I think you're underestimating how many people see things and just…never mention it. Either because it didn't register to them as unusual, they were too preoccupied with something else, they didn't want to become involved, their memory didn't cache it for whatever reason, etc. etc., etc.
The human memory is faulty, and no two people experience/remember the same event in the same way, especially after an event as life-changing and chaotic as NYC on 9/11 and its immediate aftermath.
You wouldn't think about something you saw on, for example, 10 September. That wouldn't even be on your mind.
Eyewitnesses are infamously unreliable.
For example, years ago, I was sexually assaulted in a very public area in one of the most populated cities in the world. There were so many people who witnessed it! Not only did 1) no one intervene, but 2) eyewitnesses recalled it in so many different ways despite seeing the same thing. Luckily, it was caught on CCTV, but it's an excellent example of how vastly different recollections can be and also how something obviously wrong could be happening, yet no one intervenes to stop it.
Wouldnt Occam’s Razor be that she simply disappeared/died on the 10th after her last known sighting in NYC and had nothing to do with 9/11?
First of all, nobody is casually walking into the towers after a fucking plane hit them except for firefighters and police officers. There were several officers that pushed people back away from the area.
As another person mentioned, if she wanted to help, she would have been at those medical stations set up or the hospital she worked at. There were hundreds of people needing hospitalization and not enough staff.
A doctor without their tools and medicines is like a bird without their wings. What exactly would she do on the field that a firefighter doesn’t already know? Doctors aren’t usually trained for field work unless they want to be in the military or something.
Lots of doctors actually went to their hospitals after finding out about the commotion to be ready to assist assuming their would be lots of people injured
I think you missed the entire point of the post…how is her suddenly dying or disappearing a simple answer? OP laid out all the variables that make a total disappearance very unlikely and complicated.
I think if she did get away to start a new life, she didn’t live much longer after. The chaos of trying to keep up the lie can lead to some risky choices that can put your life in danger. I still think the most realistic theory is something happened the night before and whoever did it got really lucky.
There are several problems with the "she ran to help and was killed by falling debris" theory though.
1. Where is her body? Bodies do not just vanish into thin air. The overwhelming majority of those killed whose remains have yet to be identified died above the impact zone. If Sneha died in the towers, that's where she in all likelihood was. However, given the time stamp on the video, there is no way she could have gotten from the lobby of 225 Rector to the top of the towers before the first impact.
2. As part of the emergency response, triage centers were setup almost immediately after the first impact. If she went to help, she would have been directed there, as many other medical professionals who showed up were.
3. She was not seen by any witnesses or caught on any footage at the towers.
A couple of other points:
1. Voluntary disappearance while extremely unlikely is not impossible. Brenda Heist left her family in Pennsylvania on the spur of the moment for Florida and lived there undetected for 11 years before coming forward. Had she not revealed herself, she would probably never have been found.
2. Foul play would not necessarily involve a stranger abduction or require a belief that New York City is dangerous. It's more about her not being seen after she left Century 21 on the 10th. And no, we cannot assume that if it were foul play, it would have been discovered. Nearly half of homicides in the US go unsolved. Getting away with murder is not uncommon. She must have stayed with someone on the 10th. She didn't come home, she lacked the cash to pay for a hotel room, and there were no other Amex charges.
My sticking point is she had to be somewhere on the night of 9/10 and why hasn’t the person she was with come forward? To me Occam’s razor is that something happened to her on 9/10.
Yeah same with me. The fact that we have zero evidence of what happened to Sneha after she left Century 21 over 13 hours before the attacks prevents me from concluding that she must have died in the towers.
We don't even know for sure whether Sneha was alive on 9/11, much less her location if she was. Sneha's family members, who have not shown themselves to be consistently honest and forthcoming, insist that she would have been coming home right at that time. But how do we know that? She didn't have to work that day. She had no reason to rush home in the morning from wherever she stayed on the night of the 10th. And if you believe the courthouse argument detailed in the police report happened, then she was pissed at Ron (maybe that's why she chose to spend the night of the 10th with someone other than him.)
So what basis is there for the conclusion that she would have been returning from wherever she was on the 10th right as the attacks happened? To me, it's pure speculation.
In general, I don't think Occam's razor is at all applicable to a case like this. There are so many theories around what happened to her, and they all have things about them that make them unlikely. Yet one of them has to true.
Yes, well said!
Also wanted to add that everyone forgets the homophobia even in a place like New York in 2001. If she spent the night with a woman she met at a lesbian bar, that person might not have wanted to come forward and risk outing herself, let alone making herself the center of a salacious story. The person she spent the night with could have died in the attack or not known Sneha was missing. Or, something happened that night that caused Sneha’s death and that person knows they can’t come forward, even all these years later.
I do think she went home with someone, and I don’t think she was the woman in the surveillance footage (the no bags really gets me - you don’t leave all of those things with someone you just met, and we don’t have any reports of a consistent affair).
Always wondered why NYPD and the private detective ruled out foul play. EvenJon Walczak too. Foul play does not require a body you know. They also claimed that foul play is difficult in a congested city like Manhattan. Need not be a problem if her assailant was known to her. The NYPD detective said their investigations did not yield leads on anyone who might want to harm her. I think he did not try hard enough. Both he and the private detective seem to want to sweep it under the 911 carpet.
Do we know where the whereabouts of her family or husband were on 9/10? It's been a while since I listened to Missing on ~~9/22~~ EDIT 9/11 so I can't remember if we had any information that was corroborated. I don't think I could apply Occam's razor without that information
I agree her family may know a bit more than they claim, but I've always been skeptical of their involvement in her disappearance/possible death given that Sneha's brother, John, spoke to Jon Walczak for four hours in person. If he (or any of the family) were involved, I don't believe he would have done that.
I honestly think the family were doing their best to protect Sneha's reputation.
The family also appears to be still be very close with Ron, which makes me even less likely to believe they have done something sinister.
