Epstein used an art camp to prey on girls. An NPR team learned how it worked.

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Epstein used an art camp to prey on girls. An NPR team learned how it worked."

Podcast: Consider This from NPR
Episode Date: March 8, 2026
Host: Adrienne Ma
Guest/Reporter: Eva Berger (NPR intern and co-reporter)
Segment with: Gabriel Sanchez

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Overview & Main Theme

This episode delves into how Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell exploited their affiliation with the prestigious Interlochen Center for the Arts—an esteemed youth camp in northern Michigan—to gain access to underage girls. The podcast walks listeners through recent investigative reporting by NPR's team, primarily Eva Berger, and examines how the pair used their status as donors and alumni to infiltrate a beloved and respected institution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Epstein’s Ties to Interlochen

• Epstein was an alum of Interlochen, having played bassoon in the 1960s.
• In the 1990s and early 2000s, he donated over $400,000 to the school.
• Part of the donation funded a cabin—"the lodge"—where Epstein and Maxwell would stay during visits, years before their criminal convictions. (00:31–00:47)
• Notable alumni mentioned include Josh Groban and Chappell Roan, underscoring the school's reputation for nurturing talented young artists. (00:11–00:24)

How Epstein & Maxwell Gained Access

• Maxwell coordinated directly with school administrators to arrange their stays at the lodge.
• The pair reportedly roamed the campus freely and unsupervised, despite statements by the school that no donors were allowed unsupervised contact with students. (01:02–01:23, 05:11)
• While on campus, Epstein and Maxwell met and targeted young girls—including two, aged 13 and 14 at the time—whose later experiences would become part of trial testimony and ongoing trauma. (01:23–01:45)
• This direct contact exposes gaps between institutional policies and real-life oversight.

Survivor Stories & Their Impact

• The podcast recounts the impact on two survivors—now in their 40s, who detailed years of abuse, manipulation, and profound breaches of trust.
• One survivor was the first witness to testify at Maxwell’s trial, describing years of abuse; another told NPR about a manipulative, controlling relationship. (01:45–02:06, 08:04–09:15)
• Berger discusses the challenge and emotional weight of interviewing survivors, highlighting the complexities of wanting to tell a personal story without inviting unwanted attention. (08:04–09:15)

Investigative Process

• Berger describes sorting through messy, often-redundant, heavily redacted documents (“The Epstein files are really a mess”—04:29).
• Establishing a throughline: Berger flagged the contradiction between Interlochen’s official statements about donor-student contact and what actually happened.
• Verifying and expanding on documents via interviews with former administrators and survivors was key: “We couldn’t just rely on the documents.” (06:52)
• Some stories only came to light because people came forward after NPR’s reporting, suggesting the coverage spurred alumni and others to share more information. (09:20–09:57)

Reflections on Reporting and Survivors’ Nuanced Needs

• Berger notes the trauma of recounting such stories for victims—many do not want continued media exposure, even as they hope the truth is known.
• Survivors are not a monolith: “You can want your story shared but not want your name out there.” (08:04–09:15)
• Reporting reinforced the necessity of talking directly to those involved—documents alone do not reveal the whole story. (10:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On Access and Institutional Failure

• “It just didn’t make sense in my head how that could be a policy when we knew that Epstein had met two campers and gone on to have relationships with them.”
    — Eva Berger, (05:11)

On the Investigative Process

• “The Epstein files are really a mess... so many repeats of files... a lot of it is just going through being I saw this. I saw this.”
    — Eva Berger, (04:29)

On Survivors’ Voices

• “There are people who were part of that world who do not want anything to do with this anymore, who really... want people to understand what they went through, but seeing the photos of Epstein and Maxwell everywhere is not a good feeling.”
    — Eva Berger, (08:04)

