AFFIDAVITS OF JOSE MANUEL MURGAS, OF GUIDE P, INGRID, MARIA ELENA, NEIGHBOUR VERONICA, YAILETH, VIELKA AND MORE
I will continue here to report on the statements made by various people (under oath) in this case. You can find my first post here. Different authors and journalist Jeremy Kryt have already reported on these files before me, but new sets of eyes may pick up on different details. And different people can reach different conclusions. Earlier I have reported on Kryt's Podcast reveals, weighed them and questioned them. Having read the actual statements helps me judge better whether he or the Dutch and German author duo's reported fairly on these. It has been twelve years now since Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon disappeared and died, and these statements were and are legitimate. But whether they are truthful remains to be seen of course. Below, I will summarize and discuss the content of the following documents, anonymizing some names and details (even when they are part of a literal quote). I'll also add valuable comments from fellow sleuths Power-Pixie and Dave M. again. I also made four different YouTube videos with animated versions of the statements of various people, accompanied by the main discussions I had with Dave and Power-Pixie. They are simply a condensed version of what you can read below in the blog post, however.
*The affidavit of Policeman Mr Gustavo
*The affidavit of Policeman Mr Joany
*The affidavit of Jose Manuel Murgas
*The affidavit of Yaileth
*The affidavit of Policeman Mr Joany
*The affidavit of Jose Manuel Murgas
*The affidavit of Yaileth
*The affidavit of Guide E. M.
*The affidavit of Guide P. M.
*The affidavit of Aura's Maria Elena
*The affidavit of Ingrid
*The affidavit of neighbour Veronica
*The affidavit of Mr Lazaro
*The affidavit of waiter Edwin Omar S.M.
October 24, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF MURGAS
Just to remind you: Jose Manuel Murgas, nicknamed Murdog, was killed in March 2015 in a hit and run. According to Jeremy Kryt's podcast series, Murgas had spoken extensively before his death with the mother of Osman Valenzuela (who was himself murdered on April 4th 2014), Margarita. Jeremy Kryt claimed that Murgas effectively told Margarita that Osman had been killed in the Caldera by members of a youth gang of sorts in town, dubbed the 'Pandilla'. They include H., E. (aka "Richard"), S.J. and friends. Jeremy Kryt calls them fully by name in his podcast series, as do the book author duo's, but I will use their initials hence forward. Murgas told Margarita that his own life was in danger as well. Before Murgas was called in to give a sworn statement on Friday October 24th 2014 at 16:40 PM, investigators first independently interviewed two members of the National Police, Sub-Directorate of Judicial Investigation (DIJ): Mr. (Sergeant) Gustavo G. and Mr. (Sergeant) Joany J.
AFFIDAVIT OF GUSTAVO G.
“Someone told us that the young man Murdog had made a comment about the missing Dutch women.”
Mr Gustavo had worked in the Judicial Investigation Sub-Directorate for 19.5 years at the time. Mr Gustavo was shown a document and he confirmed that it had his own signature under it. He explained why he wrote the report. “Someone told us that the young man Murdog had made a comment about the missing Dutch women”, and this person gave us Murdog's location in David. Mr Gustavo recalled that upon locating him and identifying themselves, Murgas told them his name and that he had been very struck by a night when he arrived at the Big Pool Billiards in Boquete and saw H. there, who was travelling in a black van. H. told him that “he had been waiting for the two young Dutch women in front of Isla Verde and that they had not arrived”. His mission was to give them a tour of the trail or the volcano so they could see the sunrise. Murgas declared that after the young women disappeared, H. said to him: “What's the problem? I was the last one to see them, and these young women got lost.” After that conversation, he did not see H. again until six days later, when he asked him what he had been doing. H. told him that he had taken a trip to his father's farm in Culebra. Murdog asked him what kind of trip, but H. did not answer him and only said he was with a ‘Negro’ and Murdog mentioned that he knew three 'Negroes', he mentioned two who are listed in the report that Mr Gustavo confirmed, and of the third he only indicated that he has a white vehicle.
“H. told him that he had been waiting for the two young Dutch women in front of Isla Verde and that they had not arrived.”
“After the young women disappeared, H. said to him, ‘What's the problem? I was the last one to see them, and these young women got lost.’”
Pittí asked Mr Gustavo if he previously received information or investigative leads regarding the disappearance of the Dutch nationals KRIS KREMER and LISANNE FROON? To which he replied that this was the first information he had received.
****
AFFIDAVIT OF JOANY J.
“H, SJ and Richard could be connected to the disappearance of the Dutch girls, and they had apparently hidden these young women in a cornfield.”
H. said “what a problem, those girls got lost, and I was the last one to see them.”
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AFFIDAVIT OF JOSE MANUEL MURGAS
On October 24, 2014 at 16:40 PM, in the City of David, Province of Chiriquí, Mr. JOSE MANUEL MURGAS appeared before the Office of the First Superior Prosecutor of the Third Judicial District Betzaida Pittí, for the purpose of taking a sworn statement. All formalities were followed, with the witness identifying himself and being read and explained the contents of Article 385 of the Penal Code, which deals with and punishes the crime of False Testimony. He agreed to tell the truth in all matters known to him and asked of him. Murgas identified himself when asked. He also gave his name, gender, nationality, stated that he was single and gave his date of birth (aged 21 at the time). He was born on 26 March 1993, in David, Chiriquí, and was resident in Boquete (address). He gave the names of his parents and his ID and cellphone number. He stated that he had completed secondary education. “Because he said he was going to take two foreign women on a tour. He didn't say their names, and if he did, I don't remember.”
Pittí then asked Murgas why he was linking what he had just said about H. with the young women 'LISSANE FROON and KRIS KREMERS' (sic). Murgas answered: “Because he said he was going to take two foreign women on a tour. He didn't say their names, and if he did, I don't remember. I don't know if they were these women or others. I am answering because I think that is the case.” Then Pittí pressed Murgas on how he knew that H. was going to take a tour. Murgas replied: “I don't remember it well at the moment, but I know it was for the month of April this year. I don't remember the date. He said he was going to give a tour to two foreign women. That's all he told me. He didn't tell me the women's names, and as I mentioned, if he did tell me their names, I don't remember.” Pittí then asked him: “When you refer to OSMAN's situation, what do you mean?”Murgas answered: “That OSMAN disappeared, that he died in a river in CALDERA, the Chiriquisito River. When OSMAN disappeared, that same day I spoke with H. I spoke with him, and that's when he mentioned the women who had gone missing, some gringas.” Pittí then asked Murgas if he knew where H.'s father's farm is located. Murgas: “I don't know where it is located, I know it's in the mountains of Boquete, but I don't know the name of this place.” Pittí then asked Murgas if he knew H's father's name. To which he answered: “I have only greeted him with hello and goodbye, and that gentleman is from Boquete itself.”
“I don't remember.”
Pittí then grilled Murgas about whether he could state what H. does for a living. Murgas: “He works with his father on the farm, picking and weighing coffee.” Pittí then asked if Murgas could state whether anyone else besides himself had heard H. say that he was going to take a tour of Volcán Barú or El Pianista Trail? Murgas: “I was alone with him outside the Billa Big POOLL in Boquete. He was parked in his car, a black Mitsubishi Montero, and he told me he was going to pick up the foreign women.” Pittí asked him about the specific date when H. said this. Murgas: “He only told me that they were leaving at night and would return at dawn. He told me that he had gone to pick them up and they were not there. He told me that the tour consisted of going up at night and returning at dawn. This was in April of this year. I do not remember the date, but it was at the beginning of the month. I am not sure.” Pittí next asked Murgas to tell her “how many days passed after the conversation you had with H. outside the billiard hall before you spoke to him again?” Murgas: “Four to five days, and I spoke to H. again on Friday, 11 April 2014, the same day that OSMAN VALENZUELA went missing.” Pittí then asked Murgas to tell the court if H. explained to him what the trip he had gone to make to his father's farm consisted of. Murgas: “To go see his father's farm.” Pittí: “Tell the court if you currently have any enmity with H.” Murgas: “No, everything is fine, it's just that I try to avoid him because I don't like dealing with conceited people and he sometimes acts that way, so I avoid him.” Pittí then asked Murgas to tell the court if H. works as a tour guide. Murgas said: “He assists his father in those tasks. I know that he helps his father do those things. That day, he told me that he was going to pick up the gringas, but they weren't there.” “And I spoke to H. again four to five days later, on Friday 11 April 2014, the same day that Osman Valenzuela went missing.”
Pittí then asked Murgas to confirm that he had been interviewed by units of the Judicial Investigation Sub-Directorate, and why. Murgas replied that three people interviewed him and asked him what he knew about the disappearance of the Dutch women. Murgas: “I told them that the only thing I knew was that H.'s father organised tours and that H. assisted him. Then they asked me if H. had done any tours in April 2014, and I replied that the only tour I knew H. was going to do was for two foreign women to either of the two areas I mentioned, Volcán Barú or El Pianista trail, but at no time did I say anything about the Dutch women, because he, that is, H., only told me that the gringas were staying at the hostel and we started drinking outside the billiard hall, as I said, and he told me that the women wanted to go up the mountain to see the sunrise. They asked me what I had heard in the town of Boquete, and I told them, but as a comment from the people of Boquete, because everyone is talking about it, that H. had agreed with his father and Sabrosón's son 'Richard' that between the two of them they had killed these women and thrown them down a cornfield supposedly, but this is just village gossip, a rumour in the village. I really don't know, I have no proof of what happened to these women. In Boquete, it is also rumoured that some Indians took them and ate them.” - Pittí then asked Murgas if H. ever talked to him about the disappearance of the Dutch women? (This feels like Pittí possibly rephrasing matters, in the hope of getting a different answer suddenly?) Murgas: “No, he only told me what had come up in the vision* of the missing girls. [*This possibly means 'in the news'] (“No, solo me comentó lo que había salido en la visión de las muchachas desaparecidas.”)
“Because everyone is talking about it, that H. had agreed with his father and 'Richard' that between the two of them they had killed these women and thrown them down a cornfield supposedly.”
Pittí then asked Murgas if he knew whether H. or any family members had been investigated for the disappearance of the Dutch girls. Murgas: “I do not know, but I know that H.'s father, whose name I do not remember, helped SINAPROC search for these Dutch women when they went missing, and I know that he has searched for the Dutch women in the area, and I know this because I heard it in the town of Boquete.” Murgas was then asked what nickname he went by, to which he replied: “They call me 'Murdog'.”
“I don't like dealing with conceited people and he sometimes acts that way, so I avoid him.”
When asked if he wished to add anything else, Murgas said: “Only that I know nothing about the disappearance of the Dutch women, nor do I know what happened to them, only what I said about H. telling me that he was going to look for some gringas at the Isla Verde Hostel in Bajo Boquete. The rest of what I told the DIJ units is just gossip that is going around the whole village of Boquete.”
Thoughts and Commentary will now follow. Feel free to skip this though if it does not have your particular interest, and scroll down to the affidavit of Yaileth.
Thoughts and Commentary will now follow. Feel free to skip this though if it does not have your particular interest, and scroll down to the affidavit of Yaileth.
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Thoughts and commentary
On the other hand: two DIJ officers seem to have written down verbatim what Murgas declared to them. And both confirmed under oath that Murgas had declared this. The two officers were interviewed independently and they both told the same story with the same detail, more or less. But when murgas was pressed by Pittí herself, there seems to be tangible hesitation and fear on Murgas’s part. He has to speak the truth, as he is testifying under oath now, so he is obliged by law to tell everything he knows. But he seems to be dancing around the issue and at times tries to portray his own earlier witness statement as just widespread and persistent local gossip. Osman initially declared that H. told him things in person. But once he was called upon as a witness, he tried to backpedal. This can be interpreted as him now telling the truth and correcting the earlier version which the two DIJ officers wrote down in their report. Or as him being fearful of repercussions now that Pittí had called him in. He also said that by then, he tried to avoid H. This may stem from fear, an emotion that Murgas also demonstrated by the time he started talking to Margarita in the months before his killing. Unfortunately there is no chance of hearing both sides of this story, as H. and his friends were not called in to give a sworn statement. These two officers weren’t sent to H. to verify the claims made by Murgas. Even though the claims seem pretty serious in nature.
I also find it peculiar that someone who had been living in Boquete for a very long time by that point, and who knew H. and the Pandilla gang rather well (as he had been hanging out with them extensively), pretended to Pittí not to know the name of H's father, or what the name of the jungle village is where Guide F. has his finca. I get the feeling that Murgas tried to distance himself from the situation because he was afraid of retribution. But this is a subjective interpretation. Let's take a closer look now at some statements from these affidavits. Below I will add some discussions and commentary which fellow sleuths Dave M, Power-Pixie and I recently had, after going through the above information summaries of mine.
* This reads as somewhat peculiar. So this man, who asked to remain anonymous, knew that Mr Gustavo and Mr Joany were investigators. Not just policemen. And he approached them while they were simply out on the streets of David, making inquiries about OSMAN's disappearance... Osman died on April 4, 2014, and this incident took place in October 2014, so about half a year later. We know from the available Osman information that his murder was first cast aside as an accidental drowning, which was later reconsidered after forensic findings showed that Osman had a wound on the back of his head and was together with the Pandilla when he drowned. But it is surprising that by October 2014, these two detectives were supposedly in the centre of David, asking questions about a young man who had died six months earlier? How odd. In any case, this anonymous source then approached the two officers and instead of discussing Osman's death, they started talking about Murgas and what the man had overheard Murgas say at the film rental shop where he worked. It's also interesting that Murgas felt he could talk freely about the two missing Dutch women in David, while at work.
* Dave M: "You are somehow over in David in October, asking questions to 'whoever' about his death back in April, but you then get pulled into the disappearance of the two Dutch women, of whom you supposedly had no knowledge...? I think if you are in David asking questions about Osman, but by sheer chance you are put into contact with his friend Murgas who is also working in David, but you talk about the Dutch women with him and NOT about his friend Osman... then something isn't adding up here. It's bizarre."
* Dave M: "You are somehow over in David in October, asking questions to 'whoever' about his death back in April, but you then get pulled into the disappearance of the two Dutch women, of whom you supposedly had no knowledge...? I think if you are in David asking questions about Osman, but by sheer chance you are put into contact with his friend Murgas who is also working in David, but you talk about the Dutch women with him and NOT about his friend Osman... then something isn't adding up here. It's bizarre."
- Officer Gustavo G. was asked: “Does the witness recall at what approximate time yesterday they received this information?” To which he replied: “It was in the afternoon, around three or three-fifteen.”
* The timeline also seems to be unusual. These two detectives were in David around October 21st to make inquiries about Osman. They were somehow sidetracked by a lead on the missing Dutch girls, just after 15:00 PM. They immediately followed up on this. Betzaida Pittí was informed. They managed to locate and identify Murgas right away. Then interviewed him. They also found the time to write up his statements in a detailed report almost immediately (the Investigation Report is dated October 22, 2014). And they seem to have done so diligently, as both were interviewed separately two days later and both gave the same story in detail in their sworn statements. Then, just two days later, all three of them were hauled into the office by Pittí to provide sworn statements... In a case that had by then (by the end of October) been considered an accident. To have it all organized and ready by Pitti within two days is already peculiar, given how slowly everything else proceeded under her supervision in this case. And we heard nothing more about this H. intel.
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* This "yesterday" comment does not seem technically correct, as this sworn statement interview of officer Joany was taken on October 24. His police report was dated October 22, and the two officers had interviewed Murgas in person on October 21 most likely, hence Officer Joany describing that day as ‘yesterday’ in his sworn statement (but it wasn't October 23rd when they were out in the streets of David). So I suspect he meant the day prior to them writing their police report. Again: the speed with which all this unfolded is incredible. But they must have felt they were onto something and wanted to be on top of it, while Murgas' memory was still fresh? Not allowing him to say it was too long ago and that he didn't remember anything anymore? Although he could have claimed that anyway of course..
- This anonymous informant is probably still anonymous. His identity is not shared in the file, as far as I could tell. Who could this have been? A random witness who happened to be in the video store where Murgas worked at the time, who overheard him? And who now felt that cops had to be made aware of that? Or could this perhaps have been someone from Boquete, who knew more and who wanted police to follow this lead involving H., but who believed David to be a safer place to have such a conversation? In Boquete itself, local cops sometimes have ties to the inhabitants. There may have been concerns about local protection and reprisals in Boquete? This informant did not even identify himself to the officers in David by the sound of things.
- This anonymous informant is probably still anonymous. His identity is not shared in the file, as far as I could tell. Who could this have been? A random witness who happened to be in the video store where Murgas worked at the time, who overheard him? And who now felt that cops had to be made aware of that? Or could this perhaps have been someone from Boquete, who knew more and who wanted police to follow this lead involving H., but who believed David to be a safer place to have such a conversation? In Boquete itself, local cops sometimes have ties to the inhabitants. There may have been concerns about local protection and reprisals in Boquete? This informant did not even identify himself to the officers in David by the sound of things.
* So he already knew the source and had spoken with him before. It is a shame that Betzaida Pittí didn't ask Mr. Gustavo what they had spoken about during their first conversation.
- Mr. Gustavo was asked: “Does the witness know Mr Martín Ferrara O'Donnell? If so, since when and for what reason?”
* I wonder why Pittí kept bringing up Martín Ferrara O'Donnell here multiple times. It seems that private investigator Martin had already made a name for himself by October 2014. Probably because of his work on this disappearance case (you can read about that here). Pittí seems to have suspected that he was the anonymous source. Possibly so that she could completely dismiss this information (as O'Donnell tried to make money from his crime theories regarding Kris and Lisanne's disappearance, and has been cynically cast aside as a sensationalist by some). Or did Pittí repeatedly ask about him because the things which Murgas had declared somehow matched what Martin had been theorizing or claiming at that point? Does this mean that there may be some truth to Martin's theory after all?
MARTIN/MARGARITA'S THEORY IN SHORT
In short: Martín Ferrara O'Donnell named the friends of H. ('Tito') as La Pandilla.. The group consisted of E.A. ('Richard'), Sam John D, Jose Manuel Murgas and Cesar S. ('La Cuervo'). Osman Valenzuela tried to become part of the Pandilla. They were all in their early to mid twenties in 2014. Martin claims that he has an anonymous informant who knows that Kris and Lisanne bought drugs from this group of friends. That the girls were seen on Boquete's town square in the back of a parked double cabin red pickup truck. 'Richard' was driving the car, and Sam John D was in the passenger seat, with H. and Murgas in the back, next to the two Dutch women. This witness was Osman Valenzuela. Martin also claims that on March 31st, Kris and Lisanne went to a house party in Palo Alto with Tito and his clique, which was held in César's house. His informant heard these details from César's neighbour. It was also verified by another group member, he claims, who drove by the house and recognized the cars of 'Richard' and others there. 'Tito' (H.) was also there, as well as Israel and S. J., 'Richard' and the girls. At the time, Tito never told his father, Guide F, about this, according to Martin. Not even when F. was looking for the girls. Osman died four days after seeing the Dutch women in E's red truck, Martin claims. He was found dead in a river “with a suspicious head injury”. Osman's mother Margarita confirmed a lot of this. She reportedly spoke with Murgas, who came clean to her about what he knew as his conscience was bothering him.
Margarita Valenzuela told local Panamanian newspapers shortly after her son's death on April 4th of 2014, how anxious and paranoid he had been behaving in the days leading up to his unnatural death at age 22. The people who did this were the same group of young men, the 'Pandilla'. They sold cocaine and marijuana, she explained. They wielded power. 'Tito' went to the same high school as Osman, and was already 'a very problematic boy' back then. But 'Richard' led the whole group and was the one who distributed. According to Margarita, Osman told her shortly after the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne that he had something important to tell her. That he was having some trouble with the young men in the Pandilla. “He tells me: 'Mom, they are telling me they're going to kill me'. So I ask him: 'why?' And he tells me: 'Because I saw the Dutch girls in the car.” Osman saw them on Boquete's town square, the day before their disappearance. He saw E's red pickup truck parked there. “In the rear seat of the car he saw the Dutch girls. Each had a beer in their hands and they were smoking cigarettes. He didn't talk to them, he just saw them.” Then, after Kris and Lisanne disappeared, his friend Milagros told Osman that she knew they were dead. And that the Pandilla was responsible. Margarita claims that Milagros also told Osman exactly what they did to the Dutch girls. “And then two days later, they killed my son.” A year later, Jose Manuel Murgas approached Margarita outside a pool hall. “He said: 'I want to talk to you.” Margarita says that Murgas was 'haunted by guilt'. “I can't sleep, I see your son in my dreams. I can't take it anymore, I need to talk about this. I need you to know the truth.” Margarita says that Murgas confessed to her that Osman was killed by the Pandilla and that he was present, complicit, both a witness and an accomplice. “They killed him because he knew about the Dutch girls.” Mutual friend Milagros P. had lured Osman to the river and there he was hit on the head and drowned. The police report seems to confirm this, as the report places Murgas there, as well as the Pandilla members and their girlfriends. But they pointed to Murgas as the last person to have seen Osman alive.
