3. 9/12

Sneha's family and the NYPD hunt for clues.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Imagine your Ron Lieberman. You went to work on nine eleven,
terrorists slammed jetliners into two skyscrapers only nine feet from
your apartment. You don't know where your wife says stayed
last night, she never came home, and you can't leave
the hospital where you work. You're an emergency doctor, and man,

(00:23):
you think there's gonna be a massive surge of severely
injured patients. There's misinformation and more planes and crashes and
chaos and panic. Later, you hop in an ambulance, get
as close as you can to your apartment, hop out
and walk past smoldering ruins. And now it's like nine
or ten PM and you're standing in front of your

(00:45):
chained up building, flashing a light to the only residents
still there, asking them to see if your wife is home.
She isn't. But you can't just sleep. You feel sick, bubbling, anxiety, exhaustion,
irvis energy, tired but wired. So you go to a
high school near the World Trade Center, a staging area,

(01:07):
and volunteer. Finally, around two AM you leave. You walk
to a friend's place in the West Village. You crashed
on their couch, fit full feverish sleep for my Heart Media.
This is Missing on nine eleven, The story of one

(01:30):
woman who vanished on the eve of history and my
quest to find her. I'm your host, John Wallzac. On

(02:04):
September twelve, two th one, Weary and in shock, Ron
uses a volunteer badge to once again slip past security
barricades into the restricted zone. A post apocalyptic dust escape
nine eleven reduced the World Trade Center to two million
tons of debris, the pile, they call it, and later
ground zero. Accompanied by friends, Ron makes his way to

(02:27):
to Rector Place in Battery Park City, where he and
Snaha live. Sammy Fliciano, a doorman, is already there along
with two other building employees, going door to door checking
each unit. Well, were checking the apartments. One of the
one of the pieces of the of the airplane. One
of the pieces was inside one of the apartments. I
remember that. Wow, Yeah, I remember when I went to

(02:51):
one of the apartments and there was a piece of
an airplane inside the one of the apartments, the small
new piece. It's true, part of one of the planes
that hit the Twin towers, flew nine feet south and
crashed into an apartment at Rector. The FBI stops by
to take custody of it. When Ron gets to the building,

(03:11):
the power is off, so he takes the stairs and
enters his apartment. Here's what he told in two thousand one.
Everything looked untouched and there was just this gray layer
of of soot everywhere through the apartment because one of
the windows was open. I was really looking very hard
to see if I could see any trace of her,
and there was nothing. Nothing human. But Ron does see

(03:34):
prints in the dust, cat prints. He and have two cats,
Figa and Collie. Figa is a vulgar Italian word for
forgive me here pussy. Collie with a K is the
Hindu goddess of death and destruction, the black mother goddess
who inhabits the cremation ground. She's associated with sexuality and violence,

(03:55):
but also maternal love. Viga and Collie left little Prince
all over apartment in the nine eleven dust. Using a
digital camera, Ron starts taking pictures. I haven't been able
to view the images, but I'd love to. He also
grabs some stuff, including two phone books packed with numbers.
Then he leaves. When he started making calls, I called

(04:16):
every single person in her phone book, and no one
had heard from her. Next up flyers designed by Say
has older brother Ashwyn. They quickly go up all over
the city, thousands of images of black and white and
in color too. She's everywhere and nowhere quote missing since

(04:37):
before the World Trade Center attack. Last seen five pm
Monday one. Dr sna and Philip M. D black hair,
brown eyes, five six and fifteen pounds olive skin, Indian,
thirty one years old, physician at St. Vincent's Hospital, Staten Island.

(04:58):
Last known to be at Century any one across from
w TC Monday, eighteen pm, while leaving with multiple large
shopping bags, wearing a brown knee length short sleeve shirt
dress and sandals. End quote and at the bottom Ron
and Ashwin's phone numbers, an email, and a website Ashwin created.

(05:18):
If you want, you can view an archive version of
the site via the Internet Archives way Back Machine. Go
to archive dot org, then search for a Magical Lab
dot com slash snay ha I M A G I
L A b dot com slash snay. For the families
and friends of World Trade Center victims, posting flyers around

(05:42):
the city is therapeutic, but ultimately, for the most part,
not useful. The flyers are portraits of humanity, of grief,
of love, but their investigative utility is minimal. They can't
bring back victims who were, say, trapped above the point
of impact high end the towers, unable to escape. But
the flyer of snay Huh is different because there's no

(06:05):
evidence snayhow was actually in the towers. Maybe she's just
lost or in a hospital or a shelter. I think
she's alive. I think she's somewhere and I just can't
find her yet. I want you to feel this immediacy.
Your wife is missing. Time is running out, so you

