NY NY - Sneha Ann Philip, 31, New York City, 10 Sep 2001

HollywoodBound

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I saw this case mentioned in the missing 9/11 not WTC thread but I thought Sneha should have her own thread. The following is from the CharleyProject:

Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearanc
Missing Since: September 10, 2001 from New York City, New York
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: October 7, 1969
Age: 31 years old
Height and Weight: 5'6, 115 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Asian (Indian) female. Black hair, brown eyes. Philip is a native of India. Some agencies spell her middle name "Anne." She has a mole on her left cheek and she wears contact lenses. Philip may use her husband's last name, Lieberman.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: A knee-length brown collared short-sleeved shirt dress with buttons down the front, sandals, a beaded black and gold choker with a small, teardrop-shaped cross pendant, a gold engagement ring with a diamond in the center, a gold wedding band with small diamonds studded all around it, and earrings with diamond studs arranged in flower shapes. One of the earrings is pictured in a photograph below this case summary.

Philip was in her third year of residency in internal medicine at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Staten Island, New York in September 2001. She did not have to work on September 10 and decided to relax and go shopping. She left her apartment in Battery Park in lower Manhattan at 5:15 p.m.

Philip was last seen at 7:18 p.m. on September 10; she was captured on a security camera at Century 21 department store in New York City, New York. Her toenails were painted purple at the time of her disappearance. Philip was carrying two large shopping bags containing about $550 worth of lingerie, three pairs of shoes, and bed linens when she was seen on the security tape. She has never been heard from again and there was nothing in her apartment to indicate that she ever made it back there.
A clerk at Century 21 says she saw Philip shopping with another woman whom Philip said was a friend. Philip's companion is described as 5'2 and 115 to 120 pounds with short black hair; she is possibly of East Indian descent. She has never been identified.


Philip's husband arrived at their apartment between 11:00 and 11:30 p.m. that day and saw that his wife was not there. He was not assumed she was spending the night with her brother or her cousin, something she often did when he worked late. Philip's husband did not report her disappearance to authorities until the next day. All of her relatives later stated that they had not seen her.


Philip disappeared the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center and caused the deaths of thousands of people. Philip's brother told the media that she was last seen running into the World Trade towers to offer her assistance after the attack. The story sounded plausible because Philip is a doctor and resided just blocks from the towers, but it was untrue. Her brother says he lied about the circumstances surrounding his sister's disappearance to attract attention to her case.


Philip's case is unsolved. There has been no activity on her credit cards since her Century 21 purchases. Her family believes any clues there might have been were obliterated in the chaos of September 11. Her husband thinks she may have spent the night of September 10 elsewhere and been killed in the terrorist attack while walking back to her own apartment. Police believe Philip may have left of her own accord, but her loved ones say she was not having any personal problems at the time of her disappearance. Philip's husband says they had a good relationship together and were planning on starting a family.


Philip was born in Karala, India and moved to America as a young child. She is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Chicago Medical School. Her loved ones held a memorial service for her in September 2002, a year after her disappearance. The circumstances surrounding Philip's disappearance are unclear.


http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/philip_sneha.html
 

Bobbisangel

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Did her husband know who her friends were...such as the lady that she was shopping with? Most husbands know their wifes friends and have at least met them once or more times.
 

HollywoodBound

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The lady she was shopping with has never been identified. A surveillance camera got them on tape but no one could ever say who it was with Sneha.

She did not spend the night at her apartment according to her husband so I guess she really is missing from Sept. 10th on. The family suggested she went to the tower after hearing of the attack. The thing is, I've read most of the people were ID's who were hit with the rubble trying to help. It's those in the planes where the jet fuel buring got so hot that could not be IDed.

After the first plane hit there is a flood of not only rescuers but also reporters on the ground. I've never heard how many tapes of footage they have from different angles but it must be quite a lot. No one has her on the ground helping people or running into a building?
 

SoccerMom

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I just read an article on MSN yesterday that she was acknowledged to be a victim of the September 11 terrorist attack. There were quotes from her family members and her husband, stating that they believed she ran into one of the buildings to help.
 

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meggilyweggily

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Dr. Sneha Philip who is on my Charley Project site here: http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/p/philip_sneha.html has been declared by a judge to be a September 11 victim. There's been tons of news about it, including an article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/02/nyregion/02dead.html?ref=nyregion and her page on my website has gotten 3,000 visits in the last day or two.

