Speaker 1: Hello, there's Richard McLain smith here to let you know
Speaker 1: that I now have a substack page if you enjoy
Speaker 1: Unexplained and want to go deeper into the world of
Speaker 1: the show, I've created a new space for all the
Speaker 1: bits that don't quite fit into the podcast, including the
Speaker 1: Unexplained Dedendum, a weekly companion piece to each new episode.
Speaker 1: Expect essays that lean more academic and analytical explorations of folklore, psychology,
Speaker 1: and the shadowy corners of history that have shaped the
Speaker 1: stories you hear on the show. But it's also a
Speaker 1: home for something more personal, my fiction, my strange amusings,
Speaker 1: and the odd fragments that don't belong anywhere else. Search
Speaker 1: for Richard McClain smith on substack, or go to Richard
Speaker 1: mcclainsmith dot substack dot com to find out more and subscribe.
Speaker 1: If you'd like a little bit more of me and
Speaker 1: Unexplained in your week, join me on substack and let's
Speaker 1: keep exploring the unknown together. New writing most Tuesdays. It
Speaker 1: was a crystal clear autumn morning in Manhattan, the sunlight
Speaker 1: glistening off the waters of New York Harbor. The previous
Speaker 1: day had been foggy and oppressively humid, the culmination of
Speaker 1: a day's long heat wave. Thunderstorms had raged throughout the
Speaker 1: evening and into the night, with heavy rainfall pelting the city.
Speaker 1: But on that morning of September eleventh, two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: New Yorkers woke up to cobalt blue skies and a
Speaker 1: forecast promising sunshine all day. It felt like a fever breaking,
Speaker 1: not that doctor Ron Lieberman took much notice. It was
Speaker 1: still bleary eyed when his alarm went off and had
Speaker 1: to use every ounce of willpower not to hit the
Speaker 1: snooze button. Last night, he'd met up with friends after
Speaker 1: a twelve hour shift of the emergency room and didn't
Speaker 1: get home until after midnight night. As Ron rolled over,
Speaker 1: he could immediately feel that the other side of the
Speaker 1: bed was empty. His wife, Sneehart, I hadn't come home last.
Speaker 1: Ron wasn't surprised when he'd arrived home to find the
Speaker 1: apartment empty. Sneehart had had a few days off from
Speaker 1: work and had planned to go out that evening. She
Speaker 1: was free spirited, spontaneous, and had a lot of family
Speaker 1: and friends nearby who she could crash with after a
Speaker 1: night out, So Ron wasn't especially concerned. If anything, he
Speaker 1: was a little annoyed. He'd asked Sniehar a few times
Speaker 1: now to always call if she was going to stay
Speaker 1: somewhere else, and she promised that she would. In any case,
Speaker 1: Ron didn't have time to dwell on it, since he
Speaker 1: was due back at the hospital at eight a m.
