Heidi Clifford told Frank Report recently that when Kristin Snyder claimed she was pregnant with Keith Raniere’s child, she did not believe her.
She was not jealous, not angry. There was no domestic quarrel over this.
She was simply worried about Kristin. But she did not believe for a moment that Kristin had an affair with Keith Raniere.
She had good reason. At the same time Kristin claimed she was pregnant with the Vanguard, she was also claiming she was “at cause” for the implosion of the Space Shuttle Columbia.
Heidi knew the Space Shuttle Columbia story was utterly false and impossible and assumed the seemingly improbable story of Kristin getting pregnant from a highly regarded teacher – Raniere – who the classmates offered tribute to daily as Vanguard, a genius who was said to be highly ethical and in fact a celibate – was also fiction, the product of Kristin’s recent descent into psychosis.
“I didn’t believe her,” Heidi said. “Back then, Esther and others were saying, ‘See, it was like she is trying to turn into the Holy One. She wants to be the female version of this incredibly smart teacher.”
It is funny, coming from Esther who knew Keith was quite capable of having sex with his female students – for he had sex with her.
But Esther was persuasive. She led the charge that Kristin was just seeking attention, trying to get people to believe she was like Keith, instead of admitting the possibility that Keith could have gotten her pregnant as he had done with other women who he ordered to have abortions.
Heidi said she believed at the time that Kristin was “so psychotic at that last layer to where she was emulating Raniere, a female version. That was what we thought at the time.”
Things are different now. A lot has been revealed about Raniere lately. Heidi said she would have taken Kristin seriously if she knew then what she knows now.
“At the time ESP was a just class downtown [Anchorage] that was no one much about. No, there was no bad history, no literature, no bad media reports. [when Kristin said she was pregnant in class it was] ‘Oh, let’s just move on.” It’s a whole different story now. Now we know people died. People were poisoned. These things did not come out until later. That she was raped by some guy? Who knew it was real? We know it’s real. Now we know.”
Back in February 2003, when Kristin disappeared, Raniere and ESP had not gotten negative press. The Forbes article and the early Albany Times Union articles did not come out until later in 2003.
Heidi also explained why she had Kristin declared dead fairly quickly after she disappeared.
“I think it is the closure thing, like ‘Okay, can’t find her; she’s gone.’ If she was declared dead and she turned up alive, it could be reversed,” Heidi said. “If she came back, we would go to the judge and say ‘She’s alive’. It’s not like [declaring her dead] changes the truth, but having it be like just done. We could have waited 20 years. Some people wait years. But it’s sad just kind of waiting. Of course, I’m always hoping, waiting for her to show up. If she came back, it would be great.
“I have sadness for the rest of my life. But I’m not a big slow pokey hanging around. You know, it’s not my style. It’s matter of fact. I’m a human being. And you know, the judges are like, ‘Well, what do you have?’ There was no other explanation for her disappearance. So the explanation is that she’s gone. And yes, it’s odd that we couldn’t find any evidence [of her body] but we didn’t know at the time that 16 out of 16 people had been found [in the waters of Resurrection Bay, a 100 percent body recovery rate] by the harbormaster. That wasn’t something that was like really the conversation at the time.
“She was in decline. She took a car and drove somewhere. There’s no like sociopathic aspect to that then. Keith was not weird to anybody’s eyes yet. He wasn’t weird until 2017. I mean, think of all the people who got fucked over for the last 20 years. All those people had no idea that they were [being fucked over at the time].”
As for not mentioning to police that Kristin claimed she was pregnant, Heidi said she did not tell police because she did not want to become a suspect based on what she thought then was the ravings of her mentally ill and suicidal partner.
“I don’t remember if I minimized the Nxivm aspect of this. I just went forward into the police department as a suicide, like we all at that time believe, because of what happened,” she said.
Heidi now thinks it possible that Kristin was drugged. She did not suspect it at the time and also believes it is possible Keith had a hand in killing Kristin.
“I don’t think they gave her a drug that induced her psychosis but maybe they drugged her to make her submissive when they got her alone,” Heidi said.
Asked why she sold Kristin’s truck to pay off the remaining ESP bill, especially after Kristin was kicked out of class and her suicide note indicated the ESP course was responsible for her suicide, Heidi answered. “Esther Chiappione said, ‘You must pay this bill.’ This is after Kristin was gone. This is Friday. This is Saturday. This is a couple days later, but my friend Hillary called up Esther Chiappone when she was back again in Albany and Esther said “Hey, you know this bill. This is your bill!’
“Kris had integrity. Kris had no bills. Her entire estate was the truck. I did not inherit anything from Kristin. All I got was a truck. I sold it and paid off the rest of Kris’ debt to ESP. Damn straight Esther was threatening me to pay that bill. There’s no question. Esther was certain I had to pay that bill. This is after Kristin was gone only for several days. I never thought about keeping the money. It was like eight or nine or $10,000. I just wanted to kind of clean up these things for Kristin because she would have wanted it this way, I think, and also to get ESP out of my life.”
Of course, that was not to happen. ESP lingered for years, is lingering still in Heidi’s life and many others.
For years, Heidi believes she was the subject of surveillance, harassment and intimidation and now she’s speaking out.
Stay tuned for more in this subject.
I interviewed Heidi Clifford at her home in Anchorage Alaska for the Investigation Discovery film, “The Lost Women of Nxivm.”
