Speaker 1: From My Heart Radio. This is Missing on nine eleven,
Speaker 1: the story of one woman who vanished on the eve
Speaker 1: of history and my quest to find her. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John Wallzac. My name is del Tige. I'm the principal
Speaker 1: court attorney referee assigned to this matter. I'm at microphone
Speaker 1: one and before us today as an absentee proceeding in
Speaker 1: the estate of Snaeja and Philip Foul number three five
Speaker 1: four two foul than four Surrogate's Court of the State
Speaker 1: of New York, County of New York. Snay House family
Speaker 1: is here today nine and eighty nine days after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: fighting for a death certificate recognizing that snay Ha died
Speaker 1: on nine eleven at the World Trade Center. Representing the
Speaker 1: court is Deltigue. An attorney referee representing Snayhouse family is
Speaker 1: Attorney Mark Bogutin, and representing snay Ha in absentia is
Speaker 1: Ellen Winner, the Guardian ad Ltem. Also present today are
Speaker 1: Ron Lieberman say House husband Unshoe, Philip snay House, mom,
Speaker 1: John Philip snay House younger brother, Ken Gallant, Ron's private investigator,
Speaker 1: and Mark Freiberg, the attorney who represented snay haa before
Speaker 1: nine eleven. Now, unfortunately we don't have tapes of the hearing,
Speaker 1: so instead we're using voice actors to recreate it. What
Speaker 1: you're about to hear is verbatim testimony, edited very lightly
Speaker 1: for clarity and flow. Listen closely. It's the only time
Speaker 1: you'll get to hear directly from certain people like private
Speaker 1: investigator Can Galant, who have otherwise never spoken publicly about
Speaker 1: this case. You'll hear me interject occasionally. We start with
Speaker 1: Attorney Mark Boguten, Mr Gallant, can you please tell us
Speaker 1: how you're currently employed. I'm a private investigator at Silverman
Speaker 1: Associates in New York. And can you tell us about
Speaker 1: your professional background and prior experience before I was a
Speaker 1: special agent of the FBI for twenty three years in
Speaker 1: New York. And when did you retire from that position
Speaker 1: end of and what unit were you assigned to when
Speaker 1: you retired at the end of ninety nine? Special operations
Speaker 1: and what is that about? What does that entail? Special
Speaker 1: operations would be dealing with white collar and drugs and
Speaker 1: organized crime, special investigations, undercover units, things like that. And
Speaker 1: since retiring from the FBI, have you been employed as
Speaker 1: a private investigator? Yes, and have there come a point
Speaker 1: in time when you were attained by Ron Lieberman in
Speaker 1: connection with I was retained by Mr Lieberman and his family.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the nine eleven incident. He came to our
Speaker 1: office and related a story that his wife had been missing.
Speaker 1: He had done quite an extensive search he himself initiated,
Speaker 1: but he wanted more. He wanted to expand the search
Speaker 1: and gain more knowledge and police liaison to try and
Speaker 1: determine the facts of where she was or what happened,
Speaker 1: and any other information he could gather. And can you
Speaker 1: tell us what did you do in connection with the investigation.
Speaker 1: The first thing we did was Mr Lieberman had done
Speaker 1: a lot himself with posters and talked to friends and everything.
Speaker 1: The first thing we did was liaison with the police
Speaker 1: and get a hold of her computer. And as the
Speaker 1: investigation went on, we did an extensive search of her computer.
Speaker 1: What we were basically looking for is we were trying
Speaker 1: to recreate where she was. Secondly, we wanted to determine
Speaker 1: if she had mentioned to anyone any intention she had
Speaker 1: of leaving going anywhere, traveling anywhere. After that, we were
Speaker 1: going to expand the circle as to her activities where
Speaker 1: she could have gone, how she could have gotten there,
Speaker 1: who she could have told, who she would have gone with.
Speaker 1: So with this type of investigation in mind, we spoke
Speaker 1: to coworkers, friends, family, bar room areas in the clubs
Speaker 1: where she could have been. We determined that she was
Speaker 1: last seen in the area of Century twenty one, which
Speaker 1: is right where she lived. And we determined that we
Speaker 1: could never place her any further than where she lived
Speaker 1: in that six block area. She had no indication she
Speaker 1: was going to go to any place. She had no
Speaker 1: indication that she was going to travel. There was no
Speaker 1: indication that there was any strife in her life other
Speaker 1: than that, but that she had friends at work. I
Speaker 1: spoke to people she worked with up there. They had
Speaker 1: glowing reports about her. And I could not determine that
Speaker 1: she was any place but near her home prior to that.
Speaker 1: And how did you determine that she had been at
Speaker 1: Century Century twenty one, the department store down there? How
Speaker 1: to tape video security tape of snay hash shopping and
Speaker 1: that was the night before I think it was early
Speaker 1: evening on the tent and she was in there. On
Speaker 1: the tape, she's with another girl. This is disputed, but
Speaker 1: snay Haa had. On many occasions she would stay over
Speaker 1: at friends houses because Ron was working and things like that,
Speaker 1: so it was not unusual for her to not be home.
Speaker 1: But the information I received was that she always would
Speaker 1: come home early in the morning. Now here's Ellen Winner
Speaker 1: the Guardian Adviteum, Mr Gallant, I understand that one of
Speaker 1: the areas of investigation you or your company made was
Speaker 1: to inquire whether she might have stayed at the Millennium
Speaker 1: Hotel on the evening in question. Yeah, what was the
Speaker 1: purpose of making that investigation. The purpose of that investigation
Speaker 1: was we had placed her in Century twenty one shopping,
Speaker 1: so we figured, well, if she came out of Century
Speaker 1: twenty one, maybe she went across the street and went
Speaker 1: into the bar room there, into the lounge and got
Speaker 1: a drink. It was a warm evening, and why not.
Speaker 1: So we went in there, we interviewed all of the
Speaker 1: bartenders and showed her picture and it was just a
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. It was, a lead that was
Speaker 1: in the area. It was a close lead, and that's
Speaker 1: why I took it. When you say a close lead,
Speaker 1: right next to Century twenty one. It was in the
Speaker 1: area where she lived. I wanted to know if she
Speaker 1: frequented that area, that hotel, which she did not. They
Speaker 1: didn't remember her. I think I spoke to four bartenders,
Speaker 1: and if anybody knows them, the bartenders would know. Did
Speaker 1: you inquire about whether she had taken a room at
Speaker 1: the hotel? Couldn't get that information. No, you inquired but
Speaker 1: couldn't get an answer. When you were initially hired, was
Speaker 1: your job to find her or was your job to
Speaker 1: determine that she had died in the World Trade Center? Well,
Speaker 1: when Mr Lieberman first came, there was no set belief
Speaker 1: other than that they lived in the World Trade Center area.
Speaker 1: He came home, she wasn't there. All her valuables were
Speaker 1: in the apartment. So I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: say that we started out with any preconception. Ster Lieberman
Speaker 1: came and said, I've done this, I want to expand it.
Speaker 1: I want to cover every base. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that every area is covered to find her. Something
Speaker 1: happened to her, She's not here, Let's look into it.
Speaker 1: I think we proceeded from that standpoint, not with any
Speaker 1: preconceived notion as to what happened, And as far as
Speaker 1: her staying at the hotel. I mean her apartment was
Speaker 1: across the street. It was nearby, but not literally across
Speaker 1: the street. So you know, I spoke to the bartenders
Speaker 1: more than trying to determine if she took a room
Speaker 1: or not. There was a history of she had a
Speaker 1: history of some alcohol, significant alcohol use. Am I correct?
Speaker 1: She is correct? I don't know if I would say that.
Speaker 1: Do you know why she was fired from her previous job?