Reporting Takeaway

• “You never know what the story is until you talk to the people who are part of it...you always have to take that next step and interview that next person and reach out. Even if you think someone won’t respond, sometimes they do.”
    — Eva Berger, (10:07)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00–00:47 — Introduction, Interlochen's background, Epstein’s alumni status and donations
• 01:02–01:45 — How Epstein & Maxwell used their access; meeting the girls
• 01:45–02:06 — Survivors’ experiences and testimony
• 04:03–05:11 — The messiness of the Epstein files and investigative difficulties
• 05:11–06:32 — Finding inconsistencies in official statements, forming the focus of the story
• 06:32–07:45 — Verification and importance of direct interviews
• 07:45–09:15 — The trauma and complexity of survivor participation, anonymity, and voice
• 09:20–09:57 — Community and alumni response to NPR’s story
• 10:07–10:57 — Lessons from reporting: value of talking to real people

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Tone and Language

The tone throughout is empathetic, careful, and investigative—balancing journalistic rigor with sensitivity toward survivors. Berger’s comments are thoughtful about both the mechanics of the investigation and the emotional stakes for those involved.

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Takeaways

• Epstein and Maxwell leveraged their donor status and relationships with Interlochen administrators to access vulnerable girls—contradicting the official institutional narrative.
• Survivors’ participation in telling their stories is complicated, nuanced, and often retraumatizing; not all want a public spotlight.
• Deep investigative reporting—combining exhaustive document review with crucial human interviews—is necessary to uncover the full scope of such systemic failures and abuses.

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For listeners seeking a better grasp of how influential predators can manipulate institutions, and how investigative journalism works to bring buried stories to light, this episode provides a clear, evocative account.

Transcript

[Adrienne Ma]

When it comes to the Epstein files, we often hear about the famous people mentioned in them. But a reporting team at NPR recently focused on a place, the Interlaken center for the Arts.

[Eva Berger]

It's a prestigious elite school up in Northern Michigan for really talented young artists, people who go through there. I mean, there was Josh Groban, Chapel Roan.

[Adrienne Ma]

That's Eva Berger, an intern here at npr. She co reported a story recently about Jeffrey Epstein's relationship to Interlochen.

[Eva Berger]

We found out that Epstein was an alum. He played the bassoon in the 1960s at Interlaken. And he would come back later in the 90s and early 2000s and donate almost a little bit over $400,000 to the school.

[Adrienne Ma]

The largest chunk of that donation went to building a cabin on Interlaken's campus. Epstein and his co conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell would stay there for brief visits years before they were convicted for sex crimes. Ava learned how those visits worked.

[Eva Berger]

So Ghislaine Maxwell would contact a school administrator. We'd like to come and stay in the cabin. The administrator would say, yes, great, what do you need? And Ghislaine would get back and say, I want, we want these things and we're coming. Once they're there, they really were on their own.

[Adrienne Ma]

And that's where the story takes a turn.

[Eva Berger]

This lodge was his base there. And while he was there, he was walking around campus and he had a little dog with him with Ghislaine Maxwell. And that's where he ended up meeting two. A 13 year old and a 14 year old girl.

[Adrienne Ma]

Those girls, now women in their 40s, became wrapped up in Epstein's orbit.

[Eva Berger]

The first woman who testified in the Ghislaine Maxwell trial, she described years of sexual abuse. The second woman who we talked to, she described a relationship that was manipulative and controlling and an abuse of power.

[Adrienne Ma]

Consider this to unravel personal stories of how Epstein and Maxwell gained access to girls at Interlaken. It required reporters to spend days sifting through documents. After the break, women hear about how those documents led Ava and her team to real people whose stories shed new light on how Epstein and Maxwell used their access to a highly respected institution to target girls. From npr, I'm adrienne ma.

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[Adrienne Ma]

It's Consider this from npr. Reporters here at NPR noticed the name of a highly respected youth camp popping up repeatedly in the Epstein files, Interlaken center for the Arts. When intern Eva Berger started combing through these documents, she knew there were stories there if she could only find the right thread to follow.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

As we sat down for this week's

[Adrienne Ma]

Reporter's Notebook, I asked her what it was like to look into the Epstein files.

[Eva Berger]

It's a mess. The Epstein files are really a mess. There are redactions in some places of people's names that aren't victims, and then they're not redacted in other places. And then there's so many repeats of files. Or you'll have like an email chain and you'll have one email and then the next file is the second email and the next file is the third email, and then the last file is all six of the emails on the email chain, if that makes sense. So it's a lot of it is just going through being I saw this. I saw this.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

So this reporting involved hundreds of documents and sifting through and piecing a lot of things together. How do you go about assembling a coherent story from all that?

