Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice - 1

Writing a book with someone is always an intimate exercise. During every project I’ve worked on, at some point I must ask the author some extremely personal questions. Next, I bolster their memories, no matter how vivid, by working to corroborate them—reviewing all preexisting documentation and talking to others in their lives who may have witnessed or known about the events being described. In that sense, the process I followed while working with Virginia to get her story right was nothing new for me.

Two things, however, made Virginia’s memoir different. First, the stories she needed to share were devastating beyond measure for her to tell; second, several of the characters in these stories were among the wealthiest and most powerful in the world. Some of those people had already threatened Virginia to try to keep her quiet. From the beginning, Virginia and I understood that this would have to be a meticulously written book—to ensure accuracy, of course, but also to protect her from those who would have preferred she stayed silent.

I want to say explicitly why Virginia opted not to stay silent, which certainly would have been easier for her. From the beginning, she told me she believed that her story would help other people—not just survivors of Epstein’s cruelty, but any person, male or female, who’d ever been coerced into sex against his or her will. Over and over, during the hundreds of conversations and text and email exchanges Virginia and I had over four years, she insisted that she wanted to be portrayed authentically, with all her flaws. She wanted the world to know who she really was so that survivors of abuse who might read her words would feel less alone. She hoped that if she painted a real portrait of her suffering, it would inspire more people to fight to make the changes she believed were so desperately needed—prime among them, legislation to eliminate statute of limitations provisions for sexual abusers of children.

Virginia was one of the most sweethearted and generous people I’ve ever met. She was devoted to her three children, whom she shared with her husband, Robbie Giuffre (from whom she was later estranged). She was also fierce and determined. And that fierceness is what enabled me, at her direction, to tell her whole story, and—just as importantly—to interrogate it, to confirm it, and ultimately to help create the inspiring but also heartbreaking account you are holding in your hands.

When it came to corroborating the abuse Virginia had suffered as a child, I tracked down a childhood friend who was incredibly forthcoming about the abuse this friend endured by her stepfather, the same man who sexually abused Virginia as a child and who later was convicted for abusing yet another minor. Her input and kindness were a huge source of comfort to Virginia. In consultation with a professional factchecker, I also spoke at length to Virginia’s mother, her husband, her former boyfriend, and her two brothers to whom Virginia had recounted the abuse by both her father and his friend. I reached out to Virginia’s father multiple times seeking his response to his daughter’s allegations. He responded by strenuously denying them. [*]

Virginia’s firsthand account of her time in Epstein and Maxwell’s orbit was supported by thousands of pages of public court documents, including sworn depositions and Epstein’s flight logs. These documents contained the full names of many of the men who Virginia alleged she had been trafficked to. Their contents are supported by numerous other sources, including interviews that Virginia gave to the press (all of which I reviewed) and published books on the subject by authors such as the Miami Herald ’s Julie K. Brown, Virginia’s former attorney Brad Edwards, and former US attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman. I also spoke to many of Virginia’s attorneys, including Edwards, Sigrid McCawley, and Brittany Henderson.

Writing the book involved several stops and starts, in part due to struggles Virginia had with her health. But all along, she insisted that she wanted the book published. She wanted all her suffering to have accomplished something, and if she could help even one survivor of abuse, she said, it would be worth all the effort. In October 2024, she felt ready to resume. We met to finalize the manuscript. I returned to Australia, where I’d already visited her in 2022, to go over it in detail with her, side by side, one more time. We read the manuscript again, with me taking short breaks to revise certain sections, then returning to read them to her again. By the end of that visit, she’d approved all the book’s contents, save for this note by me added after her passing. She was deeply grateful to the people from all corners of her life who had supported her efforts to tell her story.

Then, on the night of January 9 (the morning of January 10 in Australia), Virginia called me in a state of extreme distress. She said that the previous evening, she and Robbie had had an argument and that he had assaulted her. We talked for a long time. She sent me photographs of her face, which appeared discolored and swollen. I made sure she was in a safe place and offered to reach out to her mother and her older brother, both of whom I contacted.

Virginia reported the incident to police in Western Australia, but they did not charge Robbie with any crime. Robbie made allegations of his own, which resulted in a restraining order against Virginia that prohibited contact with her children. This profoundly hurt Virginia—she couldn’t stand being out of touch with her kids.