Speaker 1: Issues with substance abuse and tardiness. With respect to the
Speaker 1: computer search that you mentioned, as I read your reports,
Speaker 1: there was a certain point that you went to in
Speaker 1: the computer search and then and there was a possibility
Speaker 1: for a further search being done. Yeah, And am I correct? Well,
Speaker 1: was the second layer of the search done? The second look?
Speaker 1: When you say, let me ask the question, go ahead,
Speaker 1: what was searched? What wasn't searched in terms of the
Speaker 1: possibilities here? Okay? What was searched were her emails? What
Speaker 1: were her private conversations with people on this machine we
Speaker 1: were looking for? Um, I spoke with my friend in
Speaker 1: Italy and I'm going to go to Italy and paint
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to get out of here. And
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell anybody we were looking for
Speaker 1: something like that. We found nothing, no indication that she
Speaker 1: was fed up with life in the area, her job,
Speaker 1: her personal life, no indication of that, and no indication
Speaker 1: of that with interviews with her family or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I believe they were planning activities in the near future.
Speaker 1: And this is just not indicative of an investigation of
Speaker 1: somebody who's I'm going to plan activities. I'm not just
Speaker 1: going to pick up in leave and then what further
Speaker 1: searches could have been done? I'm trying to tax my
Speaker 1: memory here. What further searches. We're talking about a computer.
Speaker 1: You can do extensive searches on a computer. You know what,
Speaker 1: I'm drawing a blank here. It was something that was
Speaker 1: you know, I don't recall. Maybe Ron remembers what it was,
Speaker 1: but it was not something. It was not a lead.
Speaker 1: Let's say this. When we conducted this investigation, we went
Speaker 1: from lead to lead to lead. That computer did not
Speaker 1: give us any leads, and that's how we would do it.
Speaker 1: We didn't get any leads out of that computer. Okay.
Speaker 1: And then with respect to the century twenty one investigation,
Speaker 1: my understanding is you spoke to a saleswoman who actually
Speaker 1: remembers Miss Phillips shopping there. Yes, was it from the
Speaker 1: saleswoman or from the film or from both that drew
Speaker 1: your attention to the fact that there may have been
Speaker 1: a companion. Actually, I think it was the sales girl.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was the video. The video we
Speaker 1: have Snayhaw in I think was a clothes rack. I
Speaker 1: don't think that the girl was with her in the video.
Speaker 1: We have a statement by witness Sonya Mora, the shoe
Speaker 1: sales woman. I interviewed this girl and what first came out.
Speaker 1: The girl said, oh, for sure, she was with this
Speaker 1: other girl. Then I interviewed her. It's possible snay Ha
Speaker 1: was with her. It's possible that she had met She's
Speaker 1: a friendly girl, so it's possible that they had been
Speaker 1: shopping together and became friends. Then I'm not sure. Goant
Speaker 1: is positing that maybe snay Ha met a random woman
Speaker 1: at Century one and they started shopping together, which okay,
Speaker 1: I could never find that girl, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we had video of that girl, which kind of because
Speaker 1: I think the shopping in the dress area afterwards the
Speaker 1: shoe area, and we don't have that girl with snay
Speaker 1: shopping in that area. Were you able to obtain the
Speaker 1: information about other customers who made purchases immediately before or
Speaker 1: immediately after Miss Philip did? No. You said that it
Speaker 1: was not uncommon for her to spend the evening away
Speaker 1: and then she would generally come back the next morning.
Speaker 1: Deltigue the attorney referee, And you said, you've got no
Speaker 1: leads to show she was outside of her neighborhood. So
Speaker 1: does that mean that all of the people that you
Speaker 1: know of that she would have spent the night with
Speaker 1: also lived in her neighborhood. She was friendly with a
Speaker 1: couple of people at the hospital. She was really friendly with.
Speaker 1: I believe with her brother's girlfriend or wife. She was
Speaker 1: friendly with her. I think she lived in the area,
Speaker 1: not too far. They all lived in the neighborhood. Her neighborhood, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think there were a couple of clubs that
Speaker 1: she had gone to at some point. We went up
Speaker 1: there and they had not seen her. You said you
Speaker 1: went up there, What do you mean, approached people, bartender's patrons.
Speaker 1: No one had seen her. Where is up there? How
Speaker 1: far away was it? Maybe what ten blocks? Maybe not
Speaker 1: too far? I think there was a club's maybe Ron
Speaker 1: and her had gone to or they had been to before.
Speaker 1: Something no leads. And when you looked at her emails,
Speaker 1: did you get to interview everybody who was a recipient
Speaker 1: of her emails? It was mostly her family, mostly her family.
Speaker 1: We interviewed everybody. Any name that we ever came across,
Speaker 1: we interviewed. I don't think there was anyone who did
Speaker 1: not want to talk to us. Nobody we couldn't find.
Speaker 1: And you said she was planning future activities. Do you
Speaker 1: remember what those activities were. I think it was a
Speaker 1: wedding or something, a friend's wedding, some sort of function,
Speaker 1: family function, and I know she'd been involved in that.
Speaker 1: She talked about it, she was looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I don't know it was some family function. And then
Speaker 1: earlier you talked about her i D and glasses and
Speaker 1: things you would expect somebody to have would still be
Speaker 1: in the area. Could you just elaborate on that a
Speaker 1: bit got that from Mr Lieberman. Her glasses, her license.
Speaker 1: I knew she couldn't see very well, so her glasses
Speaker 1: were I think her apartment, her I D, the normal
Speaker 1: things you would need to function outside were in her neighborhood.
Speaker 1: In her apartment, I believe. Right. So you're saying that
Speaker 1: she went out without her glasses and without her wallet. Yes,
Speaker 1: actually I believed she used Ron's credit card to make
Speaker 1: the purchase at Century twenty one. She didn't even have
Speaker 1: her own. I d s she had his credit card.
Speaker 1: Did she wear contact lenses? As far as you know,
Speaker 1: I believe she did. Did you speak to the people
Speaker 1: at Dr phillips new job on Staten Island? No? I
Speaker 1: did not speak to them. No. NYPD Detective Richard Stark did. However,
Speaker 1: on September two thousand one, Stark visited St. Vincent's Hospital
Speaker 1: and interviewed Snayhouse boss Dr Susan Grossman. Grossman told Stark
Speaker 1: that she last spoke to Snaya on September seven, two
Speaker 1: thousand one, four days before nine eleven. Strangely and coincidentally,
Speaker 1: Grossman's husband, Jeff gross is the co founder of a
Speaker 1: Staten Island commune called Ghanas, which critics describe as a
Speaker 1: sex cult. In two thousand six, according to The New
Speaker 1: York Post, gross was allegedly shot by a woman who
Speaker 1: claimed she had been forced to quote sleep with midgets
Speaker 1: and engaged in lesbian sex. An X member told the
Speaker 1: Post that the commune was quote a freaky mix of
Speaker 1: weird characters, sexual shenanigans, prescription drug use, and hair brained psychology.
Speaker 1: Grossman didn't respond to multiple interview requests. It's unclear Snay, however,
Speaker 1: visited the commune. Grossman was her boss for only ten
Speaker 1: weeks before nine eleven. There's also a comment and one
Speaker 1: of the reports that the investigation revealed Dr Philip to
Speaker 1: be a very complex woman. I'm quoting now quote a
Speaker 1: very complex woman who appeared to present different characteristics as
Speaker 1: a response to different people in situations. Could you explain
Speaker 1: what you meant by that she was a complex person.
Speaker 1: She could like at the hospital, she had all different
Speaker 1: layers of friends. She could be very friendly with the
Speaker 1: chief surgeon. On the same token she could be fighting
Speaker 1: with one of her interns, and then she could be
Speaker 1: friendly with the girl in medical records. This type of
Speaker 1: thing that she wasn't like consistent. She would go out,
Speaker 1: she would come home. I think that conversations with Ron
Speaker 1: would say, you know, look here, look at her friends,
Speaker 1: not just her intern friends, but someone else at work.
Speaker 1: She was friendly with everyone. She wasn't in a set.
