Crime Junkie - MISSING: Sneha Philip

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

Sneha Philip was last seen shopping just a couple blocks away from the World Trade Centers on September 11, 2001. She never returned home that night or after the attacks leaving many to speculate whether she died as a result of the terrorist attacks or if she saw the tragedy as an opportunity to walk away from her life and start over. For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/missing-sneha-philip/    

Hi crime junkies, I'm Ashley flowers and I'm Britt and you guys this is a special request episode from my new BFF Sorry, Britt. Oh Patrick Heinz from true crime obsessed I was in New York a couple of weeks ago and got to meet him in real life He is every bit as wonderful as I imagine so jealous and oh you should be it was Fantastic and you know their show is called true crime obsessed our show is crime junkie and you guys we named them because it's so real Not even 20 seconds in a meeting Patrick. He's like hi nice to meet you like let's talk about this missing person case from New York I have so many theories so I promised him I would cover it on this week's episode And literally I've been through hell and high water trying to make this happen

I got super sick my sister was in ER last night my computer crashed this morning And if I didn't know better, I would think that the podcast gods did not want this episode to happen So we're doing this for you Patrick Yeah, we're doing it for you Patrick We have a show to do people and I have to tell you because it is a super weird case All of the circumstances surrounding this are so bizarre and it is the disappearance of Sneha Philip You Know I want to say Brett starting out

I've heard some people pronounce her name Sneha But I knew somebody whose name was spelled exactly the same way and she pronounced it Sneha So I'm gonna pronounce it Sneha I couldn't find any news clips of her family speaking or saying her name Okay, so I'm sure people email us if we get it wrong, but for now on it's it's Sneha So the story of Sneha Philip's disappearance the date that she was last seen and known to be alive was September 10th 2001 the next day by the time her family realized she was missing the entire Country was consumed by the terrorist attacks that had occurred on 9-11

And it would take many years before her case reached any kind of resolution Sneha lived in the city with her husband Ron Lieberman The two had met a few years earlier while attending med school in Chicago and Ron was actually a year behind Sneha But she decided that she wanted to graduate with him So she took a year off spent some time in Europe and after the two graduated They moved to New York City where they both secured Residencies at different hospitals and then they ended up getting married in 2000 on the day of September 10th Sneha didn't have to go into work. She had to make a court appearance

Which I'll get a little bit more into later, but Ron went with her to this court appearance And then after he said they had breakfast and then he had to go to work Ron said that Sneha was planning on going back to their apartment to do some cleaning get things kind of Friday because apparently They had an upcoming visit from her cousin that she was going to be like coming into town in just a couple of days Ron arrived home later that night after his shift at the hospital And this was like 11 or 12 at night before he was home and when he arrived Sneha wasn't there now. This wasn't super unusual for the couple Sneha would often go out at night And then crash at her cousin's place or a friend's place or her brother's place

But she would usually call Ron to tell him where she was but this time she didn't call now This is a little bit strange, but not enough to worry Ron just yet He went to bed and then left for work early the next morning after waking up to still find that Sneha wasn't there Now that morning was September 11th Ron went to work and when he got out of his first meeting that morning the world as he knew it was in Shambles one plane had already hit the first World Trade Center Tower and Everyone was in stunned shock by the time the second plane hit It was mass chaos in the city and Ron couldn't stop thinking about Sneha

They lived just blocks from the towers. Was she okay? Did she ever make it home? He tried calling over and over but with the sheer volume of callers using every ounce of bandwidth and the fact that one of the Largest cell towers was on top of the World Trade Centers and was completely destroyed It was hard to get through the times that he was able to get connected No one answered their home phone Sneha didn't have a cell phone and his messages to her became Increasingly more panicked every single time he left a message I think it's hard for people to remember especially some of our younger listeners or our international audience I mean that day was pure chaos

Nobody even knew what was happening. It felt like the world was ending and so Ron was like I just have to get back home He hopped on an ambulance to get a ride back downtown and from his hospital just to downtown It took him six hours to get there so when he finally arrived He realized that he couldn't even get into his building the door was run by power But the power was out so there's no way to get in there's no way like he could even get in through stairs He's like hoping and praying that she's just trapped inside like the building was safe It wasn't collapsing so he actually gets connected with some of his friends and he goes to their house to stay the night