Speaker 1: For a morning meeting. As an intern fresh out of
Speaker 1: medical school, his schedule was relentless, and so he quickly showered,
Speaker 1: got changed, and fed the kittens. He had just enough
Speaker 1: time to pour some coffee into his thermos before heading
Speaker 1: out the door. As he rode the elevator down to
Speaker 1: the lobby of his building, he was still half asleep,
Speaker 1: and then he was outside, feeling the revitalizing effects of
Speaker 1: the crisp autum Ayre. Ron and Sneehart lived in Battery
Speaker 1: Park City, at the southernmost tip of Manhattan. Living so
Speaker 1: close to the water and being able to look out
Speaker 1: at the Statue of Liberty on a clear day was
Speaker 1: one of the things they loved most about the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: As he walked briskly over to the subway to catch
Speaker 1: an uptown train, Ron had no idea just how often
Speaker 1: he would end up looking back on this morning, all
Speaker 1: the small details he'd recall, the face of the street
Speaker 1: vendor selling sweeps and magazines, the whistling sound of a
Speaker 1: train pulling in below ground, the impossible Cobalt sky, the
Speaker 1: last moments of normalcy before everything fell apart. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. On the morning
Speaker 1: of September tenth, two thousand and one, sneehar and Philip
Speaker 1: had the day to herself as a medical inter This
Speaker 1: was a rare luxury, and she planned to make the
Speaker 1: most of it. With her husband Ron having left for work,
Speaker 1: she made herself a leisurely breakfast and spent a while
Speaker 1: playing with the new kittens they'd just adopted. She dug
Speaker 1: into all of the long overdue chores on her to
Speaker 1: do list. She tidied and deep cleaned the entire apartment,
Speaker 1: put on a load of laundry, and repotted the orchid
Speaker 1: which sat in the living room window. In the early afternoon,
Speaker 1: she sent a message to her mother and Sue to
Speaker 1: see if she fancied a video call. Her mother lived
Speaker 1: a couple of hours north of the city in upstate
Speaker 1: New York. The family had moved there in the early
Speaker 1: seventies from Kerala in India. Sneehart and her mother were
Speaker 1: close and talked most days. Once they started chatting, it
Speaker 1: was hard for them to stop, and that afternoon was
Speaker 1: no exception. Sneehart told her mother about her upcoming plans
Speaker 1: and reassured bared her that all was well at work.
Speaker 1: Her cousin Annu was coming to stay with her later
Speaker 1: in the week, and she was excited to show her
Speaker 1: the city. They had a table booked at Windows on
Speaker 1: the World, the famous restaurant at the top of the
Speaker 1: North tower of the World Trade Center, offering jaw dropping
Speaker 1: three hundred and sixty degree panoramic views of the entire city. Finally,
Speaker 1: at around four pm, Sniehar told her mother that she
Speaker 1: had to go and run some errands. She waved goodbye
Speaker 1: and then signed off. Some time later, after finishing his
Speaker 1: shift at the Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, Ron
Speaker 1: went out for drinks with an old school friend. Though
Speaker 1: it was great to catch up, he ended up staying
Speaker 1: a bit later than he'd planned. At just after ten pm,
Speaker 1: with his eyelids starting to feel heavy, he called it
Speaker 1: a night. As he settled into a seat on the
Speaker 1: fore train. Ron wondered, not for the first time, if
Speaker 1: they should reconsider living so far downtown. Battery Park City
Speaker 1: made sense for them when they'd first moved there, but
Speaker 1: now he worked all the way north in the Bronx,
Speaker 1: it meant having to commute the full length of Manhattan
Speaker 1: every day. Even if the trains were running well, it
Speaker 1: was an hour and a half each way. By the
Speaker 1: time run finally arrived home, it was close to midnight.
Speaker 1: Almost falling asleep on his feet, he said a quick
Speaker 1: good night to the dorman at the front desk and
Speaker 1: rode the elevator to the ninth floor. He opened the
Speaker 1: door to a dark, silent apartment. When he turned on
Speaker 1: the light, he heard the kittens mew, followed by the
Speaker 1: soft pad of their paws as they came rushing out
Speaker 1: to greet him. But Sneehar wasn't home. Ron checked the
Speaker 1: answering machine, but there were no messages. It wasn't entirely surprising.
Speaker 1: It was still relatively early in going out terms. It
Speaker 1: could be some time before Sneehar finally got back in.
Speaker 1: Even then, she might end up crashing at her friends.
Speaker 1: If anything, At that point, he'd rather she didn't call
Speaker 1: and wake him in the middle of the night. Thinking
Speaker 1: little more of it, he fed the kittens, brushed his teeth,
Speaker 1: then climbed into bed. He was asleep within minutes. The
Speaker 1: next morning, he woke to find that Sneehart hadn't come
Speaker 1: home at all. Ron, still a little irt that she
Speaker 1: hadn't been in touch, arrived at work just in time
Speaker 1: for his eight a m. Meeting. It was a morning
Speaker 1: report where one of the medical interns presents a stand
Speaker 1: out case from the previous night's admissions. Ron was silently
Speaker 1: thankful it wasn't his turn to present. He still felt exhausted,
Speaker 1: and he made a mental note to avoid Monday night
Speaker 1: drinks in future. When the meeting ended at nine, he
Speaker 1: headed straight for the break room to get a coffee,
Speaker 1: but something in the corner of his eye made him pause.
