On a park bench outside a Michigan summer camp in mid-1994, it’s believed Jeffrey Epstein began to groom his first known victim.
Warning: This story contains details of sexual abuse which may be distressing for some readers.
The 13-year-old, identified as Jane Doe in court filings, was in the singing program at Interlochen School of the Arts.
The arts camp was prestigious — offering theatre, dance, creative writing and more — and she had travelled almost 2,500 kilometres to attend.
As she sat by herself on that bench between classes, a man and a woman approached her.
The man was the now-dead paedophile Epstein, while the woman was his main collaborator and convicted child sex offender Ghislaine Maxwell.
"Epstein bragged to her [Jane Doe] about being a patron of the arts and giving scholarships to talented young artists like Doe," a 2020 damages complaint described.
Jane Doe’s father had died a year earlier. Her mother and her siblings, living in Palm Beach, Florida, were struggling financially.
"Epstein and Maxwell probed her at length about her background, family situation and where she lived," the complaint said.
"As Doe got up to leave, Epstein requested her mother’s phone number back in Florida."
A few months later, he invited them over for tea.
It would be the beginning of a years-long nightmare.
Victim accounts tell the story of a 'psychopath' grooming girls
The story is just one of dozens scattered among the tens of thousands of heavily redacted documents included in the so-called Epstein files.
The US Department of Justice began releasing the files a week ago, uploaded in batches of thousands at a time.
The accounts — made up of diary entries, emails, interview notes and more — showcase the fear, anguish, and trauma suffered by Epstein's victims.
Many of them were barely teenagers when he and Maxwell first crossed their paths.
But the documents also showed their rage.
"I believe [Ghislaine Maxwell] is a psychopath," wrote one, in a 2020 email begging a judge to deny Maxwell bail.
Maxwell, she said, had not only abused her and "many other children and young women", but had played a "central role in procuring girls for Epstein to abuse".
"She was both charming and manipulative with me during the grooming process, consistent with what many of the women she abused have described," she wrote.
That process became a familiar tale, told over and over again throughout the files released in the last week.
The ABC has not independently verified the accounts contained within the documents, but their stories are consistent with those told by other victims in courtrooms, media interviews and biographies over the years.
'This is what grown-ups do'
For the Interlochen Jane Doe, things escalated quickly.
At Epstein’s since-demolished Palm Beach mansion, according to an FBI special agent, Epstein told her mother he "likes to mentor people".
"She was happy for her daughter and oftentimes referred to Epstein as [Jane Doe’s] godfather," the agent said in a testimony transcript.
From that point on, a then 14-year-old Jane Doe became a regular at the 1,300-square-metre waterfront property.
"They’d hang out by the pool, he would take her to the movies, take her shopping," the agent said.
"[They were] building a relationship with her, giving her things, taking her places. And then … once they gain that trust, they will make the relationship turn sexual.
"[Epstein] gave her cash. Sometimes he’d tell her to give the cash to her mum because he knew that they needed it."
Epstein also paid for her voice lessons. Sometimes when she arrived, Maxwell would be laying topless in the pool area, the transcript document said.
The teen thought the behaviour was "strange", but said Maxwell "normalised" it.
"She was like a cool older sister and made comments like, 'this is what grown-ups do,'" the agent said.
It was several months into Jane Doe's relationship with Epstein when things took a paralysing turn.
Alone in the pool house, Epstein asked the girl what she wanted to do with her life — she wanted to be an actress and a model, she told him.
"He told her that he was best friends with the owner of Victoria Secret," the agent told the court.
"Told her that she would have to have photographs taken and she [has] to be comfortable in her underwear, and not to be a prude."
He then assaulted her for the first time. The abuse would continue to escalate over the following years.
A network of teenage girls recruiting classmates and friends
Jane Doe was not the only one drawn into the web.
All across Palm Beach, Maxwell and Epstein had teenage girls recruiting each other.
One girl, testifying for a grand jury in 2007, said she had been propositioned by a high school classmate when she was 16 years old.
"[She] asked me if I wanted to make money and she was working for this guy, Epstein, in Palm Beach," she said, seen in a transcript of her sworn statement.
"So I told her I was interested and she further went into detail about massaging him, that you would have to take off articles of clothing and there would be touching and fondling involved.
"Within a couple days to a week [I went] to his house … [his assistant] took me upstairs to Epstein’s bedroom and that’s where the massage took place.
"I was naked and he tried fondling me and I wouldn’t have it.
"So after the massage he gave me another proposition to bring girls to the house and for every girl that I brought I would make $200."
The girls were offered $US200 ($298) per massage, or for every other girl they enlisted to come to the house.
"[I brought] girls that I met in high school, acquaintances, people that I just said hi and bye to," the victim explained in 2007.
The more they did, the more they could make. And if they were underage, "just lie about it".
"Basically, the more clothes that come off, the more you let him touch you, the more you just let him have his way with you is the more that you would make," the girl said.
"Otherwise, you would be demoted down to bringing girls over and just making money that way."
Epstein’s assistant, she said, would call her and ask if she could get a girl to come over to the house.
Most of those she recruited between 2004 and 2005 were between 16-18 years old, with the youngest being just 14.
A 23-year-old, she added, had been regarded as "too old" by Epstein.
"The younger the better," he told her.
Details of the abuse and what went on inside the massage room were at times redacted in the documents released.
Also redacted were the faces of girls photographed over and over again, often undressed, often posed against the wall or on their knees.
One girl said in a 2009 deposition Epstein had offered to pay for massage school, and gave her a copy of Massage for Dummies.
She told him she was 14 years old. He paid her $US700 ($1,043) in total.
Fear and 'relentless' attacks kept victims silent
It would be almost two decades before Jane Doe told anyone about the abuse she suffered at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell, according the FBI agent’s testimony.
Understanding what had happened to her, the agent stated, was difficult.
Maxwell and Epstein had been "like her family".
"She expressed that she felt like they loved her … that they supported her," the agent said.
"And that she felt she was made to feel like she needed to be grateful to them."
"She recognised [now] it’s affected her life to a great degree.
"She’s struggled in relationships with opening up to people and trusting people, both personal and professional relationships."
Consistent throughout the documents — be it in emails, interview transcripts or recorded statements — was a palpable sense of fear.
In a 2023 email, a victim apologises to an FBI detective working the case for not testifying.
"I was afraid and didn’t want my name more associated with them than it was, and I’d spent a long time trying to distance myself from it all," she wrote.
"I’m wondering if you know of a way I could ever talk to Ghislaine … in prison.
"I have questions and words, and while I don’t assume there’d be closure for me in asking her these questions and talking to her, I’m hoping it might do something in my heart at least."
One victim’s lawyer, Sigrid McCawley, wrote in a 2019 email going to the authorities had cost her client everything.
Epstein’s attack after the client reported his abuse was "relentless".
"It ruined her art career which was her livelihood and has caused her significant trauma," Ms McCawley said.
"She has struggled incredibly as a result of Epstein’s conduct."
Ms McCawley would go on to represent hundreds of Epstein victims.
Others have spoken publicly since the release of the files, telling media they feel equal parts redeemed and devastated.
One woman, Maria Farmer, identified herself as the victim in a 1996 child pornography complaint filed with the FBI.
Epstein, she told authorities at the time, had stolen photos of her then 12-and 16-year-old sisters and sold them.
She said he had also asked her to photograph young girls at a pool, then threatened to burn her house down if she went to the police.
Ms Farmer’s younger sister, Annie, would also become one of the victims.
"I want everyone to know that I am shedding tears of joy for myself, but also tears of sorrow for all the other victims that the FBI failed," Maria Farmer said.
