Kim Snyder
By Kim Snyder
A number of comments appeared seeking to pick holes in my post about the days of horror my family experienced when we first found out my sister, Kristin Snyder, was missing.
Some of them are sincere I suppose – and some are cowardly remarks induced by anonymous posters who grow brave from knowing that they don’t have to put their names where their ugly mouths are.
My post was Kim Snyder: How Nxivm Tried to Gaslight My Family Following Kristin’s Disappearance
Here are a few of the comments/questions and my responses.
If Kristin was so close to her family, why did it take Heidi 72 hours to call the Snyders (according to a previous comment by Kim)?
That’s a very important question. She was close to us, but she was also an adult woman living her own independent, married life, thousands of miles away. I don’t know why her spouse, Heidi, did not call us during the week of her descent into madness. She called us after the fact not before.
If she had called us to tell us how Kristin was acting, we could have come before she disappeared.
And knowing my dad and mom – there is nothing in the world Esther Chiappone Carlson could have said that would have prevented them from insisting that Kristin go to the hospital. Then we would have known if she was drugged, if she was pregnant, and if she was really experiencing this utterly new and sudden descent in her personality.
I think she was drugged.
Had anyone told us that Kristin was claiming she was pregnant – even after her disappearance – we would have reported it to police and not kept it a secret like all the Nxivm people and Heidi did too. Heidi had a reason. As she said on camera in “The Lost Women of Nxivm”, she was afraid to tell police for she thought it might bring suspicion to her. She was the spouse – and police might have thought she was behind her disappearance.
This showed that Heidi – even then – suspected the suicide story might not be true. But we – the family – were not given the advantage of knowing one of the single most important facts of this entire mystery.
As for Elaine Smiloff and I assume any of the others – like [Name Redacted] – who were interviewed by police – the monster woman – Esther Chiappone Carlson – was there when police were asking other people questions.
Elaine told Frank that Esther sat in during her interview and advised her beforehand how to handle the police. She did not dare tell police that Kristin was claiming to have been pregnant.
This shocking omission – misled police.
Why did nobody, including law enforcement, question Heidi’s report that Kristin was heading for Seward?
Heidi told Frank that she did not just tell police that Kristin headed for Seward. She gave them numerous possible locations – all places where Kristin was known to frequent including Resurrection Bay.
Why did nobody question how a stable, smart, educated person like Kristin would (allegedly) descend into madness within a matter of days?
This is the thing that haunts my mother and me. And haunted my father. Nobody informed the family. When we last saw Kris – she was exuberant about Nxivm but she was not exhibiting any dangerous signs. While we were concerned about her infatuation with Nxivm, it had not taken the turn of instability or madness.
I really think that it was her finding out she was pregnant and the very likely drugging – on top of the constant gaslighting – that pushed her into madness – so that no one would believe she was pregnant with Keith’s child no matter how many times she said it.
What happened on the fateful day or night is not known. Maybe they pushed her to suicide and she did it herself or maybe they helped her. Whether anything more than her truck and a suicide note wound up in Resurrection Bay is something I don’t know. But I think Esther Chiappone Carlson and others know. Keith knows. Nancy Salzman knows.
But these three liars would go to their graves and hell before telling the truth.
If Kristin was indeed descending into madness and actively psychotic/suicidal, as Heidi now claims, why did they both simply continue to attend the ESP intensive?
Heidi had an additional problem to confront. She was attending the ESP class with her mother who had Alzheimer’s. They were told – and they spent a lot of money on this – that her mother could be cured by the classes.
On top of that, Esther, [Name Redacted], Ed Kinum and others were constantly assuring her that a with a few more classes and EMs – Kristin would turn the corner. And that they had seen many students react like this and it was a passing thing that she would grow out of soon. Heidi bought into the bullshit.
Why didn’t Heidi seek medical attention for Kristin while they were at home, for instance, when Kristin reportedly was lying in the snow? Why would Heidi listen to a stranger (Esther) in regard to seeking medical help for her own wife?
They – Kristin and Heidi – invested $16,000 or more into this ESP intensive. They believed in it. I think Heidi refused to recognize the real danger and believed Esther – who is a cunning and persuasive monster and can be very firm also.
Esther did not get a green sash – one of only about a dozen in the history of Nxivm –- for nothing. A green sash means you are a stunning liar.
Why did Heidi not share her concerns about ESP and Kristin’s (alleged) pregnancy to law enforcement — which would be knowingly withholding evidence from an investigation? She claims in the documentary that she withheld that information because she didn’t want law enforcement looking at her. Hmmm. Seems that finding out what happened to your wife should trump self-interest.
I don’t disagree with this. Though I do think Heidi thought Kristin was dead. She now wanted to make sure that she did not get blamed for something she did not do – cause it. By this time, and I don’t know – you would have to ask Heidi – she was shocked, upset, afraid, and she knew what the collective Nxivm folks could do. She was not strong enough to go against them.
Our family would have done so had we known what we know now.
Why were Heidi and the Snyders so eager to declare Kristin dead so quickly?
We weren’t overanxious. We did not have the information that would have led us to believe anything other than the official story. We were told she was suicidal. We were told that bodies drowning in Resurrection Bay often disappear.
