Deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon

Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon were two Dutch students who disappeared on April 1, 2014, while hiking in Panama. After an extensive search, portions of their bodies were found a few months later although how they died could not be determined. The circumstances and aftermath of their disappearance have resulted in much speculation about the cause of death.^{[3][4][5][6][7]}

Prior to Panama

Lisanne Froon, 22, was described as aspiring, optimistic, intelligent, and a passionate volleyball player, and Kris Kremers, 21, as open, creative, and responsible. Both grew up in Amersfoort. Froon had graduated with a degree in Applied Sciences from Deventer the previous September, and Kremers had just completed her studies in Cultural Social Education, specializing in Art Education at the University of Utrecht. Only a few weeks prior to leaving for Panama, Froon had moved in with Kremers in a dorm room in Amersfoort, and they worked together at the Café/Restaurant 'In den Kleinen Hap'. They both saved up money for six months and planned to go to Panama together on a special trip to learn Spanish, as well as to do something of significance for the locals, particularly volunteering with children. The trip was also supposed to be a reward to Froon for graduating.^[8][9]

Arrival in Panama

Kremers and Froon arrived in Panama for a six-week vacation on March 15, 2014, on a flight from Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam. They toured Panama for two weeks before arriving in Boquete, on March 29, 2014, to begin volunteer work with children for one month, while being accommodated by a local host family. On April 1, 2014, they went on a hike at around 11:00 am nearby the clouded forests that surrounded the Baru volcano, possibly the trail of Pianista, not far from Boquete, while reportedly being accompanied by their host family's dog Blue. They apparently wrote on Facebook that they intended to walk around Boquete. It was also reported that they had been seen having brunch with two young men who were reportedly Dutch before they went on the trail.^[10][11]

Disappearance and search

The local host family became alarmed when their dog Blue returned home alone that night without the young women. Froon's parents stopped receiving messages from her via the mobile instant messenger application WhatsApp, which Froon and Kremers both used daily to keep in contact with their families back in the Netherlands. On April 2, Froon and Kremers had an arranged appointment to meet with their tour guide Feliciano at 8:00 am so he could guide them on the trails. After failing to meet Feliciano, he and Eileen, a young German woman from the language school, visited the police station at around 7:30 pm. They went to the girls' host family to find most of their belongings and no sign of them having returned. A few hours earlier, Eileen had also tried calling Froon's mother Diny to ask where Froon was, to which Diny replied, "She is in Panama."^[12] Two hours later, Feliciano and Eileen returned to the police station to declare that Froon and Kremers were missing. The next day, on April 3 at 8:00 am, Sistema Nacional de Protección Civil (SINAPROC) began aerial searches over the forest. Local tribes and farmers around Boquete had also started looking for the young women. On April 6, the parents of Kremers and Froon flew to Panama along with police, special forces with dog units, and detectives from the Netherlands to do a full-scale search of the forests for 10 days. Despite the efforts, Kremers and Froon were not found. Their parents then offered a $30,000 reward for anybody that could help identify their whereabouts.^[13][14][7]

Discovery of remains

Around 10 weeks after the initial search, a Ngobe woman turned in a backpack to the authorities. She claimed to have found it while tending her rice paddy by a riverbank near her village of Alto Romero, in the Bocas del Toro region, about 12 hours by foot from the Continental Divide. The Ngobe woman also said she was sure it had not been there the day before. It was identified as Froon's blue backpack. The contents of the backpack were 2 pairs of cheap sunglasses, $83 in cash, Froon's passport, a water bottle, Froon's Canon Powershot SX270 camera, 2 bras, Froon's Samsung Galaxy S III, and Kremers's iPhone 4. Everything seemed well packed, dry, and left in good condition. The case, however, took a dark turn when data from the girls' phones and from Kremers's camera revealed that the young women had tried for some hours after the start of their hike to get in contact with police by dialing 112 (police line in the Netherlands) and 911 (police line in Panama), confirming that something had happened to the young women.^[3][15][13]

Mobile phones

Kremers had an iPhone 4 and Froon had a Samsung Galaxy S III. After the retrieval of Froon's backpack, the phones were among some of the contents still inside the backpack and undamaged. Investigators had retrieved the logs of the phones to show that the women had tried on both phones to make multiple emergency calls. The first distress call had been made just hours after beginning their hike: one from Kremers's iPhone at 04:39 pm and shortly after that, one from Froon's Samsung Galaxy at 04:51 pm. None of the calls had gone through due to a lack of reception in the area except for one 911 call attempt on April 3 that lasted for a little over a second before breaking up. After April 5, Froon's phone battery became exhausted after 05:00 am and was not used again. Kremers's iPhone would not make any more calls either but was intermittently turned on to search for reception. After April 6, multiple attempts of a false PIN code were entered into the iPhone; it never received the correct code again. One report showed that between the 7th and 10th of April, there were 77 emergency call attempts with the iPhone. The phone was last turned on on the 11 April at 10:51 am and turned off for the last time after an hour at 11:56 am.^[16][17]

Froon's Canon Powershot SX270 Camera

Froon's camera has photos from April 1 that show the young women had taken a trail at the overlook of the Continental Divide and wandered into some wilderness hours before their first attempt to reach 911, but with no signs of anything unusual. It would not be until a week later after being declared missing on April 8 that Froon's camera was used again to take 90 flash photos between the time of 01:00 am and 04:00 am at rate of a photo every 2 minutes and most of the 90 photos were taken deep in the jungle and in near-complete darkness. A few photos show that they were possibly near a river or a ravine. Some of the visible photos show a twig with plastic bags and candy wrappers on top of a rock, another photo of what looks like toilet paper and a mirror on another rock, and another that shows the back of Kremers's head with what possibly looks like blood by her temple. It has not been clarified what the meaning or purpose of these photos are.^[3][18][15]

Second search and recovered human remains

The discovery of the backpack led to a new wave of intense searches along the Culubre.^[19] Two Ngobe women from a search party had discovered Kremers' jeans shorts which were zipped and neatly folded on top of a rock on the opposite, or eastern, bank of the tributary, a few kilometers away from the bank where Froon's backpack was discovered. Two months later, even closer to where the backpack was discovered, a boot with a foot inside was found along with a part of a pelvis bone, reportedly behind a tree. In a short time span, over 33 bones would be discovered at the same river bank, with long distances between them. DNA testing in the Netherlands eventually confirmed that they were the bones of Froon and Kremers. Of the 33 bones discovered, 28 were those of Froon's left foot. The boot was a product by a Dutch company that still had the foot and ankle of Froon in the sock within the boot. The pelvis bone belonged to Kremers. It has also been noted, that while Froon's bones still had some skin attached to them, Kremers's bones appeared to have been bleached.^[10][18][15]

See also

• List of unsolved deaths

References