The Dutch Women

[Pederhaney]

Part 1 of a 3 part series.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/24/death-on-the-serpent-river-how-the-lost-girls-of-panama-disappeared.html

[Uncle Doug]

Death on the Serpent River: How the Lost Girls of Panama Disappeared

The mysterious deaths of two young tourists in Panama puzzled examiners and shocked nations on both sides of the Atlantic; now secretly leaked documents could reveal what happened.

 

 

This is the first in a three-part investigation into what may have been a savage crime or a tragic accident. In addition to a trove of documents and photographs revealing hitherto unexamined aspects of the case, The Daily Beast has consulted several top sleuths in fields as varied as wilderness survival and photographic analysis, with the expert opinion as well of forensic anthropologist and best-selling author Kathy Reichs.

 

BOQUETE, Panama — Welcome to the jungle: specifically, the cloud forests of the Talamanca highlands.

 

It’s a rainy Saturday in early June, at the height of the wet season here in northern Panama, and we are—quite literally—on the trail of a deadly international mystery.

 

This mud-slick, root-choked footpath is called the Pianista, or Piano Player, because it climbs—in a series of ladder-like steps reminiscent of a keyboard—up from the tourist town of Boquete to the Continental Divide, at about 6,660 feet.

 

Bright-tailed quetzals flit through dwarf species of cedar, oak, and wild avocado along the trail. At this elevation the trees are stunted and wind-warped, their twisted limbs draped with moss and epiphytes.

 

The raining is falling in surprisingly cold gusts by the time our small party reaches the Mirador, the overlook at the top of the Divide, about three hours after leaving the trailhead. On a clear day you can see all the way to Boquete. Today, however, the only thing visible from here is the white sea of mist atop the canopy below.

 

But the Pianista is known for more than just its pretty birds and haunting vistas.

 

Back in April 2014, two Dutch tourists—Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22—disappeared after setting out on this same three-mile stretch of trail.

 

(DJ--Rest of this installment here at The Daily Beast.  Typical of many American articles about Panama, it gets the oceans, directions and geographical orientation incorrect, Sloppy, but incidental.

Next Saturday—The Search)

[Keith Woolford]

There is no "Serpent River".  The geographical name is the Rio Culebra.

"Typical of many American articles about Panama, it gets the oceans, directions and geographical orientation incorrect, Sloppy,.."

[Uncle Doug]

I'm not sure how much to care about geographic names, especially when the primary audience is not local. I see flights to Nuevo York on the departure monitor at Tocumen.  

On the other hand, nobody at all refers to Rio Culebra as "Serpent River".  The headline at The Beast was clearly crafted to make Americans click on the link. 

I don't know that this series will shed any new light on what most of us have previously learned from the tragedy and the investigation.  We shall see.

I'm sure it got the writer a trip to Boquete on her expense account.  Nice job if you can get it.

[Bonnie]

Uncle Doug, the author appears to be a man named Jeremy Kryt.

My take is that "culebra" would have no meaning for most readers of The Daily Beast. Its translation into English, on the other hand, adds an exotic dimension not offered by most translated words.

[Keith Woolford]

This may provide a clue as to how Cristobal Colon's name got changed to Christopher Columbus.

Edited July 25, 2016 by Keith Woolford

[Uncle Doug]

On 7/24/2016 at 7:09 PM, Bonnie said:

Uncle Doug, the author appears to be a man named Jeremy Kryt.

My take is that "culebra" would have no meaning for most readers of The Daily Beast. Its translation into English, on the other hand, adds an exotic dimension not offered by most translated words.

Yep, I misread the intro and assumed Kathy Reichs was on assignment for The Beast.  Good catch!

[Keith Woolford]

This is a very complete report by YouTube journalist Shauna Rae who couldn’t get past the effects of this tragedy without collecting and recording every fact possible concerning the case.  She questions previously promoted conclusions.

 

[Bonnie]

Very interesting. It answered some questions I’ve always had about the case.

[Moderator_03]

Quote

Film revives saga of missing Dutch girls in Panama

Posted 20/09/2023

Two young Dutch women, who came to Panama nine years ago and disappeared while walking along the El Pianista trail in Boquete are the subject of a film  “Siniestro,” which will be participating in the national 2023 Cinema Fund competition.