Barely sleeping a wink just waiting for things to settle down so he could go home and make sure his wife was okay That had to have been so scary terrifying like you said it was like the world was ending and you can't find your spouse like I Just thinking about it. I'm like a ball of tears Right and I mean like you not only do not know what happened to them But I still you know a day out we didn't really know what was happening at all like the first plane hits and everyone's like Oh my god, this is a horrible accident the second plane hits and this feels more intentional But still like we couldn't wrap our minds around what was truly going on. Yeah, and I was gonna say even out here in Indiana It was it was incredibly scary and we're so far removed from New York

Yeah I can't imagine being in the city and then not knowing if your loved one is okay and not being able to get in touch with them The next morning the doors had been opened to his apartment and he made his way up to their apartment to find a really eerie scene a Window had been left open and the entire apartment was covered and soot and ash Nothing had been disturbed and the only footprints belonged to their cat So he knew she had not been there and this made Ron even more frightened So where was she and why hadn't he heard from her?

Ron had obviously tried reaching out to Sneha's family, but none of them were with her or had seen her since the 10th Sneha's mom did mention though that on the 10th that afternoon after she got home from court Sneha had gotten online and I am with her mom. She seemed totally normal. Nothing was bothering her She did mention that she had to go run some errands, but nothing out of the ordinary But as her mother thought back to their conversation, there was something that at the time meant nothing to her But in a post 9-11 world was very ominous Sneha had mentioned to her mother that one of her friends was going to be getting married at the windows on the world Which was a restaurant in one of the towers

So Sneha had mentioned to her mom that she wanted to go sometime before the wedding to check it out Now she may know a specific mention that she was going to go that day But that's the immediate sinking fear that everyone in her family had like deep in their guts What if she happened to be in one of the towers at the time that they were hit right away? Her family went to file a missing person report, but they were not the only ones thousands upon Thousands of people were missing in New York City It was just a day out from the attacks the dust might have settled some but rescue workers were just

Beginning their efforts to pull people both alive and dead from the rubble It was extremely hard for any one family to get a ton of attention for their missing person But Sneha's family found it even harder when they mentioned that she was last seen on the tent They said that police were already overwhelmed So they took the report but the attitude from the news outlets was very much like listen unless this is a 9-11 Related story people don't want to hear about it So Sneha's brother did something that he would later come to regret He didn't want to just sit back and wait for them to try and find everyone who is missing on the 11th

Before they'd even look for people missing on the 10th So he concocted a story about being on the phone with her when the first plane ran into the building And he said that she was there and told him that she couldn't leave because people were hurt and she needed to help them And then he lost contact with her so by concocted you mean he lied totally fabricated it Yeah, like it later comes out. He was never on the phone with her They never had this conversation, but he wanted something that would put her there. It was eye-catching Yeah, so that they would like relate her to the 11th and put her on the news and the lie worked That story along with her picture were all over the national news outlets

But now that they had attention it really confused the investigation because they weren't sure if they should be looking in the Twin Tower Rubble like that's just the story they made up her actual last known location is much more perplexing When investigators really start to track Sneha's last movements on the 10th what they find is Interesting they know she was in court with Ron that morning Then she went back to her apartment logged on to her computer from about 1 o'clock to 4 o'clock And this is the time where she had that long I am conversation with her mother where she ended it by saying she had to go run some errands

She signs off at 4 p.m. And she is seen exiting her apartment on the security camera at 518 her first stop was to the dry cleaner where she dropped off some clothes Then she next was picked up on a camera a couple of blocks away inside a century 21 Which Midwest me was like that is a real estate office, but no in that's exactly what I was yeah No in New York. That's actually a high-end discount clothing store. Oh, okay so the video was super hard to find but I'm getting pretty good at the Google and It's pretty mundane. She's wearing this brown short sleeve dress Which is the same clothing her husband said she left in that morning

And she's kind of just like skimming the racks and she appears to be alone every time that we catch a glimpse of her At 6 p.m. She swipes her husband's credit card for about $500 and when they look at the transaction She purchased a dress pantyhose lingerie and bed linens What do you mean by bed linens? I actually don't know and I think it's a super important question to ask Like was it all new bedding? Was it just some sheets? Was it even the same size as their bed at home? because What we find out later is those bags were never found back at their house and they still have never been located to this day and I think the location of those bags are a big piece to this puzzle if she didn't take them home

