when an amateur kills himself by hanging the cause of death is usually by asphyxiation, and it is a protracted and unpleasant way to die. when a person is killed by hanging at the hands of a professional executioner the method and cause of death is by a broken neck and damage to the spinal chord, which leads to death more or less right now.
i live about 10 miles from the washington state penitentiary, where hanging was a time honored form of state execution for many years, and where the executioners were about as skilled at administering a quick death as anyone. now, when you get hung on a gallows, they don't just stand you on a chair, tightened the noose and rope, and kick the chair out from underneath you, and let you dangle kicking your legs about and your eyes bulging until you die. strictly amateur or psychopath stuff, that.
nope, to kill you quickly they use "the drop," and the wraps on the noose, which using energy generated by the drop through the gallows bangs you on the back and side of the head behind your ears, and snaps your head forward and down displacing your neck vertebrae and severely damaging your spinal chord. as a practicable matter, you are dead right now.
even so, it takes some skill. you gotta wrap the noose correctly, so it snaps the head far enough to sufficiently damage the spinal chord. and, taking the weight of the soon-to-be-deceased, you have to consider his weight and calculate the length of the drop of the body before the rope comes tight, to ensure enough damage is done to the neck to inflict more or less instant death, so that the poor sod just doesn't dangle there for ten minutes kicking (though some of them probably richly deserved it.)
as an aside, all of this brings up the more or less famous fellow on death row who ate himself into obesity, and then sued the state of washington to prevent his execution by arguing that he was so heavy that the drop would rip his head off, thereby inflicting a prohibited cruel and unusual punishment. you can look it up.
so, as pertains to epstein.--
to kill yourself by hanging you need: 1.)something from which to hang, 2.)something by which to hang, and 3.)sufficient time to die by asphyxiation, whilst thrashing about with you hands and legs to avoid dying. (think about every photo you have ever seen of a hanging, whether administered by thugs from a tree limb, or a hangman from a gallows, and you will have noted the victim of that hanging with his hands restrained behind his back, to prevent him from using his hands to attack the rope round his neck. think about it. think about that, as you read the text below.)
here it needs mentioning that the inspiration of oxygen is a basic physical drive, and one which when frustrated causes immediate physical reaction, and great physical stress. epstein may very well have desired to kill himself (which i doubt), but his body sure as little green apples are sour did not want to die, and did not die voluntarily without struggle. on that, i will bet the proverbial farm.
so, i have some basic questions. 1. from what did he hang? did the prison provide a convenient eye bolt in the ceiling, and a ladder to reach it? 2.) by what did he hang himself? the handy dandy coil of rope, complete with noose, left under the bed? now, i have read this day that epstein's paper uniform was taken from him and he was provided with a cloth piece of clothing, which if ripped and braided might be sufficient to choke him were he resourceful enough to find a place from which to hang.
but, i am damned doubtful that he found any place or thing in his cell from which he might have suspended his body weight and from which he might have "dropped," which would have broken his neck or damaged his spinal chord: as noted, professional executioners calculated the "drop" very carefully to insure death.
and, if he made a home-made knot to choke himself, he had to figure out a way to let the "rope" slip through the knot in order to tighten around his neck and cut off his air. if the knot could not slip, the homemade noose would not tighten, and he could not readily be asphyxiated.
for these reasons, i doubt that i will ever entirely believe that epstein killed himself by hanging. put a .45 acp under your ear and summon the nerve to pull the trigger, and you've made a basically irreversible decision, whose finality is assured if you have placed the gun correctly.
the same is assured if you jump from a high place, with no obstructions to the ground.
but, hang yourself from a bed frame with your pajama bottoms, and with your hands and legs free, and your entire body struggling for oxygen, and you've a lot of time to regret your decision, and a lot of ways to try and change the outcome.
so, with these things in mind i am looking forward to the publication of the autopsy. and, to a thorough discussion of the mechanics of his death. and, however his death was accomplished, it was accomplished with a jail staff asleep at the switch, either from neglect or because they were paid to be idiots. (i favor this last theory. i doubt very damned much that a hit man walked in the facility, to epstein's cell, did the deed and walked out again. i suspect very strongly, however, that people were either paid or influenced to be asleep at the switch, long enough to let someone kill himself in a way that is very hard to imagine.)
john jay @ 08.15.2019
p.s. yes, i am very thoroughly "mugwumped" by all of this, finding it quite implausible that 3rd persons entered the jail and killed epstein, and finding it just about as implausible that he killed himself by hanging, ... , yet, as to the latter, people apparently find a way.
either way, however, required the incompetence of the prison staff and administration. no way around that, in my view.