Did Kristin Snyder Commit Suicide in Purple Slippers?

The Alaska State Troopers’ Missing Person Bulletin for Kristin Snyder, released shortly after her disappearance in February 2003, gave a description of the clothes she was last known to be wearing.

This information was given to them by the person who reported her missing, her spouse, Heidi Clifford.

Kristin was reportedly wearing, “A long black coat, an ivory-colored shirt with a zippered front, blue checkered pants, and purple slippers.”

Keep in mind it was frigid February in Alaska.

Would someone go out in purple slippers [and lightly dressed] and enter a kayak and paddle out?

Perhaps if they planned to commit suicide.

Kristin was known to be an expert outdoors woman. She was part of the Anchorage Nordic Ski Patrol, was trained in search and rescue. Her friend, Kenny Powers, told me that Kristin was set to be his successor as president of the ski patrol.

Powers trained her extensively. She knew what to wear in the cold.

If she was going to commit suicide, however, would she care about clothing?

Would she leave her house, where she had been dropped off by Elaine Smiloff – at Esther Chiappone’s command – and somehow get her pickup truck back at the parking lot of the Westmark Hotel – eight miles away – then drive 2.5 hours to Seward Alaska – go grab a kayak and paddle out to sea – in purple slippers?

If she was going out from home [and Elaine swears that she did not think that Kristin was in a fit condition to make the drive] and she had the wits to get a cab – would she have the wits to put on her boots?

Kristin had been known to kayak in winter. You dress in a specific way. Shoes or boots are among the most important item to ensure warmth.

If the official story is true, Kristin evidently did not dress for survival for a wintry kayak excursion. That could be in conformity to suicide.

Heidi knew what clothes she was wearing, in part because this was what Kristin was wearing at the Westmark Hotel, at the Nxivm intensive, when she was ejected after claiming that she was pregnant with Keith Raniere’s child.

And in part because Heidi could ascertain what clothes, boots etc, were missing from Kristin’s closet.

So the question, again, is: Did Kristin Snyder set out to commit suicide in purple slippers?

Or is it possible that someone whisked her out of the home, knowing she would be there alone, without regard to dressing her up properly for the cold?

According to Elaine Smiloff, Esther Chiappone Carlson gave instructions to Elaine to simply drop Kristin off at home.

Which is what Elaine said she did. Took her home and dropped her off without going in. Elaine remembered that Kristin was not dressed for an outdoor excursion.

According to Heidi Clifford, Esther told her that Elaine would go in the house with Kristin and stay with her until she came home.

Something is fishy here.  And I would tend to believe Elaine and Heidi over the vile and notorious liar of Nxivm, Esther Chiappone Carlson.

Kristin was left alone in her home she shared with Heidi, while Heidi was under the impression that Elaine would be staying with her until she got home from the Nxivm intensive.

The question is – did Kristin remain alone until someone came to remove her? Or did she leave by herself and drive to Seward?

When Heidi left the intensive a few hours after Kristin had been removed, she found the pickup truck she shared with Kristin missing from the parking lot.

This alarmed her. She caught a ride home.

When she got home she found no one there.

She shortly afterward called the Anchorage police to report a missing person.

Kristin’s pickup truck was found, the following evening in Seward on the shores of Resurrection Bay with a suicide note written on one page of a spiral notebook and on another page, but written oppositely, a single sentence, “no need to search for my body.”

No need indeed.

Despite literally dozens of people searching for her by air, sea and land, her body was never found.

When nothing was found of Kristin Snyder, police added up her pickup truck at Millers Landing, plus a missing kayak, plus a suicide note equaled she committed suicide via the missing kayak.

Her body was not found. Neither was the kayak nor the paddle. Paddles most definitely float. [I will get into the kayak in my next post.]

Bodies float too. Even if they sink, they eventually float to the surface.

Of course, she may have weighed herself down with weights and sunk.

The harbor master for Seward, Alaska, told me an interesting story of a man who did just that. He committed suicide by tying a rope around him with weights. They found him under about 40 feet of water – floating up from the end of the rope. He was about a day or two away from being freed of the rope and floating to the surface as the skin of his body was coming off.

Another intriguing thing the harbor master told me was that he went out in search for some 16 bodies over the years. And he found all 16.

The only one known to not have been found in those waters was Kristin Sndyer, he said.

Another man, Rick Smith, an expert on kayaks, a man who conducted winter kayak tours and had participated in many search and rescues, agreed. He had been around when Kristin Snyder disappeared and thought it was suspicious.

He did not think it at all likely that she sunk a kayak and drowned in those waters without a trace.

What happened to the paddle?, he asked. Paddles are made to float. And not even an article of clothing?

This is in a bay, it is contained.

Could she have paddled out to sea?

Experts in kayaking said on the record at the time that because of the currents – it would be impossible for Snyder to have paddled out to the point where she could have been swept away in the ocean.

She could not kayak from the bay, where they were searching thoroughly by land, air and water, to the ocean, they believed.

I went up in a helicopter, following the same route as the searchers did. From a distance of 500 feet you could see anything in the water. I could see the separate wings of a seagull. I would have certainly seen a body, a kayak or a paddle.

No kayak, no paddle, no body.

No article of clothing even was found, not even a pair of purple slippers.

Frank Parlato