Speaker 1: I only deal with this type of individual thing. She'll
Speaker 1: be friendly with everybody, whereas the common thing was, I'm
Speaker 1: a doctor, I'm going to hang around with my doctor friends.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be friends to this person who
Speaker 1: works in the boiler room, this type of thing. But
Speaker 1: she would babysit. I think that sometimes she watched doctor's
Speaker 1: kids for a short while, which you know, this is
Speaker 1: a a very not what you would imagine as a
Speaker 1: doctor would be. Do you know how many people lived
Speaker 1: in the buildings she lived in? How many apartments there were,
Speaker 1: how many units? It's a big building, it's big. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one down on we're talking Battery Park. So the
Speaker 1: doorman couldn't positively identify her through that video, the video
Speaker 1: of a woman exiting the lobby of Snayhouse apartment building
Speaker 1: at three am on nine eleven, right before the attacks began. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: And you said that she sometimes stated at her brother's
Speaker 1: you didn't know if this is a friend, girlfriend or
Speaker 1: wife at night. It was his brother's wife, girlfriend, just
Speaker 1: whatever you know from your memory. I don't remember, okay.
Speaker 1: And did she also live in the same neighborhood as that.
Speaker 1: I believe she lived pretty close, did she? Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't know how close, and she didn't have any lead
Speaker 1: as to where she might have been that night. No,
Speaker 1: here again, it's Mark Bogatin, Ron Lieberman's attorney, And Ron,
Speaker 1: when was the last time you saw sna It was
Speaker 1: on the morning of September two and one. Now, before
Speaker 1: we get to the events of September tenth and the
Speaker 1: eleventh and their aftermath, I'd like to ask you there's
Speaker 1: been a testimony, at least through the investigator from Mr Gallant,
Speaker 1: that Snaya did not spend the evening of the tenth
Speaker 1: at home in the apartment. Can you tell us did
Speaker 1: say I ever spend an evening away from the apartment
Speaker 1: before before the tenth And can you also tell us
Speaker 1: whether or not there was any practice between the two
Speaker 1: of you in terms of either you or her or
Speaker 1: both of you spending an evening away from the apartment
Speaker 1: on occasion. Yes. Since Snaiha and I met being at school,
Speaker 1: we had a lot of friends together, and it was
Speaker 1: even in Cargo. It was very common for us to
Speaker 1: sleep over at friends house who lived in the area,
Speaker 1: either together or sometimes separately. We all knew basically the
Speaker 1: same amount of people, sometimes different people. Snayhan i'd lived together,
Speaker 1: but also respected each other's independence too, And also so
Speaker 1: when we came to New York, it was very similar,
Speaker 1: like that, you made good friends sometimes instead of coming
Speaker 1: home late, because we'd spend long times with our friends
Speaker 1: we liked. Residency is tough. You really don't get out
Speaker 1: very often, so when you actually get out, you want
Speaker 1: to spend time with the people. These were all very
Speaker 1: good people that we know, and sometimes Sna also, as
Speaker 1: it's been said, she's an extrovert. She knew a lot
Speaker 1: of people. She was an artist in her own right,
Speaker 1: and sometimes she'd meet people who are artists also, And
Speaker 1: there have been a few occasions where people that I
Speaker 1: didn't know that she stayed out, But it was definitely
Speaker 1: a common practice, maybe a couple of times a month
Speaker 1: that either we'd stay out together or you might stay
Speaker 1: out alone sometimes when I was at work. She didn't
Speaker 1: like to stay home by herself a lot, so her
Speaker 1: brother lived close by, her cousin lived close by. Friends
Speaker 1: of ours lived close by, so it was very common
Speaker 1: for her to go stay at their house. And the
Speaker 1: two of you have the same work schedules. Say on yourself, no,
Speaker 1: can you please describe her work? Schedule to me. Sure
Speaker 1: snay was much more on a nine to five job
Speaker 1: with occasional calls. She was an internal medicine resident. I
Speaker 1: was an emergency medicine resident, and so sometimes that means
Speaker 1: I'm working overnight. Quite often start maybe eight nine o'clock
Speaker 1: at night, and I'll work through to the next morning.
Speaker 1: So it was a very confusing schedule. I often got
Speaker 1: my schedule in a couple of weeks before the preceding month,
Speaker 1: so it was very difficult. I'd try to write down
Speaker 1: for her so she could know, but she would always
Speaker 1: get confused. I'd show up and she'd say, I thought
Speaker 1: you were working tonight. It was confusing for me and
Speaker 1: confusing for her. Also, when she stayed out, would she
Speaker 1: tell you in advance that you'd be spending the night out. No,
Speaker 1: sometimes it would just happen. This conflicts with what snay
Speaker 1: House cousin Anu told Unsolved Mysteries in two thousand two.
Speaker 1: She's never just spent a night out without informing us.
Speaker 1: Where she is informing a husband with issues, It's never happened.
Speaker 1: Why would this night be any different to me? The
Speaker 1: discrepancy between what Ron testified to in court and what
Speaker 1: an who told unsolved mysteries indicates that either snay House
Speaker 1: family did not know her as well as they thought,
Speaker 1: or they lied to the media. It was actually one
Speaker 1: of our issues that I would always say, please leave
Speaker 1: me a note, let me know where you're going to be.
Speaker 1: And it was getting better, but sometimes she would still,
Speaker 1: you know, she would forget. And did you stay out
Speaker 1: sometimes by yourself or as you said, you would work
Speaker 1: at night? I also would sometimes stay out by myself
Speaker 1: at friends holmes. And when Snayha did stay out in fact,
Speaker 1: how often would you say that she stayed out from
Speaker 1: the apartment and spent the night outside of the apartment.
Speaker 1: I would say at least a couple of times a month,
Speaker 1: and that was regular practice through the course of the marriage. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you've told us on occasion you and stay Hot together
Speaker 1: would spend the night away from the apartment, maybe at
Speaker 1: a friend's house. How often would that happen? I think
Speaker 1: in about a month's time. Usually it's a few times,
Speaker 1: if it's together or not, it would vary. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: would be more than that too. So and when stay
Speaker 1: how did spend the evening away from the apartment? What
Speaker 1: was her practice in terms of returning to the apartment.
Speaker 1: Always she had come back early in the morning, early
Speaker 1: the next morning, sometime between seven and nine. That was
Speaker 1: her usual pattern. Did she ever stay out and just
Speaker 1: not come back the next day and come back a
Speaker 1: day or two later? Did that ever happen? You mean
Speaker 1: to be away for a couple of days. No, always
Speaker 1: snay haw came back always the next morning, always the
Speaker 1: next morning. Now, who are some of the people that
Speaker 1: you've told us some of the people she did spend
Speaker 1: the evening with, or rather would spend or have on occasion.
Speaker 1: Can you please tell us who those people are? Her
Speaker 1: brother lived Espec at the time when we lived in
Speaker 1: Battery Park City. Her brother lived basically across the West
Speaker 1: Side Highway, and her cousin lived on John Street. Those
Speaker 1: were probably the more common people. We had another friend
Speaker 1: who lived on the Upper west Side. And again, like
Speaker 1: I said, there was definitely sometimes that she would meet
Speaker 1: people that I didn't know, and she'd be out. How
Speaker 1: would you learn that she'd been with this person if
Speaker 1: you didn't know in advance, how would you learn it? Well,
Speaker 1: obviously the next day she'd come back and I'd say,
Speaker 1: snay haa, what happened? And she goes, oh, I didn't
Speaker 1: know you were going to be home tonight, and I'd say, so,
Speaker 1: where were you? She says. I remember one time she
Speaker 1: met a woman who was an artist and they went
Speaker 1: back to the place and actually painted all night. She
Speaker 1: came back full of paint. Once in a while, that
Speaker 1: would happen, or she would listen to bands playing all night.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you mean a band and a club or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a place a few bars close by we go to.