But Murgas reportedly also told Margarita what had happened to Kris and Lisanne. Because he was present there as well. He and the Pandilla (minus S. J.) followed Kris and Lisanne up the Pianista trail in a red pickup truck, Murgas claimed. Then they led them deeper into the jungle on foot. The Pandilla knew where to find them, since Kris and Lisanne had taken a taxi to the Pianista trailhead. “And as the taxi was driving down, Murgas along with E., Tito and Cuervo were in the red pickup truck, driving up.” Margarita: “They then stopped the taxi driver, asking him where he left the Dutch girls.” It was Leonardo. Police interviewed this taxi driver twice, but he never mentioned to them running into the Pandilla when driving back into town. “He also changed his story and the date and time when he dropped off the Dutch girls.” But initially he didn't want to talk, unless he was given security. “Because I know if I talk, they will kill me”, Leonardo supposedly said. Margarita also claimed that Murgas told her that Kris and Lisanne were surprised to run into the Pandilla on the Pianista trail. And that they were also a bit afraid, because they had not planned to meet those guys up there. But ultimately they followed the Pandilla back to town, by a deserted isolated overgrown trail. They tricked them, telling the girls that they would show them the Piedra de Lino trail. The scenic overlook near the Pianista. But instead, they walked towards Palo Alto according to Margarita, to Cuervo's house. A place where Kris and Lisanne had partied before, according to Murgas. This time they gave Kris and Lisanne alcohol and drugs. And then things went downhill. Margarita: “They were happy and then suddenly, under the spell of euphoria, these men went crazy. And they started grabbing the girls, and the girls didn't want to do anything.” Murgas supposedly told her that Tito started touching Kris, and “Kris struggled, tried to shake him off.” “Then she hit him in the face. Because she didn't want him to rape her. And that's when the boy hit her.” Tito apparently completely lost it. “When he hit her he knocked her off and threw her to the ground. And when she fell, he began to hit her, and hit her. Murgas said that he hit her with his fists. In the face. And the other young woman saw what they were going to do and she screamed. But in that house, who was going to hear her? There was no one around. So that young woman died instantly from all the blows those men gave her. And her friend saw that. She threw herself on top of the other one, and the same thing happened to her. That was when they hit the second one with a hammer. Well, that's how they got the other one in the same way. She was so disfigured. Then they all raped her. It was like a massacre. There was a pool of blood.” Or so claims Margarita. Afterwards Cuervo called one of his employees, a Ngäbe-Buglé man from Alto Romero, to come and clean up the crime scene. The young men then dismembered the bodies, before burying the remains in black trash bags on Cuervo's property. Near a mango tree, according to Murgas. “Then, after a couple of weeks, the men decided to scatter some strategic remains in the jungle. To make it look like a hiking accident.” They also poured kerosene on the remains, to speed up decomposition. Osman's mother, Margarita, also claims that Jose Murgas told her that the gang had faked the phone activity, staged the Camera photographs, as well as scattered the remains along the river. Margarita believes that the emergency calls and the night photos were also staged. The young lads confiscated the phones and made those emergency calls themselves, making it look like Kris and Lisanne were lost in the jungle. E. took the night photos according to Margarita. And missing photo 509 was deleted because it showed H. and E.Margarita told Murgas that he had to make a statement to a lawyer, but that Murgas was afraid that he would end up dead, like Osman. Murgas had already talked to the cops (the police report I just covered in this post). She comforted him that he wasn't going to get killed. But he was. Margarita Valenzuela: They did so on the night of his 22nd birthday, when Murgas had gone to a canteen to celebrate and got drunk. The Pandilla reportedly was there also and quietly disappeared with a drunk Murgas, Margarita says, and drove away. He was found dead by the roadside the next morning, in a seeming hit and run. Leonardo drowned a few weeks before Murgas was killed. Margarita said to Jeremy Kryt that since her son was murdered, that she herself has been threatened and that she fears for her safety and the safety of her other children. The Pandilla even crashed the Rosary held for her son. Here you can read in more detail about all this.Martin also says that the hit-and-run killing of Jose Manuel Murgas was no accident. “He had blows to the head that are not compatible with a hit and run accident.” Two witnesses who came forward, made it sound like Murgas was run over on purpose. “A city official from the Alto Boquete area tells me: 'I heard a car pull up and they open it, like a pickup truck door, and they closed it. They backed the car up and they accelerated and drove off'.” And another woman, who lives across the street of where the killing happened, heard voices coming from the car, Martin claims. “On the property across the street from where they found mister Jose Manuel Murgas, she says she heard a vehicle. That she stopped and heard some voices, saying 'Hurry up! Leave him there! Throw him, leave him there. Come on, come on, come on!” Martin Ferrara O'Donnell believes that the Pandilla of H. is responsible for all three of these suspicious deaths. And that for both Kris and Lisanne, Osman and Murgas, the Pandilla were the last people they saw before they died. Interestingly, Betzaida Pitti has never made any of this public. She also never updated the public when Osman's "Accidental death" ruling was quietly overturned into a Homicide. But the fact that we can now read for ourselves here about two DIJ police officers making enquiries about Osman's death half a year later in the streets of David, may tell us something, namely that this was not considered a simple accident. Not even according to the DIJ.
- Mr. Gustavo declared that “Upon locating him and identifying ourselves, he told us his name and that he had been very struck by a night when he arrived at the Big Pool Billiards in Boquete and saw H. there, who was travelling in a black van.”
* Apart from revealing more details about H. driving a big black 4x4 truck (a black Mitsubishi Montero) and him and his father seemingly picking up tour clients at their various hotels in town, it is unfortunate that there are conflicting dates suggested for this original meeting between H. and Murgas in the reports of the two policemen versus the sworn statement of Murgas.
- Officer Joany declared: “A few days before the death of a young man named OSMAN, [Murgas and H.] had come to a billiard hall in Boquete.” He and his colleague wrote this down during their initial interview with Murgas. Osman died on April 4th, so this meeting 'a few days before' it matches April 1st or 2nd very well. Right after Kris and Lisanne disappeared.
- Officer Gustavo declared that Murgas said initially that after that conversation, Murgas had not seen H. again until “six days later”. - Which could place it around April 7-8.
- Murgas himself later declared to Pittí: “On one occasion H. told me that he had agreed to take a tour to either of these two areas, Volcán Barú or Sendero el Pianista, with some gringas, that he went to pick them up. [..] So what we did was we started drinking and stuff, and I didn't hear from him “until four or five days later”, when we ran into each other again, and H. told me he was taking a tour of his father's farm, and that's when the other situation with OSMAN came up.” - 'The situation with Osman' happened on April 4th, so this talk about Osman's situation must have been on April 4th at the earliest, and more likely April 5-7. Meaning that in this version of events, the original talk Murgas had with H. took place “four or five days” earlier, on April 1st, 2nd or 3rd most likely. But possibly even sooner than that, on March 30th or 31st.
- Murgas also said to Pittí: “When OSMAN disappeared, that same day I spoke with H. I spoke with him, and that's when he mentioned the women who had gone missing, some gringas.” - Here Murgas seems to contradict what he had just before told Pittí (the quote section just above this one). There he said that it was “four or five days” before Osman's death that he spoke with H. at the pool hall, when H. brought up the gringas who didn't show up for a tour. Right after, Murgas suddenly indicates to Pittí that H. told him about the women on the same day when Osman disappeared. So on April 4th. Meaning that he could have spoken with H. again ('four to five days later') by April 8th or 9th. Murgas seems to mix these events up here, accidentally or deliberately.
- But then we're still not done with the date shuffling. Pittí certainly tried to get a clear date out of Murgas' mouth and near the end of the interview she asked Murgas: “How many days passed after the conversation you had with H. outside the billiard hall before you spoke to him again?” Murgas: “Four to five days, and I spoke to H. again on Friday, 11 April 2014, the same day that OSMAN VALENZUELA went missing.” - Osman disappeared on April 4th, not on Friday the 11th, as Murgas here suddenly says... Murgas seems to change his timeline again here, or he was confused and meant to say that Osman went missing one week earlier in fact, on April 4th, but got confused with the dates.
- Pittí also asked Murgas to tell the court what he had to say about the statements made by officers from units of the Chiriquí Investigation Directorate, who, in an investigation report dated 22 October 2014, indicated that he stated “... that a few days before Osman's death, when you arrived at Billar Big Pool at around 11:30 p.m. and H. was there in a black Montero van and told you that he had been waiting for the Dutch girls in front of Isla Verde and that they had not arrived because they had to take them on a tour of the trail or the volcano to watch the sunrise.” And what Murgas had to say about this?
Murgas replied:“That's false, because they asked me what I thought had happened to the Dutch women, and I told them about the Isla Verde Hostel, but not that they were Dutch, just that they were foreigners. H. told me they were gringas, and what is said above is a comment that everyone in the town of Boquete says.” - Notice that Murgas does correct the written down testimony of his in the investigation report when it comes to the term “gringas”, but that he doesn't correct his own initial timeline for the conversation with H. being “a few days before Osman's death.”
* Dave M: “This is all jumbled up from Murgas - We already suspected that Kris and Lisanne may have been supposed to meet H. on Tuesday. Whatever the truth was on that day, Osman further confuses and contradicts himself here as the interviews progress. He says for instance at some point that on Friday, H. told him about two foreign women who didn't turn up for a tour, or who went missing. I think this is him being under pressure and making it up as he goes along. But somewhere in there is a truth. He specifically names the Pool Hall where a meeting took place, and he also speaks of two foreign women who went missing and H. being worried about it reflecting on him. I don't know whether the two policemen are being entirely honest in exactly how they came across Murgas, but Murgas DOES talk, and he does name H., the Pool Hall and two foreign women who didn't turn up or went missing. He didn't have to mention any of that, not to these two policemen and not even in a sworn statement. So the whole situation here is really interesting, as Murgas comes across as trying to drop some hints about what went on and who was involved. In a gang like that, you would have had to be constantly proving yourself to them, and by February/March the pressure (and fear) was probably exhausting Murgas? So by the time March comes around, he is a lot more direct and homes in on Margarita to unburden himself and tell her everything.”
* Dave M: "It's no different really to Guide F's changing facts between statements; when you are actively lying, this is what happens. We can't expect Murgas to admit to much here, as by his later comments to Margarita he himself actually had a part in what happened to the two girls. So he has to cover himself, and he seemingly tries to cover for H. too to some extent. He's struggling with the dates here because he probably IS lying."
* Power-Pixie: "Osman disappeared on April 4, his body was found on April 5. I think Murgas is obfuscating on purpose and it seems like he's all over he place with his stories, yet he anchors it to the beginning of the month for some reason and that is the consistent thread. Friday was the 11th in that month of April, but so was April 4. So if this was a typo, then it is the fault of the person transcribing this. Or maybe it was Murgas who mistook the date as he was being interviewed much later, in October of 2014."
* Scarlet: Yeh here Murgas is a week off. Osman went missing on Friday April 4th, not Friday April 11th. If not a typo from the two officers, this may have been an innocent mistake? But why didn't Pittí tell him so, to see what his answer was to that? This seems no different from how Eileen and Marjolein and Guide F. were allowed to contradict themselves - and each other - in their sworn statements, without being challenged by investigators.
* Power-Pixie: "As for his sudden denial: the investigator states the conversation was recorded verbatim. That means:
- Murgas said these things originally.
- They were not hearsay written later, but that they were transcribed directly.
- His later denial now seems like strategic backtracking and not a correction.
Why is it that witnesses, especially these Panamanian ones, often retract only the most incriminating statements once they realize how damaging they sound? And this particular denial of Murgas seems extremely narrow, since he does not even dispute the events, except whether the women were "Dutch", which is a type of linguistic dodge. Everything else he said about the meeting, the pick-up attempt, the overnight tour plan, to me still stands."
MURGAS' TIMELINE
Murgas' timeline seems off. I'll go with the working theory for now that the original documented info in the police file is correct. And that Murgas met up with H. in the pool hall on the evening of April 2nd, most likely. Which is the day when the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne became known in Boquete. “A few days before the death of Osman”. Then Murgas ran into H. again “four or five days later”. Probably on or around April 6th. And this is “when the other situation with OSMAN came up.” Osman died on April 4th. So 'the situation with Osman' could have been talked about on April 4th at the earliest (unless Murgas refers to something else regarding Osman and not his death here, which is highly unlikely given that he speaks of this half a year after Osman's death and nothing else would qualify as ‘a situation’ in hindsight like his murder).
But if we assume that Murgas first spoke with H. again on April 6th or 7th, then there is a new problem. As Murgas indicated to Margarita that the Pandilla were present at the Caldera when Osman drowned there. Including H. and including Murgas himself. So in that case, Murgas did in fact see H. again before April 6th. And this may also clash with H. having not been seen in and around Boquete for various days after Kris and Lisanne disappeared. H. actually explained to Murgas why he had gone off the radar the days prior. This was also documented by Kryt, who also reported that when H. was asked where he had gone for that many days, he told Murgas that he had “gone to his fathers farm in Culebra, to go for a walk”. And when he was then asked where exactly he had gone for a walk, H. changed the subject.. - Which is also interesting. So Murgas seems to be saying that H. went off to Alto Romero after Tuesday the 1st or in my suspected timeline after April 2nd. IF true, it gives the impression that in the days after Kris and Lisanne went missing, H. either left voluntarily or was perhaps sent away by Guide F. But are we supposed to believe that as soon as H. returns to Boquete, he immediately gets drawn into what happened to Osman? That is hard to believe, even for me.
So I think that the original talk between Murgas and H. took place around April 2nd most likely and the follow-up talk on April 6th or 7th. Give or take a day difference. And that H. was then, in fact, not present at the Caldera when Osman was hit in the head and drowned. (Or Murgas deliberately lied about this timeline). Which makes it all the more likely that this planned tour of his was on April 1st and that these two gringa foreign female tourists may have been Kris and Lisanne. Especially given what we found out about Guide F. admitting under oath that he did in fact go to Spanish by the River on Tuesday morning to see Kris and Lisanne there. The fact that this detail had been successfully kept out of the entire narrative and public knowledge, is a red flag in my opinion. He may have known about their plans to hike the Pianista, and he may have sold them a guided tour for that day. Maybe a tour with his son, who often took tourists on hikes with his father at the time. - But this timeline is a tough one. I'll leave it for now, as Murgas may also have been vague on purpose, trying to protect H. by deliberately giving incorrect details.
- H. told him that he had been waiting for the two young Dutch women in front of Isla Verde and that they had not arrived.
* This is a confusing statement. Osman and H. knew full well by/after April 2nd that the two Dutch tourists were missing, as it was all over the news and H's father had already spent a lot of time trying to find them. So does that mean that this tour with H. was in fact on April 1st? And as for that location.. Isla Verde is not situated near Spanish by the River. It is hard to imagine Kris and Lisanne having waited there for a tour pickup. As opposed to the main road by the town square for example, or at Spanish by the River.
* Dave M: "I wonder - Is he in fact giving a coded (disguised) version of the truth here? Altering the Place (hotel), but giving police a hint all the same?"
* Scarlet: That is a good possible explanation. Murgas wanting to get the main story out about what H. was up to (in his view), but being afraid to make the story fit too perfectly, as that could put his own life into jeopardy. So the gist of what he says may be true, but he may have changed the hotel name for instance and was vague about the exact date, just so that he could hide behind 'simply parroting village gossip'.
- He told someone he had arranged to take two gringas on a tour;
- He told someone that he went to pick them up and they "weren't there";
- He told someone he waited near a lodging location for these same two girls;
- He told someone he planned an overnight ascent with a return at dawn;
This layout aligns far too closely with what happened to Kris and Lisanne to ignore, even if the meeting point he mentioned is wrong."
And for what it's worth: various people from Boquete have emailed me in private already years ago to tip me off about locals having overheard H.G. and E.A. in a bar, saying (drunk bragging) they were the last to have seen the missing Dutch girls alive. I always considered this hearsay gossip, but I now suddenly see this detail reappear in official sworn statements.. So even if Murgas was spinning a story here, there definitely WAS such gossip going round in Boquete at the time. Personally, I don't think Murgas made this up. He may have tried to minimize the effect of his words (uttered at his work and accidentally overheard) once he was ordered to give a sworn statement about it before Pitti. But why would Murgas make it all up? And why would he spread that rumour around at his workplace? He was afraid of - or at least uncomfortable around - H., based on everything I’ve learned so far. You don't invent gossip about the person you fear, normally. And he was killed less than half a year later. Accidentally or deliberately, that we don't know.
* Dave M: "It does sound plausible that H. and E. would start bragging when drunk. It's been over ten years, in all that time the pressure from the world outside Boquete has been increasing on them. But early on, when this disappearance case was still widely seen as an accident, they had to have felt relaxed enough to let it slip out at certain points. I am sure Guide F. kept H. on a short leash if there was any reason for it, but booze is always a great weakness. All of the gang kept a very low profile, apart from H., who seems to have had such a notorious reputation around town that even Murgas couldn't stop talking about him! But it is very interesting to note that Murgas IS talking about the two foreign women, and it's what drew those two detectives to the shop he worked at, and what attracted the attention of their superiors when they filed their reports. So there are two (missing) tourists here in the story, and these have to be Lisanne and Kris. Supporting this bit of his story, is that we know from Guide F. himself (SLIP, his Police statements, Jeremy Kryt's podcast) that he was indeed taking time off on Thursday or Friday afternoon to tend to a trip to Barú that evening, and that he would be back the next day. So that's independent support of Murgas' claims about H. here, and we can see where Kryt got his theory from about H. and Guide F's involvement. It is curious how H. is documented often as helping his father with his guided tours, but he completely stayed away from the Sinaproc searches. Away from all media at the time. And is essentially invisible for those weeks and months - not even appearing for Augusts' Answers for Kris trek as his father's trusted right hand, which would have been good money for him and his father. An Invisible Man."
* Power-Pixie: "It is something I had been questioning some time back when I heard about Murgas' interview in the podcast and in the SLIP book. It stood out like a sore thumb this interview and his words, since the conversation he had seems very casual and too early to be on April 2 or April 1. This is when the act happened, and H. f*cks off to his father's property in Alto Romero. So it might have been on Monday, maybe even at the "mystery restaurant" where we learnt the two had connected to the restaurant's Wi-Fi? (Yet we have still no idea what this place was). I think the two hour 45 minute window between the restaurant and Kris and Lisanne returning to the school that Monday late afternoon, might have offered H. the chance to meet with them. In Theory. April 1 meeting at Nelvis is plausible as well, but we have a lot of gymnastics to cover there."
* Power-Pixie: "It is something I had been questioning some time back when I heard about Murgas' interview in the podcast and in the SLIP book. It stood out like a sore thumb this interview and his words, since the conversation he had seems very casual and too early to be on April 2 or April 1. This is when the act happened, and H. f*cks off to his father's property in Alto Romero. So it might have been on Monday, maybe even at the "mystery restaurant" where we learnt the two had connected to the restaurant's Wi-Fi? (Yet we have still no idea what this place was). I think the two hour 45 minute window between the restaurant and Kris and Lisanne returning to the school that Monday late afternoon, might have offered H. the chance to meet with them. In Theory. April 1 meeting at Nelvis is plausible as well, but we have a lot of gymnastics to cover there."
* Just checking my blog post about Kryt's podcast again: “In the official case report: “He [Murgas] added that at the time the girls disappeared, H. told him what the problem was. That they were lost and he had been the last one who had seen them. According to the interviewee, Murgas did not see H. in the area until about six days later. And when he asked him where he had been, H. told him that he had gone to his father's farm in Culebra, to go for a walk. And when he asked him where he had gone for a walk, H. changed the subject.” - So it sounds like Kryt had access to these same files and sparsely referred to them. And that H. disappeared and seems to have gone to Alto Romero for quite a few days after Kris and Lisanne disappeared. Combined with all the gossip and the information from Murgas and Margarita, one could say that he at least gave the impression that the ground was getting a bit hot under his feet in Boquete at that specific time, for some reason.
* As for that Mitsubishi Montero: the classic Montero is known as "a true 4x4 SUV." Perfect for driving over uneven terrain. Built as a rugged off-road SUV. I bet H. got this car so that he could easily drive to Alto Romero, to his father's finca there or for tending his cattle. He would also have been able to drive a fair bit up the Pianista trail with a vehicle like that. * Dave M: "He is really dancing around this subject - if you read through his answers carefully, he is deliberately avoiding saying the names of Kris and Lisanne, and whether these women at the hotel were Dutch. But at the same time he lets is slip at one point “I spoke with him, and that's when he mentioned the women who had gone missing, some gringas.” That there is also a direct reference to Kris and Lisanne."
* Dave M: "It's hard to make sense of any of this. It's only if you think that Murgas is telling 'a version' of the truth that it does begin to make some sense. He is hinting to police, without being open and honest about it all. But I don't know what his strategy is here, as he is still dropping H. in it to the police... At some point, on Tuesday we have to think, H. is meant to take the two girls on a trek. He supposedly says that they don't show up, which seems to be a version of Guide F's experience on Wednesday morning actually - which is a very odd parallel. So H. is supposedly "worried" after learning they both disappeared, as he was the last to see the two - so is he worried because there were witnesses to his supposed meeting with the two?! Was he worried that someone like the two girls' parents might know something, or Miriam...? It is hard to make sense of."
* Dave M: "It's hard to make sense of any of this. It's only if you think that Murgas is telling 'a version' of the truth that it does begin to make some sense. He is hinting to police, without being open and honest about it all. But I don't know what his strategy is here, as he is still dropping H. in it to the police... At some point, on Tuesday we have to think, H. is meant to take the two girls on a trek. He supposedly says that they don't show up, which seems to be a version of Guide F's experience on Wednesday morning actually - which is a very odd parallel. So H. is supposedly "worried" after learning they both disappeared, as he was the last to see the two - so is he worried because there were witnesses to his supposed meeting with the two?! Was he worried that someone like the two girls' parents might know something, or Miriam...? It is hard to make sense of."
* So H. told Murgas directly that he felt he was in trouble, as he was 'the last one to have seen the two missing tourists alive'. Again, how did he know that he was the last person to have seen them alive..? And when exactly did H. see them alive that was the last time? Because we're also informed by Murgas that H. failed to find them at that strange pickup spot. So by logical deduction, H. must have seen them somewhere else then, at a later time? Oh dear.. But just like with his dad Guide F., these two girls were no-shows, would you believe it? Why didn't Betzaida Pittí go after these Pandilla guys for statements and evidence gathering? There is nothing known officially about Kris and Lisanne having socialised with H., or them having made a tour appointment with him in person. Does this mean that they did meet H. and friends in fact, but kept this out of their diaries? There are various moments in the days leading up to their disappearance that are unaccounted for (and I'd say that the swimming photo at the Caldera is another possible hint at them having socialised with these Pandilla lads). A shame that this lead wasn't further investigated by Betzaida Pittí.
Or is Guide F. the missing link in this? Who has been pretty shady about meeting Kris and Lisanne at SbtR on Tuesday morning. Which we nevertheless now know about from Guide F's own affidavits. What for? Who knows. He ignores the topic, or plays the victim in the Dutch press (“I never met the girls, but they said I was the last to see them.”) Is it perhaps possible that H. planned to take them on a tour himself as his dad's helper? Or maybe his dad offered his son's services to Kris and Lisanne on Tuesday morning? - And as Power-Pixie also mentioned, Monday afternoon (March 31st) also has nearly three hours unaccounted for in terms of Kris and Lisanne's movements. Could H. have met Kris and Lisanne then? And sold them his Barú tour on the spot? It remains just a theory for now, but it is possible, especially with these words of Murgas now taken into account. Unfortunately nobody knows what the truth is. As none of these people had their phones checked, to verify their movements and communications at the time.
* Dave M: "This is supposedly just gossip around town, but it seems to be saying H. and E. were responsible for killing the two and Guide F. was also involved in there somewhere... It's 'rumour', but a consistent one."
* Power-Pixie: "Cornfield"? Out of curiosity, I wonder where cornfields are located in Boquete. Murgas is trying to distance himself from knowing specifics and hides how much he actually discussed with H. here. When Murgas appears cornered he suddenly minimizes everything as "just village talk" which, to me, is a classic retreat when someone realizes they have said too much.🤷🏽♂️"
* Dave M: "Murgas is being vague to these two policemen, but with Margarita's later testimony to Kryt, what he hints at here does seem to match with his 'Mango Tree' story. They hid the two bodies - that is the implication."
* Scarlet: Good points. They are not the exact same details and testimonies, but there does seem to be considerable overlap. I even thought about Marcus M's witness statement about hearing two men throwing bodies down a ravine. As Murgas himself phrased it as “they had killed these women and thrown them down a cornfield” in his affidavit. 'Throwing down'. Although cornfields don't tend to exist in ravines, of course. And there is even that psychic medium who declared in a Dutch national newspaper that she had visions and dreams of these girls: “I saw a girl with light-colored hair that was grabbed by a man in a forest setting. He was wearing jeans and work shoes. His hand had the color of a latino. The girl screamed and was dragged roughly by her hair behind a house or cabin. So rough that she was bleeding. I saw dark, chocolate-colored earth moving and I felt a stabbing pain in my stomach. This pain was so intense that I woke up crying.” The Panamanian woman claimed she had a second dream on April 14th, 2014. In it she saw a mountainside and plants that she thought looked like coffee bushes. “I saw one of the girls through her own eyes. They looked up at the sky. She lay on her back among the bushes and was very calm. I think she's dead.” - But we're getting into very shaky (SLIP) territory here, with psychics.
- Murgas was asked: “Tell the court what you have to say in relation to the statements made by units of the Chiriquí Investigation Directorate. [..] “That's false, because they asked me what I thought had happened to the Dutch women, and I told them about the Isla Verde Hostel, but not that they were Dutch, just that they were foreigners. H. told me they were gringas, and what is said above is a comment that everyone in the town of Boquete says.”
