Which specific DOJ pages include the words 'cannibal' or 'ritualistic sacrifice' and how can researchers locate them within the 3.5 million pages?
Executive summary
The publicly released DOJ trove tied to Jeffrey Epstein contains explicit uses of the word “cannibal” (reported as appearing 52 times) and “cannibalism” (reported six times), and at least one file in the release contains an email-summary recounting an anonymous witness’s allegation of “ritualistic sacrifice” (file name EFTA00147661), but the underlying allegations in that email were uncorroborated and did not amount to verified evidence [1] [2] [3].
1. What the release actually contains, by the numbers and by example
The Department of Justice made a tranche of more than three million pages of Epstein-related files public at the end of January 2026, and independent fact-checkers who reviewed that corpus report that the string “cannibal” appears dozens of times while “cannibalism” is far rarer (six mentions), but those counts do not themselves mean criminal findings — they are literal occurrences of the words within a massive body of documents [1] [4]. One concrete, named example that fact-checkers point to is a document archived under the file name EFTA00147661, which is described in the DOJ records as containing an email or FBI-summary referencing an anonymous man’s claim that he witnessed “ritualistic sacrifice” and other lurid allegations; Snopes and others emphasize that the source was unidentified and provided no corroborating evidence in the files [2] [3].
2. What the specific files say about cannibalism and ritualistic sacrifice
The anonymous individual summarized in the FBI email asserted witnessing babies being dismembered and alleged ritual abuse aboard a yacht in 2000, and the same materials record other grotesque claims such as ingestion of human feces; however, the summary notes that the witness did not provide evidence to support those allegations and did not in that interview necessarily use the term “cannibalism” even while related terms appear elsewhere in the release [1] [3]. Multiple media fact-checks reviewed the DOJ release and uniformly concluded that although the words and sensational assertions appear, the documents in the release do not substantiate criminal findings of cannibalism or ritual sacrifice tied to Epstein or named associates [2] [4] [5].
3. What can be said definitively about which pages include the words
Reporting to date supplies counts and at least one explicit file identifier (EFTA00147661) that contains “ritualistic sacrifice” as part of an email/FBI-summary; beyond that, the publicly available fact-check pieces do not publish an exhaustive list of every page or file name that contains “cannibal” or “cannibalism.” Those pieces therefore establish the presence of the words and provide an example file name, but do not offer a fully indexed inventory of all 3.5 million pages where the strings occur [2] [1] [3].
4. How researchers can locate these terms inside a 3.5 million–page release (limitations of current reporting)
The sources establish that the corpus exists and that key phrases appear in multiple places, but they do not publish a step‑by‑step extraction or the complete file list — reporting so far stops short of a public, comprehensive concordance of every occurrence [1] [3]. Consequently, absent an authoritative index supplied by the DOJ or by an independent archivist, researchers must rely on search tools supplied with the release (if any), third‑party indices, or their own text‑search of the dataset; the fact-check coverage does not document those operational steps in detail [1] [2].
5. Practical next steps researchers should take given what is (and isn’t) documented
Given the reporting: (a) treat the documented counts and the EFTA00147661 example as starting points rather than proof of criminal conduct [1] [2]; (b) request or look for a DOJ-provided searchable index or metadata for the release, and consult the specific archived filename EFTA00147661 cited by multiple outlets to see original context [3]; and (c) when encountering sensational language in these documents, prioritize corroboration — contemporaneous investigative records, forensic evidence, or prosecutorial findings — which the fact-checkers say are absent in these instances [2] [4]. Note: the fact-check reporting does not supply a complete list of every file name that contains “cannibal”/“cannibalism,” so if a comprehensive inventory is required, researchers will need to perform keyword searches against the full release or press the DOJ to produce an index [1] [3].
6. Caveats, competing narratives and hidden agendas
Media and social posts seized upon lurid phrases and recycled older conspiracy footage to amplify claims of cannibalism and ritual sacrifice; fact-checkers warn those amplifications outpaced what the documents actually verify, and the available DOJ files (as described in the coverage) contain unverified allegations rather than prosecutable evidence — an important distinction critics and defenders of the release both emphasize, while conspiracy purveyors use partial excerpts to inflame audiences [5] [6] [4]. The reporting reviewed does not attempt to prove or disprove every allegation in the files; it documents word occurrences, presents an identified example file, and repeatedly stresses the absence of corroboration for the most extreme claims [2] [1] [3].