New Mexico’s Department of Justice has launched an investigation into a chilling allegation that emerged from newly released Epstein files: that Jeffrey Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls buried somewhere in the hills outside his sprawling Zorro Ranch after they died by strangulation during “rough, fetish sex.”
The probe, announced Wednesday, comes just one day after the state legislature launched the first comprehensive investigation into Epstein’s decades of alleged sexual abuse at the ranch, a 7,600-acre property about 30 miles south of Santa Fe.
State Department of Justice spokesperson Lauren Rodriguez said investigators have requested an unredacted copy of a 2019 email containing the allegation from the U.S. Justice Department. The FBI declined to comment. The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond.
“We are actively investigating this allegation and are conducting a broader review in light of the latest release from the U.S. Department of Justice,” Rodriguez said.
The Email
The redacted email was sent in 2019, a few months after Epstein’s death, to Eddy Aragon, a New Mexico radio show host who had discussed the Zorro Ranch on his program. The sender claimed to be a former Zorro Ranch employee.
The email offered seven videos of sexual abuse and the location of two foreign girls buried on Epstein’s orders. In exchange, the sender demanded one bitcoin.
According to the email, the two girls had died “by strangulation during rough, fetish sex.”
Aragon told Reuters he believed the email to be legitimate and immediately forwarded it to the FBI. He said he did not receive any payment and had no further contact with the sender, though he recently tried to respond for the first time—only to find the email address no longer functioned.
A 2021 FBI report, also contained in the latest Epstein file release, confirmed that Aragon visited an FBI office to report the email.
What Investigators Found
A Reuters search of other documents among the Justice Department’s disclosures did not find any additional references to the allegations or what investigators made of the claims.
The Justice Department warned last year that some of the files it disclosed from its investigation of Epstein “contain untrue and sensationalist claims,” including anonymous accusations that investigators did not corroborate, or in some cases determined to be false.
But state officials are not dismissing the tip out of hand.
New Mexico State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard said her office found the redacted email during a recent search of the latest Epstein file release. In a February 10 letter to the U.S. Justice Department, she called on federal and state officials to fully investigate allegations of criminality on Epstein’s ranch and adjacent state lands.
Epstein leased around 1,243 acres of state lands surrounding the ranch in 1993. Garcia canceled those leases in September 2019 after determining Epstein did not use the land for ranching or agriculture, but as a privacy buffer around his ranch.
A Broader Investigation
The body-burial allegation is now part of a much larger inquiry. On Tuesday, New Mexico’s legislature launched the first comprehensive investigation into accusations that Epstein sexually abused girls and women at Zorro Ranch for more than two decades.
The bipartisan “truth commission,” with subpoena power and a $2.5 million budget, will seek testimony from survivors, former ranch employees, local residents, and any state officials who may have known what was happening—or participated in it.
The commission begins work this week and will deliver interim findings in July, with a final report by year-end.
What Comes Next
The state Department of Justice is awaiting the unredacted email from federal authorities. Investigators will then determine whether the anonymous tip can be corroborated—whether any evidence exists to support the claim that two foreign girls lie buried in the hills outside the ranch.
For survivors who have waited years for accountability, the investigation offers a glimmer of hope that the full truth about Zorro Ranch may finally emerge. For the families of the two girls described in the email, if they exist, it offers the possibility of answers—and perhaps, at last, a proper burial.
Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019, his death ruled a suicide. But the questions he took to his grave are now being excavated, one by one, in the hills of New Mexico.