We were not told about the pregnancy claim. We did not know about [Name Redacted] lying or the great extent that Esther and others went to in order to gaslight my sister.
We honestly thought it was true – that my sister fell apart – without much prompting – and killed herself. We not only had Heidi supporting this – but also all the Nxivm monsters. But we did not know they were monsters. The great art of Nxivm monsters is to not appear to be monsters at first.
Where is the evidence that Kristin had sex with Keith — or even met him? Theories and hearsay don’t count, nor does the purported “recollections” of potential suspects. Is there ANY actual proof of any trip to Albany? Is there ANY actual proof that Kristin may have been pregnant?
There are enough independent witnesses who now corroborate it. Heidi finally admitted it. Elaine Smiloff admitted it to Frank. And ironically, Clare Bronfman told her IT man Matt Malone that Keith told her that Kristin Snyder was pregnant – and that was before Elaine and Heidi made their confessions.
As for her being in Albany – yes, we not only have Susan Dones’ eyewitness account of her seeing her there – but we have Kristin’s credit card bill –,which shows charges in Albany.
Why all of a sudden is the Snyder family interested in KS’s disappearance now???? They were not at the service Heidi Clifford put on in 2003. If the Snyder family was in Alaska, why did Heidi not include them in the email she sent out notifying friends and family of the service????
Your ignorance is only superseded by your ASS-umptions. We have always been interested in her disappearance. We did not have the facts and a worthy ally like Frank Parlato until recently. We thought the official story was true. We had no idea how evil Keith was until recently either. His trial – and Frank’s reports – opened our eyes to the possibility of murder.
If the Snyder family was do interested and involved in KSs disappearance, why did they get the date used legally as Kristin’s time of death wrong on the tombstone THEY had done????
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49618316/kristin-marie-snyder
Kristin Snyder’s gravestone. There is no body buried below it.
We decided at the time to put the date of her death as February 7, 2003. She disappeared on February 6, but by the time she would have gotten to Seward – after being dropped off at home [the official story] – we thought it quite likely that she committed suicide after midnight. We did not know for sure. In the end, it was just a guess. But we had to put some date on the stone.
Today, we know even less as to the true date she died. She may have been drugged and held for a time – for days, much like they did with the Mexican student they force-fed and sneaked Valium into. [Good thing she calmed down or she might have disappeared too.] Or they may have hired someone to murder Kristin on the day she disappeared. I don’t know the date she died.
Heidi states very clearly in several news articles SHE sold THEIR truck to help pay toward Kristin’s debts. Why is Kim 17 years later saying something totally different?
Heidi did not sell the truck the same day Kristin disappeared. We used the truck while we were in Anchorage. Heidi sold it later – she said – to pay off Kristin’s debt to ESP that these rapacious and scheming monsters still wanted.
Despite the ESP course [or Keith] destroying my sister, they weren’t going to back off on collections. I think it was a way of intimidating Heidi. Their bold collection demands. Our family would have never paid it. But we were not told and it was out of our control. Heidi was the executor of the will and inherited everything Kris had – which was not much other than her truck.
What kind of family brings a dead dog thousands of miles to look for their family member whom might well still be very much alive? Why was Kristin already dead to her family?
Your unusual lack of intelligence is only superseded by your ability to make hasty assumptions. We did not bring the dog’s ashes with us. Kristin kept those ashes with her at her home in Anchorage. They were already in Anchorage and so we spread those on Resurrection Bay at the private Memorial – because she loved the dog so dearly. It was the closest thing we had to her ashes. It was a little, tiny comfort to us. Sorry it offended you.
Ummm KSs family stayed where? Heidi’s, a marine base, and then a hotel??? Huh?
We originally stayed at Heidi and Kris’s house. It was quite hectic and we were already traumatized. So we moved to the hotel near the Marine base. My dad was a career Marine officer. It was a comfort to us to be there where he could be among his fellow Marines. Do not begrudge us getting a hotel to sleep at. Bereaved families who go out of town on such errands as ours have to sleep somewhere. And sleep, quiet sleep, is sometimes the only comfort.
Why would the Snyders grab the dog’s ashes on the way out their door to grab the next plane to Anchorage — (which was literally not possible in a post-9/11 world)? Presumably, Kristin was missing, but potentially alive, at that point.
We did not grab the ashes. They were already in Alaska at Kris’s home.
Why were both Heidi and the Snyders so very ready to declare Kristin dead within a week of her disappearance, when the huge majority of loved ones of missing people still hold onto hope decades later? No wonder law enforcement dropped the ball — Kristin didn’t have ANY loved ones who fought continuously and relentlessly for the truth.
We believed at the time that the official story was true. And we were grieving. I think we all believed Kristin was dead. And that was the overwhelming thing about the experience. We did not suspect foul play at the time and so we acted accordingly.
A lot has changed since then – and armed with what we now know, we intend to try to find out what really happened to my sister. We appreciate the help Frank Parlato has offered us and the team at Investigation Discovery, Pat McGee and Phil Lott of Ample Entertainment.
We hope the FBI and the Alaska State Police will be sufficiently interested to investigate this matter. I would suggest they start with Esther Chiappone Carlson.
MK10ART – Keith Raniere and his co-conspirator Esther Chiappone Carlson. Look out for these two. Together, they are ruthless.
