Real Crime Stories/Paranormal Hauntings

The Disappearance of Sneha Philip: Was She a Victim of 9/11?

Sneha Anne Philip (October 7, 1969 – ruled to have died September 11, 2001) was an American physician who was last seen on September 10, 2001, by a department store surveillance camera near her Lower Manhattan apartment. She may have returned to the building at some point that night or the next morning. Due to the proximity of the World Trade Center and her medical training, her family believes she perished trying to help victims of the following day's terrorist attacks.

Two investigations were conducted. The first by Ron Lieberman, her husband, and private investigator Ken Gallant, a former FBI agent, initially presumed her disappearance and possible death were unrelated to the attacks but later concluded it was the most likely outcome. A later investigation by New York City police delved into her life leading up to September 11 and found details of a double life, a history of marital problems, possible affairs with other women, job difficulties and alcohol and drug abuse by Philip, as well as a pending criminal charge against her, in the months before her disappearance. This led them to conclude it was just as likely that she had met a different fate.

Lieberman and Philip's family have strongly disputed some of the facts and many of the conclusions of the police report, insinuating that the police did poor work or even fabricated some of their evidence. Her family has pointed out that there are many other 9/11 victims whose remains were never found, and other victims who were added to the list despite equally tenuous connections to the attack. No physical evidence has been found to suggest that she was killed in the attacks.

Citing the evidence from the police report, a Surrogate's Court judge had denied her family's petition to have her declared a victim of the attacks, suggesting it was equally possible she may have intentionally disappeared or been murdered by someone she met on her frequent nights out. However, on January 31, 2008, a New York State appeals court overturned a lower-court ruling and declared that she had been a victim of the attacks, officially making her the 2,751st victim of the Twin Towers' collapse.

Early life

Sneha Anne Philip was born in the Indian state of Kerala. Philip later moved with her parents to upstate New York, settling first in the Albany area and then in Hopewell Junction, New York, a small hamlet in Dutchess County. Following her graduation from Johns Hopkins University, she decided to pursue a career in medicine and enrolled in the Chicago School of Medicine in 1995. There she met Ron Lieberman, a student a year behind her from Los Angeles, and began dating him. The two shared creative interests outside of their intended career—he was a musician and she was interested in painting. She took a year off traveling around Italy so the two could graduate together. They moved to New York City where they had both gained internships. Lieberman was at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, while she did hers at Cabrini Medical Center, closer to their small apartment in the East Village.

The couple was married in May 2000 at a small ceremony held in Dutchess County, combining Jewish and South Indian Christian elements. Lieberman gave his bride a minnu, a traditional Malayali Christian wedding pendant shaped like a gold teardrop with a diamond set in it. They moved to a larger apartment in Battery Park City shortly afterward.

Disappearance

Philip was last seen on September 10, 2001. On the day she disappeared, Philip was off from work. According to Lieberman, she was planning to spend the day cleaning up the apartment in anticipation of a dinner visit by her cousin two nights later. She had a two-hour online chat with her mother, during which she mentioned that she was planning to visit the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the nearby North Tower of the World Trade Center, where a friend was to be married the next spring. At 4 p.m. she signed off and went to drop off some clothes at a neighborhood dry cleaner, then went to a Century 21 where she used the couple's American Express card to buy lingerie, a dress, pantyhose and bed linens. Afterward, she bought three pairs of shoes at an annex to the store.