Where else would they be? Well the person who cashed out Sneha Said that she was with another Indian woman. However, this woman was never captured on any video footage So we can't confirm who she is or that she ever really existed Sneha supposedly left with this woman and that is truly the last confirmed sighting of her When they pulled video footage from her apartment to see if she ever came home They went through hours of footage from the 10th and then the 11th and it wasn't until the 11th around 8 40 in the morning when something familiar comes into view There's a woman who looks a lot like Sneha kind of dressed like Sneha

But it's hard to tell because at the time that she's in the building It just so happens to be the exact same time that the Sun is like Streaming in and causing there to be this glare on the screen. Oh, no. Yeah, like what are the odds? Oh, whoever this woman is and to be fair Ron says it looks a lot like his wife This woman comes in Stands in front of the elevator for a minute and then turns and walks out the door And we never see her again before the power goes out if it was Sneha Why didn't she have those bags with her the woman in the video wasn't carrying anything

So what happened to all of the stuff that she bought it has to be Somewhere, right? I mean, I guess and where did this woman go when she left the building? There are really two prevailing theories The first is that if this woman is Sneha She hears the crash and then goes outside and when she saw it was happening She could have run toward the scene to help people since she was a doctor That would have been totally in her nature and then she could have very likely been struck by falling debris and died I'm sorry. You're gonna have to refresh my memory. What time was the first attack?

So the first attack was at 846 So I don't think she was standing in front of the elevator for six minutes But it's not crazy to think that the clock on the camera could have been off by a few minutes So that's theory one theory two is that if this is Sneha She hears the crash went outside to see what was happening and when she realized that like I mean There was this huge attack and what everything was going on She decided that it was the perfect moment to walk away from her life forever Wait, why this seems like an incredibly drastic decision

That kind of comes from nowhere. Well, if we were on the outside looking in at Sneha's life like we are it seems like it's pretty great life She's happily marriage. They're newlyweds. They're both doctors What reason would she have to walk away? But as investigators dug deeper into her life They found as we always do that things are not always what they seem The veneer of Sneha's perfect life was cracking shortly before 9 11 And the first real sign of trouble was at the end of her second year in residency when she was Terminated from her program the hospital refused to renew her residency contract citing renewed tardiness and alcohol-related issues

Apparently around this time Sneha was going out a lot drinking crashing at other people's places and According to reports that I've read it wasn't just her cousin or her brother's house that she would crash at Sneha would often meet people while she was out and just stay with them these perfect strangers and a lot of people online Theorized that this behavior is indicative of Sneha having affairs But no one has ever come forward to say that they were ever intimate with Sneha So we cannot know for sure now what we do know is that Sneha Disagreed with their decision to terminate she believed that she was let go because she rebuffed the advances of a co-worker and She thought that her being fired was some kind of retaliation

Now she wasn't gonna just stand by and let this happen So upon termination she filed a sexual harassment complaint stating exactly why she thought she was being fired Now there ends up being an investigation into this and their findings at the end basically say that her Accusations were totally baseless and they accuse her of filing a false complaint And now listen, this is kind of he said she said and for whatever reason people love the idea that Sneha had this dark double life and I think they believe it makes sense like because it makes the story more fanciful and maybe she did drink a lot and go out But also maybe this happened too And I think I tend to side with her a little bit on this because I had a

somewhat similar personal experience where I got fired from a hospital and The reason that was cited was like I missed like this PowerPoint training But it was totally BS like I knew the reason I got fired is because I had just found out about an affair that was going on between like a head doctor and a department manager and I remember that it was like Grey's Anatomy Yeah, it really was and so I got fired and I like I didn't even have the guts to appeal it because I'm like who's gonna believe me like I I'm not a manager. They have like all these people who are very loyal to them I would be crazy to do that

But maybe Sneha thought that she could like I mean if she felt justified she's a doctor too I can totally see why she's like no, I'm not gonna just like let this go now The one thing I will say is that when they terminate you they have to cite something so because they cited her tardiness and Like alcohol abuse. I don't know if this was like maybe a one-time thing where she came in late to work And they knew she was out drinking or again, maybe this really was a known issue and at the end of the day We really don't know so to make a bad situation a little worse when the investigation concluded She was told either you recant your accusation or you're gonna be prosecuted for filing false charges and Sneha refused to back down and that is why she had to appear in court on the 10th