Speaker 1: There's a bar. We'd go, laid back places, very casual.
Speaker 1: Sometimes she would go and sometimes you'd go together, and
Speaker 1: sometimes she'd come back and say she'd been at that
Speaker 1: bar or that club. That's right now. How long had
Speaker 1: you been married as of September ten two one at
Speaker 1: that point, just about a year and a half. Can
Speaker 1: you please describe for us the state of your relationship
Speaker 1: at that point. Snay and I had been friends since
Speaker 1: medical school. It was really an interesting connection between the
Speaker 1: two of us. Our past family lives were very similar,
Speaker 1: our interests were very similar. We're both artists. As much
Speaker 1: as my wife is a painter and I'm a musician.
Speaker 1: She's also a musician, so we play a lot. So
Speaker 1: we were really great friends. We planned on having children together.
Speaker 1: My wife was always talking about having babies, and if anything,
Speaker 1: my reluctance was because I wanted to wait a little
Speaker 1: bit to finish residency. In things you know, we had
Speaker 1: planned to. We like to travel together. We take trips
Speaker 1: together as well. We've been to India before together. We've
Speaker 1: been to Europe together a few times. And even around
Speaker 1: that time period, it was her birthday is October seven,
Speaker 1: October seven, and so I was planning a trip to
Speaker 1: take her to Europe around her birthday. I was going
Speaker 1: to surprise her and I was going to talk to
Speaker 1: her work about doing all these things also, so we
Speaker 1: were extremely in love with each other and planning for
Speaker 1: a great life. This is my wife's last year in residency,
Speaker 1: and now all the hard work is finally going to
Speaker 1: be finished and we could start to really spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time together. So many times I'd go away
Speaker 1: on call and we'd talk all the time on the phone.
Speaker 1: It was difficult to be apart from each other, but
Speaker 1: that was the residency. And when did her employement at
Speaker 1: Cabrini end that When it was May of two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, Well that was when she got noticed. She
Speaker 1: actually continued working until our years, basically July to June.
Speaker 1: So she worked until June and then she started her
Speaker 1: new job in July. And what was her new job
Speaker 1: that she started in July two thousand one. It's a
Speaker 1: continuation of her old job. She was at St. Vincent's
Speaker 1: Hospital on Staten Island. That was the reason we moved
Speaker 1: down to Battery Park City so it could be closer
Speaker 1: for her. She took the ferry to work, so it
Speaker 1: was just a continuation. She was going to finish her
Speaker 1: residency program at St. Vincent's. It was a very reputable hospital.
Speaker 1: She liked the people there. What was her reaction to
Speaker 1: her new employment. What was her state of mind at
Speaker 1: the Staten Island Hospital. She loved it. She felt finally
Speaker 1: she was in the place where she didn't have to
Speaker 1: be judged. She liked Cabrini a lot in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but it became difficult. There was so much prejudice against
Speaker 1: her over there. Ron claimed that Cabrini discriminated against Naha
Speaker 1: because she was Indian and a woman. Now you told
Speaker 1: us you saw Snaha for the last time September, t
Speaker 1: Can you tell us when on September ten and where
Speaker 1: you saw her last? Tell us about that. We came
Speaker 1: back from court that morning and we were with Mr
Speaker 1: Freiburg snay How's attorney. It was a very quick proceeding.
Speaker 1: We came back home, we had a little bit of
Speaker 1: probably got home around ten ten thirty, had a little
Speaker 1: bit of breakfast. That's ten thirty in the morning, Mr
Speaker 1: Lieberman in the morning on September and I left for work.
Speaker 1: I had to be at work by one o'clock and
Speaker 1: I was taking the subway, so I left about eleven
Speaker 1: thirty to give myself an hour and a half to
Speaker 1: get there. So I kissed her goodbye. Actually I forgot
Speaker 1: my keys and I got to go back in and
Speaker 1: kissed her again, and then I left. And did you
Speaker 1: tell you what our plans were for the day? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You know, we've been so busy with work the last
Speaker 1: few weeks before that, we really didn't have time to
Speaker 1: clean the house. It was getting a little bit dirty.
Speaker 1: So she was planning on cleaning the house that day.
Speaker 1: We'd started the day before, but obviously it was the
Speaker 1: weekend and we were rollerblading together and doing other things.
Speaker 1: So she was going to clean the house and she
Speaker 1: had just got in some orchids from Hawaii that she
Speaker 1: was very excited about the day before, she had taken
Speaker 1: a whole roll of film just take the orchids in
Speaker 1: different positions, so she was very excited about it. And
Speaker 1: then she I guess maybe taking a walk or something.
Speaker 1: And was there any particular reason the apartment was going
Speaker 1: to be clean at that point? Did you have any
Speaker 1: plans Our friends are coming over the next day on
Speaker 1: the eleventh. We had plans with Snayo's cousin Anu and Rick.
Speaker 1: They were going to come over for dinner that night
Speaker 1: on the eleventh, so we wanted to clean the house
Speaker 1: that we could prepare for them to come. And you
Speaker 1: tell us, nay How is not working that day? Is
Speaker 1: that correct? And when she scheduled to work the next
Speaker 1: day eleven she wasn't. Her next work day would have
Speaker 1: been the twelfth, I think the twelve. And just tell
Speaker 1: us when did you come home? You said you left
Speaker 1: for work about eleven thirty on the morning of the tenth.
Speaker 1: Did you speak to snay Hu during the course of
Speaker 1: that day. I think I called her, but I don't
Speaker 1: think we actually ever spoke that day. And when did
Speaker 1: you come home on the tenth or the next day,
Speaker 1: the eleven. When did you come home? Well, I came
Speaker 1: home the evening of the tenth, at about eleven thirty
Speaker 1: at night. And was she home, No, she wasn't. And
Speaker 1: again when I came home and she wasn't home, I
Speaker 1: was expecting her to come home soon. But then again,
Speaker 1: I also knew her brother and her had been in
Speaker 1: a fight maybe a week before, and I knew she
Speaker 1: was off the next day, so I thought that maybe
Speaker 1: she was over there talking with her brother. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to call if they were in the middle of
Speaker 1: talking and getting the way. And I had to wake
Speaker 1: up very early the next morning. I had to be
Speaker 1: at work by eight o'clock in the morning, so I
Speaker 1: had to go to bed. I was thinking she'd probably
Speaker 1: come back slip in bed with me at night, which
Speaker 1: she'd done before. And And what time did you wake up?
Speaker 1: On the eleventh? The next morning I woke up. I
Speaker 1: think I woke up about six in the morning. I
Speaker 1: needed to catch a six thirty subway. She wasn't there.
Speaker 1: She wasn't there. I was, of course, I was concerned,
Speaker 1: so I was thinking, in my mind, I wish she
Speaker 1: would have called me to let me know, but this
Speaker 1: is kind of part of our pattern also, it's something
Speaker 1: in our relationship that we're working on for her to
Speaker 1: be able to inform when she was going to stay out.
Speaker 1: But again, it wasn't the first time, and I didn't
Speaker 1: get overly concerned. I had figured that she'd be back
Speaker 1: the next morning, and even once I got after all
Speaker 1: the things happened, I actually called back to the home
Speaker 1: to see if she was home, but there was just
Speaker 1: the answering machine was on where were you in the
Speaker 1: trade center attack took place. I was at the hospital
Speaker 1: in the Bronx at Jacoby and tell us what happened
Speaker 1: after that. So after we got word that the building
Speaker 1: was hit, the hospital went into an emergency condition. And
Speaker 1: actually I'm an emergency room physician, so that was really
Speaker 1: when I was called to work. And in my mind,
Speaker 1: I didn't think that Snayhow would have been involved, so
Speaker 1: I figured she'd either be at a hospital or some
Speaker 1: station helping out, like many of the other doctors down
Speaker 1: in Manhattan were. So I stayed. I tried to call home.