The alleged January incident was not without precedent. At one point, Virginia had told me about a time in 2015, in Colorado, when Robbie was arrested after assaulting her. I tracked down a sheriff’s deputy who’d worked the case; he spoke to me at length about the incident and said that a restraining order had been put in place that prohibited Robbie from returning home. But according to the sheriff’s department, documentation of that incident was no longer available to the public. Virginia presented this episode as an isolated incident and said that for the sake of her kids, she didn’t want it to appear in the book. That was a terrible chapter that had occurred during a very tense time in their lives, she told me, and she and Robbie had worked hard to put it behind them. (Robbie, too, said as much when—in person—he referred to the incident obliquely.) I knew that there were all kinds of reasons that a woman who had been domestically abused might choose to stay silent. I also knew that people who are victims of child abuse are considerably more likely—fifteen times more likely, according to one widely cited study—to be victims of abuse later in life. I abided by her wishes.

Things took a turn for the worse in March 2025, when Virginia was injured in a car accident. Virginia and I spoke for the last time on March 31, 2025. She’d been in the hospital, she said, but had left because she didn’t agree with her doctors. I begged her to go back to the hospital, and she said she would. But first, she wanted to talk about her kids, desperate to know how they were. Before we hung up, she said, “If it’s in God’s hands, I’m not scared. If it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go, but I want the book published.” I begged her, one more time, to let her doctors do their jobs. “I want you around for the rest of my life,” I said. She told me she loved me. I told her I loved her, too.

The next day, on April 1, Virginia sent me and Dini von Mueffling, her longtime publicist, an email stating clearly her desire to publish the book. It read, in part:

I am reaching out to discuss an important matter regarding my book, “Nobody’s Girl.” It is my heartfelt wish that this work be published, regardless of my circumstances at the time.

The content of this book is crucial, as it aims to shed light on the systemic failures that allow the trafficking of vulnerable individuals across borders. It is imperative that the truth is understood and that the issues surrounding this topic are addressed, both for the sake of justice and awareness.

In the event of my passing, I would like to ensure that “Nobody’s Girl” is still released. I believe it has the potential to impact many lives and foster necessary discussions about these grave injustices. I kindly ask for your assistance in making this wish a reality. Thank you for your support, patience and most importantly love .

On April 5, Virginia released a statement to People magazine, stating publicly for the first time that her husband had abused her and specifically citing the alleged assault on January 9. The statement read, in part: “I was able to fight back against Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein who, [ sic ] abused and trafficked me. But I was unable to escape the domestic violence in my marriage until recently. After my husband’s latest physical assault, I can no longer stay silent.” (Robbie’s attorney declined to comment on Virginia’s allegations, citing ongoing court proceedings.)

Less than three weeks later, Virginia was dead, having committed suicide at her remote farm.

Before this book went to press, Virginia’s two brothers and their wives came forward with their concerns that the book she wrote underplayed the domestic abuse that she had allegedly experienced. They publicly offered their account of what they believed was long-standing abuse that their sister had suffered during her marriage, and they stressed the importance of publishing her memoir with further context to avoid undermining her credibility. At the same time, they expressed their support for the publication of Virginia’s memoir and affirmed its importance in holding abusers to account.

As I’ve reflected on Virginia’s life since her passing—all she accomplished, and all the suffering she experienced—I haven’t stopped thinking about those last three hearts she sent us. They will stick with me forever. Because despite the unspeakable cruelties she’d endured throughout her life, Virginia opted to keep her heart open and, whenever possible, to lead with love. The world could learn something from Virginia. It was truly an honor to spend four years by her side, helping her tell her story and ensuring that her legacy lives on.

Amy Wallace

August 2025

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* His response reads, in full: “Just to straighten this out, I never abused my daughter and didn’t know that Forrest———did that either, if I had known about that, I would have been very angry and taken care of the situation. I gave my daughter every single thing she ever wanted and never ever touched her sexually, I never even knew what was going on with Epstein until I read about it online and getting calls from news agencies. There is so much they are getting wrong, even her middle name, it is Virginia Lee Roberts and not Virginia Louise. I am a moral person and believe that men who take advantage of young children should be prosecuted and then castrated. It really pisses me off that someone would write that I would ever abuse my children, as a father, I only tried to give my children a good life.”