Former neighbor remembers Snowden as 'nice kid'

• Snowden%27s mother lives in Ellicott City%2C Md.
• Snowden himself lived there years ago
• Former classmate says he was sweet and articulate

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. – At the condominium complex where Edward Snowden once lived and where his mother, Elizabeth Wendy Snowden, lives, many neighbors' parking spaces were empty Monday as residents drove off for jobs in nearby Baltimore or Washington.

The former home of the man who made international news by saying he leaked information about National Security Agency surveillance programs sits in a quiet neighborhood a mile or so from I-95, which connects the cities.

Neighbor Joyce Kinsey recalled Edward Snowden as "a nice kid" who was friendly but "wasn't really personable. He didn't say much at all. He would say, 'Hi,' but he'd be looking down."

A former classmate of Snowden's recalled his polite demeanor as well.

Dawn Whitmore, a Washington photographer, was a classmate of Snowden's at Crofton Woods Elementary, near Annapolis, Md. She remembers him as "kind of sweet" and articulate and recalls that the pair attended the same science class in elementary school. When she saw his video from Hong Kong on Sunday, she noticed that he still speaks in the same deliberate way. "He was very well thought-out with what he was trying to say," she recalled.

Whitmore remembered Snowden with a bowl haircut and "nerdy glasses" that were a few sizes too big for his face. "He was always very, very nice with me – but I was also a very nerdy, shy girl," she said.

Kinsey said Edward Snowden hasn't lived in the Ellicott City condo for more than a decade but has regularly visited his mother during holidays. The Snowden family, she said, has owned the condo for about 12 years – Edward Snowden lived there for two or three years, some of it with a roommate and some of it with a girlfriend. Kinsey recalled meeting her, a "kind of artsy" young woman with multicolored hair whose license plate read "ARTIST."

Kinsey said Elizabeth Wendy Snowden moved into the unit around the time Edward moved out.

She said she'd seen Elizabeth Wendy Snowden a few days ago, and Sunday's revelations were "a total shock."

"I really like Wendy, and she's a really fine person – she really is," said Kinsey "I just am saddened by what has taken place."

Kinsey said she is friendly with Wendy Snowden in a neighborly way. The pair have "never discussed any kind of politics or religion or anything like that," she said. "We just say, 'Hi, how ya doin'?'

"She's a wonderful woman – I like her very much, and her dog is the most wonderful dog I've ever seen in my life. He's right there with her. He knows how to get her help."

The dog, Kinsey said, goes to work with Snowden most days. "Most of the time he is with her 24/7."

She recalled that Snowden once had firewood delivered to a parking space in front of her unit and Kinsey's husband helped her carry it to the house. But she and Snowden aren't particularly close. "I don't go in her house for coffee, she doesn't come into mine."

Kinsey, who spent the weekend in Pennsylvania, said that when she and her husband arrived home Sunday evening to the small media presence on her block, "we were, like, blindsided. I said, 'Oh my God, there's a drug deal going down.'" She laughed, then told her husband, "I wonder which one of my neighbors is a drug addict."