(06:26):
pacete flyers, and when you run out of energy, you
paste more with a sense of purpose. Flyers are just
the start, though. Snay House family also goes on a
media blitz, or to be more accurate, they try to
get media attention. Initially they fail. Thousands are missing. There
are too many stories to tell and too few reporters

(06:47):
to tell them. So on the evening of nine and
an act of desperation, snay house younger brother, John approaches
a reporter with w ABC and says this but on
the phone with her and she and she told me
that she was She couldn't leave because there was there
are people who are hurt. I told her, come on,
you know, just just leave the building, and and she said, no,

(07:08):
I have to help this person over here. Is lest
its last thing I heard from her. None of it
is true. It's all a lie. John made it up.
He did not speak to snay Haa on nine eleven. Weird, right,
This guy just calmly, casually and convincingly lies saying he
spoke to snay Haa on nine eleven that she called

(07:29):
him when she ran into the burning towers to save people.
But when you think about it, is it really that weird?
If your wife or daughter or sister disappeared, if you
felt a sense of urgency, if you felt like no
one was paying attention, what would you do. It isn't
just John's lie that grabs reporters, though The Flyer works too.

(07:52):
Remember Hugo Kogia, the man in episode one who knew
snayha in Seattle in the nineties whose ex girlfriend was
snay has roommate well. By two thousand one, Hugo is
living in New York working as a reporter for Newsday,
and by chance he sees the Flyer. She looked pretty
much the same I guess she did pretty much the same.
And then I saw her name and say, huh, I

(08:16):
mean that's a pretty unique name, snay Huff Phillip. And
I want to say. It took five to ten seconds
and then I put it together. Wait a minute, this,
I think this has to be her. I mean, it
looks like her. I think it looks like it looks
like what I remember. It looks like the person I remember.
And I'm almost positive that was her name. But right

(08:37):
it didn't add up that she was in New York,
because this is someone a new from Seattle. Um, so
that also seemed unlikely. You know, I'm going to say
that it was really out. Not until I spoke to
her husband that I think I right. So even even
at that point, I thought I'd pretty sure this is her,

(08:59):
But until I spooked her husband, I didn't know for sure.
Hugo's article, prompted by the fire Ron's on September two,
one headline lost in attacks wake family fears for city
woman missing since September by all signs, snay Ha Philip

(09:20):
is one of dozens, hundreds thousands of people who go
missing every day of every year for any number of
reasons she is different because she went missing in Lower
Manhattan the night before one of the biggest events in
American history. While the following buildings might not have killed her,
they essentially erased her. Here's what Ron said. I know

(09:41):
we live in a random universe, but is it really
that random? Is what happened to her and what happened
on September eleven unlucky timing or is it connected? The
police keep trying to lump her in with the missing
people from the World Trade Center. I don't know if
it's because they don't believe me, or they just don't
want to deal with anything else. We're using valuable time.
If she's somewhere, we can save her. The family has

(10:05):
filed two reports with the FBI, a missing person's report
with detectives at the First Precinct and with authorities investigating
the World Trade Center disaster. They've hired a private investigator,
checked hospitals and shelters, posted flyers all over Lower Manhattan,
and phoned every person in snay Haw Phillips addressed book.
They've even consulted with a psychic who told Lieberman his

(10:28):
wife is somewhere safe, unharmed, but unable to speak initially,
snay House family does not think she was at the
World Trade Center on nine eleven. Denial maybe, but logic too.
Here's what Ron told Rachel Shier, a reporter with the
New York Daily News. The only link to the World

(10:48):
Trade Center is that we live in Battery Park City.
We never go there. She had no business being there.
Shire's article runs on September headline She's law in a
sea of missing Battery Park City doc vanished the day
before attack. When you contacted me and said that you
were interested in a story that I wrote, I instantly

(11:09):
guessed that it was that it was that one, because
out of all the stories I wrote for the Daily News,
um that that is honestly the one I remember the most.
Shire started working for the Daily News eleven she was
in Brooklyn, unable to make it into Manhattan. I was
a New York reporter, and and like our our instinct

(11:30):
was to go and try and and and get close
to the place to do our jobs. And there was
a sense of of like excitement, because you know, that's
what we're sort of trained to feel when when a
big story happens. Um strangely enough, I mean, also was
this horrific thing that was sort of beyond anybody's comprehension.

