The attorney general confirmed it was a suicide, so if we're to believe it was actually a surreptitious murder, it goes all the way to the top.

You mean AG Barr, whose father hired Epstein as a 20-year-old college dropout to teach calculus and physics at a prestigious prep school? https://hillreporter.com/the-ties-that-bind-jeffrey-epstein-...

Considering his involvement in Iran-Contra and deliberate derailing of Congressional oversight, I wouldn't believe a word the current attorney general says.

Especially because the case disappearing is clearly convenient for people personally connected to the AG, or to whom the AG owes a favor.

Not to mention that the AG runs the Bureau of Prisons.

Epstein was in Barr's custody.

It is quite possible he was taken off suicide watch so he could... commit suicide. It wouldn't have to be a murder in the technical sense

the video of the first "suicide attempt" was lost too - due to technical error, accidentally erased or some "Oopss!" like this...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-epstein-jail-cell-video...

Of course it goes to the top. Just look at Epstein's cohorts.

Assisted suicide?

Or maybe the attorney generals public statement is confirmed suicide, as to not be suicided himself, but meanwhile reaching out to uncorrupt allies that can investigate the murder wide-eyed-optimist-face?

Epstein might still be alive and the whole thing some sort of elaborate witness protection scheme to protect him from all of the people who want him dead. So there might not be corruption all the way to the top.

Corruption seems like an easier explanation though.

This sounds like the plot of Michael Crichton's next thriller.

Michael Crichton generally wrote sci fi. Maybe you mean John Grisham or John LeCarre, or similar.