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

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Completely agree 100% that it's not strange whatsoever that SP didn't have a cell phone in 2001 - by all accounts, that is. Circa 2001 I knew a lot of people in the U.S. who also didn't have cell phones - myself included.

To those who were around during that era, cell phones were not only expensive, but were perceived by many as a "hassle" to have to deal with. And, IIRC half the time they didn't work anyway due to not being able to get a signal, etc. Also wanted to echo that you couldn't bring them into many businesses/areas. And, as was said in most & maybe all offices/workspaces ATT it was even forbidden to have them with you - almost certainly because they were deemed a "distraction", etc. So, it's no surprise at all that many people chose not to have them ATT.

IIRC, cell phones didn't become common-place until the mid-200X's...and some people didn't have them even then.

Side-note: I'm an admitted late adopter to new technology anyway, and didn't get one until much later in the decade.
 
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Baby baby Jane said:
I can only reply to bullet 1. Why didn’t S have a cellphone?
USA were late adopters to cell phones. I do not know why, but can confirm that New York City had VERY poor service in 2001 - even as late as 2010 it was terrible, still areas now. The view was that having a cell could be pointless because you wouldn’t receive or make a call in the denser areas of mid town and down town. 3G and Smartphone improved connectivity and ease of texting. Her husband, working in the Bronx probably had better reception. People used home answering machines to relay messages as it was more reliable. Husband probably checked his cell phone from home phone because it was easier - remember those phone from 2000? The little screens barely backlit, the scrolling with the little arrow buttons. It might not have been charging next to his bed.
Cell phone at work - mostly strictly forbidden! I can recall at some hospitals (visiting a patient in 2001) it was considered to interfere with equipment.

A lot of people just didn’t see the need, intrusion, expense etc. She also might have had a pager when she was employed which negated need for cell phone.

Not suspicious that she didn’t have one.
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Interesting! Thanks :)
 
I stand corrected. Here's the quote from the above article which mentions the cell phone:

"He called every number in her cellular telephone’s memory, but no one had spoken to her."

So, it sounds like she left her cell phone in her apt. when she left. And, this does illustrate that people treated cell phones differently in that era than they do today. I.e., today you would always take your cell phone with you - when you leave your home.
 
GatorFL said:
Sneha did have a cell phone, confirmed by her husband Ron. The New York article was in error.

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Wow thanks - that’s an interesting article, written so close to the time. It really captures Lieberman’s pain and makes it hard to believe he had anything to do with the disappearance.

I expect then that her cell records were checked for calls made/ received prior to her disappearance and no leads were obtained…

So assuming all calls to/ from her landline and cell phones have been investigated, it seems that if she met up with a friend/ family member/ acquaintance on 9/10, then either she didn’t arrange it by telephone beforehand, or someone is lying.
 
Sonny Crockett said:
Completely agree 100% that it's not strange whatsoever that SP didn't have a cell phone in 2001 - by all accounts, that is. Circa 2001 I knew a lot of people in the U.S. who also didn't have cell phones - myself included.

To those who were around during that era, cell phones were not only expensive, but were perceived by many as a "hassle" to have to deal with. And, IIRC half the time they didn't work anyway due to not being able to get a signal, etc. Also wanted to echo that you couldn't bring them into many businesses/areas. And, as was said in most & maybe all offices/workspaces ATT it was even forbidden to have them with you - almost certainly because they were deemed a "distraction", etc. So, it's no surprise at all that many people chose not to have them ATT.

IIRC, cell phones didn't become common-place until the mid-200X's...and some people didn't have them even then.

Side-note: I'm an admitted late adopter to new technology anyway, and didn't get one until much later in the decade.
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I think your profession made it more likely you would have a cell phone back in the early days. I traveled for work so when cell phones made an appearance I was given one by my employer. That was in 1996. It was a Nokia with a screen maybe 2 inches square. Without the infrastructure we have now with cell towers everywhere service was patchy when I was traveling. Most people still used pagers. Medical staff still use them so it makes more sense SP had one of those.
 