* We cannot say what the truth is here. But the two detectives both gave matching accounts of what was supposedly declared by Murgas on October 22nd, with both of them writing it out verbatim immediately and signing it... (“We recorded what the young man told us in the report.”) Either they both - together - wrote it down incorrectly, or Murgas freaked out when he had to repeat it under oath to Betzaida Pitti two days later and backed out.. Distancing himself now from these incriminating claims.
* Well, and that H. was 'worried about being the last to have seen the missing gringa tourists'.. An important detail surely, which we never heard Betzaida Pittí elaborate on in public. So Murgas passed this on to police, who later did nothing with this information, as far as I know. According to Osman's mother Margarita, Murgas was with H. and the gang as they went after Kris and Lisanne on the Pianista (but this is also just a theory at this point, and one which Osman's mother Margarita says she was told by Murgas shortly before he was killed, you can read more about it here). He would have likely also been present at Cuervo's house later that evening. If true, it remains a guess whether Murgas was just a witness or in fact an active participant in this claimed kidnapping and later killing and dealing with the bodies. But he told Margarita about the burial by a mango tree. A lot of violence. If all that is true and Margarita spoke the truth, then Murgas must have also known what role H. played. Or 'Richard', S.J. and the others. Osman, who according to his mother really made an effort to be accepted by this Pandilla. Only to be attacked and injured by S.J. with a bottle in a bar. Supposedly over some BS excuse that Osman was after Milagros, of all people. Osman was a handsome young man and had a serious girlfriend.
- Murgas: “No, everything is fine with H., it's just that I try to avoid him because I don't like dealing with conceited people and he sometimes acts that way, so I avoid him.”
- Murgas: “No, everything is fine with H., it's just that I try to avoid him because I don't like dealing with conceited people and he sometimes acts that way, so I avoid him.”
* Murgas trying to avoid H. now must have had more pressing reasons than just disliking his 'arrogant' behaviour? Such as... fear for his life (as he told Margarita)? Fear of being considered the weak link by the Pandilla? Knowing more than was safe for him? Just theories! There are various consistent stories coming from Boquete about H's violent and erratic behaviours in the past. Some people wrote me that he had a few screws loose and was a walking carbide bomb, ready to go off. So did Nina von Rönne. Only the German SLIP authors painted him as a sweet puppy-dog-eyed kid. After befriending his father first and being granted 'exclusive Pandilla interviews'.
* Dave M: "It's interesting to see the parallel between Osman and Murgas like this. Both linked to this gang, both possibly innocent (to some extent), but in the end both victims to the Paranoia and Violence of the Gang. Reportedly.."
- Murgas was asked: “Tell us if you know where H's father's farm is located. He answered: “I don't know where it is located, I know it's in the mountains of Boquete, I don't know the name of this place.” “I have only greeted him with hello and goodbye, and that gentleman is from Boquete itself.”
* This in itself is slightly unbelievable... Murdog lived in Boquete, which is a relatively small town. A place with several 'big families', who everybody knows. Murgas knew that area and the people in it. He knew H. very well. How credible is it that he didn't know F's name or the name of Alto Romero? This reads more like Murgas trying to say as little as possible about that family, pretending to be someone who knew less than he truly did. This can only have been out of fear.
* Strange that Betzaida Pitti asks Murgas this? Pitti should know this answer. Because other than having his sworn statements taken, Guide F. or his family were not really investigated by her. H. wasn't brought in for questioning for a sworn statement, despite Pitti knowing about these claims about him. Pitti also chose not to investigate H. or F's movements through their phones for instance, something which could have possibly ruled out any wrongdoing by both men. So why is she asking Murgas this question? Bizarre. If I were her, I'd be too ashamed to put the spotlight on my own poor work. - But again Murgas gives an implausible naive answer when he claims he doesn't even know F's name. This was in October of 2014. F. was well known in town and he had been involved in the press for months and months at that point, talking about the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne.. I'm sure that everyone in the whole world who follows this case knows his name and that of Alto Romero. But Murgas, frenemy of H. and Boquete resident, would not? By October of 2014? Hard to believe. This again reads like Murgas trying to establish distance from it all. At the end of the day, his sworn statement had contradictions and peculiar lapses of memory.
* I don't know if this is what got Murdog killed. He seems to want to tell investigators about this possible connection between Kris and Lisanne and H, but then again I sense this fear in him? He tries to downplay his story, for whatever reason. Perhaps because he truly didn't know if it had anything to do with the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne, perhaps because he was fearful of H, who he said he did not like and avoided as a person. Is this why he got killed half a year later? Or because Murgas started talking more later on? For instance to Margarita. By then he was already saying he was in direct fear of his life; that seemed more like a last-ditch confession, just in case he...
* Power-Pixie: "That final answer from Murgas reads like a man who wants to talk, but is terrified of the consequences. You can hear the fear in the sudden shift of tone: “Only what I said about H. telling me he was going to look for some gringas… The rest… is just gossip…” Classic self-preservation language in small-town criminal cases.
- He confirms the core incriminating point (H. was going to pick up two gringas, night hike/morning return).
- Then he immediately minimizes it (I don't know if they were the Dutch women).
- Then he walks backwards (“it's just gossip”).
- Then he ends the interview (“I have no amendments... I’m ready to conclude”).
This does not read like someone who fabricated a story. It reads like someone who realized the gravity of what he had revealed and was frightened of being tied to it. A few things jump out. He explicitly said he avoided H. because H. is conceited and difficult. Fear and dislike are already established. He is not neutral toward H.; he’s wary. He gives very specific details that are hard to invent: the black Montero, the exact location (outside Billar Big Pool), the content of the conversation (night ascent, sunrise, picking them up, they weren't there, H. saying he was in trouble as he was the last to have seen the missing girls). People who are lying often do not naturally give specific, contextualized and/or risky details. His backtracking only begins once he realizes the implications. Note that he does not retract the story about H.'s attempted pickup. He only retreats from connecting it explicitly to Kris and Lisanne. Whereas he did add the Dutch girl detail to the two cops, earlier. Classic "I told the truth... but please do not make me the target." And the timing of his death is deeply suspicious. He dies in March 2015 after speaking to police, AFTER giving information that implicated H., Osman's death, the taxi driver's death. And while he was drinking with the same circle around H. Too many deaths. And look at his final tone. He is not defiant. He is not distancing himself from H. early. He knows he is in dangerous territory but felt compelled to say something.
* Scarlet: He was compelled to say something, something potentially dangerous. But nothing was done with the information..
* Dave M: "What a problem, those girls got lost, and I was the last one to see them.’ Why is H. bothered that he might be the last to have seen the two girls - more to the point HOW does he know that he was the last to see the two?! Very strange. But add to this that F. is his father. If this comment from H. truly happened, then H. surely talked to his father about his 'worry'. You can appreciate where Jeremy Kryt gets his theory from, as guide F's reaction to this would probably then be to come to his son's aid and try to take charge of the problem. It's as if Murgas is dropping certain grains of truth to the police here.
* Scarlet: Kryt's podcast and Murgas' statements to Margarita are in the public domain, but somehow a lot of people seem not to believe the information provided there. I've read so many comments from sleuths discarding it as fantasy by Margarita (and with Murgas killed, he cannot speak anymore of course). But surely this sworn statement of Murgas, given to Betzaida Pitti as well as to two policemen in October 2014 already, should now lend at least some more weight to Murgas' words and intel? This proves that he did believe to know more about what happened to Kris and Lisanne. And that he testified about it under oath. Back in October of 2014.
- Then fast-forward to February 2015 and the guy is clearly very afraid for his life and running in circles in a panic. For some reason he decides to contact Margarita and tell her everything. He was a religious, Christian guy, just like Osman. The guilt was weighing on him it feels, and Murgas also voiced concerns about his own safety. The threats must have become substantial enough by February 2015 for him to start talking for real. Then.. a hit and run in March, and he would speak no more. All a coincidence, as some people like to paint it? Perhaps yes. But I am not so sure about that.
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GENERAL IMPRESSIONS
- He did so in a Boquete Pool Hall, "a few days before the death of a young man named OSMAN".
- Murgas said to the two policemen that H. had told him that he had been waiting for the two young Dutch women in front of Isla Verde and that they had not arrived.
- This was recorded in detail by them in their police report.
- This was recorded in detail by them in their police report.
- But when giving his sworn statement to Betzaida Pittí, Murgas reportedly declared that “at no time did I say anything about the Dutch women”. Saying H. was talking about two gringas. “He didn't say their names, and if he did, I don't remember.”
- Murgas provided more details to the two policemen than he admitted to Betzaida Pittí. He could not remember a lot suddenly when she interviewed him under oath, only two days later.
- Murgas told the two policemen that H. said to him: “What's the problem? I was the last one to see them, and these young women got lost.” / “What a problem, those girls got lost, and I was the last one to see them.”
- Murgas again spoke with H. soon after Osman disappeared/died.
- Murgas confirmed the story that H. disappeared from Boquete soon after Kris and Lisanne disappeared, and was not seen by people for several days (likely about 4 to 5 days), having instead gone to Alto Romero. He was vague about the reason why.
- What was H. doing in that rural mountain hamlet of Alto Romero for quite a few days in a row? 21-year old H., who enjoys watching and playing pool and having a social life in Boquete? At a time when Boquete was ablaze with activity and excitement over the two missing Dutch tourists, whom H. himself is said to have had an appointment with, perhaps? His dad was helping wherever he could, but H. decided to go for a walk for several days in that rudimentary hamlet instead. “What's the problem? I was the last one to see them!”
- The two policemen also seem oblivious to the fact that in the police report about Osman's death, it was declared by the Pandilla members that they saw MURGAS and Osman go off together, shortly before he died (a rather transparent lie by the Pandilla to cast the blame on Murgas?). These two cops didn't even question Murgas about this, despite them saying they were 'investigating' Osman's death. Bizarre..
- These two policemen were approached on a street in David by an individual who "did not want to identify himself", but who tipped them off about Murgas knowing more about the disappearance of the two Dutch women.
- Murgas confirmed that there were widespread and outspoken rumours in Boquete: “Because everyone is talking about it, that H. had agreed with his father and S's son E. that between the two of them, they had killed these women and thrown them down a cornfield supposedly.”
- Police were investigating the death of Osman by October 2014, walking through David, making inquiries.. This was half a year after Osman died and despite it having been ruled an "accidental drowning" initially. This probably indicates that Osman's death was not in fact a simple accidental drowning, or else there wouldn't have been a minimum of two DIJ officers in David still actively investigating his death, so long after the fact. Geez, this is all pretty damning evidence of something being very wrong indeed about all these deaths in that Pandilla friend group.
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* Dave M: "Murgas is sort of making it up as he goes along here, but what's a little unclear is just what part he was playing in these two events. I'm not 100% sure if he was there on Tuesday when Kris and Lisanne disappeared. It's not clear whether he was there at the time of Osman's death either. On balance, if any of Margarita's stories are true, you do have to think he was most likely present at both events. But the way in which he seems to be the only one (apart from Osman) who was troubled enough to break his silence and began to talk to others about it, seems to suggest he maybe wasn't directly involved in killing Osman and potentially even Kris and Lisanne...? The way he repeatedly brings H. up is very significant to me: he is fixated on H. It is very notable he doesn't name any of the others: all there is, is H. When he went on to talk to Margarita the following March (so shortly before his violent death), Murgas also named H. as the principal force that attacked Kris, and then beat her to death. And this consistent fixation on H. can now also be seen in this October 2014 affidavit. It may be telling us something important, I feel. Murgas doesn't have to name H. in relation to the two dead Dutch tourists. But he seems to be bring H. up in relation to the day Osman 'disappeared', and he is also subtly linking it to the two missing Dutch women. It's appears to be suggesting H. was a key element in what happened to Kris and Lisanne, and quite possibly in Osman's case as well. And when you look at his statement as a whole, Murgas is giving a lot of details. Why H.? Why is he not talking about E. or S.J.? Was H. the driving force in these events? I can guess some of the reason why Murgas came to hate H. by October. Frustration, and Fear."
*EXTRA* - POSSIBLE (THEORETIC) IMPLICATIONS
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* Scarlet: And it didn't end well for either Osman or Murgas. 'Unrelated and just a coincidence', some will say. But is that really so? It is a choice to sift all this information into strictly useful and useless columns. And to focus primarily on dangerous slopes, trail loops and waterways that can lead hikers astray. There is a HUGE amount of cherry-picking and confirmation bias going on in this case, depending on which group of sleuths you listen to. (Which, in all honesty, is starting to take a lot of enjoyment out of this investigation for me. The world is already so very polarized and political, but it seems you can't escape it anywhere). But when you also take these sworn statements into account, as well as the statements Murgas made to Margarita, combined with the persistent, consistent and longstanding rumours coming from Boquete itself, then an alternative theory starts to form. People don't have to believe it, but they can still acknowledge it. And some of the aspects of the case are hard to explain from a "Lost" narrative - such as the strangely minimal phone use choices, powering both phones off at a critical point in time, draining the battery of Lisanne's phone at an important point in time without using it to look for help or connection, the lack of photos, videos and text messages, the night photos that never show anything of importance and that stop mere hours before sunrise, with the camera never to be used again. And the fact that the areas where some remains were found are actually frequented by multiple people a day, according to people who have been there - I'd say some of these aspects can actually better be explained from a "Foul Play" perspective (for those willing to look past their beliefs of what lazy criminals are or aren't willing to do). - It seems to me that Murgas became a liability and a possible target - and not just by the time he spoke so extensively and openly with Margarita. Which always seemed like a strange way for things to evolve, completely out of the blue. Why would Murgas give Margarita so many damning details suddenly? I never understood that. But now it starts to (possibly) make more sense. It may actually all have started here, on October 21, 2014. When Murgas received a surprise visit from two DIJ officers. Questioning him about comments he had made at his workplace, apparently overheard by an anonymous witness. This was NOT Murgas' choice. He didn't go to the police himself. He was dragged into it. You can see him initially being fairly open to the two officers, but then he starts to sweat and squirm once things turn very serious very quickly: with Betzaida Pittí suddenly ordering him to come in for a sworn statement. Which is a serious matter that legally obliged him by law to tell the truth. He must have had the shock of his life. Murgas must have felt ice-cold shivers the moment he realised what he had got himself into here. That's when he suddenly started "not remembering" things. I also think he mixed some truths with some deviations from the truth, trying to balance his legal duty to speak truthfully with his self-preservation. He feared H., that much is clear. So he now started to soften his earlier statements to the two officers. He threw in some doubt. Hinting that these were merely rumours; merely gossip he was talking about. Even though the two officers had reliably and clearly written down something entirely different from Murgas' mouth, right after speaking with him. He started giving conflicting details about the timeline. Could this have been the start of real trouble for him, nevertheless? Did the news of this sworn statement of his reach Boquete? Did it then lead to him fearing for his life, as he later told Margarita? And then caused him to tell her everything he knew, just in case? Right before he passed away from a hit-and-run? This could indicate that Murgas had not simply been paranoid beforehand. Same fate as Osman. - Or maybe Murgas made all of this up. Maybe he was such an unreliable witness that nothing of what he claimed under oath was truthful. He was asked some decent questions by Pittí, I think. But not good enough, at the end of the day.
* Scarlet: Agreed. Despite there still being some question marks about Murgas and how reliable his statements to Margarita truly were, I suppose these documents here give weight to the fact that Murgas actually did talk to law enforcement about H., E. and Guide F. in relation to the Kris and Lisanne case. It provides a possible lead to his violent death, and a potential motive. These official affidavits show that he was in fact running his mouth about the case and seemingly did so quite openly, in a way that random people could easily overhear. Was Murgas touching on some truth and on something that others wanted to keep out of the public eye? On the other hand, why would H. and friends draw even more attention to themselves by (theoretically) killing both their friends? Maybe it feels a bit excessive. But perhaps something simply switched in Murgas shortly before his death, prompting him to go to Margarita and get everything off his chest. (Serious threats? Justified fear?) Thereby becoming a real problem, in the process?
* Dave M: "Whatever went on with Kris and Lisanne on Tuesday, it seems very possible that his father had a hand in getting them to go off on a hike, after speaking with them at the school. I can't get away from this theory. So his father is then almost certainly at least a part of that disappearance in some way, while H. seems to have been a part of what went on with Osman in some way... Going by these statements. Are these two events really tied together by the Father and the Son? Perhaps not, but it's amazing the police never pursued any of this. All of this was almost certainly suppressed and buried. For the sake of Boquete and Panama's reputation. These sworn statements of Murgas are then the police just going through the motions."
* Power-Pixie: "Good thinking! That also offers a possible explanation for this strange Isla ho(s)tel pick up spot. If this Barú tour was a group excursion, as it often seems to be with Guide F., then the pick up spot does not necessarily have to have been the location where these two gringas were staying. But instead a pickup spot for some of the group, or an agreed upon single collection point for everyone? And this tour was planned for later in the day, so indeed, Kris and Lisanne would have needed to be informed about the practical details (and F. would have wanted to ensure that they didn't cancel on that booking), so that does offer a good motive for him sneaking back to SbtR on Tuesday morning. As he more or less admitted under oath."
* Dave M: "And the Billar pool hall Murgas references here is not far from café Nelvis - it is less than a minute's walk from Billar over to Nelvis [where Kris and Lisanne were seen by multiple witnesses on Tuesday morning], and the implications of this could be quite profound. Murgas makes it reasonably clear that this place is a favourite meeting place of the youths. It is a Bar and Pool hall where he, H. and probably the others were all hanging out on a regular basis, and H. parks his car outside of it... Did Murgas visit that Pool hall? You have to suspect he did. Murgas says he is at the Hall 'at night', or during the day. In March 2015 he is also there and it is that pool hall again where he spots Margarita passing by. So this is a spot where these men gather very regularly, drink, play pool, and while away the time. If E.A. was indeed a drug user (cocaine and/or cannabis) then that is a very dangerous element, as he is said to have been capable of anything. Whatever the doubts and uncertainties we have here, we should hold onto the deaths of Lisanne, Kris, Osman, the taxi driver, and eventually Murgas. None of this may be a coincidence, all could be connected. Or not. Did the police have a good idea early on what had gone on, and that this may have been a murder case? It certainly seems they must have heard the stories going around town." * Scarlet: Yeah, it may perhaps explain why these youngsters would hang out at that green, inconspicuous looking food joint called Nelvis, when there were much cooler venues to socialise at. But it may have been their go-to place after or before playing pool. That Instagram page for the pool hall also shows some videos. Their most recent post is an old one from 2018, and they stopped posting after that. The place closed somewhere in the early 2020s. The vibe I'm getting here is a hangout spot for youngsters, late teens and people in their twenties perhaps. And indeed, in Kryt's podcast it was said: “Then Jose Manuel Murgas approached Margarita almost a year later outside a pool hall. “I was coming from work and he was standing outside a pool hall. He said: 'I want to talk to you'.” Again this pool hall.
BILLAR BIG POOL HALL
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Restaurante/café Nelvis was located just around the corner from this Billar Big Pool Hall. Both indicated in turquoise letters at the bottom of this map image. Nelvis is said to have been a place the Pandilla members visited more regularly, and for what it's worth, the pool hall is very close by. It was likely another venue frequented by the Pandilla at the time.
KRYT'S PODCAST I went over the podcast info again, and this is what Murgas declared to Margarita:
Murgas, according to Osman's mother, confessed to her that Osman was indeed killed by the Pandilla. He also said that Murgas had been present, complicit, a witness and an accomplice. “They killed him because he knew about the Dutch girls.” Milagros had invited Osman to go out by the river. She then informed the Pandilla that Osman would be there. They followed him to the river and saw Osman sitting on a rock, looking out over the river. That's when the gang attacked. “E. gave the order. He said: “Kill him”. Margarita continued: “He took up a rock and hit him at the back of the head. My son fell. He wasn't dead, he was still alive. Then he threw him from a bridge.”
Murgas, according to Osman's mother, confessed to her that Osman was indeed killed by the Pandilla. He also said that Murgas had been present, complicit, a witness and an accomplice. “They killed him because he knew about the Dutch girls.” Milagros had invited Osman to go out by the river. She then informed the Pandilla that Osman would be there. They followed him to the river and saw Osman sitting on a rock, looking out over the river. That's when the gang attacked. “E. gave the order. He said: “Kill him”. Margarita continued: “He took up a rock and hit him at the back of the head. My son fell. He wasn't dead, he was still alive. Then he threw him from a bridge.”
-Interestingly, Jeremy Kryt stated in the Aftershow that multiple witnesses were interviewed by the police and they included H. and E.A. as well as their respective girlfriends at the time...
So that indicates that they were all on site when Osman was killed, on April 4th. I have heard that H. was interviewed by police after Osman's death, as a witness, but I haven't seen the hard evidence of this. So this is non-confirmed and may be incorrect information therefore. Kryt did claim this though. He also said that the Pandilla came up with deflection attempts: “They said they saw Osman and Murgas go off together, shortly before he died.” But as I said earlier, I find it hard to believe that H. would have hidden at Alto Romero for days, only to reappear in Boquete again by Friday and immediately get into more trouble there. Now with Osman, dying at the Caldera in the Pandilla's presence. But who knows.. And if H. was at the Caldera on April 4th, then this does not match the timeline suggested by Murgas to Pittí and the two officers. He indicated that H. was most likely out of Boquete for the entire week, and may only have returned sometime the following week, once the situation in Boquete had stabilised and Guide F. felt he had a grip on things. - Either H. was out of Boquete that week and nobody could find him, or he was in Boquete after all and Murgas was lying/deflecting.
So that indicates that they were all on site when Osman was killed, on April 4th. I have heard that H. was interviewed by police after Osman's death, as a witness, but I haven't seen the hard evidence of this. So this is non-confirmed and may be incorrect information therefore. Kryt did claim this though. He also said that the Pandilla came up with deflection attempts: “They said they saw Osman and Murgas go off together, shortly before he died.” But as I said earlier, I find it hard to believe that H. would have hidden at Alto Romero for days, only to reappear in Boquete again by Friday and immediately get into more trouble there. Now with Osman, dying at the Caldera in the Pandilla's presence. But who knows.. And if H. was at the Caldera on April 4th, then this does not match the timeline suggested by Murgas to Pittí and the two officers. He indicated that H. was most likely out of Boquete for the entire week, and may only have returned sometime the following week, once the situation in Boquete had stabilised and Guide F. felt he had a grip on things. - Either H. was out of Boquete that week and nobody could find him, or he was in Boquete after all and Murgas was lying/deflecting.
-Another local, who owned a ranch, told Jeremy Kryt that he knew more. He said: “One of them was Osman. That guy was one of the good ones. And any time there was a party, he was there. And that guy, they killed him. They hit him with a rock. The taxi driver, they drowned him. The last person they killed, who was a friend of theirs, they ran the car over him forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. Many times, and hello and goodbye. He died and that was it. It was a guy they called Murgas.”