Now things are already bad. She's lost her first residency. She's fighting a legal battle But there is more piling on top of her after Sneha was fired She was able to bounce back and get a position at another hospital to continue her training One condition of her placement is that she had to be enrolled in and regularly attend an alcohol counseling program Well, she didn't attend one or more of her sessions. So she got suspended from her second residency Which is why she didn't have to even take off work on the 10th And why she didn't have to go to work on the 11th making it very plausible that it was her on that apartment video at 840 Now there is even more I need to add into the mix that complicates the story even further

During the investigation Accusations were made that Sneha was bisexual There were rumors that those nights when she stayed out late drinking and crash with people that she just met Those were actually sexual encounters though There's never been again anyone who's come forward to say that they were with her or had any type of relationship with her Wait, where did the bisexuality come from? I feel like what does it have to do with it? And why bring it up? So I Here's why I think that it gets mixed in as opposed to her just having affairs with anyone

I think this is why people are honing in on maybe the fact that she had this double life and maybe she was bisexual All of the bars that she went to were gay and lesbian bars Which for people wanting to say that she was bisexual gives their theory a little bit of credibility But also I love gay bars like I lose my mind at drag bars, and I'm not bisexual Say I have seen it happen. I can vouch for this fact Yeah, and even her husband said like listen she was recently sexually harassed like that is the claim that she's making and If that's the case like maybe she just didn't want to like go to a bar where she was gonna get hit on all the time Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So to me you're gonna see you know her choice in bars through whatever lens you want to

But there are also other things that propel this idea forward There are reportedly two police reports that give credit to the theory that she was bisexual One report was taken about their like encounter on the 10th So the 10th is when Sneha goes to court She has that appearance runs with her and there's this police report that says after the court appearance Her and Ron got into an argument about her behavior about her staying out late and about specifically her bisexuality Then there is this other report that says at the time of her disappearance Sneha and her brother weren't on speaking terms

Because her brother had caught her in bed with his girlfriend. Here's the thing though These are in police reports. I have no idea what purpose would be served by the police for making this up But her brother and her husband Swear that both of those reports are a hundred percent Fabricated like totally made up and basically what yeah what Ron said in a quote is he's like either I'm lying or the police are lying And I'm not lying. I mean is is there a chance that I I feel like you and I have talked about it before on every 48 hours You know the victim was always lit up a room was an angel. Is there any chance that they're just trying to

Is there a chance that they are lying trying to make her legacy cleaner? So it is totally possible But what I guess what I don't understand is if they are trying to preserve this memory of her and they just don't want it Sully, I mean I guess they would have to really believe that she died in the twin tower somehow because if they didn't if they thought at All something could have happened to her on the 10th I mean you almost think you'd need to know everything about her to see if we could find her So it seems weird that they would want to like hinder the investigation into somebody that they love like they've never been Suspects never been persons of interest. So in my mind like they would want to find her

So why would you lie about who she could have possibly been with or her life? It's just very strange so the one thing I keep like wishing for is we've never heard anything from Her brother's girlfriend and I'd give anything to talk to her because she's the one accused of having an affair with Sneha What does she have to say about all this? Does she have the same stance as everyone else that this is crazy? Have we not heard from her because people don't want us to hear from her because she'll like push this theory forward? Like I really don't know

People really latch on to the idea of there being another woman and I get why there's an easy Connection to make like the cashier at the checkout of the century 21 who said she was with another woman that day Yeah, but we never saw her on any of the video footage. There's It's really just this one cashier, right? Right, but the one thing this is what I keep going back to it's a thing I'm obsessed with is like where are her bags if she came back to the apartment and she wasn't carrying them with her those bags have to be somewhere Whose house or apartment did she take them to and this is why I'm so obsessed with like what size was the bedding?

Like could it have been for someone else? Can I throw out a quick little theory? Sure, so it doesn't excuse the dress or the pantyhose really, but you said her friend was getting married, right? Yes, but I don't know like how far away but still like it could be she was checking out the venue She could have bought stuff for a lingerie party and a shower That's actually like sounds pretty legit, and I hadn't ever thought of that before having just gone to a lingerie shower and a wedding shower I tried to buy it all together and as quickly as possible, so it's just over with so that's where my mind went at least Okay, but here's the thing that doesn't also solve though Like where is the bag though because you would take that home you wrap it like you don't buy it and then like head right to her