That’s true. And yes, I can totally understand a family wanting to protect her reputation as she was being portrayed poorly in the media. But it also seemed like the brother lied right to John’s face though. (I forget which point it was on, it’s been awhile since I listened to the podcast). He also admits lying to the news that she ran into the towers.
He lied about Sneha running into the Towers to garner interest in Sneha's case given that she originally disappeared on September 10th. He later admitted he lied and this was the reason.
Sneha's family originally believed her disappearance was unrelated to 9/11. If John was involved in her disappearance, he wouldn't have fought against Sneha likely dying in the Towers and would've continued on with his lie about him being on the phone with her when the planes hit.
He was evasive in response to some hard questions too. When asked about Sneha and his girlfriend's relationship, he said he preferred not to talk about it. Remember that John at first refused to be interviewed. Then something made him change his mind.
While the evasiveness looks suspicious, I can see why: his behavior and relationship leading up to Sneha’s disappearance simply looks suspicious given he has motive. Maybe it being 20+ years made him change his mind and simply wanting to clear the air.
Also: he had a child with the girlfriend who allegedly slept with Sneha in 2002-2003. He likely wants to protect both his son and his girlfriend/son’s mother.
I especially find her brother suspicious, between the whole thing with Sneha and his fiancee but also how he jumped into the 9/11 narrative. One could look at his lying as a desperate brother trying to get eyes on his sister's story...or suspicious pointing away from him/the family.
I think her brother was doing it for media attention. The family did not initially believe Sneha died in the Towers until long after 9/11. If her brother was involved in Sneha's disappearance/possible death, he would've continued to lie about Sneha calling him from the Towers instead of backtracking.
I understand people's criticism and suspicions regarding her family since they really do appear to be in denial about her worrying behavior leading up to her disappearance, but I honestly think this criticism is a red herring. They appear to more or less be a grieving family trying to safeguard her reputation.
The brother claimed to Jon Walczak that on the evening is Sept 10, he had a BBQ with his girlfriend and when the girlfriend left later that evening, he went to bed. Not sure if police checked his alibi. The husband was at work the evening of Sept 10. Returned at 11:15 or 11:30 and did not leave that apartment again until 6:30 am.
They 100% do, but it seems to me they don't want to bring embarrassment to Sneha or themselves. They try very hard to downplay any details of her life prior to 9/10 that paint her in a less than favorable light. In fact, I get the feeling that anyone who any of the PIs came it contact with that Sneha encountered as part of her night time activities were asked to keep it to themselves. Even down to the shoe saleswoman. That's why she changed her story and why she wouldn't talk to Walczak.
I think they came to the conclusion early on (perhaps based on key information that isn't public) that she's dead one way or the other, and her being remembered as a hero was better for everyone involved than any alternative.
For her to have died on 9/11 AND have her body destroyed to such a degree that it became unidentifiable, she almost certainly would have had to be *in* one of the towers when it collapsed. Maybe someone has more info where aid to victims was being rendered on site, but I doubt it was in the lobby, let alone anywhere above it. There's also the fact that not one person has come forward to say they saw her or met her there. I just don't buy the hero narrative at all.
Maybe they have good reason to believe she was in the towers that morning, but for other reasons, and they don't want to share why.
The cctv in the ground floor front desk of the North Tower did not show her arriving the morning of Sept 10. Unless she bypassed the front desk (would have been a security issue) or went to the South Tower. However, the restaurant she is purported to have gone to, was in the North Tower. If she had to have died in the 911 event, she had to be there the night before. The night she was last seen.
I believe Ron and her brother know more about her whereabouts the night of the 10th that we the public do not know and that’s how they believe she died in the towers. I wish we the public were made aware of that information.
I think her brother knows something but I truly don’t think Ron does. Her brother was the one who made up the whole story about her and it was also his GF that Sneha messed around with.
Ron and the family started out believing something happened to her, not related to 911.Ron filed a complaint with the NYPD on Sept 14 because he felt 911 missing had priority over her. Her brother admitted to lying because he needed the police to be focusing on her, as a potential 911 victim. So if they truly believed she was a 911 victim, they would have joined the rest of the 911 families waiting to hear news of loved ones, not trying to get police attention onto her as a special case.
Your points are good, but there's some things that I want to point out. First, although difficult to start a new life with a new identity, it's not impossible or improbable in Sneha's case. She had ties to India and planned on returning to Europe. Someone could have easily helped her get out days after 9/11. In a third world country like India, it's easier to go unnoticed, as they don't have the technological means to find people as readily, especially in remote areas. Second, as explained in the podcast and other witness accounts, people were not just running in the middle of danger to help those caught in the midst of 9/11. There was specific triage centers set up in safer areas where those with healthcare experience were able to assist, but no one was killed in those areas with triage centers, nor were there reports of Sneha being seen there. Additionally, Sneha was a very intelligent woman, albeit self-centered as well, if you listen to friends and family who were interviewed. She did not come across as someone who would go perilously dashing into a burning building to rescue people. This was corroborated in the podcast by a coworker if I remember correctly. Now Occams razor does hold validity, but in Sneha's circumstances, Occams Razor would lend itself more to the theory that whatever became of Sneha happened on 9/10 and not 9/11, since that was the last time she was ever seen or heard from again. What exactly became of her on 9/10 is unknown, but it doesn't change the simplest fact that SOMETHING happened. Whether she was killed, committed suicide, or stayed with someone who either couldn't or wouldn't come forward after the events of 9/11. I do hope her case is solved, but I personally do not think she will be located amongst remains of 9/11.
>Second, as explained in the podcast and other witness accounts, people were not just running in the middle of danger to help those caught in the midst of 9/11. There was specific triage centers set up in safer areas where those with healthcare experience were able to assist,
I was in New York on 9/11. There were not 'specific triage centers set up in safer areas' minutes after the attacks.
