when a person who claimed to be on his staff at his Zorro ranch claimed to know the locations of two bodies buried in its grounds
New information about the disturbing ongoings at the paedophile financier’s ranch have been released in the latest batch of the Epstein files (The ranch’s entrance is pictured)
Splendidly isolated in cactus and scrub-filled high desert 30 miles south of Santa Fe and served by its own airstrip that would have allowed visitors to fly in unnoticed, the ranch also had the advantage for Epstein of being situated in a poor and secretive state notorious for not asking too many questions of rich residents who demanded privacy.
New Mexico, one of the poorest US states, has also been notable for the laxness of its criminal laws – it didn’t recognise human trafficking as a crime until 2008 and, unlike other states where he had property, didn’t require Epstein to register as a sex offender as the age of consent is lower, at 16, than elsewhere in the US.
It’s hardly surprising, then, that Eddy Aragon and other local people insist there was a political ‘cover-up’ to protect Epstein from the exposure of his darkest secrets, including claims of ritual child sacrifice and cannibalism.
Even Andrea Romero, the New Mexico state representative who has set up a ‘Truth Commission’ to investigate the grim allegations about the ranch, told the Daily Mail that some of Epstein’s accusers told her that what happened there were the ‘worst of all his atrocities…across the trafficking and sex abuse’. She said she found it ‘appalling’ that claims about the burial of dead bodies could have been ignored.
And now that Eddy Aragon’s long-ignored anonymous email has turned up in the latest release of papers in the DoJ’s Epstein files, state prosecutors have simultaneously launched a new criminal investigation into Zorro Ranch.
Earlier this month, dozens of investigators descended on the estate along with ‘cadaver dogs’ trained to detect human remains. They may also be following up separate claims about the existence of ‘grave-like plots’ on the ranch that were sent – accompanied by photos of rock-covered mounds – to state prosecutors.
Epstein victims have long complained the gated ranch was overlooked by investigators but former state officials say they were asked by federal prosecutors in New York back in 2019 to halt their inquiry. But local politicians right up to a US Senator insist there was no reason to end the investigation and have speculated the probe was closed to protect powerful people. Some even believe Epstein moved to New Mexico expressly to exploit its advantages for a paedophile sex trafficker of being so remote and enjoying more relaxed laws.
Epstein has never been accused of murder but there is no statute of limitations on the crime so charges could be brought even now.
Claims of a cover-up centre on the state’s powerful former governor, Bill Richardson. A friend of Epstein, who donated generously to Richardson’s political campaigns, the politician – who faced repeated corruption allegations before his death in 2023 – visited the ranch and the sex offender’s private island in the Caribbean.
Earlier this month, hundreds of people – including some of Virginia Giuffre’s family – demonstrated outside the ranch
The protesters demanded to know exactly what happened behind the sprawling home’s gates as rumours swirl of a cover-up to protect billionaire Epstein
Other high-profile visitors to the ranch reportedly included Woody Allen, left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Epstein and Andrew accuser Virginia Giuffre claimed Richardson (who denied wrongdoing) was one of the powerful men she had sex with on Epstein’s instructions.
Giuffre, who died in 2025, also claimed she was directed to have sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at the ranch in 2001 when she was 17.
Representative Romero vowed to call any of Epstein’s friends and associates – including the former prince – to testify if they were implicated in any offence.
‘We know that he was at the ranch for at least three days just given the records we have,’ she said of Andrew.
Giuffre claimed, in a draft for a memoir included in court documents, that she had sex with Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor at the ranch in 2001 when she was 17. She said her duties included ‘bestowing him my body’ while giving him erotic massages, and taking him horse riding.
Andrew has never acknowledged visiting the ranch and insists he never had ‘any form of sexual contact or relationship’ with Giuffre.
A former ranch housekeeper named Deirdre Stratton has claimed she had to cater for the former prince for three days in around 2001, when he was housed in a comfortable guest lodge on the ranch.
Stratton says Andrew was kept company by a ‘young, beautiful neurosurgeon’ who once asked her to provide a herbal tea that would make Andrew ‘more horny’ as he hadn’t been interested in her.
High-profile visitors reportedly included Woody Allen, left-wing intellectual Noam Chomsky and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
The former Prince Andrew is alleged to have had sex with Virginia Giuffre when she was just 17 (Here, he is pictured leaning over an unidentified person in the files)
Epstein purchased the land in New Mexico – the so-called Land of Enchantment – in 1993 and proceeded to build a sprawling 33,000-sq ft hacienda-style mansion on a ridge. He named it after Zorro, a masked swashbuckler and folk hero, memorably portrayed by Antonio Banderas in the film The Mask of Zorro, who – like him – had a double life.
The compound included an airstrip, helipad and myriad guest houses, and was so remote it had its own fire station. Ranch staff and contractors were made to sign non-disclosure agreements before they could work there.
Accusers say Epstein lured them to the ranch under the guise of helping them with money, education or careers. They were told to do what they want – enjoy the pool and hot tub or go exploring on horseback or ATV.
But they said their host’s main purpose was to groom them for abuse, progressively encouraging them to lower their sexual inhibitions to the point of him raping them.
Psychologist Annie Farmer, one of Epstein’s earliest accusers, said she was 16 when he and Ghislaine Maxwell took her to Zorro.
Epstein had told her she’d be among a group of other young people he was helping but she arrived to discover it was just the three of them.
