Sneha Anne Philip

Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, a 31-year-old internal medicine resident at Cabrini Medical Center, was last definitively seen on the evening of September 10, 2001. Security cameras at a Century 21 store in Lower Manhattan showed her shopping for bed linens and shoes at approximately 7:00 p.m. She never returned to the apartment she shared with her husband, Ron Lieberman, near the World Trade Center.

The next morning, September 11, the World Trade Center was attacked. Sneha's husband, who was at work at a hospital in the Bronx, was unable to reach her. When she did not surface in the days that followed, the question became whether she had died in the attacks—perhaps as a bystander or a physician who ran toward the towers to help—or whether she had disappeared for other reasons before the attacks occurred.

The investigation revealed complexities in Sneha's life. She had been suspended from Cabrini for alleged alcohol use at work and was facing a professional hearing. Her marriage was described as troubled. There was evidence suggesting she led a private social life that her husband was not fully aware of. Some investigators believed she may have met with foul play the night of September 10.

A protracted legal battle ensued over whether Sneha should be listed among the 9/11 victims. An initial ruling excluded her, but in 2008 an appeals court reversed the decision, ruling she should be presumed to have died in the attacks. Her name is inscribed on the National September 11 Memorial. Whether Sneha died on September 11 helping at the World Trade Center or met a different fate the night before remains one of the most unusual unsolved cases associated with 9/11.