Laundry shower and then also give her bedding Valid point so I'm saying valid point I think whoever has these things whoever might have been with her or whoever she went to see and wherever this bag is like that is the missing piece because That person if they knew Sneha and they were with her the day before she went missing they Obviously would have found out something happened to her so why wouldn't they come forward and say that they had her stuff or Say at least if they didn't know where she was on the 11th say where she spent the night of the 10th And I think there are only three options here

Like either the person that she was with did something to her and this is like the cover for the perfect crime Or the person she was with is still covering for her because maybe she did just decide she saw this Explosion she saw the world ending to her and decided to just walk away from the life that she had or The third option is that the person she was with was also Killed in the attacks somehow and then you have this bag in their apartment when they're pick when their family finds it Like it means nothing they could have taken it with them, right? So I don't know why they would Because again, it would have been a day later, right? Yeah, she buys all this stuff on the 10th and then if we believe that it's her seen on the security footage

She doesn't have it with her I guess the only way it makes sense for her to have it with her is if that person on the security footage was never her She stays wherever she stayed on the 10th And then she's like walking somewhere with the bag on the 11th and then gets caught up in all of the madness Now I will say that you know when we're talking about this idea of her wanting to just walk away from her life or her idea of having The secret double life police did a forensic sweep of her computer and nothing in there Suggested that she was having any kind of affairs with men or women and there was nothing that indicated She was planning to walk away from her life. Okay, but that doesn't really mean anything

The theory is that she saw this as an opportunity to disappear So she probably didn't research it that much, right? It it very well couldn't have been planned It could have just been something she was struggling with she sees this thing happen and decides to leave But her family doesn't think that this is even in the realm of possibility they say that most of the stuff being said about her is total fiction and Again, I don't know if they're just trying to preserve her memory or if this is all really a lie if it's a lie Why what do police have to gain by making her out to be a closeted lesbian with a drinking problem? Like it helps no one did the police ever look at anyone in the family as a suspect or a person of interest

I'm sure police vetted them But they were never listed as persons of interest or suspects and this is one weird thing that happened though Like I think it's strange and I don't know where it fits in the story in the early morning hours of the 11th at like 4 a.m someone from Sneha and Ron's apartment called Ron's cell phone Which is weird and police assume that maybe it was just Ron checking his voicemail maybe to see if Sneha had called him and I don't know why you just wouldn't use your phone. I mean it's 2001. Maybe you're worried about minutes

I don't know, but it's just a weird piece of info I see pop up over and over when talking about you know, could they ever be a suspect? Yeah, I think the general answer is no, but there's this weird phone call that I Don't think has ever been a hundred percent explained away except for the police's theory that it's him calling the voicemail now No one has ever come forward to say that they were with Sneha on the 10th Or had ever seen her after the camera picture up at the century 21 There were no more transactions ever made on any of her banking cards and without any new leads Her family became more convinced than ever that she died as a result of the World Trade Center attacks

And they think she remains one of the over 1,000 unidentified victims In 2006 Sneha's family tried to have her listed as one of the deceased But the court ruled that she likely died on the 10th since that's the day that she was last seen a Later court eventually overturned this and in 2008. She was officially listed as the 2,751st victim of the attacks There's this choker that she always used to wear and her family sent a photograph of that to the team in charge of Identifying all these unknown victims and they hope that that choker might be the thing that someday Will be the piece of evidence that can be found to give them closure to know where she is

but There is always that chance that it won't be found because she was never there and Do you want to hear something that will give you full-body chills? Always have you ever heard of post-secret? Oh, yes. Love post-secret. Yeah So for everyone who doesn't know it's this ongoing like online community art project where people mail in like their secrets they mail it in anonymously on one side of a postcard and These secrets are just posted online for everyone to view every Sunday Well, there's this postcard that comes in that has been forever linked to Sneha's case

Because it is this picture of like the Twin Towers burning and it's in like a Sophia black and white-ish and at the very top it just says Everyone who knew me before 9-eleven believes I'm dead. Oh my god. So Is it a hoax? Is it from her? We don't know We don't know if Sneha died a hero that day trying to save people Or we don't know if she could be living a new life with a new name Leaving her old life behind in the ashes If you guys want to check out a picture of that postcard you can go to our website crimejunkiepodcast.com

Or you can check it out on Instagram at crimejunkie podcast and be sure to follow us on Twitter at crimejunkiepod And we will be back next week with a brand new episode This episode of crime junkie was researched written and hosted by me with co-hosting by Brit Preywat, all of our editing and sound production was done by David Flowers, and all of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production, so what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?