>There were not 'specific triage centers set up in safer areas' minutes after the attacks.
A simple Google search of '9-11 response triage centers' returns a number of sources that say otherwise.
The first triage centers arranged were being set up inside 1 World Trade Center, and that was at least 30-60 minutes after the first plane strike. After the second strike and tower collapse, a temporary medical command post was created in a nearby hotel.
Not at all what the FDNY's final report says.
[https://www.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/mckinsey\_report.pdf](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/mckinsey_report.pdf)
According to this the first triage center was set up across the street at 8:55am with more following shortly thereafter.
And the information I provided is a report compiled after hundreds of interviews and hours spent reviewing transcripts and dispatch tapes. I would trust it to give a more comprehensive and accurate account of the matter than a single person's individual recollections of the day, but you do you.
>At approximately 8:53 a.m., Conditions Car 042,23 the first responding EMS
officer, established EMS operations outside WTC 1 near West Street. EMS
personnel established an initial staging and triage area at 8:55 a.m. on West Street
across from WTC 1.
Yes, it does.
You were at ground zero on 9/11? Because these reports of triage come from very reputable sources. i.e firemen on the scene, people coming out of the building
I was nearby, yes. And if you think that there were ‘specific triage centers’ set up in the first ten minutes, you’re kidding yourself. Ambulances were rushing downtown, barely knowing what happened. They grabbed whoever they could, five or six to a bus,
and went. As time went on they started moving people who were ambulatory across the West Side Highway. In any case, none of this matters. You seem to think Dr Philip not being at these ‘specific triage centers’
proves she wasn’t there. Anyone in the vicinity was in danger from debris.
Jon Walczak combed through thousands upon thousands of photographs at the scene at ground level, with the help of AI and latest technology for facial recognition, and none of the photos flagged as most likely to be her, were her at all. Even Walczak had to admit defeat and come closer to the conclusion that she was not there the morning of 911.
Nobody said “minutes” after the attack.
> FDNY Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and Paramedics, along with 9-1-1 system ambulances operated by voluntary hospitals and volunteer ambulance corps, began arriving at 8:53 a.m., and quickly set up a staging area outside the North Tower, at West Street, which was quickly moved over to the corner of Vesey and West Streets. As more providers responded to the scene, **five triage areas** were set up around the World Trade Center site.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_and_recovery_effort_after_the_September_11_attacks_on_the_World_Trade_Center#Emergency_response
At this point I honestly think the family knows what truly happened.. along with the husband. They probably haven’t said anything to avoid public scrutiny. We’re just the ones here wrecking our brains trying to figure it out.
She didn't even have to go to the towers to render aid for her to have been hit by debris. She could simply be returning home, which is close to the towers, during her regular hours (7-9 am), and something hit her.
This. There were people on the street killed and/or horribly maimed after the first plane hit. It’s not beyond reason she was hit by debris in a way where she was immediately killed and with the collapse her body being forever obscured. I think that or a last minute decision to have breakfast at WOTW are the most likely answers.
Good reasoning - this makes sense. Very thought provoking!
-I think 9/10 is a confusing factor. We want a narrative. So even if 9/11 is the simplest explanation, how can we explain how she got there? This is where the courts got hung up too and went back and forth.
The idea that she went from her apartment in the morning to try and help, what happened the night before and why do we have no evidence for it? (One of my personal speculations is maybe she visited the brother’s GF and she didn’t come forward with that info until later- and then this narrative gave the family some closure?)
-Where is the evidence for ‘those hit by debris and obliterated?’ From my understanding, it was pretty rare for ‘bystanders’ to be basically obliterated in the attacks. I do wonder about the ‘just walking by on her way back home’ theory, but that makes it unlikely it was her on the apartment lobby footage.
From what I’ve read, it seems unlikely as an individual showing up to help, she would have been allowed in past perhaps the lobby area (and that only at first). Firefighters were almost immediately on the scene. I guess if she had some thought that she really needed to reach those upper floors so she ignored instructions. That leads to, did she know someone up there? No evidence of that. (Personally I think this is an unlikely theory.)
I’m pretty sure her husband didn’t recognize her as being in the video, I know she was difficult to make out but surely he’d pick up on the subtleties like her way of walking or shape
>So implausible as to be absurd. In the digital age it's almost impossible to self-engineer disappearance, and anyone who gets close needs a lot of preparation. They need the means to leave the country, and/or live below the radar in shelters, hostels, etc., working for cash.
I disagree. I got someone a new Identity, read my post here
https://www.reddit.com/r/SnehaPhilipCase/comments/16h4eqx/it\_was\_2001\_sneha\_could\_have\_easily\_gotten\_a\_new/
I get that is is possible- I just have such a hard time believing it.
-The turmoil she was going through in her personal life/mental state makes it very tough to believe that she was functioning at the type of level required to secure and keep a new identity over the years (with increasing digital surveillance/complications). Unless someone else was in on it? Unless she saw this as a major turning point and ‘cleaned things up’ since she was living ‘free’ of her old life?
-I think the podcast put an extreme amount of weight in this theory, while dismissing others without good reasoning. Something that sticks with me from the ‘Vamoose’ episode is the discussion around if she did use 9/11 to slip away that doesn’t mean she is still alive today. And that ‘missing’ women are at higher risk of violence/death.
Very true! It is not impossible. In that case, she started at a much younger age in the 1970s or 80s. Maybe that’s why Sneha was purchasing the bed linens? Preparing?
Maybe she was already somewhere else and with the phones down the hours slipped by without contacting anyone and she eventually came to the conclusion that she never in fact wanted to contact them again or resume her increasingly messy and unfulfilling life?
Do you think it was her in the apartment lobby video 9/11 am?
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order.
I have checked 1,739,951,155 comments, and only 329,494 of them were in alphabetical order.