(11:51):
And I mean, now we all look back on it,
you know, we all know what happened, but you know,
in the moment, of course, we we didn't anticipate. It
was just impossible to imagine that that the World Trade
Center was going to collapse after the attacks, one of
her editors assigned her a story on the family believed

(12:12):
that if the media, you know, covered the story that
at that point, it was still days after she had disappeared,
and so I think that they had a belief that
the more coverage there was of her story, the more
chance they had of finding her. Tell me what you
remember about reporting it, what you remember about it? Well,

(12:34):
I remember I remember talking to her husband, Ron. I
can't remember now exactly what he remember him being very distraught. Um,
you know, and really again, I mean, I think that
my story, I think was one of the earlier ones
that was written about her case. It was just days

(12:56):
after nine eleven, or a week or two afterwards. So
you know, they still had a lot of hope that
that maybe they would locate her or at least find
out what had happened to her, and Um, I remember
him being very you know, very distraught and really kind
of at his wits end about what had happened to her,

(13:19):
And he was very focused on the idea that somehow
what had happened to her, if I'm remembering this correctly,
had had somehow connected to nine eleven. He had this
idea that maybe the day before she had been at
you know, in the wrong place, you know, or or

(13:41):
in proximity to the wrong people, like you sort of
theorized that maybe there were you know, there were terrorists
who were lurking around the day before nine eleven, you know,
and she had sort of been in the wrong place
at the wrong time or something. I mean, I don't
that was I don't think based on any actual evidence

(14:02):
or or or reality. But of course these were early days,
like we knew much less about the whole event of
nine eleven than we do now. Um so, I mean,
and also it was just a time. I think it
was a very strange moment in New York, especially where

(14:22):
you know, the world had turned upside down and there
was this kind of general sense that we had entered
this this kind of apocalyptic reality where anything was possible.
Snay House story also appears on multiple TV programs, including
Extra and where her mom Onto makes an emotional plea

(14:42):
for help. I have the feeling that she is alive
and that we are not getting enough how to go
to find her, and that's the hardest block. Snay House
family is skeptical of the ny p D. They take
matters into their own hands and hire a private investigator,

(15:05):
and when he fails to turn up leads, they hire
another investigator, a retired FBI agent named Ken Gollant, who
declined to speak with me. All the while, they pushed
the NYPD hard. They don't want SNA preemptively written off
as quote, just another nine eleven victim. They need people
to understand. They need the cops to understand that something

(15:27):
could have happened to say, before nine eleven she disappeared
on she could still be alive. The first big clue

(16:00):
arrives via credit card records say used Ron's Amex to
make two purchases at Century twenty one on the evening
of six oh five pm bed linens and lingerie, three
pairs of shoes. Ron calls Century twenty one and they
allow him to view their security footage and for about
two weeks. I set and watched this tape for about

(16:22):
five hours a day, you know, frame by frame. It's
one of those stop action photos. What I actually found
my wife on the tape shopping alone. There she is,
in slow motion, browsing through coats. The time stamp says
sixteen fifty seven military time for four fifty seven PM.
That's a problem. There's a discrepancy because, according to the

(16:45):
nyp DNA left her apartment between five fifteen and five
thirty thirty minutes after she was caught on tape in
century one impossible. So something's off, either the camera's clock
or the end I p d S timeline. Anyway, PM,
three pairs of shoes, then nothing. Here is snay Haus

(17:08):
cousin au in two thousand two Unsolved Mysteries. She leaves
the store and then she just disappears. There is not
a trace of her nothing, not a credit card transaction,
no money taken out of her account, no emails, no
phone calls. Nothing. How does that happen? It's it's a
complete mystery. As snay House family frantically searches for clues,

(17:35):
a critical witness comes forward. Her name is Sonya Mora.
She's a shoe saleswoman at Century She claims to remember
ringing up Snayha and something else. She says Snaha was
with someone another woman except what she is that true?
This is a critical clue. But the mystery woman does

(17:58):
not show up with sna on Century twenty one security footage,
and Sonya, the saleswoman, well, her story either changed multiple
times or it's been misreported by the NYPD, snay House
family and the media. Because I've seen multiple versions of
it and they can't all be true. We reached out
to Sonya, but once we identified ourselves as journalists, she

(18:20):
stopped responding and she changed her voicemail greeting to remove
her name for now. Then, unfortunately, we have to rely
on second hand accounts of what Sonya claimed to have
seen on the evening of nine. In one version, Sonya
said snay House with another woman, an Indian woman, who
she described as a friend. The two women allegedly told

(18:41):
Sonya that after buying shoes, they might go quote to
the lingerie area, presumably inside Century twenty one. In another version,
according to Sonya, snay might have been with another woman.
Maybe these are obviously very different accounts. In one is
clearly with another woman. She speaks to Sonya directly and

