Video from a drone flying above Jeffrey Epstein’s home in the Virgin Islands provides a rare look inside his mysterious island temple. And it’s about as creepy as expected.
The most recent footage appears to have been taken Monday and was posted to the YouTube channel of Rusty Shackleford, who has posted dozens of videos of Epstein’s islands over the past month. Epstein, who was found dead of an apparent suicide over the weekend, owned two properties in the U.S. Virgin Islands. There was Grand St. James, a 165-acre property he bought for $18 million in 2016, and Little St. James, his primary place of residence. Epstein paid $7.95 million for the island in 1998.
The channel includes four videos titled “FBI Raid Little St. James USVI 8/12/19,” and in the first, which NBC News New York licensed, members of the FBI and NYPD can be seen inside Epstein’s island home. The Miami Herald and other news outlets reported that the island “was crawling with officers and agents Monday.”
The fourth video focuses on the blue-and-white-striped island temple perched atop a hill on the island. According to the Associated Press, workers on the island thought the temple was a place for Epstein, a classically trained pianist, to practice music. Some have speculated that the temple was designed with locks to keep people inside, while a contractor who worked for Epstein two decades ago said the temple was just a gym.
The drone footage does little to solve the mystery. Filming through a sliding glass door, the camera shows a plastic-wrapped mattress on the ground and box spring turned up on its side. The rest of the room appears largely empty but messy, with exposed wires visible and broken pieces of wood lying about.
A Rusty Shackleford video posted on July 12 provided another glimpse inside the temple. Two beds are neatly arranged on the ground next to the door and the room is filled with construction equipment. Scaffolding, five-gallon buckets, and a ladder can be seen inside.
As the DailyMail.com notes, the apparent wooden door on the temple isn’t a wooden door at all. It’s just painted on.