Kris Kremers 22, and Lisanne Froon, 21 arrived in Panama in March 2014 and after touring the country moved to Chiriquí, to serve as volunteers with children in the area.

Jimmy Rangel a producer and screenwriter will revive the high-profile case of the Dutch girls.

The participants of the projects presented in the competition are chosen by an international jury that evaluates different categories. the winners receive monetary funds for the production and post-production of their projects.

In the morning hours of April 1, the young women began a walk near the cloud forests that surround the Barú volcano along  the El Pianista trail The route is about 4 km long and takes around 3 to 4 hours to complete

From the top of the volcano, you can see the city of Boquete and two oceans: the Pacific and the Atlantic. This is what attracted the walkers. However, in 2016, there were warnings about some official restrictions on walking the trail due to cloud cover levels, although it was not closed in its entirety.

After the alert, the authorities informed tourists that undertaking the route would be at their own risk and with the option of a guide.

Kris and Lisanne were taken by taxi to where the trail route begins It was the last time they were seen.

The next day, the girls missed an appointment, which led to the alert of their disappearance. On April 6, the families of the women arrived in Panama and, accompanied by canine units, police, and detectives from the Netherlands, began an exhaustive search that lasted more than ten days, without any results.

Ten weeks later, on June 14, an indigenous woman found a backpack that she reported to the authorities as having found along the bank of a river near her town of Alto Romero, in the province of Bocas del Toro. The backpack contained two pairs of sunglasses, $83.00, Froon's passport, a bottle of water, Froon's camera, two bras, and the women's cell phones in good condition.

The girls' phones showed that about six hours into their walk, someone dialed 112 (the international emergency number in use in the Netherlands) and 911 (the emergency number in Panama). Kremers' iPhone 4 made the first attempt at a distress call at 4:39 pm and there was a second attempt from Froon's Samsung Galaxy S III at 4:51 pm, but none of the 77 calls were successful due to lack of signal in the area.
The discovery of the backpack motivated the search to be restarted. Two months later, near the place where the backpack was discovered, human remains were discovered that DNA tests would confirm belonged to Kris and her partner.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/film-revives-saga-of-missing-dutch-girls-in-panama-1

[Rush]

On 7/24/2016 at 6:03 PM, Uncle Doug said:

I'm not sure how much to care about geographic names, especially when the primary audience is not local. I see flights to Nuevo York on the departure monitor at Tocumen.  

On the other hand, nobody at all refers to Rio Culebra as "Serpent River".  The headline at The Beast was clearly crafted to make Americans click on the link. 

I don't know that this series will shed any new light on what most of us have previously learned from the tragedy and the investigation.  We shall see.

I'm sure it got the writer a trip to Boquete on her expense account.  Nice job if you can get it.

When it comes to names of rivers, bays, etc, you can say "Culebra River" if that were the case.

BUT regarding the film, I'm wondering if it's a documentary, a story based on a true story, the director's point of view or what? 

[Brundageba]

The story attracts attention and the production of the movie can win award money.  I seriously doubt any new answers will come on the death of these two girls.  One thing I can say is, the jungle of Panama is raw and full of danger .  Obviously theft was not a factor or phones and money would not be left.  Wild beasts roam in the wilds here, and as well in your back yards.  On the very edge of touristy Boquete is dangerous territory that hikers should be aware of.  Alone, it is easy to get lost or encounter wild beasts such as Fer de Lance. The movie will bring this to light I'm sure.  Traveling alone on these trails can be very dangerous. Watch where you step.  Have a trusted guide with you.  This Fer de Lance was in clear view in my back yard.  We ate it. 

[Moderator_03]

Quote

Remember the Dutch Girls in Boquete Panama?