Speaker 1: At first. I was able to leave a message saying Snayha,
Speaker 1: I don't know where you are, but call me at
Speaker 1: the hospital and I left the number so she could call.
Speaker 1: She always forgot my phone numbers, so I left it
Speaker 1: on the machine, and then of course the phone lines
Speaker 1: went dead. Then I had to make a decision what
Speaker 1: I was going to do, And of course at that moment,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to stay and I'm going to wait,
Speaker 1: because we expected thousands of casualties to come so about
Speaker 1: I think it was about three o'clock in the afternoon
Speaker 1: when we realized nobody was coming up. Since from ten
Speaker 1: o'clock to three we were preparing, but nobody was coming.
Speaker 1: I told my director, I said, you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: heard from my wife yet. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: everything's okay. I just want to go back down home.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize what state Lower Manhattan was in, so
Speaker 1: I took an ambulance. They were going down in Manhattan,
Speaker 1: and I went down with them. In the meantime, I
Speaker 1: had my cell phone. I was trying to call people.
Speaker 1: I think I talked to her mother about three four
Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon. She hadn't heard from anyone yet.
Speaker 1: It was only later that afternoon that I actually realized
Speaker 1: that her mother hadn't spoken to her, And then it
Speaker 1: slowly started coming about. We didn't know where she was
Speaker 1: the night before because I think she had heard from
Speaker 1: my brother in law John, who said that he wasn't
Speaker 1: with Snayha. I started calling around and nobody knew where
Speaker 1: she was the night before. I was concerned because I
Speaker 1: didn't know. Like I said, it's happened before that she's
Speaker 1: been in places where I didn't know, but it was concerning.
Speaker 1: It took me about maybe six or seven hours to
Speaker 1: get down to my apartment that day. It's a big
Speaker 1: saga to get down to actually get down to Battery
Speaker 1: Park City. When I finally got down to my apartment,
Speaker 1: it was locked. They locked. About what time of the
Speaker 1: day are we talking about? What time was this? It's
Speaker 1: close to about I think somewhere between nine and ten
Speaker 1: o'clock at night. I got down in Manhattan about five,
Speaker 1: and it took me a good four or five hours
Speaker 1: to get down there to my apartment. And what happened
Speaker 1: when you got into the apartment. Were you able to
Speaker 1: get in? No? I couldn't get in. The building was
Speaker 1: locked and there was a light on the third floor.
Speaker 1: One of the other tenants happened to be there. I
Speaker 1: happened to have my pocket light from work, and I
Speaker 1: was flashing them. They came to the window and I said,
Speaker 1: can you please go knock my door to see if
Speaker 1: anybody was inside. I was afraid that maybe my wife
Speaker 1: was inside under the bed. Frightened. They knocked on the
Speaker 1: door and said there's no response. And then at that
Speaker 1: point I didn't know what to do, and so what
Speaker 1: I did I went and volunteered. I went and volunteered
Speaker 1: down across the street from ground zero at the high school.
Speaker 1: I forget what it was called. And I stayed there
Speaker 1: until about two in the morning, and then I went
Speaker 1: back to my friend's house who lived in the West Village,
Speaker 1: and I stayed there overnight. When did you eventually get
Speaker 1: back to your apartment the next morning? Now we're talking
Speaker 1: about the morning of the twelfth, The morning of the twelfth. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Part of my feeling about going to volunteer was that
Speaker 1: I knew I could actually get I realized how hard
Speaker 1: it was to gain access down there. And when I
Speaker 1: went to go volunteer, I was given a badge, and
Speaker 1: the badge allowed me access to go back down. So
Speaker 1: I went back down and I was able actually to
Speaker 1: walk around very freely down there. I went right back
Speaker 1: to my apartment and it was open this time, and
Speaker 1: I went upstairs. I went to the apartment. When I
Speaker 1: got to the apartment, the only thing I saw was
Speaker 1: dust everywhere in the apartment. We had two little cats,
Speaker 1: and the footprints from my cats. There were no other
Speaker 1: footprints inside the house besides the cats. I had my
Speaker 1: digital camera and I took pictures of the apartment. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, I started getting worried. I was thinking, at
Speaker 1: least by the night before, we would have heard from her.
Speaker 1: So I started taking pictures of the apartment, and then
Speaker 1: I started collecting things that were important. Phone books, her
Speaker 1: phone book, my phone book, I had digital pictures of
Speaker 1: snay Huh. My friends and I. Before I left, we
Speaker 1: made a list of what to do. We felt we'd
Speaker 1: make flyers be able to contact everybody. So that's basically
Speaker 1: what I did. And did you inspect the apartment to
Speaker 1: see whether anything was missing any of Snazz? Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember looking at the door to see if someone had
Speaker 1: actually forced their way in. At this point, I started
Speaker 1: thinking of everything. I tried to be as thorough as possible.
Speaker 1: I took pictures of the door locked so I could
Speaker 1: show people and there really was no sign. The apartment
Speaker 1: was basically exactly the way I had seen it before
Speaker 1: I left. Besides all the dust everywhere, was any of
Speaker 1: Snaz's clothing missing, any of her belongings missing, nothing, nothing,
Speaker 1: And again in retrospect, at this point, I didn't know
Speaker 1: she'd gone to Century one. We learned that later in
Speaker 1: the day. But there were no bags, no new bags,
Speaker 1: no articles, no big bags from since or twenty one
Speaker 1: that we're sitting in front of the house. Nothing was
Speaker 1: changed at all. And at some point you look for
Speaker 1: her passport and identification. Yeah. I was able to get
Speaker 1: back down there again. I was in multiple times, and
Speaker 1: at this point is when I started looking for signs.
Speaker 1: Could she have left? Could something have happened? There were
Speaker 1: no bags that were missing, her eyeglasses, as Mr Gallant said,
Speaker 1: we're still in the house, her driver's license, her passport,
Speaker 1: all her credit cards. The morning of the tenth, on
Speaker 1: the way back from court, we went to the bank.
Speaker 1: We stopped and took out a hundred dollars from the bank,
Speaker 1: so we split it. And I remember that we've gone
Speaker 1: to a party earlier that weekend, on Saturday night, and
Speaker 1: she kept saying she was wearing her contacts that day,
Speaker 1: and she said, you know, Ronnie, my contacts are very old.
Speaker 1: They're hurting my eyes. On the way back from the
Speaker 1: subway that night, she actually took the context out and
Speaker 1: put them in her mouth because her eyes were hurting
Speaker 1: and she was holding onto my arm as I was
Speaker 1: basically leading her back to the apartment. And so that
Speaker 1: day she must have been wearing her old contacts, because
Speaker 1: again her glasses. We're at home. This may not seem important,
Speaker 1: but it is. It's a clue. In the century twenty
Speaker 1: one footage is not wearing glasses. Instead, it appears she's
Speaker 1: wearing old contacts, the same contacts that bothered her so
Speaker 1: much a few days earlier that she took them out
Speaker 1: and saved them in her mouth. Now, unless she planned
Speaker 1: to go somewhere after century one before she left her apartment,
Speaker 1: why would she wear painful old contacts. Why wear them
Speaker 1: to just go shopping? Unless she planned to go somewhere
Speaker 1: to see someone after century unless she cared about how
Speaker 1: she looked. So I think whatever Sneha did after century one,
Speaker 1: she planned ahead of time. It was not spontaneous, making
Speaker 1: it even more bizarre that the NYPD and private investigators
Speaker 1: found no evidence of any plans, no emails, phone calls
Speaker 1: to strangers, etcetera. The only people we know Snayha talked
Speaker 1: to on the afternoon of the tenth, right before she
Speaker 1: disappeared are her mom, Onto and maybe one or both
Speaker 1: of her brothers, including her younger brother John, who lived
Speaker 1: only a few blocks from Century. Anyway, back to on.
