Twenty-four years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, two cases unconnected to the crash sites remain unsolved: the street killing of a Brooklyn immigrant and the disappearance of a newlywed physician last seen near the World Trade Center.
Henryk Siwiak, a 46-year-old Polish immigrant and married father of two, was shot and left for dead on a Brooklyn street hours after hijacked planes struck the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. His homicide was the only reported killing in New York City outside the attacks that day, and it remains unsolved.
Siwiak, who had emigrated to the United States from Poland less than a year earlier, was headed to a new job at a Pathmark supermarket in Bedford-Stuyvesant when he accidentally exited the subway at the wrong stop and walked into a block investigators later described as "pretty rough." He had phoned relatives in Eastern Europe earlier on Sept. 11 to say he was safe after the attacks, according to family accounts. Police and family members say he carried only about $5 that night because he regularly sent money home.
Police were called to the intersection of Decatur and Albany streets after gunshots were reported. Retired NYPD Lt. Tom Joyce, then assigned to the 79th Precinct and one of the first officers at the scene, said the department's response was limited by the scale of the terrorist attacks in Lower Manhattan. "There was only myself and one other detective available to even pay any attention to it, and we probably spent less than an hour on it," Joyce recalled in later interviews. He said evidence-collection resources were being used at the World Trade Center and that only one evidence technician with a Polaroid camera processed the scene.
Seven cartridge cases were recovered the night of the shooting, but investigators were unable to match them to a firearm or find other forensic leads that would produce an arrest. Attempts to extract DNA and fingerprints from the casings used then-new techniques that were not yet advanced enough, investigators said. Detective Michael Prate, also with the 79th Precinct at the time, said the area was known for gangs and street-level drug activity and that he believed Siwiak may have been killed during an attempted robbery.
Investigators and family members say the heavy diversion of manpower and resources to the World Trade Center hindered a full homicide investigation in the hours and days after Sept. 11. Joyce said detectives would normally have canvassed the area, conducted daily follow-ups, and pursued informants and narcotics arrests that might have yielded leads. "I think the likelihood of solving this case is exponentially greater if 9/11 had not hit," he said.
A reward of $12,000 was offered by the NYPD and Crime Stoppers. The case later became a cold case. Police officials have said the investigation remains open but have reported no recent developments. Solving the murder now, authorities say, would depend on new witness information or recovery of the weapon used in the shooting.
Siwiak's sister, Lucyna, who emigrated to the United States after losing a business in Poland, has described the family's shock and enduring grief. In interviews conducted years after the killing, she recalled that her brother had been in the country for about 11 months and that he knew little about which Brooklyn streets were dangerous. She said he had told her he thought he might die soon, a remark that the family has long found chilling.
The other case remains the disappearance of Dr. Sneha Anne Philip, a 31-year-old resident physician at St. Vincent's Hospital. Philip was last seen on Sept. 10, 2001, at about 7:18 p.m. at the Century 21 department store on Cortlandt Street across from the World Trade Center. She and her husband lived in Battery Park City, near the towers. In her final text messages to family, she suggested she wanted to visit the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of Tower One.
Philip was never found, and her disappearance has been the subject of prolonged investigation and public interest. She has been included on the official list of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, a designation that has drawn both scrutiny and debate among those following her case. The NYPD has said her case remains active and that there are no public updates.
Both cases illustrate the broader disruptions Sept. 11 caused to law enforcement and forensic work in New York City. As investigators concentrated on the unprecedented recovery and criminal inquiries tied to the attacks, other crimes and missing-person reports received reduced attention at a moment when coordination and evidence collection were stretched thin.
Family members, retired investigators and advocates for cold-case reviews say the two unresolved matters continue to weigh on survivors and the city, underscoring how the consequences of Sept. 11 extended beyond the immediate scene of the attacks. For Siwiak's family, the absence of an arrest has left a void that has outlasted the initial shock of his death. For Philip's loved ones, questions about what happened in the hours around the attacks persist.
The NYPD spokesperson told news outlets that both investigations are ongoing but offered no new information. Detectives who worked the original scenes and later cold-case teams say that breakthroughs would most likely depend on new eyewitness accounts, technological advances applied to existing evidence, or the recovery of material items linked to the crimes.
As anniversaries of the Sept. 11 attacks are observed, the unresolved stories of a murdered immigrant and a missing doctor remain part of New York's long reckoning with that day and its aftermath.