Posted 15/03/2024

 

BOQUETE, CHIRIQUI, PANAMA, March 14th 2024 -- On the tenth anniversary of the disappearance of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers in the Panamanian rainforest, authors announce the publication of their investigative true crime book "Still Lost in Panama". A new investigative book sheds light on the cold case of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon.  On April 1^st 2014 the two young Dutch women became involved in one of the most mysterious true crime cases in contemporary history while hiking on the Pianista Trail.  Now light is being shed on the dark jungle of theories and speculation. With exclusive insights and a scientific analysis of the 3,000 pages of court files that have been kept secret until now. "Still Lost in Panama" not only uncovers shocking investigative errors but also presents new evidence and witnesses.  After five months of intensive research in the province of Chiriquí and expeditions into the Panamanian cloud forest, the authors bring clarity to a case full of speculation and mystery. 

Those of you with a history in Panama and Boquete may remember a couple, retired broadcasters, on the Overseas Radio Network using Skype to tell the story live and later recorded to the world about the missing Dutch Girls on a program called Boquete Chatter.  Those broadcasts were available on iTunes and may still be available today.  Continuing my investigations, I visited the Haven in Boquete and was showing pictures of the new book “Still Lost in Panama” and one lady said......"Ah yes, the story that never ends."  We have also heard that a movie may be in the works.  Another lady explained to me today that she has put "Still Lost in Panama" on her list to read on her Kindle phone app when it comes out on March 27th.  If you have a Dutch Girls story, please email it to us in Word (if possible) at panamanewsroom@gmail.com and any pictures, please send in the .jpg format.

Hardly a week goes by without a new podcast or a new YouTube documentary about the moving tragedy surrounding Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. While internet detectives argue doggedly over the question of whether an accident or a crime caused the girls' certain death, journalists keep trying to seize control of the interpretation.  The book "Lost in the Jungle", published in 2021 and co-authored by Betzaida Pitti, the public prosecutor investigating the case at the time, attempts to substantiate the theory of an accident and cleverly omits explosive information possibly with the intention of concealing it.  In contrast, the following year, the seven-part true crime podcast series "Lost in Panama" (over 2 million downloads) tackles an abstruse crime theory.  In it, hosts Jeremy Kryt and Mariana Atencio vilify tour guide Feliciano Gonzalez and the youth gang "Pandilla", who have been branded the murderers of the Dutch women in internet forums since 2014.

Through intensive interviews with the alleged perpetrators and the analysis of police interrogations, the authors of "Still Lost in Panama" are able to clearly refute these theories and, after analyzing forensic reports and autopsy reports, find evidence that points to foul play and the deliberate cover-up of a planned kidnapping. "Still Lost in Panama" is a tribute to the tireless search for answers, a memoir of two lives that ended far too soon, and a must-read for anyone interested in true crime cases and unsolved mysteries.

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/remember-the-dutch-girls-in-boquete-panama

[Moderator_03]

Quote

April 1st (Anniversary) 2014 - The Dutch Girls

Posted 02/04/2024

On April 1st 2014, two Dutch hikers set out to hike the El Pianista trail located in the dense Talamanca mountain range between the provinces of Chiriquí and Bocas Del Toro.  Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon had arrived in Panama in March of that year with the intention of learning Spanish and working a few days as volunteers with children in the area. Without imagining it, that morning, the two young women would meet their deaths in circumstances that even today 10 years later, remain unresolved. What happened? Why did they leave without a guide? Was there a criminal hand in their deaths? These are questions that resonate throughout Panama. 

Weeks before leaving for Panama, Froon had moved with Kremers to the town of Amersfoort in Utrecht and they worked together in a cafe/restaurant.  The two saved money for six months and planned to go to Central America together on a special six-week vacation, hoping to learn Spanish and do something meaningful for Latin Americans, particularly volunteering with children.  The two friends arrived in Panama on March 15th 2014. They first toured the country for two weeks before arriving in Bajo Boquete in Chiriquí province on March 29th to live with a local family for a month while volunteering with children. 

On April 1st around 11:00 in the morning, Kris and Lisanne took a taxi and headed to the place where they would begin the hike on the El Pianista trail. To this day it is not clear why they decided to take the excursion without the company of a guide, knowing that they did not know the area.  Most of us who live here, have never even considered hiring a guide.  From day one, most folks just get into their hiking gear and off they go.  It was shortly after the ‘Dutch Girls’ tragedy, as well as a few incidents of folks getting lost on Volcan Baru, that guides became in great demand for tourists. Back to our story:  The next day, April 2nd one of the tour guides who was supposed to accompany them reported that they had not arrived at the appointment and that he had not heard from them for several days. It was then that they notified the police and all the alerts went off. 

