New Mexico's attorney general has ordered a fresh investigation into Jeffrey Epstein's remote Zorro Ranch after newly released FBI files surfaced an anonymous email alleging two girls were killed and buried in the hills surrounding the property.

Attorney General Raúl Torrez moved after his office reviewed documents from the final tranche of files released by the U.S. Department of Justice. His chief of staff, Lauren Rodriguez, confirmed the reopening Thursday:

Although the State of New Mexico's prior investigation was closed in 2019 at the request of the U.S Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, revelations outlined in the previously sealed FBI files warrant further examination.

The anonymous email in question was sent to a New Mexico radio show host a few months after Epstein died in federal custody while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The sender, who claimed to be a former Zorro Ranch employee, alleged that two foreign girls died by strangulation during violent sexual activity and were buried at Epstein's direction in the hills near the property, located about 30 miles from Santa Fe.

These are unverified allegations from an anonymous source. But they sat buried in sealed federal files for years while the public was told the system was handling the Epstein matter.

The letter to Washington

The New Mexico justice department sent a letter last week to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche requesting an unredacted copy of the 2019 email, along with the sender's full identifying details, recipient information, transmission data, routing information, and time stamps. According to The Hill, the office also requested unredacted copies of all other records that reference Zorro Ranch.

Rodriguez signaled that the investigation would not be confined to the email alone:

As with any potential criminal matter, we will follow the facts wherever they lead, carefully evaluate jurisdictional considerations, and take appropriate investigative action, including the collection and preservation of any relevant evidence that remains available.

The Justice Department referred a request for comment to the FBI, which declined to comment.

Six years of silence

The original New Mexico investigation was closed in 2019, not because investigators concluded there was nothing to find, but because the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York requested the state stand down. That office was handling the federal prosecution of Epstein, which ended when he died in a Manhattan jail cell.

So to be clear about the sequence: New Mexico was investigating. Federal prosecutors told the state to stop. Epstein died. And an anonymous tip alleging murder and burial on the property sat sealed in FBI files until the DOJ released them.

For six years, no one acted on this. Not the FBI. Not the Southern District. Not any of the federal officials who had access to these documents while the rest of us were told the Epstein case was effectively closed with his death.

New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard told Reuters her office uncovered the email during a recent search of the Epstein files and requested the investigation. The state legislature went further: on Monday, lawmakers unanimously approved a measure to form a bipartisan special committee of state representatives to probe Zorro Ranch and the related allegations of criminal activity.

Unanimously. In a state legislature. On an Epstein matter. That tells you something about how serious the underlying material is, or at least how serious elected officials believe it to be.

The ranch's new chapter

Zorro Ranch is no longer in the Epstein estate's hands. Former Texas state Sen. Don Huffines, a Republican currently running for Texas comptroller, purchased the property in 2023. The proceeds reportedly went to Epstein's victims. Huffines said this week he plans to turn the ranch into a Christian retreat.

There is something fitting about that transformation, if it comes to pass. But the land may first need to answer older questions before it can serve a new purpose. If bodies are buried in those hills, a Christian retreat can wait. Justice cannot.

The real scandal is what stayed sealed

The broader Epstein story has always been less about one predator and more about the systems that protected him. The private island. The flight logs. The powerful men who visited and the investigators who looked away. Every new document release reinforces the same pattern: the federal government possessed information the public needed, sat on it, and only released it under immense political pressure.

This anonymous email may ultimately lead nowhere. The claims are unverified. The sender is unidentified. Years have passed, and evidence degrades. Rodriguez acknowledged the constraints without backing down:

We are moving quickly and deliberately on this issue and will provide updates as appropriate.

But even if the email proves to be a dead end, the fact that it was sealed for years alongside other Epstein records raises the question that has haunted this case from the beginning: what else is in those files, and who decided the American public didn't need to see it?

New Mexico is now doing what the federal government should have done years ago. The FBI won't comment. The DOJ referred reporters elsewhere. And a state attorney general is left requesting documents from Washington that should never have been hidden in the first place.

The Epstein case didn't end in that Manhattan jail cell. It was just sealed shut. Now the files are open, and the hills outside Santa Fe may have something to say.