By Kim Snyder
Keith Alan Raniere claims to be the smartest man alive. He began his sick and twisted cult group – and got people sucked into it. He is nothing but a low-life worm.
Raniere sucked in many innocent people – and many victims and families are left behind – to suffer. My family is to be counted among them.
There is one special person – special to us – that he took from this earth – Kristin Marie Snyder, from Dillon, SC. Kris was living in Anchorage, AK, when she learned about ESP from one of Keith’s minions, Wende Ireck a hairdresser, who got her involved in it.
Keith was known to rape and seduce women when supposedly he was mentoring them. I believe he did that to my sister.
When Kris first began this awful course work, she called me wanting me to take it – but I said I did not like to sit still in a chair all day. So, I passed.
Kris was unusually excited about this man named Keith. She thought he was SO smart – so nice – but realistically, he was all about using and abusing women.
Kris – when she came to our family home in Dillon, SC for what turned out to be her last visit – she talked to my parents about meeting Keith and taking the course. Both of my parents said no!
The family’s lack of desire to join made Kris angry – which was unusual for her. She was always even keeled, an A student – and loved to learn.
Kris returned to Anchorage to take more of the misleading courses and became even lower in herself. The misguiding leaders – who had NO medical training, allowed my ONLY sister – per the guiding hand of Keith Alan Raniere – to die.
Keith was in Albany at the time that Kris was being gaslit in Anchorage. I believe he was telling Nancy Salzman to make sure Kris was silenced permanently.
Raniere has tried to fool many people and when people tried to talk to law enforcement, he sent his minions with them. Keith knew if the law found out that Kris was kept from medical treatment, or if someone mentioned that she was pregnant, he could have been a suspect.
The people in the inner-circle of the Nxivm group are extremely selfish. Would you believe Esther Chiappone Carlson demanded that Heidi Clifford, Kris’ domestic partner – had to pay the rest of the balance due for her course – for the intensive they kicked Kristin out of?
Yes, that’s right. Keith wanted the rest of the money from the last intensive that Kris did NOT finish – some $11,000 – and Heidi sold their Toyota Tacoma Truck to make the payment. The same pickup truck which was found in Seward Alaska – with the purported suicide note.
She lost her life and he got the money.
So Keith gave instructions to his top women – like Nancy Salzman – the day Kris vanished. Or Esther Chiappone fighting off all efforts to get her medical attention, saying, “just leave her alone – she wants attention.”
Other things trouble me. The leaders of the intensive: Ed Kinnum, Esther Chiappone Carlson, Karen Abney, [Name Redacted], Elaine Smiloff – totally ignored my sister, and refused her medical treatment.
Kris was removed from the class and supposedly sent home – to calm down. Elaine Smiloff says she took Kris home, but it is not clear if Kris was ever taken home.
What is clear is that Elaine was to take Kris home, and stay with her, until Heidi got home. That NEVER happened.
Instead, Kris was supposedly just dropped off by Elaine. and left alone. I don’t buy it.
After Kris disappeared on February 6, 2003 – Elaine Smiloff was interviewed by police – but for some reason, she was not interviewed alone. Along with her came Esther Chiappone Carlson. (This is not usually the way police do interviews). Esther made sure that Elaine did NOT mention the “pregnancy” – for if she had, Esther, Ed Kinnum, Karen Abney and other leaders, would have been interrogated more seriously.
Elaine kept her mouth shut and did NOT tell the whole truth.
And Elaine NEVER went back to the law enforcement officials – without Esther – to tell what really happened to Kris. She waited 15 plus years to contact Frank Parlato to tell him what happened.
All the Nxivm minions kept their mouths shut now for almost 17 years – and they have NEVER given my family and me closure.
Nancy Salzman, Ed Kinum, Karen Abney, Elaine Smiloff, [Name Redacted] and Esther Chiappone Carlson, ALL gaslighted my sister. Some of them perhaps deserve to go to jail.
It is time for people who know something about the January/February 2003 intensive in Anchorage to step forward and post a comment or call Frank Parlato.
Please give my family and myself closure.
Frank Parlato 
Janine Morrison 
J.J. O'Hara 
Richard Luthmann 
Marie White 
Paul Serran
Please leave a comment: Your opinion is important to us!