I lived in NYC then and I would say cellphones were pretty ubiquitous, especially amongst well-paid professionals. But most people still maintained landlines and that was the primary means of communication--cell phones still charged per-minute for calls made during the day. It wouldn't be unusual to leave your home without your phone, especially if you weren't planning on meeting with anyone or you expected to return shortly.

One thing to note though is that in the aftermath of 9/11, the entire cell phone network went down. There were cell phone towers on top of the WTC and between that and the overwhelming traffic it took a couple of days before service returned. So even if Sneha had her phone it would have been useless following the collapse (assuming she was in NYC).

Additionally, I'm not sure if it was possible to track someone by their phone in those days. There was an on-going transition from analog to digital standards and I don't think they had yet developed the technology to track where phones pinged. At least, I don't recall anyone ever being tracked that way in the late 90s/early 2000s.
 
Thanks for the info. re: cell phone use/usage in NYC specifically during the 2001 time-frame. This definitely gives us a context re: this specific SP case. As was said, note that cell phone availability/usage/signals definitely varied in other parts of the country.
 
Maybe DNA testing on the remains of the unidentified WTC victims will one day solve this mystery.

For some reason, I keep thinking Sneha died in the attacks, either she was in a elevator or one of the top floors.
 
Sorry just catching up, how certain are they that she never returned to her apartment? I’m the type to bring all my shopping home and immediately put it away. I can tell you that my husband wouldn’t have any idea if I brought home new stuff and put it away even if he was to go searching for that specific item.
 
Hi all. I’m new here and to this case. Nothing to add that hasn’t already been discussed and raised over the last 23 years, sadly.

I’m a little confused:

Store worker saw Sneha with a woman. No CCTV in the shoe area - yet there was a cctv image of a woman with bags from Century 21 leaving the store - is this supposed to be Sneha and her friend?

The PI investigated all Sneha’s phone book contacts and her computer, nothhig was found of who was with her in the store if the store worker was correct. How was Sneha keeping in contact with this women then? It definitely wasn’t somebody she never met before as the store worker described them as knowing each other relatively well.

I don’t believe she died in the towers. The Missing on 9/11 podcast gives interviews from those who knew Sneha, one of her colleagues at Cabrini (not sure how to spell it). That interview gave me the impression Sneha really didn’t have the slightest passion for medicine. I can’t see her running into the building and not being found. Highly doubt she would’ve been fit enough to reach above impact zone climbing the stairs. If she perished below she would’ve been identified. Only 1% couldn’t be identified and she was wearing a wedding ring that could withstand the heat of the fires.

I imagine it’s possible she died the night before - either through foul play, some sort of argument at a place that involved others outside of the woman she was with, drug overdose, etc. Explains why the woman never came forward if she was involved. Or else she was ashamed as she was also in the closet.
 
iamnotagolem said:
Sorry just catching up, how certain are they that she never returned to her apartment? I’m the type to bring all my shopping home and immediately put it away. I can tell you that my husband wouldn’t have any idea if I brought home new stuff and put it away even if he was to go searching for that specific item.
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Nothing had been disturbed, no footprints. They’d left a window open the day before in the apartment so the asbestos dust from the towers had filled the floors/items of the room. Very thick dust as you change imagine from the videos of how much it spread when the towers collapsed. I assume the cats wouldn’t of been fed either.
 
avobo00 said:
Hi all. I’m new here and to this case. Nothing to add that hasn’t already been discussed and raised over the last 23 years, sadly.

I’m a little confused:

Store worker saw Sneha with a woman. No CCTV in the shoe area - yet there was a cctv image of a woman with bags from Century 21 leaving the store - is this supposed to be Sneha and her friend?

