The El Pianista Trail, the tourist attraction of the Panamanian town of Boquete, is considered rather straightforward. It certainly shouldn't be a problem for two athletic young girls. On April 1, 2014, Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers, dear friends from the Netherlands, decided to take up the challenge. In the beginning, they did very well, as evidenced by photos taken by tourists. Then something must have happened that made the women stray from the trail and never come home again.
Lisanne Froon was born on September 24, 1991, in Amersfoort (The Netherlands). Among her peers, she was distinguished above all by her height - she was 184 cm tall. She used this unusual gift by playing volleyball.
Sport, however, was not her only passion. Lisanne graduated in Applied Psychology. She enjoyed universal sympathy. She infected with a smile. She was ambitious, but a bit shy at the same time. She lived in a dormitory with her best friend - Kris.
Kris Kremers was a year younger than Lisanne but was born in the same town. She had characteristic red hair and blue eyes. She was interested in art, and she studied cultural and social education.
Kirs was described as cheerful, extroverted, and energetic. So you can say that the girls got together on the basis of opposites. In 2014, they both graduated from college and were 22 and 21 years old, respectively.
During their studies, Kirs and Lisanne worked in a restaurant. They put the money earned in this way for a very specific purpose - they wanted to go on an exotic journey combined with work for the needy.
Ultimately, they chose Panama. They wanted to visit this extraordinary corner of the globe and teach local children English at the same time. Once they chose their destination, they began scrupulously preparing for their journey. Both had had similar initiatives in the past and therefore had experience.
Panama is located in Central America in the Isthmus of Panama and connects two American continents. The capital city is the city of the same name. The country's official language is Spanish.
Panama is located in a humid climate zone. The average temperature is 28 degrees Celsius, the country is crisscrossed by a network of rivers, 44% is occupied by humid equatorial forests. Outside of large, developed cities, it is not easy for people to live here.
On March 15, 2014, Kirs and Lisanne set off on a journey of a lifetime. From the Netherlands, they flew to Texas (USA), where they took a plane to Costa Rica, and from there they traveled to Bocas del Toro in Panama. It was only on March 29 that they arrived in Boquete, where they were to start working at an English school.
Lisanne and Kris left their belongings in the cozy hostel and went to the facility where they were to teach the children. Its owner - an American of origin - told the surprised tourists that the plans had changed and they could start working only a week later.
The Dutch women were not happy about it, but they had no choice but to adapt to the situation. They decided to use these additional 7 days to explore the area. It was obvious that they had to walk the El Pianista trail which is a local tourist attraction.
The El Pianista route leads to the top of El Mirador. This is called The "continental watershed" - a place from which - in good weather - two oceans can be seen simultaneously. It is considered medium-difficult, and it takes an average of 4 to 5 hours to complete the entire route.
The girls wanted to go to the Pianist with a guide. They made an appointment with him on April 2. The man showed up at the hostel on the scheduled day early in the morning. He knocked on the door, and called, but no one answered him.
Concerned, the guide asked the owners of the facility about two Dutch women, but they had last seen them at breakfast the previous day. They all decided to enter their room together. When they opened the door, they saw an empty room with an unmade bed. Lisanne and Kris were nowhere to be found. It didn't seem like they had come back for the night.
On April 1, 2014, Kirs and Lisanne told the hosts that they were going to hang around the neighborhood. They took a dog named Blue with them. It is not known why they decided to go to "The Pianist", even though they had a guide already arranged for April 2.
At the beginning, the trip went well - you can see it in the photos the girls took along the way. The photos show them one by one or together taking selfies. There is no stranger on any of them. The tourists seem to be in great spirits.
In the evening of the same day, Blue returned to the hostel alone, without the girls. This disturbed the owners, but not enough to cause them to do anything about it. After all, the Dutch were of legal age and had the right to do whatever they liked.
Concerned, the guide reported the missing girls to the local police station. The small facility did not have sufficient staff to carry out a large-scale rescue operation. So the search started on April 3.
Meanwhile, Lisanne and Kris's parents also started to get nervous. Suddenly their daughters stopped talking to them, even though they had been doing it regularly so far. On April 6, they flew to Panama, assisted by detectives, policemen, and sniffers, to take part in the search.
The work of the officers was extremely difficult. Boquete has a tropical climate, it is extremely stuffy and hot. In such conditions, a person dehydrates quickly. It takes a long time to cover a short distance between trees and bushes. Leaves and branches muffle the light and human calls. Dutch tracking dogs, not used to such conditions, turned out to be useless - they were not able to pick up the trail.
Despite all these difficulties, the search was carried out extremely meticulously, during the day and at night, when the jungle was dark in Egypt. Lifeguards worked at full speed for 10 days, supported by local residents and guides. They walked the Pianist a few times, but found no trace of Lisanne and Kris on the way. Desperate parents offered a reward of $ 30,000 in exchange for any information about the missing women.
Time was working to the detriment of the missing. It was known that the girls did not have the appropriate clothes or equipment that would help them survive in difficult conditions. They wore shorts and T-shirts and had no food or water.
The case of the missing girls quickly gained publicity across Panama. Witnesses who saw them in Boquete on April 1 reported them to the police. Among them were several tourists who testified that they had eaten a meal with Kris and Lisanne at a local coffee shop just before they set off on the trail.
The breakthrough in the case came only ten weeks later. It was then that the two Indians found a blue backpack in the rice field that belonged to Lisanne. The men guessed that the item might belong to the missing Dutch woman, so they wanted to hand it over to investigators as soon as possible. It took them two days to travel to the police station.
