Epstein’s Island in 3D: A Full Tour of the Island of Fear

From St. Thomas, Little Saint James is close enough to see. In 2020, the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands told a court that the women and girls Jeffrey Epstein held there could not leave without his permission. We rebuilt the island in 3D from public data: the ground, the trees and the roofs measured by a 2018 USGS lidar flight, the sea floor from NOAA's 2019 survey, and the buildings checked one by one against that scan. Then we toured it using only the record: court filings, sworn testimony as reported, property and company records, and the FBI's own photographs from August 12, 2019. Every claim on screen is labeled by what kind of record it is. Allegations from the Virgin Islands complaint were never tested at trial; the estate settled the case in 2022, and a settlement is not a finding on each allegation. The tour stays outside the buildings. Chapters 0:00 Close enough to see 0:32 How to read this tour 1:00 Arrival by air 2:48 Arrival by sea: the "front door" 4:10 What stood on the island 4:40 What the FBI photographed 6:10 Fines, "invasions" and the parcel 7:42 The striped building 8:15 The water 9:53 Great St. James 10:46 What the record establishes 12:00 The Virgin Islands case and the settlement 12:58 The 2025 photographs 13:21 The layout Sources Government of the U.S. Virgin Islands v. Estate of Jeffrey E. Epstein, complaint, Jan. 15, 2020 (Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, ST-20-CV-014) USVI motion to intervene in Maxwell v. Estate, July 10, 2020 USVI Attorney General, settlement release, Nov. 30 / Dec. 1, 2022 U.S. Attorney's Office, S.D.N.Y.: Epstein indictment (July 8, 2019); statement on the Maxwell verdict (Dec. 29, 2021) House Committee on Oversight (minority), statement of Dec. 3, 2025 Testimony of Larry Visoski at the Maxwell trial, as reported by The Independent and the AP (Nov.–Dec. 2021) NPR (May 4, 2023), The Guardian (Aug. 13, 2019), ABC News Australia (Dec. 4, 2025), NBC News (Aug. 1, 2019) Images and data Photographs: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Aug. 12, 2019, released by the U.S. Department of Justice (EFTA00001500, 1501, 1510, 1518, 2940) — public domain Terrain, trees and roof heights: USGS 2018 lidar, Post Hurricane Maria – USVI (public domain) Sea floor: NOAA NGS 2019 Topobathy Lidar DEM, USVI (public domain) Building footprints, paths and shoreline: © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) Maps: Natural Earth Surface colours, tree species and the striped building's south face are illustrative and labeled on screen.