Kim Snyder
By Kim Snyder
My family – the Snyder family’s sad journey began almost 17 years ago when we received a phone call from Heidi Clifford, Kristin’s domestic partner, saying Kris was missing and could not be found. We were told Kris had been deeply depressed and mentally ill for a week leading up to her disappearance.
My parents and I took the next plane to Anchorage, AK. We knew she was missing but had hopes she might be found.
As soon as we arrived, we learned that things looked very bad. We were told Kristin had left a suicide note behind.
We were very sad and did quite a bit of crying and talking to God.
We were also told that NXIVM was blamed in the note but we soon learned they were not going to take any blame.
Certain people in Nxivm [I will name them later in a future post] leveled an allegation against a family member, that was not only not true, but very hurtful.
It was interesting the way they concealed their own complicity in what happened to Kris by claiming Kris had said that a family member had sexually abused her when she was a child.
In doing this – and putting our family on the defensive – in our time of grief and concern, they effectively halted our serious inquiries into what role Nxivm had with Kris’ disappearance.
So you understand – certain Nxivm leaders claimed Kristin revealed in her Exploration of Meaning (EM) sessions that someone had sexually abused her as a child. She “suddenly” remembered this, we were told.
We were not told that she claimed she was pregnant with Keith Raniere’s child.
They had substituted villains – from Keith to a family member. And, of course, it was not true. Keith was the villain. But we did not know this at the time. This is how despicable Nxivm was to us.
They not only did not provide truthful information – but at our moment of deepest grief – they concocted diabolical lies about our family to throw us off. They intensified the pain we felt.
As the days wore on, (I was sick the whole time), we prayed that God would intervene and somehow perform a miracle and we would find her. But nothing happened and Kris was gone. We came to believe that she had taken her own life.
We drove to where her truck was found in Seward on the shores of Resurrection Bay. We spoke to the Millers at Miller’s Landing. We were told someone took a kayak and it was assumed it was Kristin because her truck and a suicide note were found nearby.
We were assured by everyone that Kristin was acting depressed and suicidal. I wonder now if she had been drugged.
But the worst disservice of all was that no one told us about Kristin claiming she was pregnant. There was a conspiracy of silence. On top of that, as I mentioned before, certain Nxivm leaders were whispering that Kris had been sexually abused by a relative as a child and this might have been the reason she committed suicide.
The filthy bastards, taking advantage of us at our weakest, most vulnerable time.
As hope faded, my family prepared for a memorial service, a public and private one. My parents and I went out on a boat on Resurrection Bay, where we placed roses in the water and the ashes of Kris’ beloved dog – which had been kept – and placed them in Resurrection Bay – to be with her – or so we thought.
At that time, we believed the official story and that Kris’ body was somewhere in the waters there. The sun came out during the memorial – and then went back behind the clouds as soon as the memorial was over.
Some women “friends” of Kris, who also were Nxivm students, rode with me to the memorial. After the spurious allegation about a family member having sexually abused Kris, they played the song by Alabama – “In Pictures” – which talks about a family member working away from home and missing everything about the kids.
I don’t know if it was deliberate. Either way, it hurt me. I cried on the way to the memorial.
Meantime, mom and dad began working with Kris’ partner Heidi on a public memorial at the Lussac Library in downtown Anchorage for people to come and celebrate Kris’ life.
We kept our heads up. We used Kris’ truck – which was given to us the first day we arrived in Anchorage. It had not been thoroughly searched as it would have been if murder was suspected.
I think the police would have kept the NXIVM notebooks. There was also a journal, written about 11 days before she disappeared. It says nothing about her being molested and nothing about her being pregnant. But the journal ends before she started acting erratically – which occurred in the last week.
I think it is possible that she missed her period that told others starting with Esther that she was pregnant – and there was only one person who could have gotten her pregnant.
And that is when the gaslighting and possible drugging commenced. Then came her rapid descent.
We knew none of it then.
Because my parents needed a break from what was going on at Kris and Heidi’s home, we moved to the Marine Corps Base in Anchorage. It was quiet. After the memorial at the Lussac’s Library in Anchorage, relatives from Minnesota flew up to be with us. They stayed a few days and then we boarded the plane to return to our home in Dillon, SC.
Before we left, I spent time, along with mom and dad, packing up Kris’ belongings. I kept her white baby blanket and mom found four Special Olympics sweatshirts that we wore home.
During the time my family and I were at the hotel, I spent time sleeping, crying, and swimming. That way, my mind was off of what was going on. I was hoping and praying that Kris would be found. That was NOT to be.
Emotions ran high, but we made it to the day we were to go home. I missed home.
When we got home, it began to hit us – with sympathy cards, the flowers, etc. – that Kris wasn’t coming back.
I tried to do everything for my parents that had to be done – talking to the funeral home, making arrangements for a funeral, (without a body). The services that were conducted were beautiful.
Our journey of horror continues on, not knowing what happened to Kris. There is no body in her grave at the cemetery. We weren’t there to say goodbye.
We have been told recently and have come to believe that my sister was gaslighted and possibly silenced permanently for speaking out about Keith getting her pregnant.
This came as a horrible surprise nearly 17 years after the fact.
If only we had been told at the time, it might have changed the course of everything. It would not have brought Kris back to us – but it might have led police into taking a different tact with the investigation and possibly led to the arrest of Keith Raniere and his coconspirators for murder.
That might have stopped this evil called Nxivm right then and there – in 2003 instead of in 2018 – when this demon was finally arrested.
Instead, the Nxivm crew tried to gaslight us, claiming Kristin had been sexually abused – not by Raniere – but from a family member as a child – something they claimed Kristin had recalled from her deep subconscious.
Today, we are asking anyone who knows anything about the last days or hours of Kris’ life to tell us what they know.
Kris is my only sister. I am pleading with those involved to contact Frank and help us solve this case.