Speaker 1: You know, once we started getting into the idea that
Speaker 1: we couldn't find her is when we really started to
Speaker 1: brainstorm every single possibility. Even though my wife and I
Speaker 1: had a great relationship, we went through everything, every single
Speaker 1: possible scenario. Could she have wanted to leave that I
Speaker 1: didn't know about? So then we checked her backs. Could
Speaker 1: there be someone that I didn't know about? So we
Speaker 1: checked her letters, checked her emails, started talking to friends,
Speaker 1: really good friends. I mean, I was very blunt and
Speaker 1: I was very frank with everyone, saying, listen, if there's
Speaker 1: anything we should know. Let's know she was seeing before
Speaker 1: she left Cabrini and everything was going on, She started
Speaker 1: seeing a therapist. I went to go talk to the therapist.
Speaker 1: Any single idea that we could think of we tried.
Speaker 1: There was a Marina at Battery Park City. We tried
Speaker 1: to get a list of all the boats that left
Speaker 1: Battery Park City. We put up flyers. We called everyone
Speaker 1: that's Neahan new We called everyone to say, listen, do
Speaker 1: you know someone That'snahan might know people who moved away,
Speaker 1: People she was in college with, people she was in
Speaker 1: high school, with people from medical school. We tried to
Speaker 1: make every single contact we could, and then of course
Speaker 1: we started going to shelters, putting flyers up in shelters,
Speaker 1: contacting shelters, psychiatric institutions. Maybe we're thinking, maybe she saw
Speaker 1: something that just damaged her mind. We didn't didn't know.
Speaker 1: We started canvassing all the clubs, all the bars, everywhere
Speaker 1: that we used to frequent, all the restaurants we used
Speaker 1: to like to go to. Anything possible that we could
Speaker 1: think of we started to do, including hiring a private investigator,
Speaker 1: not ken go On. The first p I whose name
Speaker 1: I don't know, Galant was the second. This is around
Speaker 1: the same time the NYPD got involved. Also, we were
Speaker 1: thinking could there have been foul play involved? They went
Speaker 1: to talk to the most likely person would be the
Speaker 1: person since they had the altercation with before the Cabrini
Speaker 1: doctors Snay haw accused of sexual assault in June two
Speaker 1: thousand one. They talked to him and they felt there
Speaker 1: was no way that there was anything. This is also
Speaker 1: a doctor who had not They felt that there was
Speaker 1: nothing to it, and they went and searched their places
Speaker 1: in Manhattan called the Tombs Jail that they were detaining people.
Speaker 1: They went and searched those places, also saying there's no
Speaker 1: listening of snay High in there. They checked police records
Speaker 1: to report anybody missing at the time. They checked ambulance
Speaker 1: records see if anyone had been missing at the time
Speaker 1: that night. There was no instances of any crime at
Speaker 1: all in Lower Manhattan. I tried to get a log
Speaker 1: of all nine one calls placed in Lower Manhattan from
Speaker 1: five pm on September tenth, two thousand one, until five
Speaker 1: am on nine eleven. The NYPD denied my request, saying
Speaker 1: the records no longer exists. Mr Philip, are you say
Speaker 1: has brother? Yes, I am, And when was the last
Speaker 1: time you saw her had contact with her? About two
Speaker 1: and a half weeks before. This is one of three
Speaker 1: conflicting answers John gave about when he last saw and
Speaker 1: or spoke to snay Ha. You just heard him, say,
Speaker 1: two and a half weeks before eleven, around August. But
Speaker 1: on September two thousand one, John told n y p
Speaker 1: D Detective Richard Stark that he last spoke to snay
Speaker 1: Haa six weeks prior around August. And John told me
Speaker 1: eight or nine days before nine eleven, around September two
Speaker 1: or three August eight August, September two or third, three
Speaker 1: different answers after she disappeared. Did you put a stake
Speaker 1: in the effort by the family to find some trace
Speaker 1: of her? Yes? I did. And can you tell us
Speaker 1: what you did in connection with that effort, especially in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the other friends and family members. Describe what
Speaker 1: you went through and what you did. The first person
Speaker 1: I contacted the following day twelve was Ron. Actually I
Speaker 1: first contacted my mother. After that I contacted Ron. Ron
Speaker 1: had put together a flyer and he had emailed it
Speaker 1: to me. At that point, I went down to my
Speaker 1: girlfriend's office on thirty fourth Street, where she worked, and
Speaker 1: we made copies. I gathered together about at that point
Speaker 1: six friends to meet me there. I gave them each
Speaker 1: a stack of a hundred flyers, and they went out
Speaker 1: to distribute flyers at that point, after I had given
Speaker 1: them the flyers, I got on the phone. I started
Speaker 1: calling friends, family members, I called cousins in the city,
Speaker 1: asking if they had heard anything, and also asking them
Speaker 1: for additional help as far as again displaying the flyers.
Speaker 1: So the first day September twelve, we had a lot
Speaker 1: of people going throughout New York, mainly towards Midtown, downtown,
Speaker 1: the Village West Village, Union Square area, posting flyers the
Speaker 1: whole day. From that point, I also we spoke with
Speaker 1: the media to try and gain media coverage. Again, the
Speaker 1: objective was to get her picture out there, to get
Speaker 1: her face out there, to see if anybody had any
Speaker 1: sort of answers, any idea of where she may be
Speaker 1: or what may have happened to her, because again at
Speaker 1: this point, we had no idea what may or may
Speaker 1: not happen to her at that point directly after nine eleven,
Speaker 1: so we were looking for clues after that point that week,
Speaker 1: two weeks, three weeks consecutively. This is what I was
Speaker 1: doing continuously, you know, to the point where I was
Speaker 1: waking up every single day and my job was to
Speaker 1: put up flyers. I dropped my I had a business
Speaker 1: at the time I was running, I put that on hold.
Speaker 1: I also had my employees who worked for me give
Speaker 1: out the flyers as well. These flyers ended up from
Speaker 1: what I understand to be all over the city. They
Speaker 1: reached all of Manhattan, the Upper West Side, the Bronx,
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Queens. So these are things I was doing. And
Speaker 1: in addition to posting flyers, helping distribute flyers, did you
Speaker 1: also have occasion as part of your efforts to find
Speaker 1: some trace of her? Did you also go to clubs, restaurants, bars,
Speaker 1: in places of that nature? Yes, I did, and can
Speaker 1: you please tell us about that what you did in
Speaker 1: terms of that effort, I would say approximately three or
Speaker 1: four days after I was giving out the flyers, I
Speaker 1: started focusing on going down to bars and clubs, mainly
Speaker 1: in the East Village Alphabet City, Union Square area, places
Speaker 1: that I thought she would hang out, places that I
Speaker 1: thought she would be around. There wasn't a particular bar
Speaker 1: or a particular lounge that I knew she would go,
Speaker 1: but particular areas and scenes that she liked to be around.
Speaker 1: She liked to be around more of an artistic scene,
Speaker 1: more of both the West Village and Lower East Side,
Speaker 1: the restaurants down there are the small lounges, the small cafes.
Speaker 1: She enjoyed hanging out at those places. Had you been
Speaker 1: to some of these places with her? Yes, I've been
Speaker 1: to some of these places with her. One of those
Speaker 1: places that I did go with her was a club
Speaker 1: called Centerfly, which I think we may have gone to
Speaker 1: two months prior to Night eleven. We had danced over there.
Speaker 1: That was one club that I don't think she frequented
Speaker 1: that club. Again, I don't remember her frequenting any particular club,
Speaker 1: but that was the last one that I went to
Speaker 1: with her. So I went to that particular one. I
Speaker 1: talked to bartender's public doorman and yes, to answer your
Speaker 1: specific question, and you had her picture, and you showed
Speaker 1: her picture. I showed her picture. Yes, And the results
Speaker 1: of all that was negative. I take it, excuse me.