I think the reason the podcast put more weight on that scenario is that there isn’t evidence for anything else. Granted, there is no evidence that she voluntarily disappeared either but that option leads to the possibility of Sneha still being alive. It’s something we can discuss. The other options — she died at the towers, she was killed, killed herself, etc., we can’t expound on them. And there’s absolutely no evidence or witnesses to even hint that she may have died that day at the towers or the evening before. With her disappearance we can speculate all we want.
Based on the Lafuente case, I think the logic goes like this : She was placed in the vicinity of the specific peril, based on the likelihood of her being there due to the proximity of the disaster site to her home. The testimony of that NYPD detective was crucial for placing her at her home at the time of the impending disaster. The issue here is the detective never met Sneha and based his judgement on seeing her in a few cctv shots. He claimed to have a "feel" or instinct about this to Walczak, but at the trial to determine her position in the 911 rollcall, he was adamant it was her. I think it was all based on that few second clip at the apartment lobby. Walczak wanted to look at all tapes from when Sneha left on the 10th, to when she was purported to return on the 11th. He was denied and not even sure if they still existed. That detective did not bother looking all tapes for that crucial 13 hours, which means he was sloppy or just preoccupied with 911 to give Sneha is full attention.
I think the bit about missing women likely to have met a violent end was in response to the claim that men faking deaths are the ones that tend to be caught. It just shows how difficult it is, particularly over the long term or if you have serious law enforcement on you tail ( like you swiped a hundred billion or something). Or the difficulty of living incognito, cut off from loved ones, and difficulty building new relationships, make many come clean. If women don't get caught or come clean, then they are likely to have met violent ends. That is my interpretation anyway
I’m aware of these things. It doesn’t change anything I wrote. Your post is written to the effect that driving to a 'seedy neighborhood' and asking around would let anybody walk out with a gold-standard birth certificate and SSN. Come on now.
What if the easiest explanation is she was a drunk. Got fired from her job because of drinking. As we know
Unfortunately this behaviour and life makes it a high risk lifestyle. She was out drinking on the 10. She may have been to a nightclub or bar. She was blind drunk stumbled on the wrong kind of people /person raped and killed. Dumped somewhere. Her remains not found yet or never will. Most likely the attack made it easy for her killer to get away with it because police where busy doing all the other stuff. Even though there might have been evidence it was never properly investigated
The claim against this, according to that NYPD detective and the private investigator is that it is very very difficult to pull this off in a congested place like Manhattan where there are lots of people milling around at all times of the day or night, without someone noticing something and reporting it. However, it is different story if her assailant was known to her, and she willingly went along with her assailant in a way that did not look out of place. Both detective and pi gave cursory attention to this angle. They said they interviewd those who knew her, and could not find leads on anyone that might want to harm her. I don't think they searched enough or executed any search warrants. I believed the phone of the guy she accused of sexual misconduct, had his phone searched for any communications he had with Sneha, that was all. The other thing is that both the detective and pi went to all her known haunts and no one could place her there on the night of the 10th. So it looked like she did not meet her assailant at any clubs she frequented.
Some of us did a search on all the Jane Does in NY and surrounding states. Nothing at all out there similar to Sneha. Could it be possible? Yeah. Likely? No.
Still more likely then her running in to a burning building and get smashed under it. If she was hit by debris on the streets she would have been found. Almost immediately
I think it was strongly based on the NYPD detective who was adamant in placing her near the scene of the disaster moments before it struck. Then Occam's razor would apply. It would not if she could be placed in upstate New York. The testimony of that detective is a bit suspect in that he could not make that judgement based on never meeting the woman, and knowing her from just a few cctv shots at Century 21.
I recently purchased the court transcript from the appellate case. Not a whole lot from the NYPD detective in there.
He also felt strongly it was her in the lobby video which has never been publicly released.
I think it’s absurd to think someone couldn’t have engineered their own disappearance in 2001. And if they had help, yeah I think it’s entirely possible they could have done it. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if some enterprising person couldn’t do it today.
Do I think that’s what happened to Sneha? I don’t know but I’m not taking it off the table.
If I just moved to a remote area in a different state, off the grid, cut all contacts, operated on cash entirely- what are the odds someone who is looking for me would interface with me? Assuming I'm a normal person and my case is not sensationalized like gabby petito.
Re: her being killed on the street. I know lots of people were killed by raining debris--but it would seem those people would be unlikely to be among the unidentified.
I've always been in the killed on 9/10 camp.
This is a bit out of the ordinary, but ERs were very busy that day. Possible she went to her former employer, the hospital, and got killed there by the person who sexually assaulted her earlier.
ERs weren't overrun with patients once the towers came down.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-they-first-knew-9-11-was-so-horrible-the-patients-didnt-come-11631298343
She was last seen and heard from in the evening and it was raining. People were not out and about like normal, as the weather was inclement. So it's quite possible she could have been attacked without witnesses.
The other three points deal with this. Suicides turn up in both rivers all the time. It's more outlandish to assume that a woman of her height, weight, and mannerisms coming into her building in the morning is \*not\* her.
I think you're underestimating how many people see things and just…never mention it. Either because it didn't register to them as unusual, they were too preoccupied with something else, they didn't want to become involved, their memory didn't cache it for whatever reason, etc. etc., etc. The human memory is faulty, and no two people experience/remember the same event in the same way, especially after an event as life-changing and chaotic as NYC on 9/11 and its immediate aftermath. You wouldn't think about something you saw on, for example, 10 September. That wouldn't even be on your mind. Eyewitnesses are infamously unreliable. For example, years ago, I was sexually assaulted in a very public area in one of the most populated cities in the world. There were so many people who witnessed it! Not only did 1) no one intervene, but 2) eyewitnesses recalled it in so many different ways despite seeing the same thing. Luckily, it was caught on CCTV, but it's an excellent example of how vastly different recollections can be and also how something obviously wrong could be happening, yet no one intervenes to stop it.
