Virginia Giuffre dead age 41: How did Jeffrey Epstein and Prince Andrew's sexual assault accuser die?

Giuffre is understood to have died at her farm in western Australia. Police confirmed emergency services received reports of an unresponsive woman at a property in the Perth suburb of Neergabby on Friday night.

According to a family statement, Giuffre took her own life, although police are still investigating the circumstances around her death.

Giuffre was one of the most outspoken accusers of convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell. She alleged they trafficked her to the Duke of York when she was 17, a claim which Prince Andrew has denied.

A police spokeswoman said: “Police and St John Western Australia attended and provided emergency first aid. Sadly, the 41-year-old woman was declared deceased at the scene. The death is being investigated by Major Crime detectives; early indication is the death is not suspicious.”

American-born Giuffre had lived in Australia for years and became an advocate for sex trafficking survivors, after emerging as a central figure in the prolonged downfall of disgraced paedophile financier Epstein. She came forward publicly after the initial investigation ended in an 18-month Florida jail term for Epstein, who made a secret deal and was released in 2009.

In subsequent lawsuits, Giuffre said she was a spa attendant as a teen at Mar-a-Lago - US President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach club - when she was approached in 2000 by Ghislane Maxwell. She was hired as a masseuse for Epstein and was flown around the world for meetings with men at Epstein’s behest while she was 17 and 18.

The duke paid millions to settle a civil sexual assault case with Giuffre, whom he said he had never met. She sued him for allegedly sexually assaulting her when she was 17 after she was trafficked by paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

News that Giuffre took her own life comes after Epstein took his own life in August 2019. Guards found him unresponsive in his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York, where he was awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges.

Conspiracy theorists claimed that Epstein could not have killed himself, with photos of his cell taken after his death showing an array of bottles and medicines on his top bunk. An autopsy concluded that he died from suicide by hanging, but Epstein’s lawyers suggested that evidence was “far more consistent” with murder.

Giuffre had suffered a health scare earlier this year, being hospitalised after a bus crash in Australia last month. Posting on social media, she claimed she had “four days to live” following the incident.

She said: “I've gone into kidney renal failure, they've given me four days to live, transferring me to a specialist hospital in urology.”

Giuffre is survived by her three children, whom the statement described as being the “light of her life.”