“H. is a friend of mine. Well.. I know him, yes. He's a horrible person. He's crazy. He's a violent person. E. is demented. That guy is rotten. That man is damaged. He is always on drugs.” Then he summed up all the people who were involved in the deaths of Kris and Lisanne: “H. The Sabrosón. A guy who is dark-skinned and very tall, they call him S.J..” [By the way: Marcus the German also reported to police that he saw two dark-skinned and tall men and heard women scream and being thrown down a ravine]. Cuervo was not involved, he says. Then he echoes the story of Margarita: these guys kidnapped and murdered Kris and Lisanne. But NOT at the house of Cuervo in Palo Alto. But instead they killed them in Guide F's finca in the jungle. “In one of the houses they have around here, in [inaudible, something like Jaramillo], they had those girls. They supposedly killed the girls the second or third day they had them.” “They say those guys went crazy over the girls. I imagine it was H., because H. is the craziest of them all. H. and E.. They killed one then the other and cut them into pieces. They say they had them in black bags. And after killing them, to piece them up and put them in bags. Only crazy people do that.” There is also Boquete local Verísimo F, who stated to Jeremy Kryt that guide F. owns a ranch close to where the remains of Kris and Lisanne were found. But that it is his son, H., who “has problems”. Appearing tranquil at times, but exploding in violence at other times. “When he is drinking he can become violent. He changes.” But then comes a striking next comment: “And he was with the Dutch girls in the discotheque.” Verísimo Fuentes states again that Kris and Lisanne were seen in a nightclub with H. and his friends on Sunday the 30th of March. And that “many people saw it.” He is very sure of this. Verisimo F. helped SINAPROC search for the girls from the start and was very professionally involved with the searches.
This may all be unfounded gossip of course. But it does offer a motive at least for H. to disappear from Boquete and - by his own admission apparently - go to Alto Romero for some days "to walk". These people scattered and stayed out of the limelight, while Guide F. took control of the searches and did his bit in front of the media cameras. Which he did, and which should be clear to everyone, regardless whether you see him as a hero and a saint or a villain, or something in between. Telling everyone who would listen that Kris and Lisanne must have walked all the way to the Monkey Bridges behind the Mirador and fallen to their deaths there. (At a time when nobody yet knew where they had even gone for a hike).“With this left hand I put my victims in the hospital, and with my right hand I put them in the graveyard”.
- And I am making a video as I type this to accompany this new blog post about Murgas' affidavit. And rewatching it half a dozen times, the same things are coming back. Martin O'Donnell who says that they found Murgas with a suspicious head injury that doesn't match a hit and run, combined with two witnesses who heard a pickup truck stop, open a door and throw Murgas out on the street before speeding off (drop him there!). Osman found with a suspicious head wound. Margarita being told by Murgas that Kris as well as Lisanne died from being hit and beaten to death. And then we have Jeremy Kryt's quote out of the mouth of H., reportedly, that with his left fist he puts them in the hospital, and with his right fist in their grave. Can we at least say that based on all this, H. and friends may have liked a good fist fight?
I also revisited the (older but never before shared by me) messenger replies from Sigrid, combined with a statement from the daughter of the woman who's place Sigrid rented at the time for her massages in Boquete, Vivian. And both Sigrid and this Vivian have written about a crime element. Sigrid wrote that she never believed the accident narrative. That those girls were at the wrong place at the wrong time. That many little details don't add up, but have been “denied and turned around over time by others.” “Also some people died back then in the next months, under strange circumstances. One of those people I knew a bit and had a link with the missing girls.” And she says that unless “someone knowing more speaks up”, journalists and sleuths from outside Boquete are never going to solve this, which is what should happen for the parent's sake, “Even if it would be painful. Not knowing drives a person mad”.
But I do think Sigrid is correct. We are all waiting for new and more definitive answers and information. May it be in the form of the discovery of the night photo location, or the complete phone data, or new and more solid confessions.. I am posting this blog entry for completeness sake, but do feel that unless something more definitive is coming to the surface in the future, this case will remain stuck where it is now: with two, ever more hostile camps of believers (Lost vs Crime) and a whole lot of assumptions that are not giving us clear answers. The passing of Jeremy Kryt is not helping in all this, as I think he had more investigation work in the pipeline :( I will only post here if there is new information, so there may come a point soon where there won't be any more new updates.
But I do think Sigrid is correct. We are all waiting for new and more definitive answers and information. May it be in the form of the discovery of the night photo location, or the complete phone data, or new and more solid confessions.. I am posting this blog entry for completeness sake, but do feel that unless something more definitive is coming to the surface in the future, this case will remain stuck where it is now: with two, ever more hostile camps of believers (Lost vs Crime) and a whole lot of assumptions that are not giving us clear answers. The passing of Jeremy Kryt is not helping in all this, as I think he had more investigation work in the pipeline :( I will only post here if there is new information, so there may come a point soon where there won't be any more new updates.
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Especially now that we found out from his affidavit that he admitted to having gone to Spanish by the River on Tuesday morning, being one of the last people to have spoken to Kris and Lisanne. (And this had been kept hidden from the public until I wrote about his sworn statement!).
- Guide F. may have sold the girls guided tours, possibly even for Tuesday afternoon on the Pianista (hence them being seen at Nelvis, literally around the corner of the billiard pool hall where the Pandilla liked to hang out, seemingly waiting and then taking a taxi to the Pianista trailhead by themselves).
- Guide F. may have been the one who sent H. to Alto Romero once the disappearance story broke.
- Guide F. admitted in his own amended affidavit that he had to leave the SINAPROC searches early because he had an overnight Barú tour planned for Thursday evening - which matches Murgas' story about H. having had such a tour planned.
- H. mimics his dad by saying that the two gringas didn't show up, which seems to be a version of Guide F.'s own experience on Wednesday morning.
- In the persistent and widespread village gossip, Guide F. is named outright as a player in Kris and Lisanne's killing and burial: “They asked me what I had heard in the town of Boquete, and I told them, but as a comment from the people of Boquete, because everyone is talking about it, that H. had agreed with his father and E. that between the two of them they had killed these women and thrown them down a cornfield supposedly, but this is just village gossip, a rumour in the village.”
- H. was worried about having been the last person to have seen the missing tourists. If true, then H. likely would've talked to his father about his 'worry'. As Dave M said: you can appreciate where Jeremy Kryt got his theory from, as Guide F.'s reaction to this could could have been to come to his son's aid and try to take charge of the problem. (Including taking the reins of the investigation, single-handedly going into the bedroom and being the first to interview the witnesses on the Pianista trail etc).
- Murgas rather suspiciously claimed under oath that he had no idea what Guide F.'s name was or what the name of Alto Romero was. This surely has to be pretence, as this is a small town where everybody knows each other. I don't believe that Murgas didn't know the name of H.'s (infamous) tour guide father. Murgas seemed afraid of and obsessed with H. And one has to wonder why he told such obvious lies.
- I also believe - just as Power-Pixie explained about psychological manipulation - that Guide F. could in theory have strongly influenced people like Eileen, Miriam and Ingrid, by making them feel complicit in the disappearance of these girls. Scaring them into backing off, allowing him to take over and potentially even covering for him (especially in Eileen's case). And keeping his visit of SbtR on Tuesday morning - on the day of their disappearance - a secret for all this time. What more did Eileen and Guide F. not tell about the interactions they had that morning with Kris and Lisanne? - All the statements by Murgas that I quoted here, show at the very least that H. and E. and Guide F. were the subjects of persistent local gossip at the time. Maybe unfounded gossip, maybe not.
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April 22, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF YAILETH
“Yes we talked often”
Ms Yaileth was asked if she knew Mrs Miriam G., to which Yaileth replied affirmatively that Miriam is her mother. She had been living with her mother for three years at that point. Yaileth was asked whether she knew the young women Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, to which she replied “yes.” When asked when she met Kris and Lisanne, Yaileth responded that it was on Saturday, 29 March that year, “when they came to my house at around 5 or 6 in the afternoon.” Later in the interview she added that her mother had picked them up from the Spanish by the River (SbtR) school. Yaileth was asked to explain why Kris and Lisanne had come to her house. Yaileth answered: “They were going to do volunteer work with the Spanish by the River school, and I also knew that they were going to work at a daycare center. However, it seems that the daycare assignment was cancelled and they were planning to talk to Casa Esperanza. But I don’t know at which school or educational facility they were going to volunteer. That information should be available from the owner of the Spanish by the River school, Ms. Ingrid.” When asked who recommended Kris and Lisanne to her home, Yaileth replied: “It was the school itself, specifically a school program run by Ms. Ingrid. I believe it was through her secretary that my mother was contacted about having the girls stay at our house.” When asked if she had formed any kind of relationship or had any conversations with Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, Yaileth answered: “Yes, we talked often.” She denied that Kris and Lisanne had received any visitors or communicated with anyone during their stay at her residence. They had no contact with anyone during their stay. “Everything was arranged through the school.” Yaileth was then asked if Kris and Lisanne had ever mentioned to her whether they were interested in going on any kind of expedition or hike to tourist attractions in Boquete. Yaileth answered: “Well, we had talked about going on a tour together during the three days they stayed at our house. And since they spoke very little Spanish, we recommended Volcán and the Los Quetzales trail, but really nothing specific. On Sunday they went into town; I told them they could visit the town, and they said that was fine, they would visit the town, but we never ended up arranging a hike or excursion.” That Sunday they had returned in the afternoon. Yaileth was doing laundry and asked them how it had gone. Lisanne told her she had really liked it and that they had visited the Sugar and Spice shop, which is across from the entrance to the cemetery, and that they were going to the school that day to check out their schedule during their stay.
“Well, we had talked about doing a tour together.”
“Tuesday the 1st, before leaving, I heard them inside their room because I could hear them moving things around, but I didn't see them that day.”
“No, my mother is not in the habit of opening the door to anyone who comes to the house, not even to us.”
When asked, Yaileth denied knowing Mrs. Veronica Santamaría (“No, I have never met her.”) When asked if she knew her neighbours, Yaileth explained that since they were very young, her mother had taught them not to go to their neighbours' homes, and that she only knew the names of her close neighbours, such as Mrs. Reina, who lived across the street, Katy and her husband, whom they affectionately called ‘Tin’ and who they had known for a long time because he was Yaileth's husband's driver. Yaileth also recalled that on the other side of their house lived Mr. Trini and his wife Bet, and next to her house Mr. Pulo, who sells legumes, and his wife whose name is Maribel. And in front of Mr. Fulo's house lived a lady whose name was Yaneth and her daughters, one named Celeste and the other whose name Yaileth did not know. She also recalled that next to Yaneth's house lived a foreigner who, judging by his accent, was American. And that these were the people who lived around her house. When asked if she knew how Kris and Lisanne communicated with their families, Yaileth replied: “No, I don't know.”
“My mother said she told Mr F. that if he dared to open the door, because she wouldn't do it.”
Yaileth also stated, when asked, that she had never seen Kris and Lisanne with electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc. “Only Lisanne told me that she had a mobile phone like mine, and mine is a Samsung, model Ace Plus.” When asked if she had anything else to declare, Yaileth added that Lisanne told her that she was a child psychologist and that Kris had studied culture and society and that they worked in their country in a restaurant as waitresses.
********
Thoughts and commentary
* Dave M: "All these are good questions! Which again raises the comparison to Eileen's interview, which is nothing like these other interviews... Why was Eileen held to this different standard?"
* Power-Pixie: "That is a very valid question now."
* Power-Pixie: "That is a very valid question now."
* This appears to be confirmation of what Kris and Lisanne themselves noted down in their diaries. Lisanne wrote: “Saturday morning around 10 o'clock we are ready to leave for our new destination: Boquete! I am fairly ready for it, but it is also a shame to leave Bocas. We have booked a shuttle service to get to Boquete. Everything went well and 4 hours later we stood in the school in Boquete. And 45 minutes later we were sitting on the couch with our host family. Wow!!” Kris wrote in her diary: “We had to get out earlier than the other people on the bus, so that was a bit strange because we got off almost in the middle of nowhere. The school called the family where we would stay.” - Going by the diaries, I assume the shuttle bus departed around noon at the latest from Bocas. Arriving four hours later, so by 16:00 PM in Boquete. Then 45 minutes until they arrived in Miriam's house, so probably a little before 17:00 PM. That roughly matches up.
- Yaileth declared: “I also knew that they were going to work in a nursery, but it seems that the nursery was cancelled and they were thinking of talking to Casa Esperanza, but I don't know if they were going to do volunteer work at a school or a classroom.”
* This statement of Yaileth correlates with her saying that she last saw Kris and Lisanne on Monday. And so she never found out about replacement volunteer work. Eileen tried to get more clarity about that on Tuesday. But like Kris and Lisanne wrote in their diaries: everything was still up in the air by Monday evening.
- Yaileth declared: “Yes, we talked often.”* This is nice to know. Everything in the press at the time focused specifically on them having talked with Miriam in the evening.
- Yaileth declared: “Well, we had talked about doing a tour together”
* As Dave M. also stressed in conversations, this is interesting. Kris and Lisanne seem to have gotten on well with Yaileth. Kris also mentioned her in her diary in some detail. But neither of the girls ever mentioned Eileen - not to their parents, not in their diaries. And yet, we were told later by Eileen that she had this mystery undocumented tour planned with Kris and Lisanne and Guide F. on the very day they were discovered to have disappeared. On a day when Eileen herself was actually supposed to be working at SbtR and was the only employee at the language school. But it is interesting to note that Kris and Lisanne seem to have spent more friendly time with Yaileth than with Eileen, a girl speaking Dutch as well, studying in the Netherlands, and who had been on the shuttle bus with them when they went to Boquete. But she's otherwise a cold witness. Eileen has never sat down for a proper interview about her interactions with Kris and Lisanne. Instead she has only told conflicting stories, when pressured.
- Yaileth also declared: “They told me that they had arrived in Costa Rica, and then they arrived in Panama, and that we were their only friends.” [..] "and I don't think they made many friends”
* Dave M: "This only reinforces the lack of their being any relationship with Eileen. So we can be sure the two made no mention of Eileen to Yaileth or Miriam. It's also noticeable here that Yaileth makes no mention of anything that supports Marjolein's claims in her letter."* Scarlet: This matches with what Hans Kremers said in his April 9th affidavit, when asked if his daughter Kris ever mentioned whether she made any new friends, either local or foreign, while she was here in Panama? Hans: “Not that I know of. She met people from time to time, but it was just a chance encounter, at the time only between two Dutch boys in Bocas del Toro, but as far as I know, she hasn't seen them since.” Later he said they did have contact with the two Dutch boys on social media (which was also confirmed later by Edwin Cornelis).
- Yaileth also declared: “On Sunday, they went out to town, I told them they could visit the town [..] but we did not actually arrange any walks or excursions.”
* In the end they did not arrange any walks or excursions. Despite chatting and discussing plans together. Further down her sworn statement, Yaileth makes reference to a tour once: “On the day of the tour, Mr F. called my mother because he had a tour with them, and he asked her about the girls, and she told him she hadn't seen them.” Yaileth seems aware on April 22nd, when this interview took place, that Kris and Lisanne were going on a tour with Guide F. But they never told her this in person. Yaileth most likely received this information from others. She even says: “Because that's what my mother told me.” I believe the girls and Yaileth made general plans to go hiking together. And that Kris and Lisanne were only told generally about tours such as the “Volcán and the Los Quetzales trail, but really nothing specific.” But that this was nothing more than an expressed intention. And that Kris and Lisanne told Yaileth nothing about a Strawberry tour on Wednesday or a Barú volcano climb on Friday or Saturday. Despite that Barú tour being a big overnight outing, that would require some planning and preparation. The reason for this is probably because they made those plans on Tuesday morning (and Yaileth last saw them on Monday morning), when Guide F. paid them a surprise visit at the language school. (something which has been kept out of the media for 11 years until I read F's affidavits and posted about it).
It is of course possible that this tour - for which we have been given various different destinations, varying from a coffee tour to a strawberry tour to a tour to F's farm - wás in fact planned earlier. But Yaileth does not speak about Kris and Lisanne informing her about any specific plans they had. Just like Miriam knew nothing about it. She even went so far as to deny in a local newspaper that the girls would have gone hiking on the day of their disappearance, citing Lisanne's "asthma" and the fact that she had not been feeling well physically on Monday. And not even their final diary entries mention any of these tour plans. Meanwhile, the parents only seem to have known about this supposed tour through Ingrid. Ingrid must have heard it from Marjolein, Eileen or Guide F., as she herself was in Costa Rica at the time. But she nevertheless provided that information as fact on her Facebook page on April 4th.
It is of course possible that this tour - for which we have been given various different destinations, varying from a coffee tour to a strawberry tour to a tour to F's farm - wás in fact planned earlier. But Yaileth does not speak about Kris and Lisanne informing her about any specific plans they had. Just like Miriam knew nothing about it. She even went so far as to deny in a local newspaper that the girls would have gone hiking on the day of their disappearance, citing Lisanne's "asthma" and the fact that she had not been feeling well physically on Monday. And not even their final diary entries mention any of these tour plans. Meanwhile, the parents only seem to have known about this supposed tour through Ingrid. Ingrid must have heard it from Marjolein, Eileen or Guide F., as she herself was in Costa Rica at the time. But she nevertheless provided that information as fact on her Facebook page on April 4th.
The main reason why I'm focusing on this, is the importance attached to their supposed guided strawberry tour on Wednesday with Guide F. and Eileen. The tour that was never truly proven to have existed. But it gave Guide F. and Eileen their alibi for chasing after Kris and Lisanne all day, going into their private bedroom, rummaging through their personal belongings and inserting themselves into the entire search operation. It has always remained vague when these supposed tours with Guide F. were booked by Kris and Lisanne, given that until Tuesday morning, they were still hoping that Eileen or Marjolein could find them replacement work for that week. Either they planned and booked those tours at the last moment, so on Tuesday morning. Or these tours were later invented by Eileen and Guide F.?
But this also means that Guide F. could not have seen Kris and Lisanne at the school by 07:00 AM, when he picked up Marjolein to drive her to David to catch a bus, per Marjolein's Letter.
* Somehow the image that emerges here is of a busy house full of adults and children all getting ready for school and work early in the morning. All using the same single family-sized bathroom. With Kris and Lisanne already up by the time Yaileth left the house for work at 07:45 AM. But they hadn't yet left their room. They were the last ones who had to leave the house, as we know they were expected at SbtR by 09:00 AM (according to Marjolein). Which this statement by Yaileth seems to back up. They were already up in their room an hour and a quarter beforehand and they were probably patiently waiting for the morning rush to die down before using the shared family bathroom themselves. This also fits with the clock app of Lisanne's Samsung phone, which was used at 08:10 AM according to the NFI files. My bet is that her alarm went off at that time because Lisanne set it the night before, to make sure that she and Kris would be up in time to be at SbtR by 09:00. Yaileth said that Kris and Lisanne could already be heard moving around in their room at least 25 minutes before Lisanne's clock app went off, so they had certainly been up on time. Miriam has stated in an interview that she left the house “very early on Tuesday” to go to her work. Neither Miriam nor Yaileth, nor anybody else in the house, saw Kris and Lisanne getting out of their room on Tuesday morning.
But this also means that Guide F. could not have seen Kris and Lisanne at the school by 07:00 AM, when he picked up Marjolein to drive her to David to catch a bus, per Marjolein's Letter. Guide F. admitted in his sworn statement that he saw Kris and Lisanne at Spanish by the River “on Tuesday morning”. Does this mean he returned to the school after his hospital visit, and hid this in his sworn statement? Guide F. implies that he saw Kris and Lisanne on Tuesday morning at the school, but then leaves no space in his story for a fitting time. He may have hoped that investigators would assume he saw Kris and Lisanne when he picked up Marjolein and the German couple in the morning to take them to David. Hence why he never gave a time for this school meeting with the girls (just 'Tuesday morning')? But unfortunately for him, Marjolein did give a time. And also unfortunately for him, Yaileth pinned down the girls' movements for Tuesday morning, and they weren't at the school at 07:00... Guide F. does not take this into account in his extension affidavit of June 24th either. He makes it even more complicated then, by adding: “I was in the hospital until maybe 13:00 PM.” And also: “That same day, while I was in David, at the Hospital, they called me and told me that the two girls I had observed at school.” So now he continues his earlier spun story that he saw Kris and Lisanne before going to David and before visiting the hospital. If he “saw them on Tuesday morning” at the school, and he now claims he didn't leave that hospital until 13:00 PM, when exactly did he see the girls at the school? Crickets... He either didn't realise that his timeline has been (indirectly) debunked already by both Marjolein and Yaileth. Or he just bluffs and continues the façade?
But this also means that Guide F. could not have seen Kris and Lisanne at the school by 07:00 AM, when he picked up Marjolein to drive her to David to catch a bus, per Marjolein's Letter. Guide F. admitted in his sworn statement that he saw Kris and Lisanne at Spanish by the River “on Tuesday morning”. Does this mean he returned to the school after his hospital visit, and hid this in his sworn statement? Guide F. implies that he saw Kris and Lisanne on Tuesday morning at the school, but then leaves no space in his story for a fitting time. He may have hoped that investigators would assume he saw Kris and Lisanne when he picked up Marjolein and the German couple in the morning to take them to David. Hence why he never gave a time for this school meeting with the girls (just 'Tuesday morning')? But unfortunately for him, Marjolein did give a time. And also unfortunately for him, Yaileth pinned down the girls' movements for Tuesday morning, and they weren't at the school at 07:00... Guide F. does not take this into account in his extension affidavit of June 24th either. He makes it even more complicated then, by adding: “I was in the hospital until maybe 13:00 PM.” And also: “That same day, while I was in David, at the Hospital, they called me and told me that the two girls I had observed at school.” So now he continues his earlier spun story that he saw Kris and Lisanne before going to David and before visiting the hospital. If he “saw them on Tuesday morning” at the school, and he now claims he didn't leave that hospital until 13:00 PM, when exactly did he see the girls at the school? Crickets... He either didn't realise that his timeline has been (indirectly) debunked already by both Marjolein and Yaileth. Or he just bluffs and continues the façade?
Guide F. admitted in his sworn statement that he saw Kris and Lisanne at SbtR on Tuesday Morning. Does this mean he returned to the school after his hospital visit, and hid this in his sworn statement?
As Dave M. puts it: "This can even be seen as being in line with Eileen's vague statements and Guide F's 'I only Saw them from Afar' comment. Yaileth's lack of knowledge about Kris and Lisanne on Tuesday morning mirrors Eileen's - the two arrived at the school, allegedly floated around until 13:00 PM according to Eileen/Ingrid, but nothing was said between the three and they just quietly left the school without a word.. Now the reality on the other hand is that Kris and Lisanne were at the school for only an hour, the Guide was there for a visit, and we can reasonable suggest that he left at around the same time as Kris and Lisanne did. So in that scenario, Eileen is lying and helping him get a solid alibi. Did Yaileth really not see the two that morning? I can't say so. But it IS in line with Eileen; it is in line with the lack of any cell tower tracking, the lack of time and date in the computer search history. There are several things here that should have nailed down the exact time that the two left the school, and possibly point to where they went next. But all of it is covered up and shut down. Kris and Lisanne fade away from existence. And it seems from everyone's memories this Tuesday morning." * Scarlet: Yaileth comes across as honest and sincere to me. I believe her version of events.
* Dave M: "If we did a list between us of Facts, and then 'Unknowns' for the Monday and the Tuesday morning alone, then the list of Unknowns would far outstrip the known Facts we have. The timeline and their known movements for Monday and Tuesday is woefully thin on facts... The police never made a timeline for the three days Kris and Lisanne were in Boquete. There are no real times established for the two's movements, we can't say where they were on Monday morning, we aren't completely sure when they left for town, or exactly when they arrived at AURA. We aren't sure of what they were doing on Monday afternoon, and we aren't sure when exactly they arrived at Sigrid's. The investigation IS a mess, It seems to me that the police, the Spanish school, and maybe even Miriam were all working to distance themselves and Boquete from this disappearance."
