For some time, Frank Report has been investigating the disappearance of Kristin Snyder, who was ejected from a Nxivm class in Anchorage Alaska on February 6, 2003, allegedly driven home by a Nxivm member, and then never seen again.
She was ejected from class, sources have said, because she was claiming that Nxivm leader Keith Alan Raniere had gotten her pregnant. At the time, students were told that Raniere was a celibate.
The teachers and coaches of that particular intensive in Anchorage – even those who had sex with Raniere in the past – all maintained the fiction that Raniere was celibate – and that, therefore, Kristin was lying or nuts or seeking attention when she said she was pregnant with his child.
Kristin Snyder
Then they threw her out of class – bringing in a woman member of Nxivm [Elaine Smiloff] to drive her home.
Kristin was never heard from or seen again. But a day later her pickup truck – which somehow was moved from the parking lot outside the classroom at the Westmark Hotel – Kristin did not drive it home – was found some two and a half hours’ drive away – in Seward Alaska, with a purported suicide note which ended with “no need to search for my body”.
There are many suspicious aspects of this disappearance that should have been investigated at the time, but police were quickly led to believe, thanks to the intensive course leaders – Ed Kinum and Esther Chiappone Carlson – that Kristin Snyder had a psychotic breakdown in class and that the suicide note showed her instability. They also added that Kristin left the class on her own volition, not bothering to mention that she was upset by the fact that the leader of Nxivm had gotten her pregnant.
Unfortunately, Kristin’s spouse, Heidi Clifford, who was also in the class, dared not contradict Nxivm leaders and did not give police full disclosure. She failed to tell them that Kristin claimed to be pregnant with Raniere’s child and, consequently, police had little to go on that would tend to lead them to an investigation into anything other than suicide.
Heidi admitted she could have told them more but was worried that she might become a suspect in Kristin’s murder.
Kristin’s sister, Kim Snyder, recently called for law enforcement to interrogate the eight women and one man who might know more about what really happened to her sister. [See Kim Snyder Calls on Law Enforcement to Interrogate Chiappone, Cowell, Abney, Salzman, Russell, Smiloff, Keeffe, Irek and Kinum – at Once!]
Now, in response to that article, in our comments section, we hear from someone who claims to know something about Ed Kinum, the man actually led the training in Anchorage, assisted by Esther Chiappone Carlson.
Esther Chiappone Carlson is a long-time High-Rank member of Executive Success Programs. She holds the green sash and is reportedly still trying to recruit people into Nxivm.
The following is what our unknown and unnamed source has to say about Ed Kinum, who was one of the last to see Kristin Snyder alive.
‘Old Acquaintance” writes:
Ed Kinum told me years ago he knew nothing about what happened to Kristin. He was not trusted by Keith and the inner circle to know the truth because he is a Christian. He holds firm to his values. He was let go as a trainer even though he is an awesome speaker because the NXIVM tech he was teaching didn’t work for his issues and weight problem, and Lauren Salzman needed a job after college. He has been interviewed by the FBI already according to his family. He is a great Chiropractor but totally drank the cool-aid. He started to see the light when his NXIVM 9 friends left the cult, but has been quiet to protect himself from their legal machine. If he knows anything, it’s because he dated Esther for several years, or you could say she used him for several years to drive her kids, get free Chiropractic care, and be her all-around-gopher. He was too kind to admit it. I doubt she gave away her secrets. The inner-circle all used him but cut him out of the truth.
***
This is an interesting theory. That the women may know something but they deliberately withheld it from Ed because he was a Christian and virtuous. Keith did not trust him.
Per this theory, Ed has remained silent for 17 years – because he is afraid of the Nxivm legal terrorism machine, funded by Clare and Sara Bronfman.
It may be true. One thing I will say in Ed’s defense is that, according to Heidi Clifford’s and others’ recollection, Ed was at least willing to consider letting Kristin go to the hospital because of her distressingly erratic behavior. It was Esther that put her foot down and insisted that Kristin should not be allowed to go to the hospital and instead be removed from class and taken home.
Did Kristin Snyder really steal a kayak and deliberately drown herself in Resurrection Bay?
Ed acquiesced, which confirms to a degree what the commenter above said – that Ed was a wimp when it came to Esther.
Esther, at the time, was a young and beautiful blonde and Ed was kind of pudgy and lacking in manliness. [He was like all the males that were Nxivm members – a beta male.] And evidently he was quite henpecked or “pussy-whipped” by Esther.
And Esther was taking her orders from Nancy Salzman who, in turn, took orders from Keith Raniere.
Maybe Ed was their useful idiot. It’s hard to say.
If Ed has really been interviewed by the FBI, that may be a good thing. Maybe he told them the truth. And maybe they are on the case now.
I hope so.
What is not known – and I tend to doubt it – is whether the FBI has spoken with Esther Chiappone. I’m pretty sure she would refuse to talk to them. And the FBI can’t force her to sit down with them and interview.
She can, of course, be subpoenaed before a grand jury. Even then, she can refuse to testify on constitutional grounds and likely would do just that as she remains one of the staunchest and truest believers in her master Keith Raniere.
She may also have participated in such crimes as would put her and him away for life.
So let’s put it out there – among our various theories about Kristin Snyder – that if the official story is not true – if she did not commit suicide by somehow getting her pickup truck and driving to Seward and drowning herself deliberately in the cold waters of Resurrection Bay [after stealing a kayak] – that possibly Ed Kinum, though the “leader” of the class from which Kristin disappeared – may have had nothing to do with her disappearance – other than neglect and lack of insight as to what was really going on with both Kristin and the other women of Nxivm assigned to manager her.
We recall that Ed tried to give Kristin Snyder an Exploration of Meaning Nxivm therapy session when Kristin was lying face down on the floor. Ed actually lied down on the floor with her, face down and, in that odd posture, gave Kristin her EM – for more than an hour.
And again, when Esther and Ed went to Heidi and Kristin’s home a few days before she disappeared, and they were in the hot tub together, it was Ed who tried to explain “being at cause” to Kristin, who then thought she was responsible for grave and tragic things that were happening in the world that were, in reality, far beyond her control.
Ed tried to explain that the Nxivm term “being at cause” was limited in scope, limited by what people are normally understood to be able to do and be at fault for doing. His teachings then, which most would agree are true, contradicted what Raniere often taught, that people by their bad thinking can cause catastrophes or markets to crash.
Raniere blamed Nancy Salzman for 9-11. And Barbara Bouchey for tumbles in the world’s commodities markets for example.
And Raniere might have persuaded Kristin Snyder that she was “at cause” for things she certainly was not at cause for – and all of it might have been tied to their managing her quite possibly true claim that she was pregnant with Keith’s child.
It was Ed who told Kristin that she was not to blame, for instance, for the Columbia Space Shuttle’s implosion. And that might have contradicted Keith’s message to her – possibly through Nancy Salzman or Esther Chiappone that she was responsible. {And how could she rectify it?]
Maybe Ed is a good guy, just a little weak in the knees. Or maybe he was part of it all. Or part of some of it.
We have a theory now that he was just a useful idiot. Let’s keep digging.
Stay tuned.