Speaker 1: An unusually large crowd of people were gathered in the
Speaker 1: waiting room, all staring up in silence at the TV
Speaker 1: in the corner. Ron walked over, curious. On the screen
Speaker 1: was a skyscraper on fire, its upper floors engulfed in flames.
Speaker 1: It took him a moment to recognize it as the
Speaker 1: North Tower of the World Trade Center, and then, after
Speaker 1: a moment, he finally tuned in to what the newsreader
Speaker 1: was saying. A passenger jet had flown directly into the tower.
Speaker 1: Is this real? He asked a colleague, struggling to process
Speaker 1: it all, But every one else was just as stunned
Speaker 1: and clueless.
Speaker 2: As he was.
Speaker 1: Before long, everyone was speculating about what had happened. The
Speaker 1: pilot must have lost control of the plane, some thought,
Speaker 1: or maybe he'd been trying to make an emergency landing
Speaker 1: into the Hudson and miscalculated. Then Ron heard someone crying.
Speaker 1: It was a woman standing behind him. Her husband worked
Speaker 1: at Canter Fitzgerald. She said, the financial services firm with
Speaker 1: offices on the top floor of the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: She was trying to call his mobile, but the call
Speaker 1: wouldn't connect. Ron felt nausea creeping up from the pit
Speaker 1: of his stomach. He in Snehar's apartment, was just a
Speaker 1: couple of blocks from the World Trade Center. This was
Speaker 1: happening on their doorstep. Walking a little away from the crowd,
Speaker 1: he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Sneehar didn't
Speaker 1: have a mobile, so he pressed speed dial one to
Speaker 1: call home. He felt a rush of relief as the
Speaker 1: call connected and started to ring as normal, But the
Speaker 1: ringing just continued, and his relief quickly curdled. Wherever Sneeha was,
Speaker 1: it seemed she still hadn't made it home. Just as
Speaker 1: Ron was in the middle of leaving a voicemail, he
Speaker 1: heard a collective cry from the waiting room. He spun
Speaker 1: round just in time to see the slow motion replay
Speaker 1: on the TV a second plane flying directly into the
Speaker 1: south tower. Ron stared, uncomprehending. Black smoke corrupted from both towers,
Speaker 1: now enveloping their upper floors. The room around him was
Speaker 1: now eerily silent, shock settling over every one like a
Speaker 1: smothering blanket. Alongside the horror of the sight. Everybody was
Speaker 1: quickly coming to the same realization. This was no accident,
Speaker 1: but Ron couldn't think about the wider implications right then.
Speaker 1: All he could think about was Sneehart. With the incongruous
Speaker 1: disaster playing out right in front of him. His mind
Speaker 1: suddenly began to race. Had she set out for home
Speaker 1: and got caught in the fall out down town? What
Speaker 1: if she'd stopped round there to get a coffee or
Speaker 1: something and been hurt. He hadn't even tried to find
Speaker 1: her that morning, He called home again and again, willing
Speaker 1: snel hard to pick up. He left message after message,
Speaker 1: as if the sheer volume of them would somehow make
Speaker 1: a difference. He called Sneha's mother and Sue, trying to
Speaker 1: keep his voice calm, he asked if she'd heard anything
Speaker 1: from her daughter. No, she said, explaining that she'd last
Speaker 1: spoken to her the day before. Then it hit Ron
Speaker 1: that he hadn't actually spoken to his wife in twenty
Speaker 1: four hours. He felt paralyzed by indecision. His immediate instinct
Speaker 1: was to get back downtown by any means necessary, to
Speaker 1: get closer to the last place he knew she'd been.
