The renewed search follows the release of federal files and a state decision to reopen a case closed in 2019.
STANLEY, NM — New Mexico investigators searched Jeffrey Epstein’s former ranch on March 9 after the state reopened a criminal investigation tied to allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking at the remote property, a case prosecutors say deserves another look after newly released federal records.
The search marks the clearest sign yet that New Mexico officials are trying to rebuild a case that stalled nearly seven years ago. Attorney General Raúl Torrez’s office reopened the investigation Feb. 19, saying information in recently released Justice Department and FBI files justified further review. The ranch, long known as Zorro Ranch and now called San Rafael Ranch, sits south of Santa Fe and has for years been a focus of allegations that Epstein used it to abuse girls and young women. The renewed state action raises immediate questions about what evidence still exists, what witnesses may now be willing to speak and whether anyone besides Epstein could face scrutiny.
State officials said the search began Monday morning with help from New Mexico State Police and a Sandoval County fire and rescue K-9 team. In a statement, the Department of Justice said the operation was carried out at Torrez’s direction and was part of the criminal investigation announced in February into alleged illegal activity at the ranch before Epstein’s 2019 death. The agency also said current owners of the property cooperated and granted access. Reuters reported seeing state police and emergency vehicles at the ranch and hearing dogs barking as at least one government vehicle left the area. Officials asked the public to stay away and ground nearby drones so the law enforcement operation would not be disrupted. By Tuesday, authorities still had not said what, if anything, had been recovered during the search or how long work at the site would continue.
What pushed the case back into motion was the state’s claim that material released by the U.S. Department of Justice in January included new leads about activity at the ranch. Reuters reported that among the allegations in those records was a claim that two foreign girls had been buried in hills near the property. New Mexico authorities have not publicly confirmed that accusation as fact, and they have not announced any discovery of human remains. Instead, prosecutors have described the records as reason to seek the full unredacted federal case file and to preserve whatever evidence may still be available. That careful language reflects how much remains unknown. Epstein never faced criminal charges in New Mexico, though the state attorney general’s office said in 2019 that it had interviewed possible victims who visited the ranch. The case was then closed at the request of federal prosecutors in New York, leaving many allegations in New Mexico unresolved.
The ranch itself has long fed public suspicion because of its scale, isolation and role in Epstein’s New Mexico life. He bought the property in 1993 from former Gov. Bruce King and developed it into a large compound with a private runway and a 26,700-square-foot hilltop mansion. It sits about 30 to 35 miles south of Santa Fe, depending on the route and account, in open country near Stanley. In 2023, Epstein’s estate sold the property, with proceeds going to creditors, to the family of Texas businessman and political candidate Don Huffines. Huffines later said the property had been renamed San Rafael Ranch and that his family intended to use it as a Christian retreat. He also said any law enforcement request for access would be met with full cooperation. For state investigators, the location matters not only because of what may have happened there, but because the ranch could help test witness accounts about buildings, movement around the grounds and who came and went over the years.
The renewed criminal case is unfolding alongside a separate effort by state lawmakers to build a public record of what happened. In mid-February, New Mexico legislators created a bipartisan truth commission with subpoena power and a budget of more than $2 million to investigate past activity at the ranch and whether local authorities or other public officials failed to act. The panel includes Democratic Reps. Andrea Romero of Santa Fe and Marianna Anaya of Albuquerque, Republican Rep. William Hall, a retired FBI agent from Aztec, and Rep. Andrea Reeb, a former district attorney from Clovis. Romero said at the commission’s launch that New Mexico had lived with “years of allegations and rumors” without a full official record. Anaya said enablers, including government actors if necessary, should be held accountable. The commission is not a criminal court, but its work could shape public testimony, preserve records and keep pressure on agencies already under scrutiny for what they knew in earlier years.
That mix of criminal inquiry and political reckoning explains why the search has drawn attention well beyond rural New Mexico. Epstein died in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving dozens of underage girls. His associate Ghislaine Maxwell was later convicted in federal court, but many questions about the people, institutions and properties around Epstein remain unsettled. New Mexico officials have said they are not starting from scratch. Torrez’s office said it will seek the complete federal file, work with law enforcement partners and coordinate with the truth commission where appropriate. Even so, the passage of time presents obvious limits. Physical evidence may have degraded, memories may have faded and some witnesses may remain hard to find or unwilling to speak publicly. For now, prosecutors have not announced charges, arrests, search warrants beyond the property access already described or any date for a public briefing on investigative findings.
At the ranch entrance in recent weeks, images from the scene showed a walled gate, long fencing and broad stretches of brown grassland under a high desert sky, a setting that underscores both the property’s remoteness and the difficulty of reconstructing events years later. The site, once marketed as a private retreat, now carries a very different meaning for survivors and for officials trying to show that a case once set aside is being taken seriously. In its public statements, the New Mexico Department of Justice has said it will support survivors and follow the facts wherever they lead. That wording stops short of promising a specific outcome, but it signals that state prosecutors do not view the March 9 search as symbolic. Whether the search yields documents, forensic clues or only a clearer map of old allegations, it has already reopened one of the most troubling unresolved chapters in Epstein’s ties to the American Southwest.
As of Wednesday, March 11, investigators had not announced what the search found, and no new charges had been filed. The next clear milestone is whether New Mexico officials release results from the ranch search or the truth commission begins taking sworn public testimony in the weeks ahead.
Author note: Last updated March 11, 2026.