On an old episode of the original Star Trek TV series, there was an alien creature, a monster really, that had the ability to assume human form. So most of the time, if you saw this creature, say, in Safeway or Target, you wouldn't look twice because it would just look like a regular person.
But this creature had a hideous secret. In order to survive, it needed to constantly consume all the salt from human bodies. It did so by attaching its fingers, which during the sodium extraction process had suction cups on their ends, to its victim's face and sucking the salt into its own body, thereby killing its prey. During the extraction, the creature didn't simply sprout fingertip suction cups; it completely morphed into its true form, which was hideous and bizarre. So it needed to be alone with its victims because otherwise other people would see this abomination. After the salt extraction, the creature resumed human form until it needed to feed from its next host.
When I think of Jeffrey Epstein, I think of that Star Trek alien. Masquerading as a regular person, Epstein was actually a bloodsucking monster consuming a series of nonrenewable resources from his victims. And this is important: What he took is irretrievable. It's not like he stole a pair of earrings and, as restitution, he could just return the jewelry. What he consumed was gone, gone, gone.
What Jeffrey Epstein took from his victims:
*their youth
*their energy
*their youthful energy
*their agency in determining when, with whom, and how they share their own precious selves
*their ability to trust
*their right to easeful, unencumbered mental and emotional wellness
Taking so much from these girls and young women, sowing as much ruination as possible seems to have been the point of Epstein’s crimes, thus the need for more and more and more young women to be pulled into his orbit. I'm so impressed with the women who are speaking up about what he did and who all was involved, aiding and abetting and turning the other way.
If Epstein's not a monster, far worse than anything Gene Roddenberry ever thought up, then I don't know what is.