Speaker 1: But the rational part of his brain said stay in place.
Speaker 1: For one thing. The city was now on knockdown. Subway
Speaker 1: services were suspended, and roads would likely be closed too.
Speaker 1: Ron was also a doctor at work during a mass
Speaker 1: casualty event. Even though Jacoby was a long way from
Speaker 1: the Twin Towers, casualty numbers were estimated to be in
Speaker 1: the thousands, and every hospital in New York was on
Speaker 1: stand by to help handle the demand. So Ron had
Speaker 1: little choice but to just stay where he was and
Speaker 1: pray that Sneehart would get in contact with him soon.
Speaker 1: It was just over an hour and a half later
Speaker 1: that he and by now millions across the globe watched
Speaker 1: in horror as the twin towers collapsed in a humongous
Speaker 1: cloud of debris. He tried in vain to imagine the
Speaker 1: damage downtown and how many more people must have been
Speaker 1: hurt or killed by falling glass, steel, and masonry. He
Speaker 1: kept calling home, but still no one picked up. Soon
Speaker 1: his calls stopped going through altogether. The mobile network went down,
Speaker 1: maybe overwhelmed by calls or damaged in the attacks. Either way,
Speaker 1: he was now completely cut off. By mid afternoon, Ron
Speaker 1: couldn't take it anymore. No casualties had showed up at Jacobyette,
Speaker 1: and when he told his boss what was going on,
Speaker 1: she immediately told him to go home. There was no
Speaker 1: knowing how long it would even take him to get
Speaker 1: down there. Thankfully, he was able to hitch a ride
Speaker 1: with an ambulance headed downtown from the hospital. It was
Speaker 1: a surreal journey going against the tide as thousands of
Speaker 1: people fled northwards on foot. Meanwhile, all of the bridges
Speaker 1: and tunnels from the island were closed to traffic, leaving
Speaker 1: the roads completely gridlocked. As they crawled slowly southwards, Ron
Speaker 1: saw what looked like storm clouds gathering on the horizon.
Speaker 1: Then he realized they were in fact smoldering plumes of
Speaker 1: smoke and ash so thick they completely obscured the skyline.
Speaker 1: After more than six hours of travel, he finally made
Speaker 1: it as far as Tribeca, where the ambulance was stocked
Speaker 1: by a police blockade. Ron was still wearing his scrubs,
Speaker 1: so when he told the police he was there to help,
Speaker 1: they quickly ushered him through, and then he was running.
Speaker 1: By now, night had descended all around. The streets were
Speaker 1: pitch black, plunged into darkness by a massive power cut.
Speaker 1: The only lights to guide his way were the lights
Speaker 1: of emergency vehicles and the flames of burning cars. It
Speaker 1: took him a while to find his bearings, but finally
Speaker 1: he made it home to two two five Rector Place.
Speaker 1: Without electricity, the front doors to the building wouldn't open.
Speaker 1: He pushed and pulled at the brass handles, banging on
Speaker 1: the glass in the hope that somebody inside might hear him,
Speaker 1: but the lobby was dark and silent. Thankfully, a friend
Speaker 1: nearby was home, and Ron was able to spend the
Speaker 1: night on his sofa, but there would be no sleep.