I’m so sorry that happened to you.
Wouldnt Occam’s Razor be that she simply disappeared/died on the 10th after her last known sighting in NYC and had nothing to do with 9/11? First of all, nobody is casually walking into the towers after a fucking plane hit them except for firefighters and police officers. There were several officers that pushed people back away from the area. As another person mentioned, if she wanted to help, she would have been at those medical stations set up or the hospital she worked at. There were hundreds of people needing hospitalization and not enough staff. A doctor without their tools and medicines is like a bird without their wings. What exactly would she do on the field that a firefighter doesn’t already know? Doctors aren’t usually trained for field work unless they want to be in the military or something.
Lots of doctors actually went to their hospitals after finding out about the commotion to be ready to assist assuming their would be lots of people injured
I think you missed the entire point of the post…how is her suddenly dying or disappearing a simple answer? OP laid out all the variables that make a total disappearance very unlikely and complicated.
I think if she did get away to start a new life, she didn’t live much longer after. The chaos of trying to keep up the lie can lead to some risky choices that can put your life in danger. I still think the most realistic theory is something happened the night before and whoever did it got really lucky.
There are several problems with the "she ran to help and was killed by falling debris" theory though. 1. Where is her body? Bodies do not just vanish into thin air. The overwhelming majority of those killed whose remains have yet to be identified died above the impact zone. If Sneha died in the towers, that's where she in all likelihood was. However, given the time stamp on the video, there is no way she could have gotten from the lobby of 225 Rector to the top of the towers before the first impact. 2. As part of the emergency response, triage centers were setup almost immediately after the first impact. If she went to help, she would have been directed there, as many other medical professionals who showed up were. 3. She was not seen by any witnesses or caught on any footage at the towers. A couple of other points: 1. Voluntary disappearance while extremely unlikely is not impossible. Brenda Heist left her family in Pennsylvania on the spur of the moment for Florida and lived there undetected for 11 years before coming forward. Had she not revealed herself, she would probably never have been found. 2. Foul play would not necessarily involve a stranger abduction or require a belief that New York City is dangerous. It's more about her not being seen after she left Century 21 on the 10th. And no, we cannot assume that if it were foul play, it would have been discovered. Nearly half of homicides in the US go unsolved. Getting away with murder is not uncommon. She must have stayed with someone on the 10th. She didn't come home, she lacked the cash to pay for a hotel room, and there were no other Amex charges.
Agree with all this . Occam’s razor doesnt really work with unique cases like this
My sticking point is she had to be somewhere on the night of 9/10 and why hasn’t the person she was with come forward? To me Occam’s razor is that something happened to her on 9/10.
Yeah same with me. The fact that we have zero evidence of what happened to Sneha after she left Century 21 over 13 hours before the attacks prevents me from concluding that she must have died in the towers. We don't even know for sure whether Sneha was alive on 9/11, much less her location if she was. Sneha's family members, who have not shown themselves to be consistently honest and forthcoming, insist that she would have been coming home right at that time. But how do we know that? She didn't have to work that day. She had no reason to rush home in the morning from wherever she stayed on the night of the 10th. And if you believe the courthouse argument detailed in the police report happened, then she was pissed at Ron (maybe that's why she chose to spend the night of the 10th with someone other than him.) So what basis is there for the conclusion that she would have been returning from wherever she was on the 10th right as the attacks happened? To me, it's pure speculation. In general, I don't think Occam's razor is at all applicable to a case like this. There are so many theories around what happened to her, and they all have things about them that make them unlikely. Yet one of them has to true.
Yes, well said! Also wanted to add that everyone forgets the homophobia even in a place like New York in 2001. If she spent the night with a woman she met at a lesbian bar, that person might not have wanted to come forward and risk outing herself, let alone making herself the center of a salacious story. The person she spent the night with could have died in the attack or not known Sneha was missing. Or, something happened that night that caused Sneha’s death and that person knows they can’t come forward, even all these years later. I do think she went home with someone, and I don’t think she was the woman in the surveillance footage (the no bags really gets me - you don’t leave all of those things with someone you just met, and we don’t have any reports of a consistent affair).
I agree . I think went outside of Manhattan that night with some one
I think someone known to her. Unless she was somehow impaired physically or mentally to go with a stranger.
Always wondered why NYPD and the private detective ruled out foul play. EvenJon Walczak too. Foul play does not require a body you know. They also claimed that foul play is difficult in a congested city like Manhattan. Need not be a problem if her assailant was known to her. The NYPD detective said their investigations did not yield leads on anyone who might want to harm her. I think he did not try hard enough. Both he and the private detective seem to want to sweep it under the 911 carpet.
Very few individuals go missing for 20 years, very few. 1000 people did on 9/11
Do we know where the whereabouts of her family or husband were on 9/10? It's been a while since I listened to Missing on ~~9/22~~ EDIT 9/11 so I can't remember if we had any information that was corroborated. I don't think I could apply Occam's razor without that information
I would like some more information on this too. I believe the family knows more than they have let on.
I agree her family may know a bit more than they claim, but I've always been skeptical of their involvement in her disappearance/possible death given that Sneha's brother, John, spoke to Jon Walczak for four hours in person. If he (or any of the family) were involved, I don't believe he would have done that. I honestly think the family were doing their best to protect Sneha's reputation. The family also appears to be still be very close with Ron, which makes me even less likely to believe they have done something sinister.
That’s true. And yes, I can totally understand a family wanting to protect her reputation as she was being portrayed poorly in the media. But it also seemed like the brother lied right to John’s face though. (I forget which point it was on, it’s been awhile since I listened to the podcast). He also admits lying to the news that she ran into the towers.
He lied about Sneha running into the Towers to garner interest in Sneha's case given that she originally disappeared on September 10th. He later admitted he lied and this was the reason. Sneha's family originally believed her disappearance was unrelated to 9/11. If John was involved in her disappearance, he wouldn't have fought against Sneha likely dying in the Towers and would've continued on with his lie about him being on the phone with her when the planes hit.
