Travelling is something many young people dream of doing before settling down to launch their careers or start that educational journey, Kris and Lisanne were two such women that embarked on an adventure of a lifetime but their trip would turn into one of the worlds strangest mysteries.
Lisanne Froon (September 24, 1991) was born in Amersfoort, Netherlands and was described as an aspiring, optimistic, intelligent and passionate volleyball player and had graduated with a degree in Applied Sciences. Kris Kremers (August 9, 1992) was also born in Amersfoort, she was a graduate in Cultural Social Education, specialising in Art Education at the University of Utrecht. Lisanne and Kris had moved in together a few weeks before their trip and worked together at a local restaurant called In den Kleinen Hap. The pair had saved up money for six months for a trip to Panama to learn Spanish and to also do some good in the local community, in particular volunteering with children. The trip had been intended as a celebration for Lisanne graduating.
Kris (21) and Lisanne (22) arrived in Panama for their six week trip on March 15, 2014. They started off by travelling around Panama for two weeks before arriving on March 29 in Boquete to stay with a local family for the month while volunteering at the local school. When the pair arrived they wrote in their diaries of an unwelcome reception by the school and were informed there was no work for them until the following week.
On April 1 at around 11am the pair took a dog that belonged to their host family and owners of local restaurant, Il Pianista, on a hike to the scenic forests that surround Baru Volcano on the Pianista Trail, not far from Boquete. They wrote on their Facebooks that they had intended to walk around Boquete and had been seen having lunch with two young Dutch men before setting out on the hike that is reportedly meant to take around four hours to complete.
It was now night time and the host family noticed that their dog had returned home - alone, the women were nowhere to be found. The family searched the area around their home but with it being dark, didn't find anything. Lisanne and Kris had been sending their parents daily text messages but these had stopped after April 1. On April 2, the women were due to meet with a local guide in the morning for a private walking tour around Boquete but they failed to turn up, it was then the host family finally alerted authorities. It was on April 3 that a search was called for the pair, aerial searches of the forest were done with local residents and tribe members completing a ground search. On April 6, the parents of Kris and Lisanne arrived in Panama along with police, dog units and detectives from the Netherlands to conduct a full scale search of the area for ten days and their parents offered a $30,000 reward.
It wasn't until ten weeks later that a woman from the local Ngabe tribe turned in Lisanne's blue backpack that she had found in a rice paddy by a riverbank near her village of Alto Romero in the Boros del Toro region, the woman was adamant that the backpack had not been there the day before. The backpack contained two pairs of sunglasses, $83, Lisanne's passport, a water bottle, Lisanne's camera, two bras and both of the women's phones - all packed, dry and in good condition. The phones showed that a few hours into the hike someone had called 112 (the international emergency number) and 911 (the emergency number in Panama).
The first call had been made from Kris's iPhone at 16.39pm and shortly after followed by Lisanne's Samsung at 16.51pm, neither call connected due to no signal in the area, the only call to connect was a single 911 call on April 3 that lasted only a few seconds before breaking up. On April 5, Lisanne's battery died after 5am and was not used again, Kris's phone wouldn't make anymore calls but would intermittently turn on to search for reception. After April 6 the iPhone would log multiple wrong attempts at entering the PIN, one report showed that between April 7 - 10 there were seventy-seven emergency call attempts with April 11 showing it turned off for the last time at 11.56am.
Lisanne's camera showed that the women had on April 1 taken a trail at the overlook of the Continental Divide, the photos showed both posing and admiring their surroundings and a waterfall before wandering into some wilderness hours before the first 911 attempt but nothing seemed amiss, both seemed relaxed and happy, it was the second batch of photos that would worry detectives. On April 8 ninety flash photos were taken between 1am and 4am, the photos were taken deep in the jungle and in near complete darkness, a few of the photos showed that they were near a river or ravine. Other photos show a twig with plastic bags and sweet wrappers on top of a rock, toilet paper and a mirror on another rock and another shows a close up of the back of Kris's head. In some photos oddly piled mounts of dirt can be seen, these are referred to as the "night photos" and were taken eight days after their disappearance, people have noted it as odd that Kris's hair looks very clean for someone who has been lost in the jungle for eight days. Some of the photos can be seen at the bottom of this page.
With the discovery of the backpack it gave detectives a place to pin point their search along the Culebra. Kris's denim shorts, zipped and neatly folded, were found on top of a rock opposite the river bank a short distance away from where the backpack was found, later witnesses state that the shorts were not neatly folded but were found in the river.
Two months later, close to where the backpack was found, a pelvis, rib cage and a boot with a foot inside were found. Soon thirty-three widely scattered bones were found along the river bank. DNA testing later confirmed that they belonged to the missing women. Lisanne's bones still had pieces of flesh attached that suggested her remains had decomposed naturally while Kris's bones appeared to have been bleached. A Panamanian Forensic Anthropologist later claimed that the bones had no marks on them.