Speaker 1: As his mind raised, he tried to focus on best
Speaker 1: case scenarios. The phone lines were down and the whole
Speaker 1: area had been evacuated. In all likelihood Sneehar would be
Speaker 1: absolutely fine. She'd probably just been swept up in the
Speaker 1: mayhem and was now camped out somewhere for the night,
Speaker 1: just like him. But seeing his neighborhood transformed into what
Speaker 1: looked like a post apocalyptic movie, it was impossible not
Speaker 1: to imagine the worst. The next morning, Ron returned to
Speaker 1: his apartment building. By then the electricity had been restored
Speaker 1: and he was able to get inside and take the
Speaker 1: elevator up to his apartment. He opened the door and
Speaker 1: blinked in confusion. Everything had turned gray. After a moment,
Speaker 1: he realized that a thick layer of dust and soot
Speaker 1: was covering the walls, floor, and furniture. He'd left the
Speaker 1: window open at the back of the flat. Looking down,
Speaker 1: he saw little paw prints in the soot. He followed
Speaker 1: them into the bedroom and with great relief, found the
Speaker 1: two kittens still alive and well, but there were no
Speaker 1: human footprints to be found and no other sign of Sneehart.
Speaker 1: By the following day, there was still no word from Sniha.
Speaker 1: It had now been three days since Ron had last
Speaker 1: heard from her. Like many people in the city at
Speaker 1: that time, Ron began to search local hospitals and call
Speaker 1: every colleague and friend of Sneehar's that he could think of,
Speaker 1: but no one admitted to seeing her the night she disappeared.
Speaker 1: He filed a missing person's report, He had flyers made
Speaker 1: with Sneehar's face and name on them, and he even
Speaker 1: tried to get the story of her disappearance into the news,
Speaker 1: but with the previous day's attacks understandably dominating the news cycle,
Speaker 1: producers and reporters had their hands full. Once they learned
Speaker 1: that Sneeha had technically gone missing on the tenth, they
Speaker 1: lost interest altogether. Then Sneeha's brother, John dropped a bombshell,
Speaker 1: as he told a local news channel, Sneehar had called
Speaker 1: him on the morning of September Leon seven from the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center after the first plane had hit. He said,
Speaker 1: he urged her to get out of there, but she
Speaker 1: told him she couldn't. As a doctor, she had to
Speaker 1: stay and assist the injured. According to John. The last
Speaker 1: words he heard from his sister were I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: have to help this person, and then she hung up.
Speaker 1: But the story wasn't true. John had made it up
Speaker 1: out of desperation. It didn't mean any harm. He just
Speaker 1: hoped that by creating a hero story he could get
Speaker 1: Sneehar's face out in the media, and for a few
Speaker 1: days it seemed to do the trick, but nothing came
Speaker 1: of it. It was around this time that Ron checked
Speaker 1: his credit card statement and noticed a few unfamiliar payments
Speaker 1: that Sneehar must have made in the early evening of
Speaker 1: September tenth, the day before she disappeared. Finally, he was
Speaker 1: able to piece together more of her last known movements.
Speaker 1: The payments came from a shop called Century twenty one,
Speaker 1: a discount department store across from the World Trade Center.
Speaker 1: Ron immediately headed to the shop and handed fliers out
Speaker 1: to the staff and anyone else willing to take one.
Speaker 1: A short time later, he got a phone call from
Speaker 1: a clerk. She confirmed that she recognized Sneehart and had
Speaker 1: seen her on the tenth in the shoe department with
Speaker 1: a female friend. When store CCTV footage was eventually checked,
Speaker 1: Sneehart was quickly spotted, but shopping alone. It appeared that
Speaker 1: she spent an hour browsing and trying on various clothes.
Speaker 1: In the end, she bought a dress, some lingerie and tights,
Speaker 1: three pairs of shoes, and a new set of bed linens.
