The physical investigation of Epstein’s Zorro Ranch in Santa Fe County started March 9, and it turned sinister in short order. New Mexico Public Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard proposed that cadaver dogs pore over the state land around Zorro to search for the bodies of girls alleged to be buried there. “The state land was used almost as a buffer, a shield to hide what activity was occurring on the ranch,” she said last month.
From a drone’s-eye view, the ranch looks cadaverous itself. It’s a pale-flesh-colored colonial monstrosity of 28,636 square feet that sits goonishly amid the sagebrush in the high desert, sucking it dry.
Though Epstein bought the land in 1993 from Bruce King, who was then New Mexico’s Democratic governor, his Temu Xanadu, with its helipad, giant pool, firehouse, and private airship, always irritated locals for putting “inordinate burdens on the scenic and water resources of our region,” as a local journalist wrote in 1999.