When Kristin Snyder returned from Clifton Park, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, in January 2003, she may have been pregnant with Mr. Raniere’s child.
She had gone to a Catholic college. Her father, a college professor, was a longtime Catholic teacher. If she were pregnant, and had she lived, would she have had an abortion?
She let people in ESP know that Keith had sex with her. She let some know she was pregnant with his child.
The people that she told likely told Esther Chiappone, who likely told Nancy Salzman who likely told Keith.
Did Keith Raniere arrange for Miss Snyder to have an abortion?
***
On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it returned to earth’s atmosphere, exploding and killing its seven crew members.
According to sources, Mr. Raniere often told students they were responsible for events outside their bodies and beyond their knowledge: He allegedly told Nancy Salzman she had been Adolf Hitler in an earlier life; he allegedly told Alex Betancourt he was Benito Mussolini. And he just for fun, he paired students he said were formerly Nazis with students who were formerly Jewish concentration camp victims in their past lives.
Miss Snyder told her parents her disintegrations caused the explosion of the Columbia. Space Shuttle
Who gave her that idea?
***
One day, she went out in the snow and remained there. Her partner thought it was a suicide attempt. During this time period, how often was she talking to Keith on the phone?
He knew she was talking about him getting her pregnant. If he did have sex with her [he knew if he did] and had gotten her pregnant, she would be nothing but a problem.
Was he coaching her to death?
***
If she had been sent to a psychiatrist, he might have prescribed sleeping pills.
Good sound sleep might have restored her.
But was that the goal?
She said, “Keith does not sleep, so I do not sleep.”
But Keith sleeps. He slept in the daytime while Kristin Snyder was in the intensive.
Esther Chiappone kept watch over Kristin Snyder in Alaska while Keith soundly snored away back in Clifton Park,.
Kristin Snyder was their problem student.
They clearly could not send her packing like they did with other students who went off the rails during Intensives.
Kristin Snyder said she was pregnant with Keith’s child..
If there was no chance, it would be of no concern.
A sleep deprived person acts like someone who is demented.
A severely sleep deprived person can have a miscarriage.
“Keith does not sleep, so I do not sleep.”
Who taught her that?
***
On the final day of her life, February 6, 2003, Miss Snyder said she was considering suicide.
Is that what they wanted her to say?
She also said she had sex with Keith – and that she was pregnant.
Miss Chiappone said Kristin made these statements to get attention.
But did Miss Chiappone do that as part of an elaborate misdirection?
Was it really that Esther did not want ESP – and Keith – to get attention?
Miss Snyder appeared to have a mental issue. Normally, when someone threatens to kill themselves, you get them help – just in case they are not just seeking attention.
Miss Snyder accused Keith Raniere, Vanguard.
Her claims may not have been taken seriously by medical professionals. But they still would have given her a pregnancy test.
***
At the time, ESP had not received the negative publicity it would soon attract.
Mr. Raniere had attracted Seagram’s Liquor heiresses, Clare and Sara Bronfman, to his burgeoning cult. They opened up a whole new world for him, providing unlimited funding and contacts on a global scale.
The official position of ESP was that Mr. Raniere was monk like. He was described as a Buddha or Christ for anyone who would buy it.
He was above sex and mundane desires.
His inner circle knew he had sex with many women. But that was kept secret from students, coaches and probably Clare and Sara Bronfman.
ESP would handle the matter internally. No outside medical help would be sought.
Who made that decision that led to Miss Snyder’s death?
Why has no one stepped forward to accept blame for her death?
Was it planned to get her to consider suicide?
***
On that final day, Miss Chiappone told her class that Miss Snyder just wanted attention [using Keith’s name got everyone’s attention].
She kept Miss Snyder sequestered.
Miss Clifford wanted to bring Miss Snyder to a local hospital.
Miss Chiappone told her ESP would take care of the matter.
Miss Chiappone said someone was going to be brought in to deal with Miss Snyder.
Miss Snyder soon left and never returned. Did someone come in and deal with Miss Snyder? Was she brought home and dropped off?
Did someone come back later to pick her up and take her somewhere where she was never to be seen again? Did someone assist her to commit suicide?
***
A student in the intensive, [Name Redacted], told police Miss Snyder left the seminar to go see a concert. A concert?
[Name Redacted] happened to have a cabin right near where Miss Snyder’s truck was found in Seward on Resurrection Bay. Isn’t that an amazing coincidence?
Suicide notes were found in the truck on the front seat. An old kayak was missing from a nearby shed. A search was undertaken. Police reached the hasty conclusion: Kristin stole a kayak, paddled out to sea, and drowned herself.
Some who witnessed Kristin’s final day wondered how Miss Snyder could possibly drive all the way from Anchorage to Seward in her dazed and exhausted condition.