Speaker 1: Shortly after seven pm, cameras captured Sneehart leaving the store alone,
Speaker 1: laden down with shopping bags. She exited through the revolving
Speaker 1: door and disappeared into the crowds on Courtland Street. Ron
Speaker 1: didn't recognize anyone else in the footage, and nor did
Speaker 1: she seem to be engaging with anyone. A plausible scenario
Speaker 1: was taking shape. Sneehar had gone to run errands alone
Speaker 1: and had arranged to meet the mystery friend the store
Speaker 1: clerk had seen her with Afterwards. Perhaps, then thought Ron,
Speaker 1: she and the friend went straight out for dinner and drinks,
Speaker 1: and Sneehar had ended up crashing at her place The
Speaker 1: next morning. As Sneehar was returning home, she could have
Speaker 1: been caught up in the terrorist attack. She might even
Speaker 1: have rushed to the scene to help, just like her
Speaker 1: brother John had misguidedly claimed and been injured or killed
Speaker 1: in the process. All of that could have happened, but
Speaker 1: there was no evidence to prove any of it. Despite
Speaker 1: his best efforts, Ron was never able to track down
Speaker 1: the mysterious friend that Sneehar apparently met on the tenth
Speaker 1: after leaving Century twenty one, and there was no more
Speaker 1: evidence to confirm any of her possible whereabouts or was there.
Speaker 1: The last officially confirmed footage of Sniehar is the CCTV
Speaker 1: footage from Century twenty one. But during the course of
Speaker 1: Ron's investigation, another piece of video footage emerged, one that
Speaker 1: potentially changed the entire narrative. This one was from the
Speaker 1: security cameras inside the lobby of two two five Wrector Place,
Speaker 1: Sneehar and Ron's apartment building. Here's what it showed. At
Speaker 1: eight forty three a m. On September eleventh, a woman
Speaker 1: resembling Sneehar enters the lobby. She seems to hesitate, standing
Speaker 1: near the elevators for a couple of moments, but not
Speaker 1: pressing any buttons. Then she turns around and exits back
Speaker 1: onto the street. Less than three minutes later, the first
Speaker 1: plane struck the North Tower. The footage is blurry and
Speaker 1: low resolution, and the woman's face is impossible to make
Speaker 1: out thanks to the harsh sunlight that bleaches the image,
Speaker 1: but her silhouette, haircut and clothing was said to all
Speaker 1: match Sneehart's, and if Sneehart really did return home that
Speaker 1: morning only to walk back onto the street just moments
Speaker 1: before the first plane hit, then her dying in the
Speaker 1: attacks becomes a lot more plausible. But that footage wasn't
Speaker 1: the only new piece of information that emerged during the
Speaker 1: course of the missing person's investigation. Sneehar's grieving family understandably
Speaker 1: wanted to remember her as a happy, successful young woman
Speaker 1: who died a hero, but the reality was a lot
Speaker 1: more complicated. But one thing, Sneehar wasn't technically employed as
Speaker 1: a doctor at the time of her disappearance. She'd been
Speaker 1: fired from her medical internship at Manhattan's Cabrini Medical Center
Speaker 1: in the spring of two thousand and one. According to
Speaker 1: the official report, the reasons for her contract not being
Speaker 1: renewed were alcohol related issues and consistent timeliness. Around this
Speaker 1: same time, Sneehar claimed that a fellow in turn at
Speaker 1: Cabrini had sexually assaulted her in a bar. After her
Speaker 1: allegation was investigated, the DA's office concluded that she'd fabricated
Speaker 1: the story, so Sneehar was arrested and charged with filing
Speaker 1: a false police report. To give her her due, it
Speaker 1: should be said that, considering the shocking historical inability for
Speaker 1: law enforcement to get justice for survivors of sexual assault,
Speaker 1: this doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. More recently, Sneehar
Speaker 1: secured a new position at a hospital on Staten Island,
Speaker 1: but she'd been suspended from there too for failing to
Speaker 1: attend mandated substance use counseling. Court records also indicate that
Speaker 1: Sneehar and Ron had been having marital trouble, and that
Speaker 1: she may have been unfaithful to him, often staying out
Speaker 1: all night at bars with strangers. What exactly happened to
Speaker 1: the clothes she bought is another mystery. Perhaps she simply
Speaker 1: left them in a bar, or maybe she really was
Speaker 1: seeing someone else who, for whatever reason, decided not to
Speaker 1: come forward, and she left them at theirs before later disappearing.
