Not only did Zorro Ranch isolate his victims, it also hosted scientists and celebrities flown in to listen to his warped and grandiose ambitions. Now state senators are calling for a truth commission. Beneath the sun-scorched wilderness of northern New Mexico, roughly 24km northwest of Dulce and 320km from Roswell – both hotspots for UFO sightings and fringe science – Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch hid a world of secrecy, influence and control.
Bought in 1993 for about R120-million, the 3,200-hectare estate became a fortress of observation and restriction, hinting at Epstein’s fascination with archaeology, ancient civilisations, futurist societies, fringe science and environments meticulously engineered to impress – and intimidate – those who stepped inside. The property and its props also seemed to be an amalgam of artefact and fiction. Zorro was the masked superhero bandit of Spanish folklore – an identity built on disguise, fantasy and subversive power.
“Things happened there that scared me so deeply I still can’t even talk about them,” recalls Juliette Bryant, a South African survivor of Epstein’s sex-trafficking network, who was recruited in Cape Town between 2002 and 2004. Her memories of Zorro Ranch are fractured: being subjected to an invasive pelvic examination by Epstein, waking up in a laboratory, people in hazmat suits, disorienting gaps in recall. “Unlike my time on Epstein’s island, of which I still have acute memories, I can’t even remember the room I slept in at Zorro Ranch.
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Epstein monitored my every move. “Yet he no longer focused on sexually assaulting me in the way he had before. It was as though I was being primed for something even darker,” she says.
Bryant remembers the ranch as a closed world where movement was tightly restricted, the settings choreographed and every corner controlled. The concentric circles of the helipad and surrounding compounds struck her as ritualistic. Elsewhere on the property, a cowboy-themed village had been erected, complete with a Wild West saloon and cabins – a theatrical set inside a sealed universe.
Zorro Ranch was not only a site of abuse. It was a salon of influence, drawing political figures, royalty, scientists and cultural elites.
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