I wonder if I should remove her from my site now. I don't have any other terrorism victims posted on there, as I don't consider them to be missing. But Sneha's case is different. Even the judge who made the decision here admitted there was no proof, he just thought it was the most likely explanation -- and I agree.
 

HollywoodBound

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I think there should be some evidence she died there. Where did she spend the night of Sept. 10th? She is missing from the day before the attack just not reported. If she ran to the towers her body should have been there in the rumble IMO. Why didn't the person she was shopping with and caught on video ever come forward?
 

gidget641

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I wonder if I should remove her from my site now. I don't have any other terrorism victims posted on there, as I don't consider them to be missing. But Sneha's case is different. Even the judge who made the decision here admitted there was no proof, he just thought it was the most likely explanation -- and I agree.

Honestly this story has bugged me since I saw it on unsolved mysteries. I think it is possible that she died in the 9/11 attacks but I am more of a 'show me concrete proof' type of person.

If I were you, I would update her page on CP but not move it to the resolved section of the site. Maybe just state that it is being left where it is until more tangible proof of her demise is presented.
 

WantingToHelp

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Yeah I'm shocked also that they declared her dead because of the Sept 11th attacks. I truly don't think she died that day. I think she ran away to start a new life and used the attacks as a way to do that. Leaving people thinking that she died that day.
 

gidget641

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Yeah I'm shocked also that they declared her dead because of the Sept 11th attacks. I truly don't think she died that day. I think she ran away to start a new life and used the attacks as a way to do that. Leaving people thinking that she died that day.

IMHO she would not be the only one that did that. Sadly those attacks provided the perfect opportunity.

However, my problem with that theory is she could not have known about the attacks until they happened so she would have no advance planning. I would think that disappearing on the fly with no plan would be more difficult than having a calculated plan in place.
 

meggilyweggily

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If she died in the attacks it's not surprising her body wasn't found. They said in one of the articles that many, many people presumed to be dead as a result of the attacks were never actually located. A lot of times the bodies were just completely obliterated, or the bits were so small that they could not be identified.

I'm about 75% sure she died in the attacks, but no one's ever going to know unless she or her body turns up elsewhere.
 

HollywoodBound

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Does anyone have a link to the surveillance video or even a frozen image from the surveillance video of Sneha and her unknown friend? I'm a little surprised that the video or an image from it is not more widely dispersed on the internet. I didn't see the UM segment on Sneha, I wonder if they showed it there or not? Why would someone not come forward and say they were with her the day before? That person have been killed too, if so who is she?
 

gidget641

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If she died in the attacks it's not surprising her body wasn't found. They said in one of the articles that many, many people presumed to be dead as a result of the attacks were never actually located. A lot of times the bodies were just completely obliterated, or the bits were so small that they could not be identified.

I'm about 75% sure she died in the attacks, but no one's ever going to know unless she or her body turns up elsewhere.

I agree, but it is the other 25% chance she did not die in the attacks that really gnaws at me. I do understand how her family needs closure and having her declared a victim of 9/11 helps them heal.

What if she did not die in 9/11 and all the missing persons web sites remove her and she is actually a jane doe somewhere else? Then what? her profile would not be out there and a doe will lose the chance to be identified.
 

gidget641

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Does anyone have a link to the surveillance video or even a frozen image from the surveillance video of Sneha and her unknown friend? I'm a little surprised that the video or an image from it is not more widely dispersed on the internet. I didn't see the UM segment on Sneha, I wonder if they showed it there or not? Why would someone not come forward and say they were with her the day before? That person have been killed too, if so who is she?

IIRC they did show the video footage on UM.
 

meggilyweggily

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Perhaps Sneha's friend, whoever it was, doesn't even know she's missing. They may have just had a one-off meeting. And in the chaos and stuff of the attacks in the days and weeks that followed, it would have been easy to miss a blip of a report about a young doctor last seen on September 10. Or perhaps her friend does know and simply chose not to get involved.
 

HollywoodBound

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I wonder why her brother told authorities that she was last seen running into one of the towers, why lie?
 

Teresa Larson

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I have a friend who routinely spent the night with strangers she'd met only that day, often sleeping with them in their beds. And she never slept with any of them. She was just an extremely friendly person. Also we were at college.
I am confused. You said your friend slept with people she didn't even know and then say she never slept with any of them?? LOL about her just being extremely friendly.
 

meggilyweggily

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I mean, she "slept with" them in the sense that she slept with them in their beds. Then later on I used it in the sense of having sex with them. It is a pretty amusing error, isn't it?
 
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