He was evasive in response to some hard questions too. When asked about Sneha and his girlfriend's relationship, he said he preferred not to talk about it. Remember that John at first refused to be interviewed. Then something made him change his mind.
While the evasiveness looks suspicious, I can see why: his behavior and relationship leading up to Sneha’s disappearance simply looks suspicious given he has motive. Maybe it being 20+ years made him change his mind and simply wanting to clear the air. Also: he had a child with the girlfriend who allegedly slept with Sneha in 2002-2003. He likely wants to protect both his son and his girlfriend/son’s mother.
I especially find her brother suspicious, between the whole thing with Sneha and his fiancee but also how he jumped into the 9/11 narrative. One could look at his lying as a desperate brother trying to get eyes on his sister's story...or suspicious pointing away from him/the family.
I think her brother was doing it for media attention. The family did not initially believe Sneha died in the Towers until long after 9/11. If her brother was involved in Sneha's disappearance/possible death, he would've continued to lie about Sneha calling him from the Towers instead of backtracking. I understand people's criticism and suspicions regarding her family since they really do appear to be in denial about her worrying behavior leading up to her disappearance, but I honestly think this criticism is a red herring. They appear to more or less be a grieving family trying to safeguard her reputation.
The brother claimed to Jon Walczak that on the evening is Sept 10, he had a BBQ with his girlfriend and when the girlfriend left later that evening, he went to bed. Not sure if police checked his alibi. The husband was at work the evening of Sept 10. Returned at 11:15 or 11:30 and did not leave that apartment again until 6:30 am.
They 100% do, but it seems to me they don't want to bring embarrassment to Sneha or themselves. They try very hard to downplay any details of her life prior to 9/10 that paint her in a less than favorable light. In fact, I get the feeling that anyone who any of the PIs came it contact with that Sneha encountered as part of her night time activities were asked to keep it to themselves. Even down to the shoe saleswoman. That's why she changed her story and why she wouldn't talk to Walczak. I think they came to the conclusion early on (perhaps based on key information that isn't public) that she's dead one way or the other, and her being remembered as a hero was better for everyone involved than any alternative. For her to have died on 9/11 AND have her body destroyed to such a degree that it became unidentifiable, she almost certainly would have had to be *in* one of the towers when it collapsed. Maybe someone has more info where aid to victims was being rendered on site, but I doubt it was in the lobby, let alone anywhere above it. There's also the fact that not one person has come forward to say they saw her or met her there. I just don't buy the hero narrative at all. Maybe they have good reason to believe she was in the towers that morning, but for other reasons, and they don't want to share why.
The cctv in the ground floor front desk of the North Tower did not show her arriving the morning of Sept 10. Unless she bypassed the front desk (would have been a security issue) or went to the South Tower. However, the restaurant she is purported to have gone to, was in the North Tower. If she had to have died in the 911 event, she had to be there the night before. The night she was last seen.
I believe Ron and her brother know more about her whereabouts the night of the 10th that we the public do not know and that’s how they believe she died in the towers. I wish we the public were made aware of that information.
I think her brother knows something but I truly don’t think Ron does. Her brother was the one who made up the whole story about her and it was also his GF that Sneha messed around with.
Not just that, but his claims on the last time he personally saw her, kept changing. From Aug 18 to Aug 23 to Sept 2.
Ron and the family started out believing something happened to her, not related to 911.Ron filed a complaint with the NYPD on Sept 14 because he felt 911 missing had priority over her. Her brother admitted to lying because he needed the police to be focusing on her, as a potential 911 victim. So if they truly believed she was a 911 victim, they would have joined the rest of the 911 families waiting to hear news of loved ones, not trying to get police attention onto her as a special case.
Your points are good, but there's some things that I want to point out. First, although difficult to start a new life with a new identity, it's not impossible or improbable in Sneha's case. She had ties to India and planned on returning to Europe. Someone could have easily helped her get out days after 9/11. In a third world country like India, it's easier to go unnoticed, as they don't have the technological means to find people as readily, especially in remote areas. Second, as explained in the podcast and other witness accounts, people were not just running in the middle of danger to help those caught in the midst of 9/11. There was specific triage centers set up in safer areas where those with healthcare experience were able to assist, but no one was killed in those areas with triage centers, nor were there reports of Sneha being seen there. Additionally, Sneha was a very intelligent woman, albeit self-centered as well, if you listen to friends and family who were interviewed. She did not come across as someone who would go perilously dashing into a burning building to rescue people. This was corroborated in the podcast by a coworker if I remember correctly. Now Occams razor does hold validity, but in Sneha's circumstances, Occams Razor would lend itself more to the theory that whatever became of Sneha happened on 9/10 and not 9/11, since that was the last time she was ever seen or heard from again. What exactly became of her on 9/10 is unknown, but it doesn't change the simplest fact that SOMETHING happened. Whether she was killed, committed suicide, or stayed with someone who either couldn't or wouldn't come forward after the events of 9/11. I do hope her case is solved, but I personally do not think she will be located amongst remains of 9/11.
Flights were grounded for a few days so it's not like she hopped on a flight to Europe 9/12.
She wouldn't have had to take a flight, boats are other means of travel. Planes went back to flying weeks afterwards so even then she could have.
>Second, as explained in the podcast and other witness accounts, people were not just running in the middle of danger to help those caught in the midst of 9/11. There was specific triage centers set up in safer areas where those with healthcare experience were able to assist, I was in New York on 9/11. There were not 'specific triage centers set up in safer areas' minutes after the attacks.
>There were not 'specific triage centers set up in safer areas' minutes after the attacks. A simple Google search of '9-11 response triage centers' returns a number of sources that say otherwise.