* Scarlet: Highlighting all these inconsistencies in the investigation and in the sworn statements is the most ánd the least I can do, I suppose. But even the NFI failed these girls with their narrow view on the phone data. Ignoring holes in the data, neglecting the days leading up to the disappearance, ignoring the rapid battery drainage of the iPhone on Tuesday afternoon and choosing not to explain it technically... To name just a few examples. It is very disappointing from the NFI's side also. And why? I don't know...
* Power-Pixie: "On one hand Yaileth could be telling the truth, since she leaves early for work, though 07:45 AM is not that early on a Tuesday morning as the sun was already up. Miriam would be up to prepare breakfast for the two as part of their package deal, as well as make breakfast for her younger kids Amilcar and Astrid, and get them ready for school, since it is a Tuesday. Yaileth has two kids of her own to deal with. Do Kris and Lisanne ever leave their room to go to the bathroom when they wake up? Brush their teeth or shower? Seems like they just stayed in their room until Yaileth left. However for me, not even getting a glimpse of them smacks of hindsight-cover-my-backside. Look at the floorplan I had made of Miriam's house and imagine at 07:00 - 07:45 everybody simply being stuck in their rooms, conveniently enough for them to not see Kris and Lisanne that morning, and only that morning? Because they did see them on the Monday. This interview was conducted later in April, when implications and chaos had maybe already informed Miriam and her family that it was better to stay of out it, if they could help it? For all we know Miriam and Yaileth agreed to not have seen them on April 1. Who is going to challenge them when there are no security cameras at the house to inform the authorities or cross-check?"
Floorplan made by Power-Pixie based on all the available photos of Miriam's house.
* Scarlet: "Not sure about that. The clock app of Lisanne was used at 08:10 AM. Perhaps they slept in or hadn't left their bedroom before Yaileth left for work? Perhaps they had come home late the evening prior, hence why neither Miriam nor Yaileth claims to have seen them that evening? Then again: they were told by Marjolein to be at SbtR by 09:00 AM, so why would they still be in bed by 08:10 AM? Yaileth confirms that they weren't; she heard them rummaging through their room before 8. It seems more likely that they had just set the alarm as a reminder. But their bedroom had no en suite, no private toilet. I would have expected them to at least run into the family members when using the main toilet on Tuesday morning." * Power-Pixie:
"Looking back at the "facts":
"Looking back at the "facts":
- Sunday & Monday: girls ate breakfast with Miriam, that she had prepared;
- Tuesday: no breakfast interaction at all;
- Yaileth says: "I heard them moving around in their room before leaving";
- Miriam says: "I didn’t see them Tuesday".
Both women claim a total lack of interaction, despite a normal pattern that had established since Sunday. In fact both of them state they did not see Kris and Lisanne since Monday. Miriam said “I saw them until Monday afternoon”. And Yaileth left the house at 07:45 AM on Monday and didn't return till 23:00 PM as per her usual routine, and didn't see them either after returning to the house. This to me is an anomaly. Their strange non-appearance throughout the house that consists of Yaileth, her kids, her father who picks up her kids every morning, Miriam and her two kids Amilcar and Astrid seems abnormal. Are both Miriam and Yaileth acting like they are performing a script of "respecting privacy"? Which contradicts their normal household behavior. Then we have the phones that prove that:
- The girls were awake;
- The phones were active at 07:52 AM (WhatsApp);
- The Samsung alarm was set for 08:10 AM.
So we can say for sure that Kris and Lisanne were almost certainly inside Miriam's house."
- Yaileth also declared: “No, my mother is not in the habit of opening the door to anyone who comes to the house, not even to us. She always knocks before entering, and she knocked on the door to see if they were there, but no one answered.”* Dave M: "I'm a little skeptical on all this, it feels as if they are both doing what everyone else was doing at the time and are distancing themselves... And while I cannot say she is lying, neither can I get over this sense that it is too convenient. No one knows anything, no one saw anything - Kris and Lisanne just... faded away. Turned into phantoms."
- Yaileth: “On the day of the tour, Mr F. called my mother because he had a tour with them, and he asked her about the girls, and she told him she hadn't seen them.”
* Dave M: "Ok. So, a day earlier, by 18:00 PM, Miriam starts to worry. Now in theory she could easily call SbtR, though it may be the office is closed by then. She never said she called the school however, so she waits for the two and by 21:00 PM, still nothing. By 23:00 PM Yaileth returns home and I have to think both are worried by now. And I find it hard to think they wouldn't have opened the bedroom door to look in... Wednesday morning at 06:00 AM and.. what? Am I expected to believe Miriam or Yaileth stare at the bedroom door and only wonder? Or do they knock and still hear nothing and then peek in and find out? It would have been very worrying for them. Setting out that morning for work and not knowing where their two student lodger guests were. But by sheer coincidence, in comes Guide F. Not Eileen, but Guide F., because he speaks Spanish and he can talk to Miriam in a way Eileen simply can't. I can appreciate why Miriam might have let him take over yes, but neither Miriam nor Yaileth seemed to believe that Kris and Lisanne had any tours planned for the next days. Lisanne wasn't feeling well and he only thing the two were thinking of was of a Work Placement coming through - not going off on a sudden tour. Did Miriam or Yaileth suspect something was off here? Did they ever wonder about Guide F.'s arrival and then his complete dominance over the situation?"
* Scarlet: Sympathetic as I am about Yaileth and Miriam's situation, if Yaileth got along so well with these girls, why didn't she knock on their door herself and peek inside to check whether they made it home safely by Tuesday evening? Or at least by Wednesday morning, when no one could be heard moving around in their bedroom, as usual? Especially since Miriam had already said she was apprehensive about this and stayed up waiting for them all evening? What is it with this obsession with privacy? When on the other hand, she let Guide F. into their bedroom the next day, when she herself was not present, allowing him to possibly walk in on who knows what in that private room? It makes little sense to me to be honest. And that's OK. I am glad that Yaileth provided these details. And the whole ordeal must have been very difficult for Yaileth and Miriam to deal with. I don't think that in the big scheme of things, it made any difference when they found out that Kris and Lisanne never came home.
But we can ask questions of course. I also still don't understand why Miriam didn't call Kris and Lisanne on their cellphones or via WhatsApp. I have yet to come across a sworn statement that proves anyone actually tried to call these girls on their cellphones, which is beyond me. In the Idaho 4 murder case, the roommates tried calling and texting their murdered housemates, even though they were mere metres away in that same house. If Miriam was afraid to knock on the door of her own guest room in her own house, would it have been an option to call or text the girls on their phones by Wednesday morning?
* Scarlet: Martina who lives on the Pianista trail, told Jeremy Kryt that Guide F. went by all the residents of the Pianista trail that first week of April (before the police had a chance to do so), reportedly telling them what to say. Martina said she felt manipulated and threatened by him, and was fearful. Just an unproven claim by Martina at this point, but it does show at least how invested he seemed in this disappearance, and how he made sure to be the first one - even before police - to go into the girls' bedroom, speak with their hosts and interview the witnesses on the Pianista trail.
* Power-Pixie: "I often think that most people imagine manipulation requires some form of shouting, threats, violence or drama. In reality from my experience it often doesn't work like this, especially in small towns like Boquete for example. Guide F. seems to be a man in a position of some authority, local respect. He has cultural dominance, community familiarity, his age advantage of being much older (therefore wiser?), the language advantage which is huge, 30 years of being a guide so experience advantage, which all enable him license to walk into a local's home (not a foreigner's home mind you) and control the narrative by simply behaving as if "This is my job, and this is what we are doing or need to do now." This is the trick he *could* have employed and it may often be the mechanism everywhere, from rural Latin America to rural Europe to rural Asia, as I don't think it isolated to Boquete. He could have gained his control over several people by simply telling them (theoretically):
- 'Don't worry, I will handle it.'
- 'This is serious, so let me talk to the police, I know X (insert-local-policeman's name here).'
- 'You don’t need trouble in your home.'
- 'I know the mountain, they always call me for cases, remember that British tourist a few years back? He too got lost and was never found.'
- 'You know I will just check their room quickly, maybe I find something I will let you know for sure.'
- 'If we say the wrong thing, you know how people are in Boquete and those self-righteous Gringos; we will get blamed.'
- 'Forget what you think you know. This is serious. You need to do exactly what I say because I'm a guide for 40 years in Boquete.'
This is how he could have convinced people like Eileen in principle, but also Yaileth and Miriam in my view, using simple pressure, confidence and authority. And for someone like Eileen, a foreign intern with little knowledge of that place, he could have instructed her to say or not say things by playing on her fear of legal consequences, fear of career destruction or fear of being blamed. For instance, theoretically: "You know Eileen if you talk, things will get bad for everyone." "People will be angry with you." "The family will blame you". He might have said something like:
"I will go to the house."
"I will talk to the mother."
"I will tell the authorities."
"I know what to do, don't worry."
"You just stay quiet and follow me."
This is all theory, but the effect of such a thing mirrors what happened."
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* Scarlet: This detail stood out in the interview, as it may provide both an alibi and a motive for Guide F. to have entered their bedroom. Miriam being afraid to open the door. I always assumed that Miriam simply hadn't yet gotten round to checking their room on Wednesday morning because she had left early for work.. The guide felt responsible for Kris and Lisanne, as he said during various interviews. In order to warrant that responsibility, it makes sense that he claimed that there were guided tours booked by Kris and Lisanne and Eileen with him. It would then make sense that he wanted to establish that he had not one, not two, but three booked tours planned with Kris and Lisanne. Tours about which we have heard varying dates and destinations, but not a scrap of evidence (such as an official school logbook entry or email confirmations or diary confirmations, or witnesses who declared that they had heard about these plans from the girls themselves, or even internet searches by the girls for this Barú trek).
* Power-Pixie: "I agree, this is providing F. an alibi for sure now. Very poor from both Yaileth and Miriam, though they could also be weary of who F. and H. are in this little town."
* Dave M: "It was Mr F. who took charge... Of everything." I have sympathy with Miriam and Yaileth. They became caught up in this situation, they didn't create it, and they did suffer because of it. I have to assume the two friends did tell Miriam they were off to get a massage at Sigrid's. They also seem to have told her about the failure of Aura on Monday. So is it just a coincidence that Yaileth makes no mention of the Barú booking? Did that tour actually exist?"
* Power-Pixie: "Even that Barú booking is illogical. On Monday they were still under the belief they would be working the rest of that week from 13:00 PM to either 16:00 or 17:00 PM. So unless they had Friday's off (unlikely), it seems hard to imagine a Friday 18:00 or 19:00 PM pick-up to go off on this overnight Barú trip. However, any booking for Barú during the week would not be possible on Monday, unless they were absolutely sure there was no work at Aura, or no work at Casa Esperanza, which they would only find out about the next day. Point being, this Barú tour doesn't align with what the two were dealing with on Monday. Miriam also seems to give a clue in her media interview, when she blurted out on April 8 that the two could not/would not have booked a tour to Barú. Miriam gave her interview to the media on April 8. Yaileth's interview was conducted on April 22. So something is amiss and someone seems to be lying, and for me it could be all of these people - Marjolein, Ingrid, Eileen and F."
- QUESTION: “Tell us, on Tuesday, 1 April of this year, when you arrived home from university at 23:00 PM, as you mentioned, did you notice that Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon had arrived or were at your house?”
* Dave M: "All these are good questions, and it again raises the comparison to Eileen's interview, which is nothing like these other interviews... Why was Eileen held to a different standard?"
- Yaileth: “Only Lisanne told me that she had a mobile phone like mine, and mine is a Samsung, model Ace Plus.”
* Dave M: "This is a nice detail - Reminding us again of how up to date people here were with technology. Samsung's and iPhone's were not alien to the people in Boquete in 2014, they would know very well how to use them and probably what the Apps and settings were capable of."
********
April 9, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF GUIDE E. M.
The witness was then asked if he knew the young women Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. To which Guide E. answered that he didn't know them. He was then asked where he was on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 1st. Guide E. replied that he was in Bocas del Toro, looking for some people from a specific travel agency for whom he was a guide in Boquete. And that he was there to pick them up for the airport. Guide E. was then asked: “Please tell us what you have to say regarding the report from the Judicial Investigation Sub-Directorate, which indicates that you and your brother P., last Tuesday, April 1st of this year, were in the Pianista sector and managed to see two young foreign women who greeted you in English, "Good Morning.".” Guide E. replied: “I was in Bocas del Toro. The person who was there is Guide P. We're actually brothers.” When asked if he had any knowledge of the young women's disappearance, Guide E. replied that he only saw it on the news. “I haven't had time to speak with my brother, P.”
When asked if he offers tours to the El Pianista Trail, Guide E. replied that yes, they make trips there, in a white bus and a gray Montero. When asked if he owns a red motor vehicle and if he makes trips to the El Pianista Trail in this vehicle, Guide E. answered: “Yes, two Patrol cars, one red, 743654, and a green Patrol car. I don't remember the license plate of this one, but these vehicles aren't used for tours because they don't have air conditioning.” When Guide E. was asked if he had anything else to say, add, or correct to his statement, in accordance with the content of Article 2119 of the Judicial Code, he replied: “I would like to add that no one is using a red SUV vehicle for tourism here in Boquete. No one drives up there—everyone leaves their car outside on the street, and we walk up there.” (Literally: Quiero agregar que nadie está utilizando vehículo de color rojo para Turismo aquí en Boquete, para allá nadie sube en carro, todos dejan el carro afuera, en la calle y subimos para allá).
“Yes, I own two Patrol cars, one red. But no one is using a red SUV vehicle here in Boquete.”
****
April 10, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF GUIDE P.
“On April 1st I did lead a tour on the Pianista. The hike began at 08:00 AM and we returned at approximately 12:30 PM.”
Guide P. was asked if he knew the young women Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers. He replied: “No, I don't know them.” Guide P. was then asked whether he, as a tour guide, led a tour of the Pianista trail between March the 31st and April 2nd, 2014. Guide P. replied that on April 1 of that year, he did lead a tour, which was a hike with four people. They were a family named Schorr, a couple between the ages of 45 and 50, and two sons of 15 and 13 years old. The hike began at 08:00 AM at the Tioter Ranamonte trailhead, and they returned at approximately 12:30 PM. Guide P. was then asked whether on April 1st, while hiking on the Pianista trail, he encountered other people at any point? And if so, where and who they were? Guide P. replied that “as they were leaving the Pianista Trail”, about 400 meters from the trail entrance, there was a foreign couple; a woman and a man aged between approximately 20-25 years old. This couple was resting next to a tree, about 50 metres away from the road. Guide P. and the Schorr family continued down the path and after about five or seven minutes, they came across a couple of young women who were either going up or were entering the trail. (Literally: “seguirnos bajando y a unos cinco o siete minutos bajando del sendero, nos topamos que iban subiendo o entrando para el sendero una pareja de dos muchachas”). But before Guide P. ran into these women, he ran into Mr. Lazaro, who lives in a small house alongside the path. Guide P. talked to him and then they continued walking downhill, and that’s when they ran into the two young women. “I only greeted them with a 'good morning'. They both replied, and from their accents I could tell they were European. These two women were around twenty-five years old, they were quite young. And from there we didn't run into anyone else on the trail.”
“We came across a couple of young women who were either going up or were entering the trail.”
“They were white-skinned, tall, between 1.75 and 1.80 metres tall and they wore a black Lycra jumper, cream shorts, and the other was wearing long cream trousers.”
When asked what type of vehicle he has and what tourism service he provides, Guide P. answered that he works with many agencies, and that they have several cars, but that on that day he was driving a grey Mitsubishi Montero. When asked, he denied that either he or the agencies for which he worked owned a red pickup truck. (“No.”). Guide P. also denied knowing of anyone in the area of the Pianista trail who owns a red vehicle. When asked if he knew of anyone other than himself who provides tour guide services on the Pianista trail, Guide P. replied: “Mr Feliciano.” But then in one breath Guide P. seemed to change topic and he continued: “I have seen a foreigner on the trail on several occasions who has been living in Boquete for years, but lives near the Topaz Inn guesthouse or the public library. I have seen him in that area. This foreigner is bald, is around fifty years old, he is approximately 1.75 metres tall (5’9”), is thin. I have not seen any tattoos on him, but he wears glasses. On several occasions, I have seen him alone and on other occasions accompanied in the area of the El Pianista trail.”
“I don't own a red pickup truck.”
Guide P. was then asked to tell if he had seen the two young women whom he greeted as they entered the Pianista trail again since 1 April that year? Guide P. answered: “No.” When asked if he had anything else to say, add, or correct to his statement, Guide P. answered: “Well, only that at the time when I saw the young women heading onto the Pianista trail, I thought to myself that there was a good chance that they could get lost on the trail, because there weren’t many hours of daylight left, and if they could reach the highest point at the dividing lines, the trail invites you to keep walking and exploring. That's all.”
Thoughts and commentary
Guide P. was deputized to lead the task force that's drafting new regulations for Panama's trails and guides. He's a person who's very knowledgeable about the jungle terrain. He also helped volunteers comb through the jungle for 17 days in search of Kris and Lisanne. He was near the Pianista trail on April 5th to look for them, and he was present on April 8 and 9th with SINAPROC professionals, taking many photos on these days.Guide P. comes across as a straight talker in his affidavit. His interview answers were relatively short and to the point. It is peculiar in general that not a single witness (out of at least a dozen people) managed to describe Kris' striking red and white striped top, or Lisanne's bright turquoise top. Going by Guide P.'s clothing descriptions, the two young, white, European looking tourists whom he passed on the Pianista trail on April 1st can't have been Kris and Lisanne. Because Guide P. has stated that the tourists he passed on the trail wore “a black Lycra jumper, cream shorts leather boots and long cream trousers and boots.” Plus a green scarf + another coloured scarf on their heads. And the taller girl was carrying a small red bag across her back. The only similarities are in their guessed height (between 1.75 and 1.80 metres tall) and the timing of their hike (April 1st). - But this was not Guide P.'s first and original testimony. Guide P. slightly changed his witness statement. He first talked to SINAPROC on April 4, 2014 already, so six days before this sworn statement was taken by Boquete officials. Initially he had told SINAPROC that the two European looking women had been wearing "white and black clothes". That still doesn't match with what Kris and Lisanne were actually wearing... So why did Guide P. go back on his original statement? And why did he subtly change those clothing descriptions, six days later (and ten days after the sighting)?
“They were wearing white and black clothes.”
On April 4, Guide P. also believed that he had passed Kris and Lisanne on the trail. Six days later, he told the Boquete investigators under oath that they may have been two different women. Odd.
- Guide P. stated: “I don't own a red pickup truck.”This appears to be a white lie, as Guide P. posted plenty of photos of a red pickup truck on Facebook and Instagram at the time. I saved many of those photos. In fact, one of those red trucks looks very much like the red pickup truck of E.A. 'Richard', with shiny rims and all. And what's more: Guide P.'s brother E. admitted on April 9 in his own sworn statement, when asked if he owned a red motor vehicle: “Yes, two Patrol cars, one red, 743654, and a green Patrol car. I don't remember the license plate of this one, but these vehicles aren't used for tours because they don't have air conditioning.” But a day later, Guide P. said in his sworn statement: “I don't own a red pickup truck.” Even though the brothers both work as tour guides and both, together at times, do tours. (Is Guide P. trying to hide behind the word "own" here perhaps?) Incredible that nothing was done with this discrepancy. Investigators should have slapped Guide P. around the head immediately with both E's admission and with F's own photos of a red pickup truck. They were all over his social media. Did none of those officers check Facebook back then?
* We already knew from ImperfectPlan and many others that it is rare not to run into other people on the Pianista Trail - even beyond the Mirador. When we also take the European looking duo of female friends into account, we're already looking at (at least) 9 people who were hiking on the Pianista Trail on the 1st of April between 08:00 AM and 12:30 PM: Guide P. with his family of four clients, the foreign couple and the two European female hikers who resembled Kris and Lisanne. I find it strange that nobody else came forward as a witness. It was a beautiful, sunny and clear day. I read that it was even around 30 degrees Celsius on April 1st. There were unusually dry weather conditions with little mud. That trail should have seen many hikers, you'd think. I never believed that Kris and Lisanne were the only ones out there on that glorious day. Where are the other witnesses? Through Guide P.'s affidavit, we now know that he was up there with some tourists as well. There may have been more?
- Aside from writing down the names of his paying customers, police never asked more about these four (German sounding?) tourists, who you'd think could be of interest here as potential witnesses on that trail. But nothing more was done with this information. The same applies to the foreign couple that Guide P. passed on the trail that morning, resting against a tree roughly 50 meters from the trail. They too could have been interesting witnesses.
* It is not easy to determine where exactly Guide P. passed these two young women and what his definition is of “entering the trail”. But he seems to mean the start of the trail where hikers make a left turn into a forested area. Leaving the open meadows behind.
* Power-Pixie: "If Guide P. is telling the truth, then this is confirmation that Kris and Lisanne (or their 'lookalikes') were somewhere on the trail between 11:00 AM and 12:30 PM. "We came across a couple of young women who were either going up or were entering the trail." Going up? So is this just outside/inside the forested trail? It looks to me that if they met Kris and Lisanne, then going by their photos, they were near or inside the forested area by that time. I don't think there is any significant elevation from the trailhead to the forested trail entrance, at least none that I could see from the vlogs. And if Guide P. and his tour group ended their tour at 12:30 PM, then Kris and Lisanne were certainly already inside the forested trail by that time. Even giving Guide P. every timing advantage, his "we finished ~12:30" forces his descent window to intersect the entrance around ~11:55 to 12:00 (which is fast) or ~11:45 to 11:50 (conservative). At those moments, Kris and Lisanne were already inside the forest and by 12:03 PM at the creek where Kris is pictured holding the bottle. So they weren't "entering" the trail then. His timing and location claim do not add up with the hard photo and phone evidence we have seen so far."
* Scarlet: It depends on where exactly this "trailhead" is located in E. and Guide P's world. Is it literally next to the Il Pianista restaurant? Or is it the start of the trail once you turn left onto the wooded path going uphill later on? Which is where Kris and Lisanne would indeed more likely have been around noon. I think it had to have been the wooded area. Because Kris and Lisanne must have started their hike at the Il Pianista restaurant area around 11:00 AM, and if Guide P. saw these girls there by 11:30 AM, they could never have made it to the summit realistically by 13:00 PM. As it simply takes more time to summit (unless someone is extremely fit and experienced up there and is almost running up the path). So I think Guide P's 'trailhead' is - in fact - the part of the Pianista where you take a left turn and head into the wooded area, yes. Guide P. says all these things about the meeting with Kris and Lisanne:
* Scarlet: It depends on where exactly this "trailhead" is located in E. and Guide P's world. Is it literally next to the Il Pianista restaurant? Or is it the start of the trail once you turn left onto the wooded path going uphill later on? Which is where Kris and Lisanne would indeed more likely have been around noon. I think it had to have been the wooded area. Because Kris and Lisanne must have started their hike at the Il Pianista restaurant area around 11:00 AM, and if Guide P. saw these girls there by 11:30 AM, they could never have made it to the summit realistically by 13:00 PM. As it simply takes more time to summit (unless someone is extremely fit and experienced up there and is almost running up the path). So I think Guide P's 'trailhead' is - in fact - the part of the Pianista where you take a left turn and head into the wooded area, yes. Guide P. says all these things about the meeting with Kris and Lisanne:** P: “As we were leaving the Pianista Trail, about 400 meters from the trail entrance, there was a foreign couple. [..] We continued down the path and after about five or seven minutes down the path, we came across a couple of young women who were either going up or were entering the trail.” - This seems to indicate that the passing with Kris and Lisanne was very near the trail entrance. Whatever P's definition of that may be.