Kristin disappeared, never to be seen again. And [Name Redacted] suddenly decided to move to Clifton Park.
Almost immediately after moving to Clifton Park in 2003, [Name Redacted] received a $50,000 no-repayment-required “loan” from Nancy Salzman – and was allowed to live in a house owned by NXIVM. This was shortly after the “disappearance” of Miss Snyder – and not that long after [Name Redacted]’s cabin was searched twice by Alaska State Police who were suspicious of her behavior.
She was made Manager of the café in the NXIVM Center, at 455 New Karner Road. She became an ESP coach in 2006. She became employed by Dr. Michael Salzman, Nancy Salzman’s ex-husband. [He is the father of her daughters, Michelle and Lauren Salzman.]
Miss Snyder’s death was ruled a suicide. The case was closed.
[Name Redacted] ran afoul of Keith Raniere. [as many do].
In 2009, she broke from ESP along with eight other women [The “NXIVM 9”] that included Barbara Bouchey, Susan Dones, Sheila Cote and Kathleen Ethier.
The departure resulted in a major scandal inside the cult. Miss Bouchey and Miss Dones revealed that Mr. Raniere was having sex with many women in his organization. The very thing that was denied with Miss Snyder.
On a video, Keith Raniere was confronted by Miss Bouchey and Miss Dones. Mr. Raniere is captured on film saying “I’ve had people killed for his beliefs or their beliefs.’
Kristin Snyder may have been one of them. But whose beliefs did she die for?
Hers or his?
***
The breakaway of the NXIVM 9 caused the closure of the Seattle Center of ESP.
But Miss [Name Redacted] continued to work for Dr. Salzman.
Mr. Raniere told Nancy Salzman to tell her ex-husband to fire [Name Redacted].
Dr. Salzman refused.
Mr. Raniere ordered Dr. Salzman’s daughters, Michelle and Lauren Salzman, to shun their father. From that day forward, the two daughters shunned their father and refused to talk to him. Such is their loyalty to Vanguard.
All three Salzman women derive their income from ESP. Nancy Salzman is listed as president and owner of ESP. But that is really for laughs.
Mr. Raniere is real owner of ESP [not just because he has people killed for his beliefs] but because he owns the rights to Rational Inquiry. Nancy Salzman is nothing more than a figurehead – and could be replaced at any time. And woe unto her if she ever tried to use Raniere’s patent-denied Rational Inquiry “technology” without his permission (She has seen first-hand how easily he can destroy the lives of people – and push them into bankruptcy – through relentless litigation).
The course is based on Rational Inquiry. Nothing that is presently taught can be taught if he withdraws his permission to use the teachings.
He can shut down ESP operations with nothing for them to teach. They would have to rewrite the curriculum.
It is nonsense to say Mr. Raniere does not own ESP business. He decides everyone’s salary or if they get one.
Lauren and Michelle Salzman came from the union of their mother and father.
They get their paychecks from Keith Raniere.
They are not permitted to talk to their father. But they enjoy spending those ESP paychecks – especially because they don’t even have to pay taxes on all their unreported income..
There are people in this world who never abandon their father or their daughter. They could not.
Mr. Raniere wanted Dr. Salzman to act unethically and fire a woman without just cause.
When Keith Raniere was having sex with Kristin Snyder, and when she had a meltdown and he was busy making sure it led to her complete destruction, [Name Redacted] helped cover up the truth for him.
He not only wanted [Name Redacted] fired, because she chose to leave his service; he used her to create a breach between a father and his daughters.
Someday, when some fraud guru wants to mind-fuck one of his disciples, he’ll tell her she was Keith Raniere in her last life.
***
For years, Miss Snyder faithfully kept a diary. It was her daily ritual to record the events of each day. The pages of her diary that cover the time she was in Clifton Park with Keith Raniere are somehow missing from her diary. It is not known if someone removed the pages or she was simply unable to write when she was with him.
Even the final day of her life, she kept her diary. She left the last two pages in her truck which were construed as her suicide notes.
Only the pages of her life with Keith Raniere are blank. Many women will one day realize that all the days they spent with Raniere are also “blank pages” or they’ll wish they were.
***
Clare Bronfman paid $500,000 to “private investigators’ in Boston and California. She was told it was to help find the truth about Kristin Snyder.
The men hired claimed to be former CIA operatives. They could find people who disappeared, and make people disappear before they were found.
$500,000 is a lot of money. What results did she get? What work was done?
There is no statute of limitations on murder.
***
Following Miss Snyder’s disappearance/suicide/murder, the collection department of ESP sought to collect money the late Miss Snyder owed for her last ESP intensive.
Miss Snyder paid $14,000 for two 16-day intensive courses and an additional $2,000 for two weekend courses. Miss Clifford’s bill was $11,500.