Speaker 1: All the additional contexts concerning Sneeha's life suggested to some
Speaker 1: that she'd been spiraling out of control in the months
Speaker 1: leading up to her disappearance. This, in turn led many
Speaker 1: to speculate that she wasn't a victim at all. Rather,
Speaker 1: she vanished because she wanted to the fact she potentially
Speaker 1: just happened to do this during one of the worst
Speaker 1: atrocities in modern American history only clouded the issue, and
Speaker 1: there was one more revelation to come. On the morning
Speaker 1: of the tenth, the day she disappeared, Sneehart hadn't just
Speaker 1: completed a few chores at home before calling her mother.
Speaker 1: She had appeared in court to plead not guilty to
Speaker 1: the charge of filing a false report. According to police records,
Speaker 1: she and Ron got into a huge fight at the
Speaker 1: courthouse afterwards. So September tenth, two thousand and one, wasn't
Speaker 1: just a leisurely day off for her. In fact, it
Speaker 1: may have felt like everything in her life was falling apart.
Speaker 1: She and Ron had met as medical students, and until
Speaker 1: that year they'd been on parallel upward trajectories. But that day,
Speaker 1: after their huge blow up, Ron headed off to his
Speaker 1: respectable hospital job, while Sneeha, still suspended, went home to
Speaker 1: an empty apartment and a blank schedule. What happened next
Speaker 1: is anyone's guess. Some think she may have ended her
Speaker 1: own life, Some that she really did run to help
Speaker 1: when she saw the first tower on fire and died
Speaker 1: in the process. Others have suggested the possibility that she
Speaker 1: actually ran away and started a new life, using the
Speaker 1: nine to eleven attack as the perfect foil, while others
Speaker 1: still have speculated that she was actually murdered the night before,
Speaker 1: perhaps by someone she met while out at a bar.
Speaker 1: All of it is possible. Snihar's family fought a year's
Speaker 1: long battle to have her officially recognized as a victim
Speaker 1: of nine to eleven, choosing to believe that she died
Speaker 1: a hero at the scene since there was no conclusive
Speaker 1: proof she was at the World Trade Center. The court
Speaker 1: initially ruled her date of death to be September tenth,
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, three years after the date she
Speaker 1: was last seen, as its standard for people presumed dead
Speaker 1: under New York state law. Her family appealed this decision,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and eight a higher court reversed
Speaker 1: the original ruling. The judge at the time argued that
Speaker 1: even without conclusive evidence, any other explanation for her death
Speaker 1: required rank speculation, and ruled that, like her loved ones claimed,
Speaker 1: the most likely scenario was that Sneehar died after being
Speaker 1: compelled to help others caught up in the nine to
Speaker 1: eleven attack, and perhaps there really is no reason to
Speaker 1: think otherwise. Today, Sneehar's name is one of two thousand,
Speaker 1: nine hundred and eighty three listed on the National September
Speaker 1: eleventh Memorial in New York, But unlike most of the
Speaker 1: victims memorialized there, no physical trace of her has ever
Speaker 1: been found at the site, no DNA evidence, no personal belongings,
Speaker 1: and no eyewitness testimony placing her there. To all intents
Speaker 1: and purposes, snee Heer and Philip vanished into thin air
Speaker 1: on the night of September tenth, two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: This episode was written by Emma Dibden and produced by
Speaker 1: Richard McLain smith. Thank you, as ever for listening Unexplained
Speaker 1: as an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McClain smith.
Speaker 1: All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are
Speaker 1: also produced by me Richard McLain smith. Unexplained. The book
Speaker 1: and audiobook is now available to buy worldwide. You can
Speaker 1: purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores.
Speaker 1: Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts and feel free to get in touch with
Speaker 1: any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on
Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation or a story
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can find
Speaker 1: out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us
Speaker 1: online through X and blue Sky at Unexplained Pod and
Speaker 1: Facebook at Facebook dot com, board Slash Unexplained Podcast.
Speaker 2: The The the the the the and do and do
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