** But before P. ran into these women, he ran into "Mr. Lazaro, who lives in a small house alongside the path". P. talked to him and then they continued walking downhill, "and that’s when they ran into the two young women." - Mister Lazaro has a hut about 50 metres west of the path, which is described as "the last inhibited hut on the Boquete side of the Pianista trail". We don't know if Plinio ran into him while he was near his hut, or perhaps down the trail. But I assume that he met Mr Lazaro near his hut. And that hut is described as "standing together with two other simple huts in the middle of the forest". The place is described as lush and green with geese and dogs. Clearly, Mr (R.) Lazaro lives higher up the Pianista trail and not near the trailhead. So isn't this an indication that Guide P. and his group crossed Kris and Lisanne higher up the mountain? Mr Lazaro was in fact interviewed by the local media and he declares that he saw the girls for just a moment on April 1, while resting at the shack, before they continued their ascent up the Pianista trail. But according to Mr. Lazaro, this was at 16:00 PM.
* Power-Pixie: "P's own timeline sees them finishing this hike at 12:30 PM. I think that locals often refer to the entire dirt approach road as part of the Pianista Trail. Police, tourists and vloggers seem to use a stricter definition, like the "trailhead" begins at the signpost outside the forested section where the GSM connection fades; or adjacent to the restaurant where GSM reception is available. Is P. giving himself some plausible deniability by sliding between these two definitions? So he can later claim 'I saw them near the trail, not on the trail'? Especially if authorities start connecting his timeline to the girls' disappearance. P's timeline where they finished this hike at 12:30 PM and saw the two female tourists near the trailhead doesn’t line up with the verified data: *Kris and Lisanne were already at the Mirador by 13:00 PM.
*Their first forest photo was taken at 12:03 PM, which clearly shows that they had entered the forest around after ~11:45 AM.
*So for Guide P. to have "met them going up", his group would've had to be descending past the forest edge between 11:35 and 11:45 AM, almost exactly when Kris and Lisanne were transitioning into that same zone. It's possible, but only if you interpret "trailhead" loosely. Like, down on the open dirt road. This kind of ambiguity keeps P. technically "correct", regardless of what timeline investigators prove later."
- P. stated: “They both replied, and from their accents I could tell they were European.”* Power-Pixie: "This part strikes me as rather interesting. How does P. know to distinguish between accents of white Europeans versus white Americans, if all they said was 'Hello'? Yet he could not distinguish two very distinct looking women in a remote part of the trail? How many Europeans did he see during lunchtime that day?"
- P. stated: “One was wearing a black Lycra jumper, cream shorts and leather boots, and the other was wearing long cream trousers and boots.”
* Dave M: "Is he making this up, or does he just have a terrible memory for detail...".
* Scarlet: Perhaps. He subtly changed the clothing description from white and black clothes to cream coloured pants, a green scarf and a red bag... I don't know why. Maybe he was just refining his earlier made description.
- P., referred to a seen flyer of Kris and Lisanne, comparing it to the young women he passed on the Pianista: “They are similar, but I cannot say that they are the same. The ones in the flyer are wearing make-up and the foreigners look a bit like them.”
* The book authors somehow translated this as "and all foreigners/tourists look alike". But reading it for myself, P. seems to say something different. I did not read P's April 4 statement to SINAPROC, however. So perhaps that's what he told them at that time? That "all tourists look alike". (But I've not seen any evidence of this, and it's not what Guide P. told investigators during his affidavit interview).
* Based on the clothing descriptions, they had to be two different women on the trail. Kris and Lisanne wore very eye-catching tops (red and white stripes vs. bright turquoise) and one had unusual looking strawberry-blonde to reddish hair. Although P. may have mentioned the green scarves because he meant to say that the young women covered their hair with it? (Thus conveniently preventing him from seeing their hair colourful?). But after seeing a flyer for comparison, P. admitted that the women seemed to look alike. To me, the chances of two lookalike young, white, European tourist duos of Kris and Lisanne's stature doing that hike at the same time... are slim. Especially in a country like Panama, where the locals do not look like them. I've heard the doppelganger excuse more often in this investigation. It tends to get dragged out as a convenient excuse, in my opinion. Especially since no such lookalikes have ever been identified. Guide P. remains vague about whether the tourist duo he passed on the trail does or doesn't resemble Kris and Lisanne. Yeh maybe they did look a bit like the girls on the flyer.. but P. was not going to commit to having seen them (hence giving two incorrect descriptions of their clothes).
* Dave M: "Either he saw Kris and Lisanne, but is trying to cover himself... or? The interesting thing is: this is Thursday the 10th, so no one knows what the two were wearing. And it seems almost none of the 'witnesses' at this time came close to being accurate in their descriptions, with hindsight. Which is slightly bizarre really. But this is the Thursday of the 10th, and Ingrid and the media have by now been pumping out the story that the two girls set out from the school around 13:00 PM. Guide P. has had a full week to stew in this climate, and despite what he knows he saw, perhaps he now chose a quieter life and so tried to distance himself from it all?
He's following the same pattern of behaviour as the Taxi driver and Eileen though. On the one hand I can accept he and his brother are nervous, and have possibly heard the stories flying around about 'Richard' and his gang, and so don't want any part of any of this. But I tend to think he and his brother did see Kris and Lisanne. If they were taking a German family on the trail all morning, then they would see everyone who is going up and coming down by 12:30 PM. That's the nature of this route - you return on the same trail and there is nowhere to hide from view when you walk the trail. He and his brother's sighting seems to be roughly around the same time as when Vielka saw the two. He says: "As we were leaving the Pianista Trail, about 400 meters from the trail entrance [..]" The thing is: he's also suggesting he and his party were back down by 12:30 PM, which fits the time we know it takes to go up and come back. And he's also saying he saw Kris and Lisanne here, near to Il Pianista? He's at least one hour out!"
* Scarlet: And what if Kris and Lisanne also already did a preliminary, explorative hike near the trailhead on Monday? Talking to Pedro and being ushered by him into exploring the Piedra de Lino trail instead? And that is why so many witnesses got their clothing wrong? As they (ALL...) mixed Monday and Tuesday up? (And we don't know what Kris and Lisanne were actually wearing on Monday afternoon). There is a few hour window on Monday afternoon for which there are no phone data in the NFI file and no indication where they went or what they did. Perhaps because the NFI investigator focused heavily on the data for April 1-11th. I noticed that he neglected the days leading up to the disappearance.* Power-Pixie: "The RAW data is the only sure confirmation of where they could have been. If they went back to the trailhead and their phones were turned on, there would surely be GSM connection to the tower there, unless of course the NFI wiped it out from the RAW data OR left it out from their report. If they went to the Piedra de Lino trail, then again, I would think both their phones would have registered to the cell tower there. In fact, Dave was the one who discovered the cell tower was nearer to Casa Pedro based on the Google Street Map images that were recorded either this year or last year I think. This also goes for the Caldera swim meet and photo op. While I'm tempted to insert my theory of how the iPhone doesn't report when it goes into IDLE/SLEEP mode, that was only for the iPhone. The Samsung phone/log however would have sung like a canary. Hence maybe why the Samsung RAW data appears to be so elusive today. I still believe that the RAW data, especially the Samsung's, will crack this case in a massive way, unless I'm completely wrong on all my Samsung and iPhone tests and theories based on my tech experience. I am only human.😄"
* Scarlet: The NFI investigator unfortunately focused mostly on the period from April 1-11. There are omissions for Monday the 31st and very little attention to their movements in the days leading up to the disappearance. I therefore don't rule out the possibility that the NFI employee simply didn't write down details that could link to a Piedra de Lino or Caldera visit on Monday. Or a Palo Alto visit, for that matter. Just a possibility as a theory though.
* Dave M: "The one I spotted was the Hostel Casa Pedro Antenna, near Il Pianista, just down the road pretty much. And while there is a heavy fog over just what the Cell tower tracking situation was for the two phones, I came across another interesting insight in my notes from Hans Kremer: “Well what you see is that.. what John van den Heuvel said, that those phones were set to flight mode... It turns out that this is not the case. From the moment the girls arrived in Panama, those phones have made contact with different cell towers. So that means that these phones were switched on.” Hans has got that information from somewhere, but he seems to dismiss the Airplane Mode statements, and while we can debate whether he means actual cell tower contact or is mistaking it for Wi-Fi connections, I cling to my belief that their phones would still register to at least one or two cell tower services in the area."
* Power-Pixie: "Yes that is a cell tower. And the entrance towards the cell tower is a dirt road right across from Casa Pedro. So if they had gone to hike on Sunday or Monday as theorized, then this tower is right there near the Piedra De Lino trailhead..
* P. first named Guide F. as another guide working that route, but that is all he is willing to say about F. Then he switches seamlessly to a new story, one where he casts suspicion (out of the blue) onto a "bald foreigner with glasses" who prowled the trail. Is P. giving reliable insider's information here? Or is he distracting the investigators away from Guide F.? I never heard or read anything about such a bald foreigner. Somehow this reeks of deflection by P? He remembered and expressed a lot of details about this foreigner during his sworn statement. After forgetting all about the red truck.
* Power-Pixie: "This seems displacement; a way to insert a decoy suspect without explicitly accusing anyone local. It's an often used tactic by witnesses under subtle intimidation to offer an irrelevant but detailed piece of information that distracts (bald, ~1.52m tall, glasses, etc)."
* Power-Pixie: "I wonder why they did not press Guide P. on the red truck they owned. P's abrupt introduction of a "spectacled, bald foreigner" isn't a throwaway comment from what I've researched, watching countless interviews of murder suspects. When witnesses or murder suspects spontaneously volunteer unrelated information immediately after denying involvement, it often indicates discomfort or a desire to redirect suspicion. And combine that with the known family ownership of a red truck and this section of testimony should have triggered far more scrutiny from investigators than it did. I think the truck question is the pressure point and P's behavior suggests there's more to that vehicle's story than he's willing to admit. Was he part of this double homicide or witness to their last movements and potential encounter with Guide F., H. and the gang? Or is there a more mundane explanation for this?"
- Guide P. stated: “I see many possibilities that they could get lost on the trail, because there are already few hours of daylight left and if they could reach the highest point at the dividing lines, the trail invites you to keep walking and exploring.”* Dave M: "But he just said he saw them before 12:30 PM? Which fits the real timeline of an 11:00 AM start for Kris and Lisanne, and so allows for plenty of time to reach the Mirador and back. Why does P. seem to suddenly shift here to the 13:00 PM (starting) timeline that was believed at the time? What he is effectively doing here, is adding weight to Guide F's claim at the time that the two could have walked on past the Mirador and walked off into oblivion as the sun set on them... A scenario that SINAPROC at the time didn't seem to believe was possible. Guide F. was the only one pushing it, and here by the Thursday April 10th, P. is supporting him on it?"
* Dave M: "Going back to P's first response, we see him being clear that he was on the trail with an 08:00 AM start, and was returning for 12:30 PM, having completed the tour. That timing flies against the (at the time still) accepted narrative of a 13:30 PM start for Kris and Lisanne, and you have to wonder whether he is being honest here at all and DID indeed see the two as he returned. Guide P. may even have realised that with this 13:00 PM claim being advertised as being the truth, something was actually very wrong here... By Thursday 10, here he is therefore deciding to be very careful, as he would be going against some powerful forces if he insisted on his morning timeframe being true. Maybe that's why he uses the absurd descriptions of the two? He may not have known that the police didn't actually know what the two were wearing that day, and it seems quite possible here that he and his brother did indeed see Kris and Lisanne as they moved to cross the iron bridge, but became understandably nervous about what followed with the claims of a late afternoon set-off by the two being 'true'.
This is a very specific time Guide E. is asked about. “Where were you in the afternoon?” As Dave puts it: "The authorities had completely fallen for Ingrid's 13:00 PM narrative?" Here the investigator doesn't even ask Guide E. where he was on Tuesday morning... (Despite Guide P. later clearly indicating that he passed the young women on the trail in the morning).
- E. was asked: “Please tell us what you have to say regarding the report from the Judicial Investigation Sub-Directorate, which indicates that you and your brother P.M. last Tuesday, April 1st of this year, were in the Pianista sector and managed to see two young foreign women who greeted you in English, "Good Morning.” Guide E. answered: “I was in Bocas del Toro. The person who was there is Mr. P.M. We're actually brothers.”
* Dave M: "This is just infuriating - they want to know about a claim the two men made about seeing the two tourists on the Pianista trail and... nothing. Nothing from E, and no follow-up from them who are asking the questions. Did he and his brother see the two on the trail? Were he and his brother with clients on the trail? Where on the trail did you meet the two. What time. How were they dressed, were they heading up, or down, and what was their attitude?"
* Scarlet: They pressed P. a bit more for those questions the next day.
* Scarlet: It strikes me how the interviewer does not appear to have any of those thought processes during the interview... No creativity or curiosity.
- When asked if he had any knowledge of the young women's disappearance, E. replied that he only saw it on the news. “I haven't had time to speak with my brother, P.”
* Convenient.. They are brothers, live in the same small town, they work together, but E. hadn't had time yet to speak with P, despite both having been called in by officials for a sworn statement? Which isn't something people tend to do every day. But they never talked about it in the nine days since the girls' disappeared?
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OVERALL THEORY..
Is it possible that Guide P. was perhaps not entirely honest in his sworn statement, or in his initial SINAPROC interview? (Or in both?). As there are discrepancies and corrections made by him between April 4th and April 10th. We had already learnt from SLIP that Guide P. gave one statement and then returned to the police to adjust his earlier statement, but it is good to read it for myself and to be able to write in some detail about it here. Back on April 4, he apparently did believe that he had passed Kris and Lisanne on the trail. Six days later he told the Boquete investigators under oath that they may have been two different women. He also subtly changed the clothing description of these women. It still doesn't match with what Kris and Lisanne were wearing, but why did Guide P. come back on his original statement? I've written a lot already about P. in this blog post (you do need to scroll down the the Plinio sub header for it).
Guide P. has also said conflicting things about whether he believes Kris and Lisanne had an accident or met with foul play, depending on who he talked to. To Jeremy Kryt he said things like, “I think that they tried to cross the river, because it looked good. But it's a strong river and very difficult to cross.” “It is a difficult area to walk in. There's a lot of mud where you can slip, there are many gaps and rivers. In this type of terrain, all sorts of things can happen.” And about the monkey bridges: “You’re always afraid to cross them. The top cables move and throw you off balance. Even the indigenous sometimes die on those bridges.” “Any criminals [in the area] would face the same risks as the holandesas themselves. The general lack of mobility would cut both ways, and all the trails in the area were searched at the time.” “If a third party was involved, how come we never found any sign of them? There are a lot of ways to die up there.”
- But to a local woman, who happened to be a blogger/journalist, he confided in a private car ride that he believed they met foul play. “Right off the bat, P. said he believed they were murdered.” “The girls were probably sexually assaulted, and then murdered. Afterward, (this is the guide’s belief) they were callously dismembered and disposed of here and there.” “It’s a grisly scenario and unfortunately dismemberment of murder victims is all too common here in Panama.” “The girls, the guide believes, were abducted soon after they began their trek, perhaps not long after they crossed the Continental Divide and headed unknowingly down the Caribbean side instead of back to their hostel in Boquete. Their boots did not show enough wear he thinks, to have endured a 15-hour trek to the place where the handful of bones, backpack, and footwear were finally discovered.”
- But to a local woman, who happened to be a blogger/journalist, he confided in a private car ride that he believed they met foul play. “Right off the bat, P. said he believed they were murdered.” “The girls were probably sexually assaulted, and then murdered. Afterward, (this is the guide’s belief) they were callously dismembered and disposed of here and there.” “It’s a grisly scenario and unfortunately dismemberment of murder victims is all too common here in Panama.” “The girls, the guide believes, were abducted soon after they began their trek, perhaps not long after they crossed the Continental Divide and headed unknowingly down the Caribbean side instead of back to their hostel in Boquete. Their boots did not show enough wear he thinks, to have endured a 15-hour trek to the place where the handful of bones, backpack, and footwear were finally discovered.”
So there appears to be a discrepancy between what Guide P. said about Kris and Lisanne's fate officially, to the media, and what he believes in private (or told locals). And also not unimportant: the bigger picture. We happen to believe that there is truth to the Pandilla theory of Murgas and Margarita and Jeremy Kryt. A lot of things and statements do come together, when you take some steps back. In the case of Guide P., there is a tangible unwillingness to admit he drives a red pickup truck. This could link to the red pickup truck of E.A. 'Richard', that was seen going up the Pianista Trail on April 1st. Guide P. showcases also an inability to describe the two European looking women he passed, despite being very detailed about this mystery bald man. - BUT... Maybe I am misguided, but I have never believed that Guide P. had anything to do with the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. He may know about the gossip surrounding this disappearance, and he may have his own interests and theories about it, but I ultimately don't think that him denying to have had a red truck at the time means anything or is of any importance. (Despite us digging into that statement here earlier). And maybe he pretended not to have seen things, when in fact he did?
So many people have gotten stuck in their respective tunnels (Lost vs Crime) that they are willing to throw everything overboard that does not align with their beliefs. It makes for a very polarizing environment, unfortunately. But of course I know myself how difficult it is not to pick a 'side'. At some point, most people following this case in some detail, will pick a side. But as I stressed for all this time: this is a very complex disappearance case, with an unusually high amount of details that don't add up. We all HAVE to keep the option open that we're on the wrong track with our suspicions. The fact that Guide P., Mr. Lazaro and the cab driver Leonardo all went back to police to change their initial statements.... that is strange. Leonardo may have changed his witness statement and the timeline (picking the girls up after 13:00 PM, which was CLEARLY a misrepresentation of the truth by Leonardo) just so that he strayed from the truth and put himself at less risk, he reckoned. And Guide P. may have changed his witness statement to make himself seem like an unreliable witness, so that the officers would leave him alone (which they did)?
* Power-Pixie: "Well said. I think that could possibly be the context of Guide P. and his testimony. He could have been operating under two frames of mind:- To comply with the law and say that 'Yes he saw two women', so that none of the other witnesses on the Pianista trail who may have seen him that day, would contradict him if he lied.
- To comply with the gang and F's threats (theoretically), if they were made before the 10th or if he found out that Osman was killed somehow and put two and two together or heard rumors before the 10th.
What I'm interested in knowing, is that with frame of mind #2, how did he know the gang or Guide F. were even directly involved with Kris and Lisanne (and their disappearance)? Osman died, yes. But by April 10th, authorities were still looking for missing tourists who most likely got lost. So I can also understand rumors. However, the fact is he WAS on the trail on April 1st. And if Guide P. gave this testimony and dodged the Red Truck question by inserting unnecessary details of some bald fucker with glasses roaming the countryside, then I have to wonder if he also crossed paths earlier with the gang, who may have even used his red truck for a lift up the trail, if it was indeed parked in the area? I know it's a long shot, as E.A. owned his own red truck. But something doesn't add up with Guide P.. So going back to the smokescreens. First interview was for SINAPROC and for himself. Once the Pandilla/Guide F. knew he was called in, he could have been intimidated and then gone back to change his testimony. Second smokescreen version was for his self-preservation?"
* Dave M: "Given he and his brother both admitted to being on the trail at the exact time Kris and Lisanne were there, it is a more convincing 'sighting' than the Taxi Driver's was. We know it is roughly a two hour walk up, and another two hours back down. So if he and his brother were on the Mirador for 10:00 - 10:30 AM and began coming down again sometime around 11:00 AM, then it is inevitable they would pass Kris and Lisanne. Guide P. and his brother's wording of it seem to say that the meeting was somewhere by the Iron Bridge. But on the other hand he is saying he didn't return (to Il Pianista?) until around 12:30 PM, so it's open to interpretation... The timeframe of this sighting is important, as it went against the prevailing "13:00 PM afternoon" belief at the time. And it also supports the Nelvis sighting. None were taken all that seriously due to that 13:00 PM afternoon belief that was still taken for truth thanks to Ingrid Lommer's statements. But the way they all seem to tie together today makes you think..."
“The timeframe of this sighting is important, as it went against the prevailing "13:00 PM afternoon" belief at the time.”
But I also think that Guide P. may have seen Kris and Lisanne. But more importantly: that he may have perhaps seen E.A. in his red pickup truck, going up the trail, if Jeremy Kryt's theory holds water. Or other Pandilla members. And Guide P. may then have indeed decided early on that he was staying out of trouble. Pretending he never saw them, as he probably knows or suspects by April 10th that both Kris and Lisanne and Osman were already dead. The Schorr family were never brought in for questioning, so nobody could go against his witness statement. But what he could not do, was pretending he saw no tourists at all. Of course, nobody involved in their disappearance would normally admit to having passed the girls on the mountain that day, placing them in their path. But there were witnesses. So he may perhaps just have decided to spin the story and feign poor memory. Or do like Eileen did: throw out a bunch of fake information and recollections, so that it gets all tossed into a big metaphorical bingo machine and the truth gets buried in between it all. This theory may also explain this bizarre admission by his brother E. that they have a red truck, but Guide P. flat out denying he had a red pickup truck... Perhaps because he knew that E. also has a similar looking red pickup truck, which actually went up that Pianista trail on April 1st? And witnesses never saw it come back down again. P. may not want to be associated at that moment in time with such a car. And police do nothing more than posing the questions. There were no consequences to inaccuracies. And apparently Martin Ferrara O'Donnell (not the most reliable always, I'll admit) has stated that he believes that Guide P. is a villain in this story, and was complicit in it all. Whatever that may mean.
- In this blog post of mine, I show you all the photos which Guide P. put on AllTrails for a short while (until removing them again). I could save them in time. They appear to follow the route which Kris and Lisanne took, and then P. continued. It is like a visual game he was playing here. Either to troll, or to show us more info. In my other blog post I also talk about the signature raised thumbs gesture which P. at the time showcased in almost all his photos with tourists. Kris and Lisanne never made photos of themselves with raised thumbs until April 1st, as far as I could see in their holiday photos. But suddenly there were several such photos on the Mirador. Which always made me think that perhaps, they were not alone on the Mirador? Hard to prove of course, without photo evidence of other people up there.
********
April 10, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF
MARIA ELENA
“A young man named Oscar P. S. contacted me.”
Maria Elena was asked if she knew the young women Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon and whether she was friends, enemies or family of them. She replied that she did not know them by that name. Maria Elena confirmed to run a daycare centre, called Guarderia Aura and it is located in the Pueblo Nuevo area in Bajo Boquete. When asked if her premises were recommended for work as social services for some young women of European origin, Maria Elena replied: “No, but a young man named Oscar P. S. contacted me. He told me that some girls were coming from the school on the way to Palmira, called Spanish Baya Rivers, and that the owner or manager was called Ingrid Lomera and that they were coming as volunteers. I told him that I didn't know them and that's why I didn't take them on. And I told him that I didn't need volunteers, and I remember that on that same day a Dutch woman who spoke Spanish well came to my nursery and asked me if I needed any volunteers to help me. I told her no, I didn't need any at that moment. And she asked me for my phone number and I gave it to her. She asked me if I needed any volunteer help tomorrow. I repeated 'no', and I told her to go to Casa Esperanza. That they also work with children and might need a volunteer. That same day, at around one o'clock in the afternoon, two girls arrived at my daycare nursery, one tall and thin and the other shorter. They asked me if I needed volunteers. I told them 'no, I didn't need any'. I want to say that all this happened on Monday, 31 March this year. The two girls were about eighteen years old. They didn't speak any Spanish. They spoke to me in a language that sounded like French, and I told them I didn't need volunteers, which they understood. That's all. Then, two or three days later, I watched the news and noticed there were two missing girls and I saw that they were the same ones who had come to my center in the afternoon. That's all I can say.”