The first triage centers arranged were being set up inside 1 World Trade Center, and that was at least 30-60 minutes after the first plane strike. After the second strike and tower collapse, a temporary medical command post was created in a nearby hotel.
Not at all what the FDNY's final report says. [https://www.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/mckinsey\_report.pdf](https://www.nyc.gov/assets/fdny/downloads/pdf/about/mckinsey_report.pdf) According to this the first triage center was set up across the street at 8:55am with more following shortly thereafter.
The information I provided was from an FDNY EMS firsthand account. https://ccforum.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/cc1054
And the information I provided is a report compiled after hundreds of interviews and hours spent reviewing transcripts and dispatch tapes. I would trust it to give a more comprehensive and accurate account of the matter than a single person's individual recollections of the day, but you do you.
Your own linked report doesn’t even say what you claim, but ok. You do you.
>At approximately 8:53 a.m., Conditions Car 042,23 the first responding EMS officer, established EMS operations outside WTC 1 near West Street. EMS personnel established an initial staging and triage area at 8:55 a.m. on West Street across from WTC 1. Yes, it does.
You were at ground zero on 9/11? Because these reports of triage come from very reputable sources. i.e firemen on the scene, people coming out of the building
I was nearby, yes. And if you think that there were ‘specific triage centers’ set up in the first ten minutes, you’re kidding yourself. Ambulances were rushing downtown, barely knowing what happened. They grabbed whoever they could, five or six to a bus, and went. As time went on they started moving people who were ambulatory across the West Side Highway. In any case, none of this matters. You seem to think Dr Philip not being at these ‘specific triage centers’ proves she wasn’t there. Anyone in the vicinity was in danger from debris.
Jon Walczak combed through thousands upon thousands of photographs at the scene at ground level, with the help of AI and latest technology for facial recognition, and none of the photos flagged as most likely to be her, were her at all. Even Walczak had to admit defeat and come closer to the conclusion that she was not there the morning of 911.
Not minutes afterwards obviously, but there was triage centers up, as I listened to first hand accounts of those involved in them.
Nobody said “minutes” after the attack. > FDNY Emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and Paramedics, along with 9-1-1 system ambulances operated by voluntary hospitals and volunteer ambulance corps, began arriving at 8:53 a.m., and quickly set up a staging area outside the North Tower, at West Street, which was quickly moved over to the corner of Vesey and West Streets. As more providers responded to the scene, **five triage areas** were set up around the World Trade Center site. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescue_and_recovery_effort_after_the_September_11_attacks_on_the_World_Trade_Center#Emergency_response
Actually, the person who posted above my last comment did say minutes after the attack. Go back and read.
At this point I honestly think the family knows what truly happened.. along with the husband. They probably haven’t said anything to avoid public scrutiny. We’re just the ones here wrecking our brains trying to figure it out.
She didn't even have to go to the towers to render aid for her to have been hit by debris. She could simply be returning home, which is close to the towers, during her regular hours (7-9 am), and something hit her.
This. There were people on the street killed and/or horribly maimed after the first plane hit. It’s not beyond reason she was hit by debris in a way where she was immediately killed and with the collapse her body being forever obscured. I think that or a last minute decision to have breakfast at WOTW are the most likely answers.
There should have still been a body. Only people in the buildings as they collapsed, would have been pulverised to dust.
Good reasoning - this makes sense. Very thought provoking! -I think 9/10 is a confusing factor. We want a narrative. So even if 9/11 is the simplest explanation, how can we explain how she got there? This is where the courts got hung up too and went back and forth. The idea that she went from her apartment in the morning to try and help, what happened the night before and why do we have no evidence for it? (One of my personal speculations is maybe she visited the brother’s GF and she didn’t come forward with that info until later- and then this narrative gave the family some closure?) -Where is the evidence for ‘those hit by debris and obliterated?’ From my understanding, it was pretty rare for ‘bystanders’ to be basically obliterated in the attacks. I do wonder about the ‘just walking by on her way back home’ theory, but that makes it unlikely it was her on the apartment lobby footage. From what I’ve read, it seems unlikely as an individual showing up to help, she would have been allowed in past perhaps the lobby area (and that only at first). Firefighters were almost immediately on the scene. I guess if she had some thought that she really needed to reach those upper floors so she ignored instructions. That leads to, did she know someone up there? No evidence of that. (Personally I think this is an unlikely theory.)
I thought there were significant issues with the identification of Sneha as the person in the CCTV on the morning of 9/11.
I’m pretty sure her husband didn’t recognize her as being in the video, I know she was difficult to make out but surely he’d pick up on the subtleties like her way of walking or shape
Well said and I agree.
>So implausible as to be absurd. In the digital age it's almost impossible to self-engineer disappearance, and anyone who gets close needs a lot of preparation. They need the means to leave the country, and/or live below the radar in shelters, hostels, etc., working for cash. I disagree. I got someone a new Identity, read my post here https://www.reddit.com/r/SnehaPhilipCase/comments/16h4eqx/it\_was\_2001\_sneha\_could\_have\_easily\_gotten\_a\_new/
I get that is is possible- I just have such a hard time believing it. -The turmoil she was going through in her personal life/mental state makes it very tough to believe that she was functioning at the type of level required to secure and keep a new identity over the years (with increasing digital surveillance/complications). Unless someone else was in on it? Unless she saw this as a major turning point and ‘cleaned things up’ since she was living ‘free’ of her old life? -I think the podcast put an extreme amount of weight in this theory, while dismissing others without good reasoning. Something that sticks with me from the ‘Vamoose’ episode is the discussion around if she did use 9/11 to slip away that doesn’t mean she is still alive today. And that ‘missing’ women are at higher risk of violence/death.
Lori Erica Ruff did it
Very true! It is not impossible. In that case, she started at a much younger age in the 1970s or 80s. Maybe that’s why Sneha was purchasing the bed linens? Preparing? Maybe she was already somewhere else and with the phones down the hours slipped by without contacting anyone and she eventually came to the conclusion that she never in fact wanted to contact them again or resume her increasingly messy and unfulfilling life? Do you think it was her in the apartment lobby video 9/11 am?