The police in Alaska ruled this a suicide. Stop stirring up shit. They talked to Esther and Elaine. They are trained professionals. Kim and Frank are not. Don’t second guess the police. It’s not only unamerican it is stupid. Police are smart.
A jury was also empaneled to review the case before Alaska issued a Certificate of Probable Death – we know nothing of what evidence they reviewed or what witnesses they called, but they confirmed the official expert findings at the time.
It was the Snyder family who asked for the Certificate of Death.
If they thought it was anything other than suicide, why would they ask for a certificate of death to be issued?
They had a service for Kristin at their family church in SC and a graveside burial
How was this not getting the closure they needed for their daughter/sister?
Clifford was actually the petitioner for the Certificate of Presumptive Death on 07/13/04. Do we really know if the Snyder family had a role in asking for that?
The survivors’ position is a bit hard to understand, given that Clifford and the Snyders seemed to accept the official findings at the time – and that’s part of the basis for NXIVM’s conspiracy theory, that they were supposedly suspiciously quick to start treating Snyder as dead. But Kim Snyder now says she, and her father, had lingering doubts all along.
I do think the Alaska authorities ought to perform a follow-up investigation and interview witnesses, given what we now know about information being withheld from them, or their even being lied to – unless those things were covered in the jury proceedings that we know nothing about, which would have occurred after the 2004 Times Union article revealed a bit more about the case (though nothing about the pregnancy claims) including that several others had experienced severe psychological problems after doing doing NXIVM intensives:
For anyone following the case, it’s worth reviewing the article, and seeing what Clifford and the Snyders were saying the year after the disappearance:
https://culteducation.com/group/907-nxivm/6048-an-espians-brief-life-.html
The Snyder’s want to know what happened to their daughter since she was driven away from the West Mark Hotel by Elaine Smiloff and never seen again. Elaine was interviewed by the police but had to be escorted by Esther. Why? This is usually NOT allowed to be done. Esther Chiappone Carlson was never interviewed by police….but if she had been, they would have heard about the rape/pregnancy. Elaine has still NOT gone back to the police, to tell everything that she needs…..and Esther and Ed still have NOT come out of their shells, to report what really happened that fateful day – at that last class, at the intensive. Esther knew she was supposed to stay at Kris and Heidi’s home – and wait on Heidi, but she did NOT do that.!
Nancy Salzman was constantly on the phone with Esther and her other minions, telling them how to gaslight my sister……with the backdrop of Keith- telling Nancy what to do. They killed my sister. To those minions that are telling us NOT to dig up stuff…..we are trying to find out what happened to my sister. These are all facts, that I have stated…DO NOT tell the Snyders what to do, unless you have been in the Snyders’ shoes- for 16 years. We know that Nancy Salzman and her minions have NOT been interrogated for their part in Kris’ death. Nancy – the courts think – will get off scot-free if this crime is NOT solved. There is enough paperwork to put NaNcy away. We the Snyders are trying to find out what happened to their baby and why. People who tell us NOT to dig into this are the ones that know the most – and we need to hear from you.
Call/email Frank
Even though we know that Elaine Smiloff was seen driving away from the Westmark Hotel in Anchorage with Kristin, according to witnesses, what happened next? Who is Elaine Smiloff, really? What’s the story of her having been in some kind of trouble with the law herself? Is it wrong to ask, or bringing up a touchy subject? Why was Elaine Smiloff at Esther Chiappone’s, etc. beck and call, to be the one who drove Kristin off, and Kristin was never seen alive again?
Esther Chiappone was more authoritative than Ed the chiropractor, as far as managing Kristin’s handling as an intensive participant who was found difficult to “teach.” Esther Chiappone did not let Smiloff speak with authorities alone, and no one admitted that Kristin was saying that she was pregnant and was being told by Raniere’s/Salzman’s intensive staff, for many days, that NO, Kristin was not pregnant.
The negligent treatment of Kristin Snyder in a marketed ESP intensive training is staggering. It’s nauseating. It is heartbreaking.
Was Elaine some kind of tough or violent individual? Was she in legal trouble before or after Kristin disappeared? How come Elaine was asked, or told, to drive Kristin Snyder away from the ESP intensive? Why her and why did she agree to do it?