“I told him that I didn't know them and that's why I didn't take them on.”
Maria Elena was then asked to tell more about this Oscar P. S., where he was located etc, She replied: “I don't know where he lives, but his mobile number is X, and he is the person who has always sent me girls. But I haven't had any volunteers sent to me for two or three years, and I haven't had any volunteers working at the daycare nursery for three years.” When she was asked if these young women were accompanied by anyone else when they arrived at her premises to offer to help you at her nursery, Maria Elena said that no, they were alone and they came on foot. When asked to described how they were dressed, she answered: “I don't remember, the only thing I remember is that the tall one was wearing a flowery blouse and that she wore her hair loose.” When asked if the girls told her if they intended to look for another place to volunteer, Maria Elena replied: “From what little she told me, I understood that the tall girl said she wasn't going to stay and that she was leaving for Bocas del Toro. The other one didn't say anything; she didn't speak any Spanish.” One only said that she was leaving for Bocas del Toro, but not where specifically. “That's all, I didn't pay any more attention to it.” She denied to have ever seen them again since. She did see the flyers in the area announcing the disappearance of the two young women, and Maria Elena confirmed that they are the same girls who came to her premise. “Yes, I have seen the announcements and it is them.”Thoughts and commentary
- Maria Elena declared: “No, but a young man named Oscar Peñas Sánchez contacted me. He told me that some girls were coming from the school on the way to Palmira, called Spanish Baya Rivers, and that the owner or manager was called Ingrid Lomera and that they were coming as volunteers.”* Power-Pixie: "As far as I could find out, Oscar P. S. is the co-owner of Retire in Panama Tours company. He's the closest and the first hit on the google search database I could find. He also volunteered for SINAPROC at one point."
- Maria Elena declared: “I told him that I didn't know them and that's why I didn't take them on. And I told him that I didn't need volunteers, and I remember that on that same day a Dutch woman who spoke Spanish well came to my nursery and asked me if I needed any volunteers to help me.”
* Power-Pixie: "It's good to see these statements from Maria Elena. I have to say I'm more convinced now that she told the truth and that Marjolein spun a story to the two, telling them that they had volunteer work setup. Wow! This is really terrible, to think that the casual lack of work at Aura may have acted as a catalyst to Kris and Lisanne's eventual demise. Not that Marjolein knew this was going to end in this way, but ultimately Eileen or whoever was left to deal with her mess. Sadly it ended up being even worse. Palmira is the district that is located directly west of the SbtR by the way. Also: Maria seems to confirm that Eileen wasn't with her. Remember that Marjolein claimed in her letter that she went to Aura together with Eileen to speak with Maria Elena? This confirms my theory before, that Eileen nor Maria were lying about this computer store excursion on Monday 31 of March."
* Scarlet: Yes, well spotted. In het Letter to Ingrid, which is serving as a witness statement (since Marjolein was not called in for a sworn statement..), Marjolein claimed that she and Eileen walked in person to Guarderia Aura - because they “were going to the city centre anyway”, namely to visit a computer shop together for the school's computer. She claimed that they arrived there around 09:40 AM. But Maria Elena declared under oath that only one woman from the school came by. No doubt Marjolein, as it was "a Dutch woman who spoke Spanish". Ingrid was in Costa Rica at that time and Eileen spoke little Spanish, as confirmed by Guide F.
And Marjolein's recollections also vary when it comes to the reason given by Maria Elena for not accepting Kris and Lisanne. Marjolein: "Maria Elena gave as a reason that she would not be present much, because she had to go to David a few times, among other things." Marjolein, being the good employee, told Ingrid that she protested to her. That she told Maria Elena "that they had already agreed to the work arrangement on Friday and that the girls were ready to start working." That this change of plans was “not good”. But in her sworn statement, Maria Elena mentions none of that. She just casually says to the Dutch lady from the school, when asked if she needed any volunteer help for the next day, that she didn't need any volunteers for the next day. Marjolein painted a picture in her letter of going to Aura to remind Maria Elena of the Friday phone call they had and of the volunteer work they had agreed on by phone already... These two women are telling two different stories, that much is clear. And who do we believe?
* Dave M: "Maria Elena seems to be clearly stating that she doesn't know either Ingrid, or the SbtR school. It seems to fully support Power-Pixie's finding a few months ago that the Spanish School had had no contacts at all with Aura, despite it advertising Aura on its promotional advertising and this being what had attracted Lisanne and Kris to Boquete, and to SbtR."
- Maria Elena declared: “And I told him that I didn't need volunteers [..], I told her no, I didn't need any at that moment. And she asked me for my phone number and I gave it to her. ”* Scarlet: This one is also peculiar. Because Marjolein declared in her Letter that she had called with Maria Elena already on Friday to arrange this volunteer work. Supposedly.. So why would she need to ask Maria Elena's phone number on Monday? Unless she called with the school's fixed phone number earlier perhaps, and now wanted her mobile phone number or something? But Maria Elena paints a picture here of complete surprise when Oscar and Marjolein contacted her on Monday (not Friday..) to ask if she had place for these Dutch girls the next day. It's an understatement at this point to state that the testimonies of Marjolein and Maria Elena do not match.
* Dave M: "Strange. An Oscar S. calls first by phone, and she rejects him. Then this Marjolein woman comes by personally, she also gets rejected. But Marjolein asks for her phone number...?! Then Kris and Lisanne arrive. I can actually understand why Maria would be very annoyed at this point, based on what she says here. Three attempts in short succession at trying to get her to accept volunteer help that she doesn't want or need. It seems to me as if SbtR accepted Kris and Lisanne's booking, didn't realise there was no contract with Aura, and so began to gradually panic as the day drew closer. The sheer incompetence of it all is shocking to me."
* Power-Pixie: "Maria is in the clear just based on these statements, since nobody knew it involved a 3rd party named Oscar who for all intents and purposes was most likely a broker for these kinds of places, perhaps. But here, Maria is clear about who showed up at her doorstep. This needs to be very clearly highlighted in this case, as Maria has received some negative light. Possibly unfairly so."
* Dave M: "Interesting, perhaps it wasn't even specifically Marjolein's idea to try Casa; it was Maria Elena's...? What a mess. SbtR advertised this placement, and despite no one taking it up for a number of years according to Maria Elena, along come Kris and Lisanne, keen to do it. Travelling thousands of miles to do it, and Marjolein and Ingrid take their money and... fail to ensure the work. The very reason they came to Boquete. I do wonder whether Casa did eventually say yes for the next week, or if that too is a lie?
* Power-Pixie: "Yes, Lisanne had planned for this months in advance. I cannot believe everyone so far let this slide."- Maria Elena declared: “That same day, at around one o'clock in the afternoon, two girls arrived at my daycare nursery, one tall and thin and the other shorter. They asked me if I needed volunteers. I told them no, I didn't need any.”
* Dave M: "They surely expected to start, everything had been agreed after all, their money had been accepted. And to stand here and be stonewalled as hard as this... Yes, they were upset. And I would be too."
* Scarlet: Around 13:00 PM.. Remember what Eileen told Marja and Jurgen from LITJ by email in 2019? She told them that she hadn't seen Kris and Lisanne for the last time on Tuesday April 1st, but on Monday the 31st "at 13:00 PM". I don't know how fast the girls ran back to SbtR, but there is some distance between Aura and the language school, so once again we have an unreliable witness statement from Eileen here, by the look of things. Aside from it being pretty obvious by now - seemingly - that Eileen did see the girls on Tuesday April 1st. We have a sworn statement from Guide F. that he saw the girls at the language school on Tuesday morning, and we know from Ingrid that Eileen was Marjolein's 'assistant' and replacement. She was at the school that Tuesday! What a mess that school was.
- Maria Elena: “I don't know where Oscar lives but his mobile number is X, and he is the person who has always sent me girls. But I haven't had any volunteers sent to me for two or three years, and I haven't had any volunteers working at the daycare nursery for three years.”
* Dave M: "She knows Oscar's number, but not Spanish by the River's, as Marjolein had to reportedly ask Maria Elena for her number? Does this mean that Marjolein hadn't phone called her yet? Just this Oscar, whom Marjolein has never named herself... It may be he is some third-party agent the school uses to arrange these work placements for tourists. But if that were so, then why has his name never before come up in Marjolein's or Ingrid's statements? I still don't understand why all of them failed to secure volunteer work for two paying clients who booked this placement weeks in advance. You'd think they had all the time in the world to arrange it before their arrival."
- Maria Elena: “They didn't speak any Spanish. They spoke to me in a language like French.”
- Maria Elena: “From what little she told me, I understood that the tall girl said she wasn't going to stay and that she was leaving for Bocas del Toro. The other one didn't say anything; she didn't speak any Spanish.”
* Dave M: "Were they speaking Dutch? This point interests me, as I have wondered whether they spoke to Marjolein and Sigrid in Dutch too. If they did, they may have been trying to speak it to Maria Elana in the hope she understood the language too, or perhaps English? It goes to show just how hard the two had it with the language barrier while in Boquete."
* Scarlet: I assume that Lisanne may have tried to speak some Spanish with a thick accent? French and Spanish are both Romance languages, but that is where the comparison stops... They sound very different. But does Maria Elena know that? Maybe Lisanne just spoke with a terrible accent, which made her Spanish sound alien. I would be surprised if they started speaking in Dutch to her..
* Scarlet: I take this as Lisanne expressing her desire to leave Boquete and go back to Bocas. No doubt in response to the new disappointment right there at the daycare, and her just disliking Boquete even more at that point. Perhaps this is also where Betzaida Pitti based her own statement on, that she believed the girls could have walked all the way to Bocas del Toro (which sounded ludicrous initially coming from her mouth/pen). This sworn statement was given at April 10th already and I find it hard to imagine that Maria Elena had already heard about the contents of the girls' diaries at that point in time, which is our most reliable source of information basically. And which shows a clear image of Lisanne being in distress. I don't know where else Maria Elena could have gotten this return to Bocas info from, other than from the girls' own mouths? The sole reason for them to have moved from (beloved) Bocas to Boquete, was to work at Aura. And that fell through their fingers.. I understand it if they wanted to return to Bocas, at that point.
* Dave M: "I can imagine Lisanne trying to be terribly polite, but losing her composure when suffering Maria Elena, and yes... she has had enough and yearns for friendly Bocas."
- Maria Elena was asked: “Please tell me if they mentioned where in Bocas they were planning to go.” She replied: “Only that it was to Bocas del Toro, that's all, I didn't pay any more attention to it.”
* Dave M: "Does this show a lack of compassion for the two? Or mere irritation?"
* Power-Pixie: "Well it's hard to know from printed and summarized text statements. But I'm willing to bet there's also friction between locals and foreigners, especially white tourists or foreigners who don't get the locals and their culture or ways. While Kris and Lisanne innocently showed up and were full of expectation, but had very poorly prepared in the way of learning the local language. It's bad enough that Maria had already informed two people of some authority to relay whatever was needed to end this volunteer adventure, but then the two foreign women also showed up, not knowing any Spanish, not knowing they were setup for failure. And this also makes Maria look like a fool now, as Kris and Lisanne (and Maria) were projecting their anger/frustration/disappointment at each other, when it should have probably gone to Marjolein, in my opinion. But she dodged that bullet by going off to David for the day, leaving Eileen in charge of the impending mess that afternoon. I can see that Lisanne's upset at the experience was fully justified."
* Scarlet: I also think that Maria Elena may have had some sympathy for their plight, but this interview was conducted on April 10th, so she didn't know yet that they would never show up again. There is some slight irritation perhaps in the way she described 3 different people contacting her or coming round her school on Monday, all about the same volunteer work. It is such a shocking discrepancy here between what SbtR and Marjolein in particular claims happened, and what Maria Elena says happened. To go from having a verbal agreement with Maria Elena, all the way to her having no knowledge of any of it and not having worked with SbtR for years.. There is a clear liar amidst these people.
Perhaps Maria Elena was irritated after hearing all this nonsense, while being under oath? I don't know, she could also be bluffing of course, technically. It is not the fault of Kris and Lisanne however, who had prepared in advance and who had the best of intentions. I bet they learnt Spanish in Bocas, just so they could communicate on a basic level with those kids. But it is also a strange concept.. Going 4 weeks to Boquete to volunteer at a school? A few days, ok. But a whole month? I'd be annoyed by it as well if I were a day care director, no matter how kind the offer. Those kids will never see these two tourists again. They won't be able to communicate well with them. And Maria Elena may also have sensed that her school was effectively used to lure tourists to Boquete and get them to pay for package deals? Or maybe that is too cynically put.
Perhaps Maria Elena was irritated after hearing all this nonsense, while being under oath? I don't know, she could also be bluffing of course, technically. It is not the fault of Kris and Lisanne however, who had prepared in advance and who had the best of intentions. I bet they learnt Spanish in Bocas, just so they could communicate on a basic level with those kids. But it is also a strange concept.. Going 4 weeks to Boquete to volunteer at a school? A few days, ok. But a whole month? I'd be annoyed by it as well if I were a day care director, no matter how kind the offer. Those kids will never see these two tourists again. They won't be able to communicate well with them. And Maria Elena may also have sensed that her school was effectively used to lure tourists to Boquete and get them to pay for package deals? Or maybe that is too cynically put.
* Dave M: "I feel it is clear that there probably was no contact between Maria Elena and Marjolein - if she hadn't had volunteers for three years at Aura, then it seems likely Marjolein may not have even been familiar with Aura, or its owner."
- Maria Elena was asked: “In accordance with Article 2119 of the Judicial Code, if you have anything else to say, add, or correct your statement?” She replied: “That's all.”
* Scarlet: It is a bit of a shame that the interviewers don't ask Maria Elena about the claims of Marjolein that she arranged the volunteer work over the phone already on Friday. Or perhaps they were not yet informed about this on April 10? It's not fully clear when Ingrid's letter was read or received by investigators after all. Nevertheless, it would have been good to hear Maria Elena's response to that.
Aura activities: "Help taking care of the children; sing English songs, do handicrafts, feed the children".
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* Dave M: "You do have to wonder whether Kris and Lisanne had a romantic view of what to expect here, and hadn't even thought through the possibility of a serious language barrier waiting for them at Aura... I can see them maybe reading the brochure for this work placement offer while at home, and because of the wording and presentation of it, they understandably assumed this would be a friendly placement and the people would be used to accepting Dutch/English volunteers. We now know the brochure and offer they were sold was mostly a lie, but it has to be said that both Kris and Lisanne had jumped into this very unprepared in terms of their Spanish preparation. Maria Elena not being able to recognise their language (“they spoke to me in a language like French”) also shows how long it must have been since she had seen or used any foreign volunteers. I am getting the impression today that some of these 'Spanish By...' schools were never actually all that successful. The Bocas branch seems the most successful because of where it is located, and maybe the Panama City branch did fine. But these others, placed outside the big towns and cities...? I get the impression that they limped by."* Scarlet: Yeh.. if one Dutch newspaper story is correct, they even tried to collect money in Holland to buy stuffed toys.. To bring to Panama and give to the kids there. I did wonder when reading that, whether they believed they were going to a 3rd world country or something? I don't know how poor Boquete kids are, but in general it strikes me as a nice town with a good economy and no abject poverty. Maybe they did have a romantic view of their volunteer work at that school. I still don't know what they thought they could do there for 4 whole weeks? They couldn't even communicate in Spanish with those kids. Ultimately, SbtR and Het Andere Reizen may also be partly responsible here? I remember Power-Pixie linking us through wayward machine what SbtR's website looked like at the time. Casa Esperanza requested 'intermediate Spanish language skills'; the same probably applied to Aura. But re-reading the info that was available at the time, it becomes clear where Kris and Lisanne got some of their notions probably from?
"Casa Esperanza helps kids in different regions of Panama by giving them the opportunity to go to school and by providing nutrition and health care. It’s a non-government organisation and is founded in 1992. They help annually 3500 kids between the ages of 3 and 17 years old. Casa Esperanza Boquete has about 210 indigenous kids (almost all Ngobe Bugle) who are divided in four different groups according to age." - This reads as if the local kids are poor ('given the opportunity', 'providing nutrition and health care'). And as for what they could do as volunteers:
"If you work in the afternoon (1pm till 5pm) you will help the teachers with the different activities that are planned. Depending on your Spanish level you can help the kids with their homework, play board games, help with the workshops, etc. If there is something that you’re good at, you can teach the children this too. It would be nice if you have a background with education, but it’s not necessary." Aura activities which Kris and Lisanne could expect according to Ingrid's website: "Help taking care of the children; sing English songs, do handicrafts, feed the children". How was that going to work for Kris and Lisanne for 4 whole weeks though? And why is there no stronger emphasis on the importance of speaking a basic level of Spanish? (Which was clearly necessary).
And Ingrid's site also stated at the time: "You are not obligated to bring a gift to the project, but if you want to bring something, here are some ideas; sport attributes, (colour) pencils, paint of something else for the children. You can also bring something that you want to use in a class." - So the 'gift' notion also seems to come from the website of SbtR? Maybe that's why Kris and Lisanne are said to have gathered money from friends and family to buy children's toys for the Panamanian kids they would teach? In hindsight, some may say this all reeks of a sales pitch almost, to lure well-intending and warm-hearted young people from the Netherlands over for holiday packages, wrapped in a blanket of development aid? Almost. It was wonderful of Kris and Lisanne that they only relaxed at Bocas for 2 weeks, after finishing their university degrees. I bet they could do with a holiday. But to then reserve 4 weeks for this volunteer work at Aura, seems a misplaced plan.. In hindsight. As for the state of the language schools, I remember reading reviews of the Turrialba and Boquete schools of her, and there were numerous negative reviews, complaining some of the schools were deserted, dirty, unkept, smelling of humidity. Not more than backpacker hostels, where other guests opened the doors and gave info instead of actual staff. Maybe those were just the usual grouchers though, complaining online about everything and anything. Or maybe not.
********
April 9, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF INGRID
Ingrid was asked if she knew Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon and in which capacity. She answered that she knew them and met them “in Bocas del Toro, and for about a week or two. They were nothing but clients.” Ingrid was then asked if she had acted as a liaison between Kris and Lisanne and Miriam G, arranging for them to stay with Miriam while in Boquete, and she replied that it was Marjolein J. who did so. And that Marjolein was in Turrialba, Costa Rica at that moment in time, so on April 9th. When she was asked when she last saw Kris and Lisanne, Ingrid answered that this was in Bocas del Toro. She specified that the girls were in Bocas to learn Spanish (and "about tourism") and that they stayed at Spanish by the Sea for two weeks. Ingrid was then asked whether Kris and Lisanne enjoyed tourism activities in Bocas del Toro that were accompanied by a tour guide. Ingrid: “One tour was with the company Under Sea, and another tour on the beach they did on their own.”
“When I started questioning their father, they told me the last contact was on Monday, March 31st, and it was with Kris's father via WhatsApp”
Ingrid confirmed that Spanish by the River had internet service and that the young women Kris and Lisanne used its internet facilities. “Yes, and Marjolein and Eileen told me that they used the internet.” Ingrid was asked if she knew if Kris and Lisanne, upon arriving in Boquete, contacted anyone who offered tourism services. Ingrid answered: “No. I came to Boquete because I was told the two girls were missing, and they called me on the same Wednesday they disappeared. But I continued on my way to Turnaba [has to be Turrialba perhaps? - Scarlet]. I left the country on April 2nd while in Bocas del Toro and returned on April 4th.” When Ingrid was asked if she knew whether or not Kris and Lisanne had maintained contact with their families, Ingrid answered: “I haven't asked, but when I started questioning their father, they told me the last contact was on Monday, March 31st, and it was with Kris's father via WhatsApp.” Ingrid was then asked how Kris and Lisanne made contact with Ingrid's agency in order to make bookings, and she replied that this was done online and through the Dutch travel company Het Andere Reizen. The person in charge was Ms. Judith S. Ingrid was then asked to explain what duties Ms. Marjolein performed, and why she retired, and for what date. Ingrid: “Marjolein was the acting administrator, and Eileen was her assistant. Marjolein left for Turrialba in Costa Rica on Tuesday, April 1st of this year. She left because she's the person in charge in Costa Rica, and since we don't have an administrator here, I had asked her to support me.”
“It's done by phone, and everything is recorded in Dutch. I can provide a copy of the records.”
“Yes, maps were given and a talk was given on Sunday about places to visit.”
Ingrid was then asked if the premises she managed maintain a surveillance camera system? Ingrid: “No, they don't have.” She also said that the email addresses for Kris and Lisanne were kept in the address book. “Please tell us if you or the local government provides maps or addresses of the places they could visit.” Ingrid: “Yes, maps were given and a talk was given on Sunday about places to visit.” Ingrid was asked if payments for services provided by the school were covered before clients arrived in the country or afterwards? Ingrid replied that payment were always made at the beginning of the month, following the month in which services began, and they were made by the agency that hired her. When Ingrid was asked if she had anything else to say, add or correct to her statement, she said: “For me, it is important to add that from all the students, I consider them to be among the most serious in terms of learning and understanding Spanish. They are very young and serious girls, focused on what they came to do here. They also provided us with a document in Dutch, which is an online registration form, three pages in total. That is all.”
Thoughts and commentary
- Ingrid stated: “When I started questioning their father, they told me the last contact was on Monday, March 31st, and it was with Kris's father via WhatsApp.”
* Dave M: "This is an interesting detail. I'd say this contact took place after Kris and Lisanne left Aura then. When they were back at the school. Then this is nice information to learn, as this puts a solid "last contact" onto the timeline of Kris' phone use for that day."* Scarlet: The NFI specialist specified some phone details for March 31st, for instance that the iPhone of Kris was powered on at 13:13 PM. And the NFI guy could determine from various log files and changes in the file system, that the phone was used after startup until approximately 14:00 for various WhatsApp chats and visits to websites on the internet. So maybe that was indeed when they last contacted their family.
* Scarlet: I still find it strange that the Kremers talked on national TV, during the very first news coverage of this disappearance, and said that the last contact between Kris and her boyfriend Stephan took place on Tuesday. See the video here. Now Ingrid says that she heard from the family that the last contact was in fact on Monday. But in all honesty: the NFI info (which has gaps of info) does seem to contradict a Tuesday contact between Kris' phone and Stephan. And Hans Kremers also said on TV, that Monday was indeed the last time HE and his wife had contact with Kris. By the way, in a sworn statement from Hans Kremers on April 9th, 2014, he also declared about Kris: “Yes, she contacted me every two or three days via WhatsApp, and she contacted her boyfriend every day with positive stories about how much she liked the place.” Hans Kremers was asked when he last communicated with his daughter, and he replied: “On 31st of March this year, at 1:19 p.m. Panama time.” Kris last told Hans Kremers that Aura were expecting them the next week. That it was a disappointment, but that the organisation [Spanish by the River] was now looking into whether they could start that week on another project. Hans also confirmed that Kris did not have credit cards, but that she used a Clave card with a bank in the Netherlands, which was activated as a debit card for international purchases.
* Dave M: "That seems to further add to the belief that they were indeed both back at SbtR when sending this message to Hans Kremers."
