In April 2014, the globe was rocked by the enigmatic case of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers, two females who disappeared while trekking in Panama’s deep forests.
The story they tell still haunts people because what started out as a promising trip swiftly devolved into a nightmare.
Wearing shorts and a tank top
The Netherlands-born Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, both in their 20s, left on a trekking excursion close to Boquete, Panama, for April 1, 2014.
The Dutch buddies are leaving the village wearing tank tops and shorts.
They just bring Lisanne’s little rucksack, which contains a water bottle, a camera and their cell phones.
They will just be gone for a few hours.
Mirador, a mountaintop vista, is the destination of their trek.
They inform the woman who rented them the room that they will return before nightfall.
It is still unclear what transpired afterward.
Six months of saving
Lisanne Froon, 22, and Kris Kremers, 21, had long yearned to travel the world.
4o mini Kris Kremers had a reputation for being creative, open-minded, and highly responsible. Lisanne Froon, on the other hand, was a bright, aspirational, and clever young lady who had a strong love for volleyball.
At the University of Utrecht, Kremers had recently completed her studies in cultural social education with a concentration on art education. Froon had just received a degree from Deventer in applied psychology.
Lisanne Froon lived with Kris Kremers in Amersfoort shortly before leaving for Panama, where they both worked at a neighbourhood café. After saving for six months, they decided to take a special vacation to Panama as Froon’s graduation present.
Their objectives were to become proficient in Spanish, work as child volunteers, and have a significant influence on the neighbourhood.
On March 15, 2014, Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers arrived in Panama. On March 29, after two weeks of travelling around the nation, they arrived in Boquete, Chiriquí, to spend a month volunteering with children and staying with a local family.
Around 11:00 AM on April 1, they hiked the El Pianista trail, which is located just outside of Boquete and close to the foggy woods that encircle the Baru volcano.
Taking the dog with them, they started to tour the neighbourhood with their host family. However, a few hours after bidding their host family farewell, they vanished from view.
Their absence was not immediately apparent. Their host family became worried that night when the dog came back without them.
located the camera.
After a few hours of waiting until daylight, the family realised that something was seriously amiss.
A search started when the authorities were notified by April 2. Police, locals, and even the relatives of Kremers and Froon, who had flown in from the Netherlands, searched the region for days.
A few weeks went by. Not a thing. And then there was a sort of breakthrough almost two months after they vanished.
Along the riverbank, in a rice paddy, a local woman found a blue backpack. It contained Lisanne’s passport, two bras, cash, sunglasses, and a water bottle, among other personal belongings. The finding of the women’s phones and cameras, however, was what would make all the difference.
An unsettling reality
There was a terrifying tale on the phones.
In the days after their disappearance, the devices had made 77 attempts to contact emergency numbers, even though they were out of service for the majority of that period.
Hours after their trek, the first calls were heard, but they were unable to pass through the thick bush. The aspect that disturbs me the most? For a brief moment, one of the calls connected, but it ended after just two seconds.
After that, on April 6, the phones made an unsuccessful attempt to unlock Kremers’ phone by entering the incorrect PIN, suggesting that someone, possibly Kremers herself, had made a last-ditch effort to get help.
The phone never took the right PIN.
The last few seconds were much more terrifying. By April 11th, both phones had dead.
The eerie images
However, the camera itself was the real terror. What might have happened to Kremers and Froon after they vanished was hauntingly depicted in the photographs it contained.
The early images, which showed the women hiking, were innocent enough; there was no indication of the horror that would soon be revealed in their cheerful smiles and easygoing demeanours.
The images captured between 1 and 4 AM on the evening of April 8th, however, were what made everyone who saw them shiver.
The pictures were unusual and unnerving: trash heaped in strange patterns, plastic bags and candy wrappers strangely stacked, personal things scattered on rocks, and a startling close-up of Kris Kremers’ skull.
Except for perhaps one, the two girls are not shown in any of the nighttime pictures. This close-up of blond hair most likely depicts Kris Kremers’ back of the head. According to certain interpretations, there is blood visible in the lower right corner of the image.
Lisanne shot the final pictures of Kris on April 1, 2014, at around 2:00 PM.
Since then, one of the pictures has been interpreted as perhaps depicting the girls anticipating something or indicating that something had actually occurred.
With her hands seemingly locked behind her back, Kris is bending forward and wearing a pained expression.
The nighttime pictures sparked a lot of speculation.
Why did no photos get taken until the evening of April 8th, a full week after they vanished? The three-hour frenetic photographic session: what triggered it? Why aren’t the faces of the girls in any of the photos? They must have known they were going to perish in the forest, so why didn’t they leave a note for their loved ones?
The remains of humans
A few months after the backpack was discovered, authorities made additional terrifying findings as they worked to solve the mystery.
The clothes of Kremers were found folded nicely by the water. A foot, still in a boot, and the most horrifying of all, a pelvic bone, were discovered close to the same spot two months later.
They were gloomy remains. The bones of Lisanne Froon seemed to have broken down organically, with pieces of flesh still attached.
However, the horrifyingly white bones of Kris Kremers appeared to have been bleached, which is a natural occurrence that can occur from exposure to sunlight.
Only roughly 5% of Kremers’ bones and 10% of Froon’s bones were found overall.
However, upon magnification, “there are no discernible scratches of any kind on the bones, neither of natural nor cultural origin — there are no marks on the bones at all,” according to a Panamanian forensic anthropologist.
However, even after thorough investigations, the most lingering question remains unanswered: What happened to Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon?
There were no eyewitnesses, no suspects, and no cause of death was known.
The call logs, the photographs, and the finding of their corpses left more questions than answers.
A catastrophic mishap?
The truth behind the killings and disappearance of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers is still unknown. Did someone get lost in the bush or was it a fatal accident? Or was there a much darker force at work?
It’s still unclear what exactly killed Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. Dutch authorities first hypothesised that the two ladies might have unintentionally fallen from a cliff after becoming disoriented in the thick jungle, working with forensic specialists and search and rescue teams. However, no firm conclusion could be drawn in spite of a thorough inquiry.
The disturbing pieces of their last moments remain to be pieced together by their relatives in the Netherlands, Panamanian officials, and innumerable others. We’re all curious in what happened to the two young ladies who went on an expedition and never came back.
