Kim Snyder, the sister of Kristin Snyder, has been pushing hard to find out what really happened to her sister.
Kristin was ejected from a Nxivm class in Anchorage, Alaska, on Feb. 6, 2003, almost 17 years ago, after making the extraordinary claim that she was pregnant with Nxivm leader Keith Raniere’s child.
She was never seen again.
At the time, all of his followers [except the dozen or so women he was having sex with] believed he was a celibate, when in reality he was a crazed sex addict and a psychopath.
Thanks to Kim’s help, and the help of Susan Dones, I have been able to ascertain that Kristin Snyder was in Albany from on or about January 18 to on or about January 25, 2003.
Within 12 days from the time she left Albany, she would disappear forever.
Susan Dones met with Kristin when she first came to Albany which would have been on or about Jan. 18. It is important to note that Susan saw a cheerful and friendly Kristin Snyder. She had met her at their last intensive the previous November and got to know her well.
Susan said Kristin was bright, cheerful and stable. Like Susan, Kristin is a lesbian. So in a sense they bonded and understood each other perhaps a little better than others in the Nxivm classes.
When Susan saw her in Albany, she was surprised to see Kristin there but definitely noted there was nothing evidently wrong with her. She had just come from a visit to her parents and sister in Dillon and came to Albany, she said, to see the headquarters of Nxivm – which was then known as Executive Success Programs.
Kristin called the headquarters in Albany, “the mother ship.”
She had not yet met Keith Alan Raniere, the leader of Nxivm, it would seem, having just got into Albany that day. Susan left Albany the same day Kristin arrived. They would never meet again.
What happened during the next few days is not definitely known. What is known is that Kristin, instead of renting a hotel room, chose to rent a room in the house of Esther Carlson Chiappione in Clifton Park.
Esther was from Alaska, and had moved with her four children to Albany to have a relationship, she thought, with Keith Raniere. She thought Keith was going to be her boyfriend.
He lied to her. And after she left her husband and relocated to Albany to become a full time Nxivm recruiter and teacher, she found out that Raniere was anything but monogamous. To her credit, Esther refused to join his harem but she did tell Susan Dones that she had sex with Raniere and she was very unhappy about his lying to her.
But evidently Esther finally saw it Keith’s way. Esther began lying for Keith too.
And while Kristin was in Albany that fateful week in January, 2003, Esther hosted Kristin.
We also know that Kristin attended some classes called Ethos, which are rather like introductory ESP classes.
We know that somehow shortly after Kristin got there, she disappeared during the days – and people began to wonder where she took off to all day. A number of people wondered.
There are those who believe, including her sister, Kim, that Kristin went to be privately mentored by Keith Raniere, who would have heard about her being lesbian, about her being slender, and attractive, and possibly planned to have sex with her.
If Keith Raniere wanted to meet Kristin Snyder when she was in Albany, you can rest assured that Nancy Salzman, Karen Abney and Esther Chiappione Carlson would have arranged it.
What did Keith do to her that would later prompt Kristin to claim she was pregnant with his child?
We know that Clare Bronfman, years later, told a source of mine that Keith did get Kristin pregnant. But at the time, Clare and her sister Sara were just getting indoctrinated into the cult and thought Keith was a celibate.
Kim Snyder has provided so much meaningful insight into her sister that it is hard to ignore her thoughts about her sister. Kim said she was fine, though perhaps a little too exuberant about Nxivm, when she visited her home in Dillon for the last time, just prior to going to Albany. Kim recalls that she overheard her sister during her last visit to the family in Dillon talking on the phone to two women. One she later identified as the voice of Nancy Salzman and the other she believes is Karen Abney, Kristin’s coach.
And Kristin seemed fine when she first got to Albany, according to Susan Dones.
We don’t know what happened during the next few days when she may have been exposed to the monster.
Thanks to Kim, we have a look at some writings of Kristin, written on Jan, 26, the day she started her second 16 day intensive in Anchorage at the Westmark Hotel.
Esther Chiappone and her soon to be boyfriend Ed Kinum were teaching the class. Kristin’s spouse Heidi Clifford and her mother were also in attendance. So was [Name Redacted].
For the first time ever, we are publishing Kristin’s last known writings [other than the “suicide note” – of which we are not sure she is the author] and as importantly we are publishing Kim’s comments on this.
Kristin wrote, on Jan 26th, 2003:
I am looking for the exception (children) because I fear change. I am detracting from ESP because I have failure in my thought level.
The worst thing of ESP is correct in that I have the choice to change and I choose not to. I am so vested in my disintegration that I choose not to be integrated even though I say I want to be integrated.
I want more not to be than I want to be, so therefore I can either choose to want to be more than not wanting to be or I can’t change because I don’t know how to use the tools that I now have or I have a disintegration that keeps me from being able to even know how to use the tools.
What would embracing ESP as true and right look like?