What is the double-story about how Elaine was supposedly going to keep Kristin company, to not leave her by herself, vs. how Elaine claims that she just left Kristin at Kristin and Heidi’s home and didn’t stay with Kristin at all?
Even to imagine that the way that the Executive Success Program’s staff treated Kristin, by ejecting her, after days of dismissing what Kristin was saying was distressing her, is too much and though it should have been investigative info, right from the start, there was a big coverup.
With all that has come to light since, let’s get some justice. These people put on an expensive and long program and failed their client entirely. No one helped Kristin to get medical attention or cooperated when Heidi Clifford said that she’d take Kristin to a medical professional.
Raniere involved himself with Kristin as a criminal pretending to be a valid teacher and mentor. He even sent detectives out to Alaska quite some time after Kristin Snyder disappeared. Kristin’s body had never been found. He didn’t only send his inner circle spy, Kristin Keeffe to Alaska to nose around. He wanted something more official-looking than that. So he told some detectives what to go find in Alaska: nothing!
I think that Raniere sent detectives to spread rumors in Alaska that fit Raniere’s goal: don’t bother looking for Kristin Snyder. Raniere wanted Kristin to seem alive and well, having run off from Anchorage to live happily ever after, as a lesbian with some emotional baggage, who maybe even was a small-time drug dealer in hiding, say in Florida.
What are we looking at here? The whole story has got to be exposed. This is no way to allow it to fade away, now that there’s more information available than ever before. Is there a real investigation being done now by Anchorage or any Alaskan law enforcement agency?
No one should ever experience what Kristin Snyder is known to have gone through, even while she was still present as a participant, in a self-help format, in a human growth potential environment. Executive Success Programs were completely phony, apparently only looking for-profit and to recruit suitable fodder for Raniere’s workforce or for his other interests.
It would be better to find out what really happened to Kristin Snyder. She had a life before she ran into whatever Raniere and company tried to sell her or to force upon her. And then all of sudden, Kristin was gone, last seen leaving an ESP group in Anchorage, where the entire group’s staff had engaged in lying to her, gaslighting her, isolating her, and denying her any help or even human comfort.
Do we actually know that Smiloff was seen driving Snyder away from the hotel? As far as I can tell, we only have Smiloff’s word, or even a second-hand account of what Smiloff purportedly said.
Raniere hired detectives to “investigate” what is essentially NXIVM’s conspiracy theory, that Snyder faked her disappearance in order to escape from drug dealers or something – Keefe, as well as Joe O’Hara as an outsider, believe that. And there is apparently some possible evidence supporting that theory, including a photograph, that we’ve never gotten to see here.
The person to help is Toni Natalie. Never underestimate the power of a beautiful woman to solve the case. People line up to work with her. Men because she is gorgeous; women because she is like a sister to then.
“The misguiding leaders – who had NO medical training, allowed my ONLY sister – per the guiding hand of Keith Alan Raniere – to die.”
Correction, they didn’t “allow” your sister to die, they assisted and enabled her death. They were Raniere’s partners in crime. They carried out locally what he wanted done from afar.
“Here’s Johnny”
“Why so serious?”
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille”
“Mask on, Mask off”
Muahah
“I’ll get you my pretty and your little dog too”
I digress… coughing to clear my throat…
Whoa, thanks, Frank now I’m going to have nightmares. That face though.
Maybe Keith to get a lighter sentence would be willing to talk about this case . Something to consider .
Ha
When I was a kid, I used to play manhunt in the marshlands down south, the board game Clue and read Nancy Drew and the boxcar kids series of books. Ahh shit, that’s neither here nor there……ELAINE! CLIFFORD! Why do you two and a whole fucking handful of you bastards look like killers? Why! Where the hell is Kristen Snyder at?!!!!!!! Frank! Where the fuck is Mike Levy?!!!!!!
One of you assholes out there knows exactly what happened, so please for the love of God quit being a big coward ass pussy and call Frank, call the FBI, call Kim Snyder, call your fucking mama and at least drop us a clue
Or confess your sins to the priest! Mr. DiLaura please help my friend Kim. Thanks 😊