On April 6th the parents arrived in Panama along with police, canine units and detectives from the Netherlands to conduct a large-scale search in the jungle for ten days. The parents offered a $30,000 reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of Kremers and Froon.  However, it was not until two months later that the authorities found some of the young women's belongings and skeletal remains that after DNA testing showed that they belonged to one of them. "Officially" the results of the analysis confirmed that the DNA of the "left femur, the left tibia" found " was that of Lisanne Froon," announced the senior prosecutor of Chiriquí, Betzaida Pitti, who was in charge of the case. 

According to investigations, an indigenous woman found a blue backpack on the bank of a river near her town of Alto Romero, in the province of Bocas del Toro. The backpack contained two pairs of sunglasses, $83, Froon's passport, a bottle of water, Froon's camera, two bras and the women's cell phones in good condition.  The girls' phones showed that around six hours into their walk, someone dialed 112 (an international emergency number in the Netherlands) and 911. Kremers' iPhone 4 made the first attempt at a distress call to 16:39 pm and shortly after, another attempt was made from Froon's Samsung Galaxy S III at 16:51 pm.  In total, both women made 77 attempts to call 911, but only one was connected and it lasted just two seconds due to lack of reception in the area. 

Photographs taken by Kremers and Froon confirm that they reached the plateau safely and took photographs there.  Instead of returning, Kremers and Froon crossed the continental divide and entered the jungle along a path that was not part of the route. There is a hypothesis that they wanted to look at some waterfalls since they had previously searched for a map of this area on the Internet. Judging by the last photos taken on April 1st the young women were an hour from the top of the basin and continued walking.  In photographs 507 and 508, Kremers crosses a shallow stream covered with stones and stands on one of the stones, looking at the camera.  On April 8, ninety flash photos were taken between 01:00 and 04:00, apparently deep in the jungle and in almost total darkness. Some photos show that they were possibly near a river or ravine. Some show a twig with plastic bags on top of a rock; another shows what looks like a backpack strap and a mirror on another rock and another shows the back of Kremers' head. 

The disappearance of the Dutch women gave rise to countless theses and theories on social networks about the real causes that led to their death. Some pointed to a criminal organization dedicated to human trafficking and others to the alleged possibility that a serial killer or a cannibal tribe that killed the women existed in the area. These theories gained strength after other similar cases of missing people became known without their whereabouts being known. In 2009, for example, British Alex Humphrey (29) disappeared in the area. Nothing has been heard from him to date.  A month after Kris and Lisanne disappeared; American Loretta Hinman (47) also disappeared. A few days later, her rental car was found intact at her house, but there was no sign of the woman. 

A year later, in 2015, Leonardo Arturo González, the taxi driver who took the Dutch women to the El Pianista trail, was found inexplicably drowned in the waters of Los Cangilones de Gualaca, in the province of Chiriquí.  González had arrived in Gualaca to take a tour guide and three foreigners, to visit the spa. Apparently, González was waiting for the tourists, but while the guide was bathing in the waters of the Estí River, his body appeared floating in Los Cangilones, alerting some lifeguards who were there. When the paramedics tried to help him by providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, it was too late.  González was already dead. 

Despite the fact that the official investigation of the case ended in 2015 and was not resumed, more and more new materials "surfaced” on the Internet from various parties.  In 2019, the personal diaries of both Dutch women, which they kept until the moment of their disappearance, appeared on the Internet and were translated into English from Dutch. In 2021, previously unknown photographs of Kremers' jean shorts found in the river between the first and second "Monkey Bridge" were published.  In January 2022, a podcast called “Lost in Panama” was made, published on the Apple and Spotify platform, in which various investigators who had been involved in the case for years gave new details about the events that occurred, stating that the girls were possibly murdered by a group of locals they met the night before at a local nightclub;  It is worth mentioning that 5 people related to the girls have been murdered in Panama, including people who last saw them with the group of locals they were with the night before.  A movie is in the works. The mystery continues. 

https://www.newsroompanama.com/news/april-1st-anniversary-2014-the-dutch-girls