The Disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon

Certain disappearances are stranger than others. Both Kris Kremers (age 21) and Lisanne Froon (age 22) were born and raised in Amersfoort, Utrecht. Kris and Lisanne recently graduated college and earned degrees. Lisanne in Applied Sciences and Kris in Cultural Social Education. The plan was to travel to Panama to learn Spanish and do some volunteering.

On March 15th, 2014, they arrived in Panama for a six-week vacation. They traveled through Panama for two weeks before arriving in Boquete, Chiriqui. On March 29th, 2014 to live with a local family for a month and to volunteer with children.

Around 11:00 a.m. on April 1st, 2014 they went hiking with their hosts' dog close to the clouded forests that surrounded the Baru volcano just outside of Boquete. They posted on Facebook that they planned to take a walk around the area, and according to reports, they were seen enjoying brunch with two young Dutch men before setting out on the trail.

When the dog returned home that evening without Kris and Lisanne, their hosts got worried, and reported the girls missing. They left to never return after taking a trail through the nearby forests for a walk. Lisanne stopped sending her parents the daily texts reassuring them that everything was going great.

Kris and Lisanne missed a meeting with a local guide on the morning of April 2nd. Authorities started scouring the area from the air on April 3rd, and locals started looking for the girls as well.

The parents of Kris and Lisanne arrived in Panama on April 6th together with Dutch detectives and K-9 units to conduct a thorough search of the forests for 10 days. The girls’ parents offered a $30,000 reward for information leading to Kris and Lisanne's safe return.

A local woman turned in Lisanne's blue bag ten weeks after the girls vanished, the women claimed to have found it in a rice field beside a riverbank close to Alto Romero. She said that it had not been there the day before she found it. There were two pairs of sunglasses and $83 in cash in the backpack.

Lisanne's passport, a water bottle, her camera, two bras, and the girls' phones were also found in the backpack.

The girl’s phones revealed that just a few hours after they started their hike, the first distress call was placed, first from Kris' iPhone at 4:39 p.m., and then shortly after that, from Lisanne's Samsung Galaxy at 4:51 p.m. Except for one 911 call attempt on April 3rd, none of the attempts to call had been successful due to poor reception in the area. This 911 call only lasted a little over 1 second.

Lisanne's phone battery died after 5:00 a.m. on April 5th, and it was never used again. Kris' iPhone stopped making calls, but it was occasionally turned on to look for reception. On April 6th, unsuccessful attempts were made to unlock Kris’ iPhone. One report indicates that between April 7th and April 10th, there were 77 attempts to call emergency services on Kris' iPhone.

The iPhone was turned on, on April 11th at 10:51 a.m. and was last turned off at 11:56 a.m. There were pictures on Lisanne's camera. There was no indication of anything unusual in the images that were taken on April 1st, the pictures indicate that the girls followed a route near the Continental Divide Overlook and ventured into some wilderness hours before their initial attempt to contact 911.

On April 8th, 90 flash photos were shot between the hours of 1 and 4 in the morning, seemingly deep in the forest and in nearly total darkness. A handful of the pictures revealed that they may have been close to a river or ravine.

One picture seems to show Kris' head with what appears to be blood coming from her temple, another picture depicts what appears to be toilet paper and a mirror on a rock, while yet another picture depicts a twig with plastic bags and candy wrappers on top of a rock.

So most likely they went off-trail, got lost in the jungle, and possibly used their phone's flashlight to see in the dark. Since there was blood coming from Kris’ head, perhaps she fell and got injured that way.

The story doesn’t end here, the backpack's discovery prompted additional searches. On top of a rock on the opposite side of the river from where Lisanne's backpack was found, Kris' zipped and nicely folded jeans shorts were found. Two months later, a few miles further and closer to the location of the backpack, a pelvis and a boot with a foot inside were discovered. Soon at least 33 widely dispersed bones were found along the same riverbed, DNA testing confirmed that the bones belonged to Kris and Lisanne. While Kris' bones appear to have been bleached, Lisanne's bones still had some skin covering them.

A final search was conducted to look for further remains and to determine what happened to the girls, but the search was hampered by severe weather. They planned to use cadaver dogs. The girl's disappearance has been the subject of several theories, which investigators have examined. Investigators came to the conclusion that it was almost impossible for the girls to have gotten lost and wandered off the path unintentionally. The investigators also thought it was extremely unlikely that they had become victims of any criminal activity. Specific sections of the route were identified as locations where someone could fall into one of the river's tributaries. The same river where the remains, backpack and other items were discovered.

The nighttime photos, according to a local who is very familiar with the area, were taken in an area where if someone slipped from the trail could end up falling up to 130 feet and end up in a place surrounded by waterfalls and steep cliffs. They wouldn't have been able to climb back up from, had they survived the fall. Such a massive fall is apparently also consistent with the state of the girl's remains that have been recovered. The precise details of what happened will never be known. The girl's parents have expressed relief at the likely cause of their death.

There is still something off about it, it's possible that they went off the trail for whatever reason, fell into the ravine, and suffered injuries. That explains the picture with the blood on Kris’ head, and why they called for help late at night. It’s likely one of the girls succumbed to either injury or dehydration, while the other was still alive. This would explain the unsuccessful attempts to unlock the iPhone. Unfortunately, the elements probably got to the surviving girl as well.

Some of the elements are easily explained like the bleached bones. The heat and humidity of a rainforest will truly do that to your body over time; it will bleach your bones. Regarding the photos, the surviving girl might have been attempting to utilize the camera to convey a message, something she felt was crucial. Maybe it was for her loved ones, it’s possible she wanted to record what happened. The images also show that the girls were acting logically and wisely while signaling for help with anything they could find.

One image depicts an effective direction marker made of sticks and orange plastic; if one of them was injured or dead at that time, it was probably Kris because one close-up appears to show a wound to the right side of her head in the temple area, showing her hair color; a potential fatal injury to Kris may have been the reason behind these strange nighttime images.

They were there during the day, the trail was relatively straightforward, and it would have been difficult to essentially get lost and go off trail. Whether they heard something or saw something that prompted them to venture off the trail and into the jungle and to never return is unknown, but something did happen and that’s a fact.