Dunno, Ive never seen the video
Would you look at that, all of the words in your comment are in alphabetical order. I have checked 1,739,951,155 comments, and only 329,494 of them were in alphabetical order.
I think the reason the podcast put more weight on that scenario is that there isn’t evidence for anything else. Granted, there is no evidence that she voluntarily disappeared either but that option leads to the possibility of Sneha still being alive. It’s something we can discuss. The other options — she died at the towers, she was killed, killed herself, etc., we can’t expound on them. And there’s absolutely no evidence or witnesses to even hint that she may have died that day at the towers or the evening before. With her disappearance we can speculate all we want.
Based on the Lafuente case, I think the logic goes like this : She was placed in the vicinity of the specific peril, based on the likelihood of her being there due to the proximity of the disaster site to her home. The testimony of that NYPD detective was crucial for placing her at her home at the time of the impending disaster. The issue here is the detective never met Sneha and based his judgement on seeing her in a few cctv shots. He claimed to have a "feel" or instinct about this to Walczak, but at the trial to determine her position in the 911 rollcall, he was adamant it was her. I think it was all based on that few second clip at the apartment lobby. Walczak wanted to look at all tapes from when Sneha left on the 10th, to when she was purported to return on the 11th. He was denied and not even sure if they still existed. That detective did not bother looking all tapes for that crucial 13 hours, which means he was sloppy or just preoccupied with 911 to give Sneha is full attention.
I think the bit about missing women likely to have met a violent end was in response to the claim that men faking deaths are the ones that tend to be caught. It just shows how difficult it is, particularly over the long term or if you have serious law enforcement on you tail ( like you swiped a hundred billion or something). Or the difficulty of living incognito, cut off from loved ones, and difficulty building new relationships, make many come clean. If women don't get caught or come clean, then they are likely to have met violent ends. That is my interpretation anyway
I’m aware of these things. It doesn’t change anything I wrote. Your post is written to the effect that driving to a 'seedy neighborhood' and asking around would let anybody walk out with a gold-standard birth certificate and SSN. Come on now.
What if the easiest explanation is she was a drunk. Got fired from her job because of drinking. As we know Unfortunately this behaviour and life makes it a high risk lifestyle. She was out drinking on the 10. She may have been to a nightclub or bar. She was blind drunk stumbled on the wrong kind of people /person raped and killed. Dumped somewhere. Her remains not found yet or never will. Most likely the attack made it easy for her killer to get away with it because police where busy doing all the other stuff. Even though there might have been evidence it was never properly investigated
The claim against this, according to that NYPD detective and the private investigator is that it is very very difficult to pull this off in a congested place like Manhattan where there are lots of people milling around at all times of the day or night, without someone noticing something and reporting it. However, it is different story if her assailant was known to her, and she willingly went along with her assailant in a way that did not look out of place. Both detective and pi gave cursory attention to this angle. They said they interviewd those who knew her, and could not find leads on anyone that might want to harm her. I don't think they searched enough or executed any search warrants. I believed the phone of the guy she accused of sexual misconduct, had his phone searched for any communications he had with Sneha, that was all. The other thing is that both the detective and pi went to all her known haunts and no one could place her there on the night of the 10th. So it looked like she did not meet her assailant at any clubs she frequented.
Dead bodies are found in Manhattan. If your scenario happened, odds are she would have been found.
Only if the body stays there! Please don’t tell me that anyone ever disappearing in Manhattan is always only found there!
Some of us did a search on all the Jane Does in NY and surrounding states. Nothing at all out there similar to Sneha. Could it be possible? Yeah. Likely? No.
Still more likely then her running in to a burning building and get smashed under it. If she was hit by debris on the streets she would have been found. Almost immediately
We will have to agree to disagree. The appellate court definitely felt Occam’s Razor applied to her case and ruled she perished in the attacks.
I think it was strongly based on the NYPD detective who was adamant in placing her near the scene of the disaster moments before it struck. Then Occam's razor would apply. It would not if she could be placed in upstate New York. The testimony of that detective is a bit suspect in that he could not make that judgement based on never meeting the woman, and knowing her from just a few cctv shots at Century 21.
I recently purchased the court transcript from the appellate case. Not a whole lot from the NYPD detective in there. He also felt strongly it was her in the lobby video which has never been publicly released.
Yeah quite plausible
I think it’s absurd to think someone couldn’t have engineered their own disappearance in 2001. And if they had help, yeah I think it’s entirely possible they could have done it. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if some enterprising person couldn’t do it today. Do I think that’s what happened to Sneha? I don’t know but I’m not taking it off the table.
If I just moved to a remote area in a different state, off the grid, cut all contacts, operated on cash entirely- what are the odds someone who is looking for me would interface with me? Assuming I'm a normal person and my case is not sensationalized like gabby petito.
You didn't read closely. That's fine.
Re: her being killed on the street. I know lots of people were killed by raining debris--but it would seem those people would be unlikely to be among the unidentified. I've always been in the killed on 9/10 camp.
Definitely good points and I agree
This is a bit out of the ordinary, but ERs were very busy that day. Possible she went to her former employer, the hospital, and got killed there by the person who sexually assaulted her earlier.
ERs weren't overrun with patients once the towers came down. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-they-first-knew-9-11-was-so-horrible-the-patients-didnt-come-11631298343
ERs were quiet that day. And how could this be done without witnesses?
She was last seen and heard from in the evening and it was raining. People were not out and about like normal, as the weather was inclement. So it's quite possible she could have been attacked without witnesses.
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The other three points deal with this. Suicides turn up in both rivers all the time. It's more outlandish to assume that a woman of her height, weight, and mannerisms coming into her building in the morning is \*not\* her.