Looking at the total set of people who cancelled last minute appears to be the correct start. Then you'd have to find all subsets who had any common friend like Epstein in this case.

I'm sure you can find more such subsets. The problem with the Epstein subset is that 100% of his friends survived (Lutnick's brother mentioned above wasn't one) and that Epstein was far from a normal person who had already been involved in Iran Contra and Angola CIA affairs. How to take that into account statistically?

It isn't just a matter of being statistically illiterate.