-Not detracting- affirming ESP
-pleasure (no pain) -no sadness-happiness
This is where I am having trouble because if I think if I do embrace it I should be having no pain or sadness-
but I do, so I think I should not be embracing it- so I push it away even though I want to have pleasure and happiness.
I think I do that in all areas of my life — I want no pain (fear is pain) all I actually tell myself I want pain (I like pain) so that no one gives it to me. (If I ask you for something you won’t give it to me). That is the ultimate in superstitions. If I see a black cat I think something bad is going to happen. If I think something bad is going to happen– I am going to create a black cat (fear) so that it doesn’t happen, which means it’s happening because I just saw the cat!
I need help. Ask for help. OK, ESP, I need help, please help me. What’s wrong asking that?
Maybe they can’t help me. I am a hopeless case, perhaps. Wouldn’t you want to know that – then you could just stay there and not ever worry again?
This is the way I am. What if I am more afraid of not knowing whether I am a hopeless case (or not)? That would be lack of data.
What is the worst thing about not knowing whether I am a hopeless case or not? If I choose not to know then I don’t find out that I am a hopeless case (I am lost. I might as well kill myself now). AND I don’t find out that I’m not a hopeless case- [which makes me a hopeless case.]
So it’s my subdued – dominated beat up self – tired victim
Ask for help Don’t ask for help
Can Cant Don’t know I’m a hopeless case-
help help I’m not a hopeless case – i.e. there is hope
So I have to know I am a hopeless case before I ask for help.
Maybe I am wrong there in that assumption.
OK- so maybe ESP can help even though I think I am a hopeless case. What’s the worst thing about that?
I will change.
Maybe change is like the pain thing because I really don’t want it. I say I do because I know if I ask for something I get the exact opposite which is the familiar- The world the way I want it to be (sense). NOT .
If someone takes care of me, they make me feel better (sick/want to feel better, feel bad/ want to feel good). But if I feel better then I won’t need them to take care of me- so I make myself feel bad, so they will take care of me.
If I take care of me, I make myself feel better. If I am sick, I want to feel better. If I feel bad I want to feel good, but if I feel better/good, then I want need myself to take care of me. So I make myself feel bad/ feed bad, so I will take care of me. Thumb sucking?
Kristin Snyder would have had everything Keith Raniere wanted – including being gay. He loved to feel he could convert lesbians to heterosexuality.
Kim’s comment on Kristin’s last writings:
Kim Snyder is determined to find out what happened to her sister Kristin Snyder.
Kim said, “Kristin never spoke like this before. I think this is the result of spending time with Keith Raniere and with her mind being bent by him and my sister probably having been tricked into sex with him or possibly raped.
“This confused talk is something he may have led her to, deliberately playing with her head. She mentions ‘children’ at the top and ‘suicide’ in the middle. This is possibly his suggestions.
“I also think that at this point she does not know or think she is pregnant. My speculation is that Kris is just getting her head around the sex part of his teachings.
“She is confused but not dangerously confused. There is a certain coherence to what she is saying and Keith might have put these question into her head to increase her doubts – that she must embrace and fully accept ESP [and Keith’s sex too?] and she is confused about it. But she is being sincere.
“Kristin speaks about being a hopeless case. Is that something Keith threatened her with? Being hopeless – and if she was hopeless than why should she continue to live?
“Kristin never thought of herself as hopeless, She was always filled with ambition, and hope, and confidence. By the way, Kristin did suck her thumb, but only when she was sleepy.”
***
So this was Kristin on her first day back, away from Raniere, but taking the ESP class that he devised and in which the students thank him aloud every day.
Thank you Vanguard.
As we shall see in our next post, Kristin’s behavior began to deteriorate over the next few days. Heidi suspects it was when she missed her period that she then believed Raniere got her pregnant.
What we don’t know is the content of the near endless phone calls Kristin made to Albany and what Keith, Esther, [Name Redacted], Ed Kinum, Karen Abney and the monster-enabler Nancy Salzman conspired to do behind the scenes.
What we will get a glimpse of is what Kristin was seen to be doing on the outside and how Esther and Ed worked together to enlarge her feelings of doubt and prevent her from going to the hospital to get medical treatment.
Perhaps they were afraid of a pregnancy test.
Kristin Snyder’s descent is rapid and horrifying. We are studying this to try to find out what happened to her.
Did she commit suicide? Was she driven to her insanity by something Keith Raniere and his coconspirators did?
Did he drug her, or poison her? Did he rape her?
We know she claimed she had sex with Keith and that he got her pregnant. We know that two people who had sex with Keith – Esther and Nancy – told Kristin that she was imagining having sex with Keith since he was a celibate, a despicable lie to tell a confused and frightened woman trying to get her head around what he had done to her.
We know Kristin told the entire class that Keith got her pregnant several times and each time she did she was removed from class. And we know that the last time she cried out that she was pregnant, Esther Chiappone forcibly removed her from class and she was never seen again.
Her sister, Kim thinks it is homicide and she and I will present more evidence [or shall we call it data?] in our next post.
Stay tuned.