Found in the backpack: two bras belonging to Lisanne and Kris, $ 85, two pairs of cheap sunglasses, a Canon Powershot SX270 HS camera, two cell phones (iPhone and Samsung), and a water bottle.
All these items were neatly packed and in surprisingly good condition considering the time they spent in the jungle. Everyone had high hopes for the find. It turned out, however, that the analysis of the items found in it raised more questions than answers.
On April 1, around 4:30 p.m., Kris's iPhone made the first attempt to call 112 emergency number. Later, the same number was dialed on Lisanne's Samsung. Both attempts failed for two reasons: there is no mobile phone coverage on the El Pianista trail, and the emergency number in Panama is 911.
Samsung was turned on until April 4, when the battery probably ran out, the iPhone lasted longer. Regular attempts were made to make calls to both emergency numbers on both phones.
Between April 5 and April 11, the iPhone was turned on multiple times to check coverage, but to no avail. Once, no PIN was entered into it. This suggested to investigators that his owner, Kris, was already dead at the time, so Lisanne was using the camera, or someone else, perhaps the kidnapper.
The analysis of photos taken by the girls during the trip introduced even more ambiguity to the matter. The photos from April 1 can be called typical "holiday photos", kept in a cheerful atmosphere. The last of the day was taken at 1:54 pm.
The next photos are dated April 8 and are extremely disturbing. These are 90 black or almost black frames depicting emptiness, the night sky, or fragments of dark, forest undergrowth. Only 3 of them are more or less legible.
The first photo shows Kris's red hair in close-up. On the second - a bizarre structure made of twigs, red foil and chewing gum wraps. On the third - a fragment of the night landscape, like a muddy slope. According to some, this photo shows a fragment of the human body.
There has been long speculation over the meaning of these photographs. The most probable theory is that on April 8, at night, tourists heard sounds made by rescuers. They wanted to let them know where they were with flashlights. However, the dense vegetation effectively suppressed voices and flashes. The longed-for rescue has not come.
On the other hand, the bizarre installation of sticks and fragments of a plastic bag may have been a marker documenting the whereabouts of Lisanne and Kris. It is possible that tourists wanted to make it clear that they were still alive.
The officers decided to search the rice field where Lisanne's backpack was found. It was so inaccessible that they decided to ask local Indians for help. As a result of these actions, a shoe with a foot stuck inside, 33 bones (some with tissue fragments still visible) and shorts of one of the girls were found lying on a stone by the river bank.
The untrained Indians packed all items into bags and sent them to the police. They did not take photos, they did not protect any traces, because no one trained them for this purpose. In this way, some of the priceless information that could later help solve the mystery of the girls' deaths was lost.
DNA tests confirmed that the foot in the shoe and the remaining 28 bones belonged to Lisanne and only two to Kris. The remains were in different states of decomposition, which is extremely strange considering the two bodies had been lying in tropical conditions for 2.5 months. None of the bones were found to have teeth marks from wild animals or from any trauma (impact, gunshots, etc.).
Investigators considered different scenarios of what happened to Lisanne and Kris on April 1, 2014. The simplest version of events assumes that the girls strayed from the trail and got lost in the dense jungle. For 11 days, they tried to find their way back to Boquete, fighting hunger, humidity, heat and wild animals. They walked along the river.
They fell ill or had an accident on the way. They did not have the strength to continue their journey. They died of exhaustion, and the current of the water carried both bodies down to the rice field at Bocas del Toro, a day's walk from Boquete.
To get there on their own, Lisanne and Kris would have to cross - without provisions and equipment - five ravines and three rivers. It is unlikely, hence the theory of bodies abducted by a strong current. In the jungle, even a small stream can quickly turn into rapid rapids. Slippery rocks and mud from heavy rainfall further increase the risk of drowning.
The possibility of sexual assault and kidnapping was also considered. In this version, the main suspect was Feliciano González - a would-be tourist guide, who appeared at the door of their room on April 2.
It has been speculated on the Internet that González only took young, attractive girls with whom he was pushy and even tried to harass them. Perhaps he followed the tourists on April 1 to the summit of El Mirador. In a convenient place for him, he ordered them to get off the trail, and then used and killed. However, no evidence was found to support this theory.
After analyzing the evidence and circumstantial evidence, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Betzaida Pitti, appeared at a press conference. In a monotone voice, she recited the findings made by the investigators: no traces of animals or humans were found on the bones; some bones were treated with phosphorus, but it is not known under what circumstances this process took place; the remains were in various states of decomposition; no traces of blood were found in the rice field.
The prosecutor Pitty argued that dangerous animals such as pumas and snakes live in the Boquete area. Small streams during rainfall rapidly expand in volume, posing a risk to humans. On a muddy path, it is easy to slip, break a leg or break your head.
Outside of this litany of possibilities, she has not put forward any evidence-based version of what happened to Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers. The whole matter, despite numerous unresolved doubts, was considered an unfortunate accident. The investigation was closed and the remains of the deceased were handed over to their parents so that they could organize a funeral.
Source:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F439YYteu_k
- https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama
- https://niewyjasnione-zaginiecia.pl/kris-kremers-lisanne-froon/
- https://petapixel.com/2022/05/19/eerie-photos-reveal-last-moments-before-women-vanished-in-panama/
- https://zaginieniprzedlaty.com/artykuly/panamskie-wzgorze-ktore-ukrylo-tajemnice-okrutnej-smierci-dwoch-mlodych-dziewczyn/
- https://cosnowego.kul.pl/spoleczne/tajemnica-zaginiecia-skryta-w-panamskiej-dzungli/
No comments:
Post a Comment