(19:04):
says she and the mystery woman might go to the
lingerie area in the other Sonya isn't even sure if
the two women are together. And then there's this. Remember
earlier when I gave you the website snay How's older
brother Ashwyn created imagical lab dot com slash snay Haa. Well,
via an archive version of that site, I found something that,

(19:25):
to my knowledge, has never been reported in any account
of snay house disappearance. According to the site, quote, Ron
spoke to the saleswoman who assisted snay Haa at century one.
She said Snayha was in good spirits and with another
Indian maybe woman around thirty five to a hundred and
twenty pounds with short black hair, and that they were

(19:47):
headed to Victoria's Secret and Jones of New York. End quote.
This is the very first concrete clue I've ever seen
indicating where sna may have gone on after century twenty one.
For some reason, though her family never mentioned it publicly,
not in interviews, and later not in court, it exists

(20:08):
only on one archive page of a site created right
after nine eleven by say As brother Ashwin is it true,
which account of the last known sighting of sna is accurate?
What was she alone clearly with another woman, maybe with
another woman going to the lingerie area or specifically to

(20:28):
Victoria's Secret and Jones New York. Unfortunately I don't know.
Ashwyn says older brother did not respond to interview requests.
So what about the version in which Snay and the
mystery woman said that after century one they were going
to Victoria's Secret and Jones New York, a clothing store.

(20:49):
If accurate, this is a critical clue, the only clue
so far about where may have gone on after century So,
even though I think this is a long shot, I
tried to find all Victoria's Secret and Jones New York
locations in Manhattan in two thousand one to see if
there were any neighborhoods or malls that had both stores

(21:11):
to see where Snahob might have gone. First, I contacted
Authentic Brands Group, which owns Jones New York, and L Brands,
which owns Victoria's Secret. Authentic Brands didn't respond to us
at all. L Brands told me that they looked into
it and quote, do not have the information you are
requesting a list of their Manhattan's stores in two thousand one.

(21:32):
So we dug into old phone books. A quick shout
out here to the New York Public Library, which searched
through a two thousand one phone book for US and
sent us scanned images. We found eight Victoria's Secret locations
in Manhattan, but only one Jones New York store. Interestingly enough,
one of the Victoria's Secret stores was in the mall
underneath the World Trade Center. Do you hear it mentioned

(21:55):
in this emergency dispatch from nine eleven a minute ago?
And I was set up the building buildings now building now,
I was treatment build all this day. I got it
on the floor of that. It makes sense that on

(22:20):
Snayhop may have gone to this Victoria's Secret in the
mall under the Trade Center. It would have been on
the way back to her apartment, but she would have
had only forty minutes to get there and shop. She
left Century one around seven eighteen pm, and the Victoria's
Secret at the Trade Center closed at eight pm. Also,
there was no Jones New York store in the Trade

(22:41):
Center mall. In fact, the only Jones New York store
in Manhattan in two thousand one that we could find
was located at one nineteen West Street in Midtown. The
nearest Victoria's Secret to that was at four Seventh Avenue,
a five minute walk. So if the account in which
Hot and the mystery Woman said they were going to

(23:02):
Victoria's Secret and Jones, New York is true, and that's
a big if, then maybe they went to Midtown. Anyway,
what about the mystery woman? Did Snayhouse stay with her
the night of did she even exist? Here's snay House
cousin on you on Unsolved Mysteries. We have no idea
who this person is and that she never existed in

(23:24):
Snail's past. We've gone through her phone books, We've gone
through email. There's no like phone call even made to
this person during that day. She doesn't exist anywhere else.
I mean, it could be very possible Snail run into her.
It could be an old time friend. But if the
woman was an old time friend, why would she stay

(23:44):
in the shadows. She never came forward, not to snay
House family, not to the cops, not to the press.

(24:15):
As Snayhouse family forced forward with an independent investigation, the
NYPD was on the case too. The lead investigator's name
was Detective Richard Stark. I tried really hard to find Stark.
Unfortunately his name is more common than you'd think. Good evening, Hey, Richard,

(24:35):
this is John Waltzock. How are you alright? So? How
are you good? So? I don't know if I have
the right person. I'm looking for a detective Richard Stark
or Starks, who investigated, uh, the Snayhoff Phillip case and
the fall of two thousand one. Would that be you? No? No,
that that that is not me. This was Richard A. Starks,

(24:59):
who also worked for the NYPD. Coincidentally, on nine eleven,
Richard A. Starks saw United flight hit the South Tower
and later he worked at ground zero looking for bodies.
But wrong guy. Then there's Richard Stark, an eight year
old nine eleven survivor who escaped from the Marriott World

(25:20):
Trade Center, the hotel between the twin Towers. Nope, Plus
a Richard Stark in Arizona who runs the NYPD the
New York Pizza Department. But as hard as I tried,
I could not find the Richard Stark, the one who
investigated this case. He's never spoken publicly about it. He's

(25:41):
never given an interview until now. Um and a Richard Stark, Um,
I live in Manhattan, Oh, the police office from five
next time on missing on nine eleven? Were you able
visually to make an identification of that woman as her?

