Chilling images have emerged from the morning Jeffrey Epstein was found unresponsive in his cell in 2019. The 66-year-old was being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Centre in New York on sex trafficking and conspiracy charges when he was found unresponsive on August 10, 2019. He was pronounced dead in the hospital at 6.39am.

New footage released by the US Department of Justice in the latest batch of Epstein files shows the outline if a prison guard walking up to a security desk next to the floor housing Epstein’s cell. Roughly 10 seconds later, they head towards the cell. Then, just over a minute later, guards are seen darting back and forth between the desk and the cell.

It was also revealed in other files that the prison warden said Epstein should not be in his cell alone, stressing the need for “30-minute checks” and “unannounced rounds”.

Guards did not conduct checks meant for 3am and 5am on the night of August 9, and the camera system in the unit was down, the documents show. Staff discovered in body in the morning when they came to check on him.

An FBI report released in files revealed that Epstein was placed on suicide watch after trying to kill himself of July 23 of the same year.

However, the sex trafficker accused his cell mater, former police officer Nicholas Tartaglione, of trying to kill him. Tartaglione was released the day before Epstein’s death.

The following day, Epstein told a psychologist that the had “no interest in killing myself” and it “would be crazy” to do so, according to the documents.

On July 25 he added that he was “too vested in my case to fight it, I have a life and I want to go back to living my life”, the psychologist report states.