Miss Snyder still owed several thousand. Her death had stopped her payment plan.
Heidi Clifford was asked to pay it
She asked if she had to pay the full cost, since Miss Snyder was dead.
ESP rejected her selfish request for a discount.
If Keith Raniere taught us anything it is to pay what we owe down to the last jot and tittle. That is ethics.
But how do you collect from someone who is dead?
Esther Chiappone knew Kristin Snyder had a black 1999 Toyota Tacoma with license Snydes. She knew it was the truck that drove her from the class Miss Chiappone was teaching right to her to her presumptive drowning death.
Miss Chiappone made sure death did not separate Miss Snyder from the help she needed to pay her remaining tuition bill.
Miss Clifford had shared the truck with Miss Snyder. It was her means of transportation. She had lost her partner.
Miss Chiappone told Miss Clifford she would be happy to take the truck for payment. Or if she thought maybe of stiffing ESP because ESP made Miss Snyder a stiff, a judgment could be entered pronto and the marshal’s office would seize the truck.
ESP could auction it off faster than you can say supppresive.
This was no time for leniency. After all, Kristin Snyder caused ESP a lot of grief and trouble. If anything, she should pay extra. The truck was the least she could do.
Miss Clifford sold the truck Miss Snyder allegedly used to drive to Seward to drown herself, and used the money to complete the payment for the intensive that led her to her death.
No finer endorsement of the ‘Success’ in Executive Success Programs could be made than that.
***
Miss Clifford seemed afraid of Mr. Raniere. As if she might disappear too.
She left ESP. She remained in Anchorage. She appeared careworn and frightened. She was living alone. Her hair turned prematurely gray.
Mr. Raniere was in Clifton Park, working on other women’s disintegrations.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
[…] Parlato levels plenty of other allegations against the self-help guru, but it is hard to know how many have substance. […]
Question #1: How many men have ever had a lover commit suicide?
Answer #1: Not too many.
Question #2: How many men have had two lovers commit suicide?
Answer #2: Damn few!
Question #3: How many men have had one lover shoot herself in the head with a shotgun – and another paddle herself out into a freezing ocean bay on a stolen kayak and purposely turn it over?
Answer #3: Just one – Vanguard!
The whole Kristin Snyder story has never made any sense – and it’s about time that somebody re-opened the cover-up surrounding her death. Time for a few more of Raniere’s followers and ex-followers to shell out some big bucks and retain criminal defense attorneys. Can you hear me, Esther? Can you hear me, [Name Redacted]? Can you hear me, Kristin (wherever you and your son are)?
Large Group Awareness Trainings (LGATs) like the classic est–> Landmark or Tony Robbins or ESP use exhausting hours, claustrophobic conditions, environmental manipulation, psychological, emotional and sometimes hypnotic trickery and bullying to first break down “students” then convince them that they have made their first breakthrough (with more to come if they only sign up to pay for the next course!)
For students with a pre-existing mental health issue, even un-acknowledged, this is obviously risky.
est–> Landmark’s contract requires the student to state they have no mental health issues and agree to hold them harmless if mental illness is caused. I think their trainers are trained to recognize when they have bullied a student into a psychotic break, and remove them from the training and to send them out for help. And they quietly settle out of court with a gag order.
It’s pretty clear that Kristen Snyder got pushed past her limits in her first 16 day intensive delivered by Nancy Salzman, judging from her parents reports from her Christmas visit.
Nancy didn’t refer Kristin for mental help, but somehow Kristen came to Raniere’s attention. Then she was invited to Clifton Park, probably for Raniere to see if he could hypnotically induce a lesbian into hetero sex as an experiment.
It is unlikely that Kristen knew for a fact that she was pregnant by Raniere by the February Intensive, and we will never know if she was. But she may well have worried that she was pregnant, and very likely felt she had betrayed her domestic partner by being intimate with Raniere.
The evidence that Kristen was in a psychotic break during her second Intensive led by Esther Chiappone seems very strong and obvious. The ESP organization is liable for not training Esther Chiappone to recognize the symptoms of such a break, which would be relatively common in LGATs, and send her to psychiatric help. Esther Chiappone is arguably liable even in the absence of such training, because the symptoms seem so pronounced in this case.
Nothing in the public record implicates [Name Redacted] that I can see. Although Raniere may have made it easy for both [Name Redacted] and Esther to move from Alaska to Clifton Park, which conveniently complicates investigations… [Name Redacted] left ESP eventually so I would tend to give hera pass.
Given her role as legal (and sometimes illegal) liason at NXIVM, Kristen Keeffe could well have been involved in highly paid private investigators muddying the waters. But she also left ESP, and I think is far better treated as a witness than as a target.