Speaker 1: What was the result of all those efforts negative? Nobody
Speaker 1: had seen her, nobody had a lot of people didn't
Speaker 1: even recognize her, and so yes, the efforts, unfortunately didn't
Speaker 1: bring anything up. Bogatin wrapped up questioning John surprisingly Ellen
Speaker 1: Winner The Guardian ad Vitam had no follow up questions.
Speaker 1: Next up, snay House Mom onto tell us about your contact.
Speaker 1: On Monday, September Monday, I was at work. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I said high first or she did, because
Speaker 1: I was online in the instant messenger. One of us
Speaker 1: started chatting, you know, instant messaging, and she told me,
Speaker 1: I just finished my meditation, and then she told me
Speaker 1: all about Saturday night. She was a static, you know,
Speaker 1: how great Ronnie was and about the party and how
Speaker 1: happy she was. She was just so proud of Ronnie
Speaker 1: and she was just so so happy. And then I said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing today? And she said, Mom, you
Speaker 1: saw my house. It's a mess. So I'm cleaning up
Speaker 1: because we had invited Knew and Rick. Knew is her
Speaker 1: cousin Knew and Rick for dinner tomorrow. So I'm cleaning
Speaker 1: up the house. That's what I'm doing, she said. And
Speaker 1: then she said, I'm reporting some plants, and she had
Speaker 1: got some orchids from Hawaii and she was attending to
Speaker 1: that and she was talking all about that, and we
Speaker 1: chatted for almost an hour and then she said, Mom,
Speaker 1: I better get back to my cleaning otherwise I won't
Speaker 1: get anywhere. And that's all she said. And that was
Speaker 1: the last contact you had with him. Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: last contact I had. Auntie testified that she were extremely close. Surprisingly, again,
Speaker 1: Ellen Winner had no follow up questions, but Delty, the
Speaker 1: attorney referee, did I just have one question. When you
Speaker 1: chatted with her on the tenth on that Monday, September tenth,
Speaker 1: did she give you any idea she would be going
Speaker 1: out and what she was going to be doing that evening. No,
Speaker 1: if she had any plans, she would have told me.
Speaker 1: That's the way our relationship is, you know, we always
Speaker 1: tell everything. You know, I tell her and she tell me.
Speaker 1: We are like friends. So she would have told me, Mom,
Speaker 1: I'm going shopping. You know, maybe I'm going to go
Speaker 1: she would have told me. But I don't think she
Speaker 1: planned to go out. I think she got tired of
Speaker 1: cleaning the house reporting because when I went back to
Speaker 1: her apartment later on, you could still see in the
Speaker 1: bathtub she was repotting the plant. This is interesting, again,
Speaker 1: like the contacts, it seems unimportant, and maybe it is.
Speaker 1: Maybe it doesn't matter at all. But if any returned
Speaker 1: to Ron and snay House apartment after nineal leven and
Speaker 1: the orchid repotting soil was still in the bathtub, That
Speaker 1: means Ron got home the night of after a long
Speaker 1: day working at a hospital and didn't shower. It also
Speaker 1: means Sna did not come back after century one and shower.
Speaker 1: So two quick questions. Did Ron actually get home around
Speaker 1: eleven pm? And did he stay the entire night in
Speaker 1: the apartment? After Onto finished testifying? The evidentiary hearing ended,
Speaker 1: but the court case was not over a few months later,
Speaker 1: on September four, Detective Stark testified at a different hearing.
Speaker 1: Here's Ellen Winner, the Guardian ad litem and Stark. Were
Speaker 1: you aware that she had a drinking problem? Yes? And
Speaker 1: were you aware that she had a drug problem? The
Speaker 1: drugs I didn't know about that. There was a hint
Speaker 1: of having a drug problem, but I had no proof.
Speaker 1: There were no facts about that. Someone close to snay
Speaker 1: Hawk confirmed to me that she did use drugs heavily.
Speaker 1: Did you consider whether her disappearance and or death could
Speaker 1: have been caused by excessive drinking or drugs or related activity.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, it was considered just by you know,
Speaker 1: she liked to go out and have a good time,
Speaker 1: and she would drink, possibly all night long, and then
Speaker 1: come home. That's why all the checks were done on
Speaker 1: all the hospitals and the moors. Were you aware other
Speaker 1: than Cabrini her termination at Cabrini? Were you aware of
Speaker 1: any difficulties on her job at St. Vincent's? Yes, and
Speaker 1: could you tell me what those were? She was seeing
Speaker 1: a counselor, I believe, and she missed the session and
Speaker 1: they put her on I guess they would consider it
Speaker 1: modified on my job, it would be modified duty where
Speaker 1: she couldn't practice medicine until further notice, until she saw
Speaker 1: a counselor, I'm sorry, until she saw the counselor and
Speaker 1: straightened everything out. And do you know what her counseling
Speaker 1: was with regard to it was for alcohol and drugs.
Speaker 1: Were you aware of any romantic or actual relationships that
Speaker 1: Dr Philip had outside of her marriage that could have
Speaker 1: been a cause for disappearance or unexplained behavior? Not any
Speaker 1: one person. I was informed that she did have outside
Speaker 1: marriage sexually, but there was no name put to that.
Speaker 1: There was no regular romantic involvement, not with one person.
Speaker 1: There was no name ever brought up of a certain person.
Speaker 1: And did you have caused to investigate her in that regard, Yes,
Speaker 1: just by talking to a brother and talking to a husband.
Speaker 1: Ron is the one that informed me about it. And
Speaker 1: what was your understanding of how she meant possible partners? Well,
Speaker 1: it was from drinking, from being out in the bar.
Speaker 1: And did you consider the possibility that a person who
Speaker 1: she meant in such an encounter could have done her
Speaker 1: ill and caused her death. No, there's no one person.
Speaker 1: Detective Stark dismissed the idea of foul play, of kidnapping
Speaker 1: or murder of a random, crazed killer. Nine eleven was
Speaker 1: the likely answer, he said, but Judge Renee Roth did
Speaker 1: not necessarily agree. After examining the facts and all the
Speaker 1: testimony you just heard, she declined to expedite the issuance
Speaker 1: of a death certificate certifying that Sneha died on nine
Speaker 1: eleven at the trade center, noting that technically the case
Speaker 1: was still active and there was no physical evidence supporting
Speaker 1: the theory that Snea died during the attack, she wrote quote.
Speaker 1: The testimony indicated that the absentee and petitioner were having
Speaker 1: marital problems, and that she often stayed out all night
Speaker 1: with individuals not known to her husband, whom she met
Speaker 1: at various bars. The proof regarding other details of the
Speaker 1: absentees life and personal relationships was often fragmented and even contradictory.
Speaker 1: Detective Stark testified that in the course of his investigation,
Speaker 1: he discovered that, in addition to the marital discord, the
Speaker 1: absentee had alcohol and possibly drug abuse problems which appeared
Speaker 1: to have interfered with her job performance. And Moreover, the
Speaker 1: detective testified that at the time of her disappearance, the
Speaker 1: absentee had been suspended from practicing at her current hospital, St.
Speaker 1: Vincent's because she had failed to comply with the hospital's
Speaker 1: requirement that she attend substance abuse counseling. Petitioner conceded that
Speaker 1: Cabrini Hospital fired his wife, but he also claimed that
Speaker 1: the real reason was not the claimed alcoholism, but was
Speaker 1: instead racial and sexual bias against her by her co workers.