Epstein’s request that she massage his feet escalated to him getting into bed with her to ‘cuddle’. She also said Maxwell gave her a massage, rubbing her bare breasts. Farmer said she felt powerless to flee because they were ‘in the middle of nowhere’.
Another alleged victim, who remains unidentified, testified she was flown on Epstein’s private jet to the ranch in 2004 when she was 15. There, she was ‘molested by him for many hours’, with Epstein sexually assaulting her with a vibrator. She said: ‘I remember feeling so small and powerless, especially after he positioned me by laying me on his floor so that I was confronted by all the framed photographs on his dresser of him smiling with wealthy celebrities and politicians.’
Accusers including Farmer went to the FBI and police but investigations went nowhere and no charges were ever filed against Epstein over events at the ranch. Earlier this month, hundreds of people – including some of Giuffre’s family – demonstrated outside the ranch, locally nicknamed Playboy Ranch, demanding answers about what happened there.
Epstein purchased the land in New Mexico – the so-called Land of Enchantment – in 1993 and proceeded to build a sprawling 33,000-sq ft hacienda-style mansion on a ridge
He named it after Zorro, a masked swashbuckler and folk hero, memorably portrayed by Antonio Banderas in the film The Mask of Zorro, who – like him – had a double life
With critics convinced it’s now too late to find crucial evidence as the ranch was sold in 2023, amateur detectives – some of them weaving chilling conspiracy theories – have been working overtime to provide answers.
Much of their speculation is rooted in a 2017 report by the New York Times that Epstein ‘hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women’ at Zorro Ranch. From the early 2000s, Epstein repeatedly told leading scientists and businessmen he befriended that he wanted to use the ranch as a base where women would be inseminated – 20 at a time – with his sperm to give birth to his babies. He also expressed an interest in genetic-tinkering to ‘improve’ the human race.
The ambition reflected not only his planet-sized ego but his fascination with a philosophy known as transhumanism – the science of improving the human population through technologies like genetic engineering and artificial intelligence.
Critics have likened transhumanism to eugenics, the controversial scientific field beloved of the Nazis for improving the human race through controlled breeding.
Epstein – who, like the Nazis, had a preference for blondes – may even have already started his weird project. Representative Romero mentioned that some of the women who say they were abused at the ranch recall waking up there ‘surrounded by lab equipment’.
And the latest Epstein file releases suggest he may have secretly fathered various children. One of his victims recalled Epstein pointing to a picture in his New York home of a blonde woman on a beach who he described as ‘perfect’ and said had given birth to his baby.
The files also contained a diary entry in which another alleged Epstein victim claimed to have given birth to a baby girl by Epstein in about 2002 when she would have been 16 or 17 years old. She claims the baby was then taken away from her.
Virginia Giuffre and fellow Epstein accuser, Johanna Sjobert, said Epstein wanted to father their children. His New York publicist friend Peggy Siegal last week revealed he pressured her to find him a ‘baby mama’, saying he specified: ‘I need great genes, smart, pretty, funny.’
The ‘baby farm’ project has given conspiracy theorists on social media the basis for all manner of fantastic ideas. Most hinge on the theory that Epstein and his cronies were part of a secret cult – some say satanic – which performed ritual acts of child and baby abuse, sacrifice and even cannibalism.
A popular belief in these circles is that the victims were dismembered, cannibalised and the remains burned in the middle of what they believe to be a Jericho Labyrinth – a giant maze-like garden with mystical significance that Epstein built in the grounds around his helipad, but which has since been bulldozed.
Researchers have been poring over the DoJ Epstein files for what they say are hidden clues and codewords in his conversations that bear out their outlandish theories.
They insist, for instance, that Epstein’s repeatedly cited obsession with eating beef ‘jerky’ is a coded reference to human flesh.
They have also clutched at a file that shows the FBI in 2019 interviewed a man who claimed in 2000 he witnessed ‘ritualistic sacrifice’ and ‘babies being dismembered’ on Epstein’s yacht.
Also significant, some of them believe, is a 2019 email to the FBI from a local retired policeman who mentioned a ‘suspicious’ barn on the ranch with a large chimney which he believed was connected to an incinerator.
A 2017 report by the New York Times suggested that Epstein ‘hoped to seed the human race with his DNA by impregnating women’
It all sounds deranged but perhaps the lesson of the interminable Epstein revelations is that nothing should be ruled out.
Representative Andrea Romero made clear she was keeping an open mind about what might have gone on at the ranch but she understood why speculation was running rife. ‘Nowhere is as isolated as that ranch and the question is “What were they doing there?”,’ she said. ‘Without an investigation, the mind can run wild.’
She said she has already been inundated with tips about the harvesting of sex organs and abuse of children at the ranch. ‘Folks are saying “I think something happened to me, can I talk to you?”’ she said.
Her truth commission will be seeking testimony from alleged victims and witnesses. The first challenge will be to establish exactly when Epstein went there as all agree his visits were infrequent, perhaps only once every couple of months.
According to a local contractor who frequently worked at the ranch, Epstein sometimes only came a couple of times a year to ‘party’ but arrived in force, with a 30-strong entourage that was heavy on young women.
The worker told Eddy Aragon’s radio show he became concerned about what was going on there after seeing the walls were festooned with framed photos of topless young girls with Epstein and ‘various powerful people’.
He said the photos abruptly disappeared in around 2005 and he assumed it was because Epstein feared he might get raided.
The ranch’s new owner, Republican politician and businessman Don Huffines, says he has plans to turn it into a Christian retreat, ‘reclaiming it for Jesus’. A more unlikely fate seems impossible to imagine.
