The official explanation is a heart attack.

That's what Daniel Siad's lawyer told Reuters after the 69-year-old Paris-based modeling scout was found dead at his home in Colombes, northwest of Paris, on Monday. The lawyer added that the strain and anxiety of the case had taken their toll. Also that his client "never stopped proclaiming his innocence."

Natural causes. Nothing to see.

Siad's name appears nearly 2,000 times in the DOJ's Epstein files.

He had been under investigation for rape and human trafficking. He served as Jeffrey Epstein's Paris modeling scout for over a decade, claiming Epstein was a casting director for Victoria's Secret and MC2. Epstein paid him tens of thousands of dollars. In a 2009 email cited in court documents, Siad described a woman he was pitching: "she is 20 years old but she looks younger." By 2014, his communications were referencing 15, 16, and 17-year-old girls. A note from that year about one of them: "some time I cache quick, some time no fish."

Ebba Karlsson, a former Swedish model who alleges Siad raped her at age 20 before handing her off to others in Epstein's network, filed the first formal complaint against him in February 2026. At least four more accusers followed in French media in the months after. Siad had never reached the legal threshold known as mise en examen — the formal French designation placing a suspect under investigation — when he died.

Weeks before his death, Karlsson told reporters: "He was very close to being arrested."

Six weeks before he died, Siad sat for a CNN interview and defended himself publicly. "He was such a powerful person," he said of Epstein. "And how can I not trust him?"

Deputy public prosecutor Marie-Celine Lawrysz confirmed that an investigation into Siad's death has been opened, with an autopsy to follow.

Here is what that investigation will have to explain.

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in August 2019. The surveillance cameras outside his cell had malfunctioned. The guards assigned to check on him were asleep. Both guards later admitted to falsifying their log entries. His death was ruled a suicide.

Jean-Luc Brunel, the French modeling agent who operated in the same Paris circles as Siad and faced his own trafficking charges, was found hanged in his cell at La Santé prison in February 2022. He died days after Prince Andrew reached a financial settlement with Virginia Giuffre, effectively ending Andrew's legal exposure in the matter. Also ruled a suicide. His lawyers said he "never stopped declaring his innocence."

Mark Middleton, the Clinton White House special assistant who personally signed Epstein into the White House, was found dead in Arkansas in May 2022. Ruled a suicide.

Virginia Giuffre, Epstein's most prominent accuser, had testified against Brunel in Paris in 2021. In April 2025, she was found dead at her farm in Western Australia. She was 41. Sixteen academics filed a petition calling for a formal public inquest.

And now Daniel Siad. Heart attack. Natural causes. The fifth person in Epstein's orbit to die before facing a courtroom.

There's a version of this story where it's all coincidence. Where a man mentioned nearly 2,000 times in federal trafficking documents happened to die of natural causes weeks after his accuser said he was close to arrest. Where five connected deaths across two continents and six years is just bad luck stacking up.

That version requires you to believe the same story five times in a row.

Epstein's client list has never been fully released. The people on it are still out there. Every witness who could have named them has died before facing a courtroom.

The next one is one heart attack away from joining them.