Was Ghislaine Maxwell, the socialite associated with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, dead as of November 14, 2024? No, that's not true: She was listed as an inmate at a federal prison at the time of writing. There is no evidence that Maxwell was deceased on or before this date.
The claim was suggested in a post (archived here) on X on November 14, 2024. The post, which included a screenshot from the message board 4chan, read:
Looks like Ghislaine Maxwell may be dead. Remember 4chan reported Jeffrey Epstein's death in advance.
This is what the post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Thu Nov 14 17:11:35 2024 UTC)
The 4chan post that initially made the claim (archived here) was also posted on November 14, 2024. It read:
I will not be replying.
Ghislaine Maxwell Is Dead.
The death will be reported soon.Best Regards
However, later in the day, the user who posted the claim said the post was a "LARP." "LARP" is an acronym for "Live Action Role Play," which indicates a fictional scenario (archived here). A screenshot of the 4chan user's "LARP" statement is included below:
(Source: 4chan screenshot taken on Thu Nov 14 17:14:49 2024 UTC)
At the time of the writing of this fact check, Maxwell is listed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator as a federal inmate at Federal Correctional Institution, Tallahassee, Florida. Information on the inmate locator is updated daily. A screenshot of Maxwell's inmate information is included below:
(Source: Federal Bureau of Prisons screenshot taken on Thu Nov 14 17:25:01 2024 UTC)
Lead Stories also did a search using keywords on Google News (archived here), which found no credible documents or reporting to confirm the claim.
Other Lead Stories fact checks related to Ghislaine Maxwell can be found here.