The PI investigated all Sneha’s phone book contacts and her computer, nothhig was found of who was with her in the store if the store worker was correct. How was Sneha keeping in contact with this women then? It definitely wasn’t somebody she never met before as the store worker described them as knowing each other relatively well.

I don’t believe she died in the towers. The Missing on 9/11 podcast gives interviews from those who knew Sneha, one of her colleagues at Cabrini (not sure how to spell it). That interview gave me the impression Sneha really didn’t have the slightest passion for medicine. I can’t see her running into the building and not being found. Highly doubt she would’ve been fit enough to reach above impact zone climbing the stairs. If she perished below she would’ve been identified. Only 1% couldn’t be identified and she was wearing a wedding ring that could withstand the heat of the fires.

I imagine it’s possible she died the night before - either through foul play, some sort of argument at a place that involved others outside of the woman she was with, drug overdose, etc. Explains why the woman never came forward if she was involved. Or else she was ashamed as she was also in the closet.
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the only confirmed CCTV footage of sneha from the century 21 store shows her alone. i've never seen or heard of this footage you're talking about of a woman with bags leaving the store. is there a link to it?
 
avobo00 said:
Only 1% couldn’t be identified and she was wearing a wedding ring that could withstand the heat of the fires.
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Are you sure about that? I read it was closer to 40% of victims' remains are unidentified. It's taken them two years to identify two victims, as they are having to analyse the tiniest of fragments. If Sneha did perish as a result of 9/11, then her remains are either with OCME, or she was cremated beyond recognition.
 
I've always wondered about this case. My mom's cousin Jeff Simpson was a trained EMT who worked in a neighboring building. Initially he went to work (his stuff was there) and then seemed to disappear, but most people assumed he had run into the towers to offer assistance. His body was identified about seven months later. I think it's quite ingrained and instinctual for a medical professional to run towards people needing help. Although Sneha was troubled, I still think she would have done that.

 
Pseudonymph said:
I've always wondered about this case. My mom's cousin Jeff Simpson was a trained EMT who worked in a neighboring building. Initially he went to work (his stuff was there) and then seemed to disappear, but most people assumed he had run into the towers to offer assistance. His body was identified about seven months later. I think it's quite ingrained and instinctual for a medical professional to run towards people needing help. Although Sneha was troubled, I still think she would have done that.

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So sorry your family suffered a loss in 9/11.

Jeff's story is proof that first responders not on duty with FDNY or NYPD were allowed to assist in recovery efforts. Other outsiders who were first responders were allowed to assist as well. These facts strengthen Detective Stark's theory that she ran to help. The appellate court agreed with this theory as well.
 
Pseudonymph said:
I've always wondered about this case. My mom's cousin Jeff Simpson was a trained EMT who worked in a neighboring building. Initially he went to work (his stuff was there) and then seemed to disappear, but most people assumed he had run into the towers to offer assistance. His body was identified about seven months later. I think it's quite ingrained and instinctual for a medical professional to run towards people needing help. Although Sneha was troubled, I still think she would have done that.

Click to expand...
I have learned that there are two kinds of doctors: the ones who will blindly respond to “is there a doctor in the house?” And those who don’t want to get involved or be held liable. I felt really naive to think that the latter group didn’t exist.

I still lean towards her running in to help and not being identified in the rubble. It’s the simplest explanation. But there are too many other factors that I’ve read about - her brother, the videos, how she told her mom that she was going to go to Windows at some point.
 
joijoi12 said:
I have learned that there are two kinds of doctors: the ones who will blindly respond to “is there a doctor in the house?” And those who don’t want to get involved or be held liable. I felt really naive to think that the latter group didn’t exist.

I still lean towards her running in to help and not being identified in the rubble. It’s the simplest explanation. But there are too many other factors that I’ve read about - her brother, the videos, how she told her mom that she was going to go to Windows at some point.
Click to expand...

I agree there are two types in normal circumstances but these were completely abnormal circumstances and nobody thought the towers would collapse, that was unthinkable!
 
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