Police questioned locals and others in the area but nothing would come up, there wasn't even enough evidence to determine what the cause of death was for Lisanne and Kris or if this was an accident or murder. Dutch forensic teams determined the women had died from an accident while Panamanian forensic teams confirmed a possible murder had occurred. An official report states that the women were dragged by the river.
With the multiple distress calls, unsettling photos and no clear evidence of what befell the pair, the case has become a notorious mystery and many theories have sprung up trying to explain what happened, here are some of the most popular theories:
Lisanne and Kris got lost after venturing further into the wilderness and couldn't find their way back to a trail, they somehow fell into the river and drowned or they made it out of the river but one was dead and the other hurt.
One or both of the them suffered an injury or fall. This explains why they keep calling for help and stay together if they are both injured or not wanting to split up if one is injured due to not knowing where they are.
The pair come into contact with either a wild animal that attacks them or a person or persons who do them harm.
The theory of murder is interesting as local law enforcement failed to conduct a serious investigation due to fear of hurting tourism in the area. A member of Panama's Legal Medicine and Forensic Science told reporters that the total fragmentation of two adult humans in such a short amount of time is unlikely, especially in such a cool and high elevated area such as the jungle where the bones were found. Other experts were puzzled by the bleaching and the small amount of bones found, they believed that this may be due to someone trying to use a chemical such as lime to speed up decomposition and the lack of marks found on the bones odd as there should be at least evidence of animal scavenging. The use of lime is apparently a favourite method of disposal used by the Mexican Cartel.
It is also possible there is a serial killer lurking in the Boquete area, there have been over two dozen other unsolved killings or disappearances in the same region over the last eight years.
The case is a complicated one and raises many questions, if they did come into contact with a person who hurt them, why were their belongings untouched - If they were attacked due to being tourists and potentially having valuables, then why is everything left behind and no evidence such as blood left on the backpack or clothing items found. The bras in the backpack seem odd as the pair seem to be wearing them in photos taken early in the day.
The photos are another mystery, if the dog went out with the women, why is it not in any photos? Was the dog examined for any clues? If the women are injured and knew that they would likely die, why did they not try and reach family or friends or at least record a good bye on their phones/camera? A theory states that the photos were taken by an injured Lisanne or Kris as a way to show what had happened to them as the other had already died by this point, but at Apollo's Raven we feel that wasn't the case as why would you take random photos of your surroundings when you could take a photo of yourself or of your friend to show a clearer view of what has happened, to us it seems there's another reason for the photos.
Let's look at the signs of this being an accident or murder:
An Accident:
The photos don't show the women in any distress.
The calls show they were in need of help.
The wrong PIN could be Lisanne who didn't know her friends PIN but was trying to guess it or possibly an injured Kris who was scared and forgot it.
The photos taken in the early hours may mean one woman had died and the other was trying to log what happened or was trying to use the flash on the camera to see what she was doing, which makes the photos then useless for a real reason other than a light source. Another theory is the flash was being used to scare an animal away.
The photos were taken in the same location suggesting they were injured and couldn't move. Kris seems to be the only person in these photos and they are of a close up of the back of her head. This suggests Lisanne is the photographer and that Kris is injured.
Nothing was stolen.
The women didn't seem very well prepared for a hike in the jungle, only bringing one bag of supplies, one water bottle, bringing sweets and newcomers to the hiking area are advised to bring a guide as the trail isn't well marked out. Some reports state the women were out for a short hike hence why they don't seem to be very prepared.
A Murder:
It is believed that Lisanne and Kris wouldn't have ventured away from the trail as they were new to the area and weren't experienced hikers. Perhaps the killer was someone who worked as a tour guide and offered to show the women a different trail or shortcut.
A murderer was the one trying to get into the phone.
The murderer took the photos to throw off police and try it make it look like an accident.
The murderer planted the backpack in the field so it would be found.
The lack of remains found suggest someone tried to hide or destroy them, they were also found a distance from the location of the photo location.
The clothes, did someone force them to undress? Or were they planted? Where are the rest of their clothes, Lisanne's don't appear to have been found and Kris's boots don't either. The boots in particular would be hard to hide.
Whatever the real reason for what happened will likely remain a secret kept by the jungle. The general consensus for the deaths is simply a tragic accident. The local polices reluctance to complete their investigation will mean that the mystery of what happened to Kris and Lisanne during their hike will continue to confuse and interest those who hear of it. At the heart of this mystery it was simply two young women who set out to celebrate and do some good for other people and for that we should applaud and remember Kris and Lisanne and hope that the good they managed to achieve in their lives is never forgotten.
Further reading: While doing our investigation we came across a website that features all the photos of the trip including the "night photos", diaries, theories, crime in the area and a lot of information about the case, if you are interested please click here. Please note this website should be viewed on a desktop as the layout is hard to see on a mobile or tablet.
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