[Eva Berger]

When I was looking at these documents, I was trying to find a theme, and the one point that stuck with me was from a statement that Interlaken released, and it said they did not allow unsupervised contact with donors or students. And it just didn't make sense in my head how that could be a policy when we knew that Epstein had met two campers and gone on to have relationships with them. So I was trying to find details that explained that. What could tell us how Epstein got access, how he was able to have a lodge in the cabin, how he was able to get in contact with these young girls, and that those were the details I was looking for. And. Cause I think when we look through, like, so many pages of documents and anyone who looks through things, you have to have something in your head that grounds you into, why is this important? Why does this matter? And to me, it mattered because it was so horrifying to think that I went to a summer camp growing up, that these young girls who loved and trusted this place could end up in the situation they were in, which is they met Epstein and Maxwell and were in their orbit for years.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Can you say more about verification? Because with, you know, countless pages to sift through and all kinds of conversations and records, how do you verify what you're looking at and know that you're getting the accurate story?

[Eva Berger]

So part of it was using other documents to verify what we were seeing. But a big part of it is. Is actually my conversations with these. I talked to two former administrators were really. A lot of them was me saying, do you remember this? What does this specific detail mean? What did you mean by this? Why did you tell Epstein and Maxwell this? And a lot of that doesn't make into the story, because we are just trying to confirm with people who were there at the time what this means. So that was a huge part of our corroborating the details. And then talking to that other woman who met Epsteina Maxwell on the campus, she was also able to fill in some gaps for us that. That we. That we wouldn't have known otherwise. So I think the interviews is the really key part that we needed to take it a step further. We couldn't just rely on the documents.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Also in the story, you interviewed a woman who was a camper at the time, who talked about how she met Epstein and Maxwell. And in the story, she's anonymous. Can you tell us about the process of what it was like engaging with her and, you know, asking her to tell her story? Because it sounds like it could be difficult.

[Eva Berger]

Yeah, it was. It was really difficult, Adrienne, especially, because talking about this can be retriggering and bring up thoughts that she might not have had for a really long time. And another part of it that I didn't know. I mean, we see all this reporting on the Epstein files, and we see a lot of the victims speaking out and wanting the Epstein files released. But there are people who were part of that world who do not want anything to do with this anymore, who really. Who want people to understand what they went through. But seeing the Photos of Epstein and Maxwell everywhere is not a good feeling. And I didn't realize that there was so much nuance there that it there's these people are not a monolith. And that was really what we got from talking to her, that you can want your story shared but not want your name out there and not want to be the center of attention with all of this. You might just want to be living your life. It's been years now, and you want to move forward.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Yeah. Do you have a general sense of, like, how, how long she talked to you?

[Eva Berger]

Hours.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

So it's been a couple weeks since you published this story. What's the reaction to it been?

[Eva Berger]

It's been very within the alumni community, it's been very large. We've people have reached out to us and shared stories from that time period. And I think in general, people are really horrified. There's a sense that this camp is so in it's a camp in school is so beloved among people, and it's just so a place of such happiness. And so it's really hard for people to wrap their heads around. How could this happen?

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Ava, we mentioned earlier that you're an intern at npr. How did reporting this story change how you think as a reporter?

[Eva Berger]

Yes, I think it goes back to that woman we were talking about and that you never know. And this can apply to so many stories. You never know what the story is until you talk to the people who are part of it. And she really helped us understand what this story was and that I can never overlook voices versus just a document. You know, like you always have to take that next step and interview that next person and reach out. Even if you think someone won't respond, sometimes they do and you really never know. So my what I've taken away is just it never hurts to go the extra mile.

[Gabriel Sanchez]

Ava Berger, thank you for taking the time to talk about your reporting with us.

[Eva Berger]

Thank you, Adrian.

[Adrienne Ma]

This episode was produced by Gabriel Sanchez and it was edited by Timbit Ermias and Adam Raney. Our executive producer is Sami Yenighun. It's consider this from npr. I'm Adrienne Ma.

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