Speaker 1: His testimony regarding the absentees subsequent residency at St. Vincent's
Speaker 1: Hospital also diverged from the detectives in that Petitioner insisted
Speaker 1: everything was going well there. Moreover, he failed to inform
Speaker 1: the court about the counseling requirement, as well as the
Speaker 1: fact that the absentee had been suspended because of her
Speaker 1: non compliance, and there are additional disparities between the documentary
Speaker 1: evidence and testimony with respect to the interactions between the
Speaker 1: absentee and her husband that morning at court. According to
Speaker 1: the police report, petitioner told the police that he and
Speaker 1: the absentee had a quote big fight at the court
Speaker 1: house because he was upset the absentee was abusing drugs
Speaker 1: and alcohol and was conducting bisexual acts. The police report
Speaker 1: indicates that the absentee stormed out of the court house,
Speaker 1: leaving petitioner behind. On the other hand, at the hearing
Speaker 1: in this court, the petitioner's description of that morning's events
Speaker 1: was materially different from what he had told the police.
Speaker 1: He said nothing about any argument and instead described only
Speaker 1: harmonious interaction between himself and the absentee. Petitioner did, however,
Speaker 1: admit that he and the absentee were having problems because
Speaker 1: of her habit of staying away from home at night
Speaker 1: without letting him know her whereabouts. As to the night
Speaker 1: of September ten, He testified that he was not overly
Speaker 1: concerned when she did not return home because that had
Speaker 1: happened before and he expected her to come back in
Speaker 1: the morning. He also said he thought she might have
Speaker 1: been at her brother's house because she and her brother
Speaker 1: had had an argument and he thought that she may
Speaker 1: have gone there to try to patch things up. As
Speaker 1: it turned out, her brother testified that their last contact
Speaker 1: was about two and a half weeks before the absentee disappeared.
Speaker 1: It is noted that the police report indicates that the
Speaker 1: absentees brother told the police that he had argued with
Speaker 1: the sister because he had found her and his girlfriend
Speaker 1: in his apartment having sexual relations. The inconsistencies between what
Speaker 1: petitioner told the police during the investigation, on the one hand,
Speaker 1: and his testimony in this proceeding on the other hand,
Speaker 1: materially undermine his credibility. As a consequence, he has failed
Speaker 1: to develop a cohesive picture of the circumstances leading up
Speaker 1: to the absentee's disappearance. We now turn to the relief requested.
Speaker 1: The first question is whether there is clear and convincing
Speaker 1: evidence to establish the absentee's exposure to specific peril. This
Speaker 1: phrase specific peril is critical. Remember it specific peril, namely
Speaker 1: the terrorist attack on September eleven two one. It is
Speaker 1: observed that the record is devoid of anything to tie
Speaker 1: the absentee to the vicinity of the World Trade Center
Speaker 1: on September eleventh, two one, or to any other specific peril.
Speaker 1: Nor is there anything in the record to explain why
Speaker 1: this thirty one year old woman has not contacted her mother,
Speaker 1: with whom the record establishes she had a close, loving relationship.
Speaker 1: Although Detective Stark, in response to a question by petitioner's attorney,
Speaker 1: suggested that the absentee could have returned to the area
Speaker 1: of her apartment building and gone to help the victims
Speaker 1: of the attack, his rank speculation has absolutely no foundation
Speaker 1: in the record. We turn, for a moment to the
Speaker 1: video shot several minutes before the attack of a woman
Speaker 1: leaving the lobby of the building where the absentee lived.
Speaker 1: This video was not produced in court, although Detective Stark
Speaker 1: in his testimony said the woman was similar in height
Speaker 1: to the absentee and both had straight, dark hair, the
Speaker 1: absentees husban And and the private investigator he hired both
Speaker 1: testified that they could not identify the blurred and professionally
Speaker 1: enhanced image of the woman on the tape as the absentee.
Speaker 1: As mentioned earlier, the latest police report indicates that the
Speaker 1: case remains open, as do the questions about the absentee's
Speaker 1: actions after she left the department store with her purchases
Speaker 1: on the evening of September ten. The purchases themselves five
Speaker 1: dollars worth of bed Linen's lingerie and shoes have never surfaced.
Speaker 1: Although petitioner has not established that the absentee died as
Speaker 1: a result of a specific peril, the court is satisfied
Speaker 1: that sufficient proof has been submitted to establish that a
Speaker 1: diligent but unproductive search for her was conducted, and that
Speaker 1: death is the only logical explanation for her continued absence.
Speaker 1: Judge Roth wrote off the idea that saying, how I
Speaker 1: used nine eleven as cover to voluntarily disappear? Notwithstanding the
Speaker 1: turmoil in her life, there is no indication that the
Speaker 1: absentee was about to run away from her problems or
Speaker 1: to abandon her hard earned profession. Furthermore, Petitioner and the
Speaker 1: absentee's criminal attorney agreed that she was not particularly concerned
Speaker 1: about the outcome of the false complaint charge, but believed
Speaker 1: that at worst, she would be charged with a misdemeanor. Moreover,
Speaker 1: it appears that it would not have been overly difficult
Speaker 1: for her to rectify her problem with her current employer,
Speaker 1: and her family was adamant that she would never have
Speaker 1: just walked away from her hard earned career, Nor is
Speaker 1: there any basis to believe that she would voluntarily fail
Speaker 1: in all this time to contact her mother. If there
Speaker 1: was one aspect of the absentee's life about which there
Speaker 1: was consensus, it was that she was devoted to and
Speaker 1: extremely protective of her mother. They visited each other frequently
Speaker 1: and communicated either by phone or email almost daily. According
Speaker 1: to everyone who knew the absentee, she would never choose
Speaker 1: to cause her mother pain. In other words, if the
Speaker 1: absentee were live, she would have contacted her mother by now.
Speaker 1: Based on all the foregoing, the absentees death is fixed
Speaker 1: as having occurred on September two thousand four, three years
Speaker 1: after she disappeared. Next time on Missing on nine eleven,
Speaker 1: I get asked by by Vicktens families, do I think,
Speaker 1: as a scientist, are the remains buried at fresh kills?
Speaker 1: And my answer is yes, absolutely, no specific homework this week,
Speaker 1: but if you know anything, you can reach us by
Speaker 1: phone at one eight three three new Tips. That's one
Speaker 1: eight three three six three nine eight four seven seven
Speaker 1: again one eight three, three, six, three nine, eight, four
Speaker 1: seven seven, or you can reach us via email at
Speaker 1: tips at iHeart media dot com. That's Tips, t I
Speaker 1: p s at iHeart Media dot com. Ron Lieberman voice
Speaker 1: by Seth Nicholas Johnson, Ken go Ont voiced by Matt Frederick,
Speaker 1: Mark Bogutin voiced by Noel Brown. Ellen Winner voiced by
Speaker 1: Holly Fry. Deltigue voiced by Tracy V. Wilson, Judge Rena
Speaker 1: Roth voiced by Lauren Vogelbaum, John Phillip voiced by Taylor Chacogne,
Speaker 1: I'm stop Phillip voiced by Indraw Dota Gupta. Detective Richard
Speaker 1: Stark voiced by Ben Bolan and Mark Freiberg voiced by
Speaker 1: Chris Brown. Ben Bowen is our executive producer, Paul Decan
Speaker 1: is our supervising producer, Chris Brown is our assistant producer,
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson is our producer. Sam T. Garden is
Speaker 1: our research assistant, and I'm your host and executive producer
Speaker 1: John Walzach. Cover art by Pam Peacock. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Tamika Campbell at I Heart and to Christoph Zappriy and
Speaker 1: New Orleans. Archival audio from Unsolved Mysteries provided by Cosgrove
Speaker 1: Mirror Productions. Also thank you to the staff of the
Speaker 1: New York County Lawyers Association, the staff of the New
Speaker 1: York County Circuits Court, and ASoP Rock. Original theme music
Speaker 1: by ASoP Rock. Check out Asop's website at ASoP rock
Speaker 1: dot com. You can find me on Twitter at at
Speaker 1: John wallzac j O n w A l c z
Speaker 1: a K. If you like this show, check out our
Speaker 1: first season, Missing in Alaska, about the nineteen seventy two
Speaker 1: disappearance of two congressmen. Missing on nine eleven is a
Speaker 1: co production of I Heart Radio and Greenfork Media.