STORY: New Mexico's Department of Justice said on Wednesday the state was investigating an allegation that the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein ordered the bodies of two foreign girls buried outside his remote New Mexico ranch.
The claim emerged from documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice which included an email from 2019 containing the allegation.
A New Mexico spokesperson said it had requested an unredacted copy of this from the U.S. Justice Department.
The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FBI declined comment.
A day earlier, New Mexico's legislature launched the first comprehensive investigation into accusations that Epstein sexually abused girls and women at the Zorro Ranch 30 miles south of Santa Fe for more than two decades.
New Mexico state representative Andrea Romero co-sponsored the bill.
"And so to think that this was happening for decades, that this predator was preying upon women, people in our community is not only terrifying, it's just abhorrent that we couldn't turn every stone over at the time that he could be held accountable. And so for any sense of justice to be had, we have to tell the truth. We have tell the story of what happened here."
Epstein died in a New York jail in August 2019. His death was ruled a suicide.
