Epstein’s Broken Hyoid Bone Doesn’t Tell Us Much
It’s still much, much more likely that he died by suicide than that he was murdered.
By JEREMY SAMUEL FAUST
AUG 15, 2019 • 3:44 PM
The Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on Saturday.
David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
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On Wednesday morning, the Washington Post reported that two people with knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein’s autopsy said that it showed his hyoid bone had broken when he reportedly died by suicide in prison on Saturday morning. The story quickly gained steam, including on Slate, because multiple experts noted that this is more common in homicide victims than in suicide victims. But it is worth stating plainly: A broken hyoid bone doesn’t really suggest he was murdered. In fact, it adds almost no useful information at all. Thinking it does underscores how bad we all are at understanding basic math.
Yes, the hyoid—the U-shaped bone located at the top and front of the neck—is more likely to be broken when a person has been strangled than if they were hanged. But the hyoid is also broken in hangings—possibly infrequently, and possibly often. There’s no agreement in the forensics community on exactly how frequently, but it is known to occur and is not considered remarkable.
Here’s some basic math. Each year, around 16,000 men are murdered in the United States. Of those, approximately 385 are strangled (2.4 percent). Meanwhile, around 35,000 men die by suicide, 8,000 ( 23 percent) of those by hanging. This means that if a medical examiner encounters a random dead body (but no other information), it is over 20 times more likely that the man died by hanging than by strangulation. Even after the discovery of a broken hyoid bone, the overall odds would still heavily favor hanging, even though the rate of hyoid bone fracture is indeed somewhat higher in strangulation, because broken hyoid bones aren’t 20 times more likely to be broken during strangulation than hanging. Not even close.
Sawa…this is better read than most of gutter press and githeria media editions