(26:01):
How much how certain were you? How much doubt did you? Not?
A facial? No? No, not a positive idea? This week
A little vignette. It doesn't fit neatly into the narrative,
but I want to include it anyway. Shortly after nine eleven,
Patrick Tracy, an Irish doctor and world renowned aesthetic medicine specialist,

(26:25):
visited New York. While wandering the streets, he saw one
of the ubiquitous missing Snayhuff flyers. He took it with
him back to Ireland, a nine eleven memento, a piece
of history. Later, he framed it alongside an article he
wrote for the Irish Medical Times and hung it in
a library in his Dublin clinic. Well around June two

(26:46):
thousand and six. Guests who visited the clinic and saw
the poster Michael Jackson. Tracy writes in his book Behind
the Mask about Jackson quote, his attention was drawn to
a picture high on the for part of my wall,
which he studied intensely. It was an image of a
young doctor sna and Philip, who had gone missing during

(27:08):
the World Trade Center terrorist attack. I watched as Michael
stood up, took the picture from the wall and studied it.
His facial expression totally changed and his eyes grew sad
as he focused on the picture of the missing intern
set against the twisted wreckage of the buildings. That the
singer was a deeply empathetic person was now beyond doubt

(27:30):
in my mind. That's so very sad, he said in
a mournful voice. Recently I spoke to Dr Tracy via Skype.
Jackson was already upset at Tracy's clinic. He had just
shown him his videlago and burned scars. Then he saw
the flyer of snay Ha. So do you think that
this poster when he saw, in addition to discussing vid

(27:52):
al Ago, you think that's kind of what triggered that
moment for him. I think he wanted to cry, probably anyway,
and he had left the room and just GiB a
sort of a focus. But he didn't do anything more
than we presides and talked, you know, sort of in
an emotional sense. So there you have it. Snay House
family and friends were so successful in spreading the missing

(28:15):
flyer that years later even Michael Jackson saw it in
Ireland homework this week. One? Did you or do you
work for Authentic Brands Group which owns Jones New York
or L Brands, which owns Victoria's Secret. Do you have
a list of their two thousand one Manhattan store locations?

(28:36):
Do you know if either company saved security footage from
or nine eleven? Did you work for Victoria's Secret or
Jones New York in Manhattan in two thousand one? Two?
I don't know the name of the first private investigator
that Snayhouse family hired. Do you Three? Do you have
a copy of the report prepared by the second private investigator?

(28:58):
Can go on? If so? Contact us if you want,
we will protect your identity. You can reach us by
phone at one eight three three New Tips that's one
eight three three six three nine, eight four seven seven
again one eight three three six three nine eight four

(29:19):
seven seven, or you can reach us via email at
tips at iHeart media dot com. That's tips t I
p s at I heeart Media dot com. Ben Bowen
is our executive producer. Paul Decan is our supervising producer.
Chris Brown is our assistant producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson is
our producer. Sam T. Garden is our research assistant, and

(29:41):
I'm Your host and executive producer John Wallzach. Cover art
by Pam Peacock, Newsday article voiced by Paul Deckan Ron
Lieberman voiced by Seth Nicholas Johnson. Special thanks to Tamika
Campbell at I Heart and to Christophe Zappery in New Orleans.
Also thank you to Hugo Kogia, Rachel Shyer, Sammy Fli, Siano,
Richard A. Starks, Dr Patrick Tracy, Detective Richard Stark, the

(30:05):
New York Public Library, and asp Rock. Original theme music
by ASoP Rock. Check out a soops website at ASoP
rock dot com. Archival audio from Unsolved Mysteries provided by
Cosgrove Mirror Productions. Audio from twenty provided by ABC News.
You can find me on Twitter at at John wallzac
j O n W A L c z A K.

(30:28):
If you like this show, check out our first season,
Missing in Alaska, about the nineteen seventy two disappearance of
two congressmen. Missing on nine eleven is a co production
of iHeart media and Greenfork media