* Power-Pixie: "The Tuesday contact claimed by Stephan via the Kremers in their first interview in the Netherlands prior to heading to Panama, indicated that here was contact made between boyfriend Stephan and Kris at ~14:00. Hans Kremers stated that Stephan “last had contact with her on Tuesday, 14:00 PM Dutch time” (which was 07:00 AM am in Boquete). Roelie then corrected Hans: “It was at 14:00 local time in Panama.” (which was 21:00 PM in the Netherlands). So just based off this, where were Kris and Lisanne at 14:00 PM? Their last photo showed the time of 1:54:58 PM Panama time, taken at River 1. And we know from all the past vlogs that there is no cell phone connection within ~5 minutes of either direction from River 1, making it nearly impossible for this contact to have been made at that time. My guess is now that it indeed points to a Monday afternoon contact, after Kris switched on her phone for the first time. But according to Hans: “Things were good. They were having a good time.” To me that means Hans is first and foremost maybe stating shorthand what Stephan showed or told him, depending on the type of contact, i.e., if it was Whatsapp (showed him), phone call (told him). It also fits into the timeline of Monday, since this might have been a sanitized retelling by Kris. Even if the WhatsApp conversation took place Monday at 14:00 PM, Kris may have deliberately downplayed the Aura rejection. Maybe “things were good” even after the rejection on Monday afternoon. It still leaves room for the two heading somewhere on Monday afternoon that is still unknown, or is perhaps even linked to the swim meet-up or a hike to either Piedra de Lino or the Pianista. It would still be nice to know where they had their lunch on Monday that allowed them to connect to the Wi-Fi there. It could be any cafe or restaurant, but if it was Sabrosón #3 or #1, well... Also, why hasn't Stephan ever shown this critical last contact to the media or anyone else? Was he ever interviewed and asked what type of contact he had made?
* Scarlet: Good thinking. That 14:00 PM Tuesday last contact claim, could not have been correct. And we almost knew this all along. It makes more sense that this contact was on Monday afternoon. Something which Ingrid here also seems to allude to. They must have gotten it mixed up, also due to the time difference between both countries perhaps.
It is not possible that this last contact with Stephan was in fact on Tuesday morning (in case the family confused 07:00 AM in the Netherlands with 07:00 AM Panamanian time), because according to the NFI file, the iPhone of Kris was used until 19:07 PM on March 31st and after that time, the iPhone was locked and no longer switched on or used until 11:07 AM the next day, so April 1st. Kris left her phone powered on overnight it seems, without charging or using it. It would have been reported in the NFI file I think if she had used her iPhone on Tuesday morning to WhatsApp, just like Lisanne's Whatsapp use was reported. - No, Stephan was never interviewed and not a single journalist or researcher has ever asked about that TV statement of the Kremers about the last Tuesday 14.00 PM contact. I don't know why not, maybe they were unaware of that interview. But nobody seemed interested in that very first piece of TV info.
* Scarlet: You're alluding to Guide F. going to (returning to) Spanish by the River, which he admitted in his sworn statement. I feel that Ingrid tries to be factual here, but does not sound remorseful and neither as if she is willing to take some blame for the entire mess that was created in Boquete? But even if Marjolein had stayed in Boquete, we cannot be sure that Kris and Lisanne wouldn't have disappeared, ultimately. But... that chance would have been smaller probably if they had been put to work as volunteers all week at a children's school. As was promised to them. And if there is any truth to Guide F. seizing the opportunity as soon as Marjolein was dropped off in David, then someone like Eileen would have been less of a deterrent than Ingrid or even Marjolein would have been.
* Dave M: "Marjolein knows him. She deals with him every week and knows what he is like. I think it would be theoretically harder for him to pull anything off with her or Ingrid around. But Eileen is easy. Because she knows nothing, and is out of her depth in Boquete. It's all about authority. I doubt he would have dared going against Ingrid or Marjolein and the school's established rules on clients and bookings... And calling Eileen 'Marjolein's assistant'? Unless Marjolein had been working with Marjolein before the 31st of March, this reads like a slightly misleading statement. Because as far as I know, Eileen only spent the full Sunday with Marjolein, and that was it... Perhaps Monday morning in part. You can't call her her 'assistant' based on that. I think Ingrid wanted Marjolein to man the Turrialba branch due to a good booking arriving there, and so she was willing to send Eileen to SbtR to replace Marjolein."
- Ingrid stated: “It's done by phone, and everything is recorded in Dutch. I can provide a copy of the records.”* Dave M: "Incredible. Is she saying calls are recorded? Let's think on this. "Everything is recorded". I may be misunderstanding it and perhaps she just means a written record, not a recorded call? Put aside the question over CCTV at the school, and she admits that either all calls are recorded, or the full details are written and on record. And are kept on file. We have all three long wondered why Eileen or Guide F. never tried phoning the girls that Wednesday morning. Why is it that phone use was strangely kept out of the record of that morning? And now Ingrid states that all phone use at the school would have been logged in one way or another. Kept on record. And that Ingrid would have been able to review those records on the Friday when she arrived at the school..."
* Scarlet: 'Recorded in Dutch' sounds to me like a logbook that was kept of outgoing calls? The calls would have sometimes been in Spanish, after all. But it was documented, in any case. And if every call gets recorded there, why haven't we seen the hard evidence that Eileen called Guide F. to make that supposed Wednesday tour booking? I never saw evidence for any of those supposed tour bookings (of which the destinations and dates seem to keep changing). Not even in the two commercial books. Those claimed tour bookings gave Guide F. his ‘alibi’ to enter their bedroom and to be as involved in the entire aftermath as he was.
* Scarlet: Good thinking. That 14:00 PM Tuesday last contact claim, could not have been correct. And we almost knew this all along. It makes more sense that this contact was on Monday afternoon. Something which Ingrid here also seems to allude to. They must have gotten it mixed up, also due to the time difference between both countries perhaps. It is not possible that this last contact with Stephan was in fact on Tuesday morning (in case the family confused 07:00 AM in the Netherlands with 07:00 AM Panamanian time), because according to the NFI file, the iPhone of Kris was used until 19:07 PM on March 31st and after that time, the iPhone was locked and no longer switched on or used until 11:07 AM the next day, so April 1st. Kris left her phone powered on overnight it seems, without charging or using it. It would have been reported in the NFI file I think if she had used her iPhone on Tuesday morning to WhatsApp, just like Lisanne's Whatsapp use was reported. - No, Stephan was never interviewed and not a single journalist or researcher has ever asked about that TV statement of the Kremers about the last Tuesday 14.00 PM contact. I don't know why not, maybe they were unaware of that interview. But nobody seemed interested in that very first piece of TV info.
- Ingrid stated: “Marjolein was the acting administrator, and Eileen was her assistant. Marjolein left for Turrialba in Costa Rica on Tuesday, April 1st of this year. She left because she's the person in charge in Costa Rica, and since we don't have an administrator here, I had asked her to support me.”
* Dave M: "There is some situation at the Turrialba branch that requires an experienced manager, and so Ingrid substitutes Marjolein for Eileen. Which, when you think on it, is Ingrid effectively admitting in her answer that the disaster on Tuesday onwards could be seen as her own fault. She removed the experienced manager and put a very inexperienced junior volunteer in her place. So one could make the argument that the instant disaster of Eileen's second day in charge of the Spanish at Locations branch, is in fact on Ingrid, not Marjolein. Marjolein was only doing as she was told by Ingrid. Was what happened on Tuesday down to the school being basically left without a manager all of a sudden? And someone taking advantage of this to run riot? Did a fox enter the coop here, and was there nothing to stop him?"
* Scarlet: You're alluding to Guide F. going to (returning to) Spanish by the River, which he admitted in his sworn statement. I feel that Ingrid tries to be factual here, but does not sound remorseful and neither as if she is willing to take some blame for the entire mess that was created in Boquete? But even if Marjolein had stayed in Boquete, we cannot be sure that Kris and Lisanne wouldn't have disappeared, ultimately. But... that chance would have been smaller probably if they had been put to work as volunteers all week at a children's school. As was promised to them. And if there is any truth to Guide F. seizing the opportunity as soon as Marjolein was dropped off in David, then someone like Eileen would have been less of a deterrent than Ingrid or even Marjolein would have been.* Dave M: "Marjolein knows him. She deals with him every week and knows what he is like. I think it would be theoretically harder for him to pull anything off with her or Ingrid around. But Eileen is easy. Because she knows nothing, and is out of her depth in Boquete. It's all about authority. I doubt he would have dared going against Ingrid or Marjolein and the school's established rules on clients and bookings... And calling Eileen 'Marjolein's assistant'? Unless Marjolein had been working with Marjolein before the 31st of March, this reads like a slightly misleading statement. Because as far as I know, Eileen only spent the full Sunday with Marjolein, and that was it... Perhaps Monday morning in part. You can't call her her 'assistant' based on that. I think Ingrid wanted Marjolein to man the Turrialba branch due to a good booking arriving there, and so she was willing to send Eileen to SbtR to replace Marjolein."
* Scarlet: Indeed, Eileen appears to have been a cheap intern, in the sense that she was there because she needed an internship as a part of her studies back in the Netherlands. She may not even have been paid for it (as is common for student internships in the Netherlands), but I don't know that. Going by Ingrid's Facebook posts, I think you are right about the bigger group arriving in Costa Rica by then. Ingrid herself was touring with a larger group of students at the time, who seem to have been visiting Ingrid's various schools (which would have been a more costly package deal). Whereas Kris and Lisanne had booked a smaller package deal with only two weeks of Spanish lessons in the Bocas del Toro school and four weeks in Boquete where they would simply do volunteer work. But no Spanish language classes, I believe. They didn't even sleep at the hostel of SbtR. The more experienced employee (Marjolein) may have been moved to where the money was, to put it bluntly. And the bigger group. Never mind that Kris and Lisanne needed extra help with replacement work due to the errors made by SbtR.
Whatever happened to Kris and Lisanne, I believe that a lot of unfortunate things all came together to create the perfect storm? Had Ingrid not asked Marjolein to leave SbtR and left Eileen to run things, the outcome could have been different. Had Marjolein done a better job securing Kris and Lisanne's volunteer work, this perhaps wouldn't have happened at all. Had Maria Elena stroked her cold heart and made room for the two Dutch volunteer students.. etc etc. Had Lisanne given in to her sudden longing to go back home.. With some tragedies, everything suddenly goes wrong.
* Power-Pixie: "Ingrid's April 1st decision to transfer Marjolein out and leave the school in Eileen's inexperienced hands, created the vacuum that then made the tragedy possible. Ingrid's later testimony does read like legal self-protection to me, with a factual, detached tone, devoid of accountability. She didn't mastermind anything, but one could make a case that her mismanagement set the stage for the "perfect storm" before AND after the two disappeared."
* Dave M: "That's possibly the key element in all of this. The entire point of the two friends being in Panama was for this volunteer work experience placement - two weeks in Bocas were always leading into this placement, and we can see that it never in fact existed. For whatever reason SbtR booked their housing with Miriam, but not their actual work placement. What if there WAS no work placement possible, at all? Then Kris and Lisanne would have been let down by the school, the contract/agreement would have been broken by the school, and Ingrid and Marjolein would have had a potential problem. But it seems like they left Eileen to take the heat, and hoped it would all die down and go away..."
- Ingrid stated: “It was Mrs. Marjolein J, and she is in Turrialba, Costa Rica.”
* Scarlet: Marjolein herself indicated that she had moved to Bocas del Toro after visiting Ingrid in Turrialba in Costa Rica. In her Letter: "I myself, from Bocas del Toro, have also contacted Casa Esperanza who explained to me that they already had enough volunteers for the past week and that they could therefore only start the following week)." - We deduced at the time that this Letter may have been written around April 8. But Ingrid now says under oath that by April 9, Marjolein was still in Costa Rica. I don't understand when Marjolein was in Bocas, to make her sentence and the times mentioned in it make sense.
- Ingrid stated: “I came to Boquete because I was told the two girls were missing, and they called me on the same Wednesday they disappeared.”
* Dave M: "It's struck me that she gives this statement on April 9th - the Wednesday two days after Eileen's and Martijn's sworn statements were given at SbtR, with Ingrid as the translator.. Ingrid does not mention Guide F. having been at the school on Tuesday. And looking at Eileen's controlled sworn statement on the Monday, you really do wonder. He admitted he was there. He admitted it to these same interviewers, on Monday morning. Neither Eileen nor Ingrid mention it in their statements, and to any Western policeman that discrepancy would be like Red Meat to a Wolf - they would seize on it. They would press Eileen and Ingrid about him, and get to the truth. Maybe Ingrid doesn't know about him, but I tend to doubt that. We can be certain though that come May and his Dutch interview, she WOULD know it... And given he felt he had to admit to it on April 7th, and let it out again in that Dutch interview, I have a hard time believing he was keeping it secret from Ingrid. Was Eileen keeping that information from Ingrid in the early days? Or is it Ingrid who weighed the situation and told Eileen that it had to be kept secret, or they would all pay a price?
* Scarlet: 'Recorded in Dutch' sounds to me like a logbook that was kept of outgoing calls? The calls would have sometimes been in Spanish, after all. But it was documented, in any case. And if every call gets recorded there, why haven't we seen the hard evidence that Eileen called Guide F. to make that supposed Wednesday tour booking? I never saw evidence for any of those supposed tour bookings (of which the destinations and dates seem to keep changing). Not even in the two commercial books. Those claimed tour bookings gave Guide F. his ‘alibi’ to enter their bedroom and to be as involved in the entire aftermath as he was.
Whoa! This is a bombshell line. It's done by phone, and everything is recorded in Dutch.
1. That they were destroyed or withheld OR
2. That the records contradicted the agreed-upon 13:00 PM timeline and were quietly suppressed?
Bottom line: this “everything is recorded” admission could mean there was physical and/or digital evidence available to confirm or disprove Eileen's and F's timeline, and this evidence was never mentioned. So given her "Dutch" management style, it's entirely plausible that:
- The school used a shared spreadsheet or call logbook for all student and volunteer-related calls.
- This log would include timestamps, phone numbers, and purpose of call.
That's precisely the kind of paper trail that could have validated or destroyed Eileen's version of events, namely the 13:00 PM timeline (that steered the initial investigation in the wrong way). Or a glaring omission: no call on Wednesday morning. Eileen claimed she called Guide F. on Wednesday morning about the "Strawberry Farm" tour. Guide F's April sworn statement says she called him while he was at the hospital on Tuesday morning. Yet Ingrid, who oversaw or could access those "recorded" calls, never corroborated that. She simply says: “Eileen had been contacted, with him (F.), so that the young women on Wednesday, April 2...”. That's not evidence of a call, is it? It's more an abstract statement of coordination. If a call log existed, it would in my belief show:
- No Tuesday morning call to Guide F.
- No Wednesday booking call.
This would then mean that the "farm tour" story was entirely fabricated after April 2 to explain why Guide F. and Eileen were connected to the case. Just as Dave suspected and theorized all this time. By the time Ingrid arrived at SbtR on Friday, she should have been able to review:
- The call records she said existed.
- Any security footage (if a camera existed, which she denied).
- The school's PC internet logs that SINAPROC mentioned on April 3 ("according to the computer history they used on the Pianista path").
Yet none of that material ever seems to have shown up. If those logs were indeed available, Ingrid's silence from Friday onward surely must look deliberate. She had every opportunity to verify and disclose, and she didn't."
The wrong timeline was introduced by Ingrid on Facebook. Why not produce this log if it contains all the details of their bookings?
And just when I think the investigators did a sort-of-decent job with these interviews, you realise that they did very little in fact in terms of follow-up research. Probably something similar to Murgas telling cops that H. confessed to him that he was the last to have seen the Dutch girls alive... but police just taking notes of it and never actually asking H. to come in to explain himself. Investigators in this case seemed unable or unwilling to keep everyone's affidavits at hand, compare them and cross examen the people they called in for sworn statements in any significant manner.
* Dave M: "This was puzzling to read, as this is about the only time Ingrid stated this Conway place? What sort of place is this anyway? It wasn't mentioned in her Facebook postings for example. So either Eileen told her this, or... it was written down in the office 'diary' for Ingrid to discover? And it does appear Ingrid is saying Kris and Lisanne were booked with Guide F. for Wednesday and basically through to the whole weekend. That would be an excellent revenue stream for him, and yet Guide F. never mentions these bookings in his own sworn statements, not even Barú. What time and what kind of tour to Barú? Overnight? Early morning? Why are there no follow-up questions by the investigators? And which coffee farm is Ingrid referring to? Also missing from Ingrid's sworn statement is the fact that Guide F. was at SbtR on Tuesday morning, per his own admission. Back in early April, I don't know if she (Ingrid) even knew that Guide F. told the police he had been at the school that Tuesday morning, given she is careful about ignoring it in her posts and interviews. Same for Eileen."
“Guide F's sworn statements never mention any tour beyond the fabled "strawberry farm" on Wednesday. No coffee tour, Conway or Barú.”
* Power-Pixie: "Feliciano's April 7 and June 24 statements never mention any tour beyond the fabled "strawberry farm" on Wednesday. No coffee tour, Conway or Barú."
* Scarlet: In the official Situation Report #2, dating April 3, 2014, investigators report: “According to Mr. F. G. [Guide F], he had agreed to serve as a guide on Wednesday the 2nd to a farm in the Boquete area and on Thursday the 3rd to the top of Volcán Barú; agreeing to leave for the morning of Thursday, and when they did not show up at the agreed point, Mr. Gonzales went to Mrs. Guerra's house to investigate the girls and that is where they realized that the girls were not at the residence either. Due to this situation, the police are contacted to report the situation.” - So on Thursday April 3rd already, Guide F. had an entire story ready for investigators. With details that have since changed, constantly. Barú moved to the weekend for instance, as time went on. On June 24th, 2014, Guide F. stated in his extension affidavit: “On April 1st, which fell on a Tuesday, I had an appointment at the regional hospital because they had a cast on my left pinky finger. I was in the hospital until maybe 1:00 PM. That day while I was in the hospital, I received a call from a young German woman. She tells me, "Feliciano, it's AILIN from school. Do you remember the two girls who are going to the volcano on Saturday?" At that moment, I thought they were going to cancel the trip.” Please note that already Guide F. says 'Saturday' for the Baru trip here. A Wednesday farm tour became a strawberry tour, became a coffee tour. A self-proclaimed meeting with Kris and Lisanne at the school became a stick to hit his critics with, as Guide F. started to deny his own sworn statement about it, over time. Such as his pity party interview with Dutch newspaper AD from July 2022: “I never met the girls, but they said I was the last to see them.” Blatant lies, calculatingly spun at that time as a response to Jeremy Kryt's (then) recent podcast series, in which he does feature in a flattering way. - Then again, there may be some truth to this Thursday Barú booking claim. And then it could mean that when H. complained to Murgas about the two gringas who stood him up for a tour, that coincides nicely with Thursday April 3rd indeed. It kind of matches Murgas' chaotic timeline.
* Dave M: "Since phone-calls were (maybe) recorded or logged, there should be a complete record of the 'Farm Tour' call and conversation? Ingrid should have been able to review all calls made on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and so any potential inconsistencies from Eileen should have been noted and questioned by her, surely? I've never worked with a 'call/record' system, but I imagine it would indeed tell you the exact time and date of this recorded call... And, once again: why didn't the police here request to hear these recorded calls made in relation to the two missing women?"
* Scarlet: I find it interesting that Ingrid was so helpful in the weeks after the girls went missing, and posted so much useful information on her Facebook page. But now I wonder if she actually did very little when it came to investigating her own school and Guide F. in all this? She certainly didn't post about any of these school logs, or the information that could be extracted from them on her Facebook page.
* Power-Pixie: "SINAPROC reported about Eileen in their Situation Report (#2) on April 3, 2014: “Later, we went to the Spanish by the River school. The young Eileen W., an intern at the school, tells us that at about one in the afternoon the girls were looking for information according to the computer history they used on the Pianista’s path.” That seems to have been the first recorded instance of the 13:00 PM timeline, together with what Ingrid said about it on the Dutch news and on her Facebook page. What is crucial here, is that going by SINAPROC's choice of words, this 13:00 PM timeline did not come from an eyewitness seeing Kris and Lisanne leave at that time (as Ingrid claimed), but from Eileen's interpretation of the computer usage logs (supposedly showing them researching the Pianista Trail). I wonder if the actual computer internet browser history with date and time stamps confirms this? Because it can't be true. The photos of Kris and Lisanne negate anything after 10:26 AM on April 1, unless someone tampered with the actual photo date and timestamps. Which doesn't make sense to me."
* Dave M: "All these tours Ingrid mentions.. Some of which I never heard being mentioned anywhere else. She seems to be saying that these were all agreed with Kris and Lisanne. And probably agreed on the Tuesday morning. I'm interested in how she can know this. Did Eileen tell her this? And if Ingrid knows about these trips, then she surely knows Guide F. was there at her school on the Tuesday? But she never mentions that, not even when asked if she had anything else of importance to add to her sworn statement. - Let's think on it further; if he really was booked by them for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday ánd through the weekend, then was he also 'booked' for the Tuesday Pianista hike? If Kris and Lisanne had him booked for the rest of the week, why not for this day? Why would they ever think as newcomers that a major hike out of town, into completely unknown territory like this, didn't need HIM? Surely this occurred to Ingrid? I don't know what to think, but I do note that she still doesn't admit to him being at the school on Tuesday morning.."
If he really was booked by them for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday ánd through the weekend, then was he also 'booked' for the Tuesday Pianista hike?
* Scarlet: Indeed, if this is true and they booked all these trips with Guide F., then the 'money saving' argument regarding the Pianista hike day seems void and null. Then Kris and Lisanne were not at all stingy with money when it came to guided tours. Let's not forget here that Marjolein stated clearly in her letter that she instructed the girls on Sunday already that they should not hike the Pianista alone. But with Guide F. By the way; Conway in David seems to be a Department Store. Surely they didn't book Guide F. to go to a department store with him?! It is a rather strange answer really. Ingrid wasn't in Boquete at the time and she clearly was informed by someone or something else about these tours. Her main informants would have been Marjolein for the period before April 1st and Eileen for the day of the disappearance and the aftermath. And those school diary-type of logs. * Dave M: "I can see Lisanne especially planning out their expenditure over the six weeks they were going to be in Panama. Budgeting would have been important, there were some trips they took while in Bocas, but the hiking aspect was always going to be in Boquete, and since they took their boots with them they had clearly researched and tried to plan ahead. It seems a typical Guide in Boquete charged maybe around $25 a head for a hike, we've noticed before how the money found tucked behind the phone seems enough to pay for a possible hike, back in their room at Miriams their purses seem to have had a similar amount in them (roughly $90), and while they probably had access to more from bank account."
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April 9, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF VÉRONICA
MIRIAM'S NEIGHBOUR VERÓNICA
A neighbour of Miriam is called Verónica S. She was 35 years old at the time. She gave a sworn statement to investigators on April 9, 2014. I have read her affidavits and will tell you here what is in them. Verónica declared that she first saw Kris and Lisanne on Saturday, March 29th 2014, at around eleven to one in the afternoon (12:49 PM) when they arrived with Mrs. Miriam Guerra. Verónica assumed that they were living with her. She stated: "The next day, which was Sunday March 30th, I saw them again at around five-thirty in the afternoon. They walked past the house. They were alone. They were leaving Mrs. Miriam's house. School was out that day, so it could be that they were leaving for town. That day I didn't see them anymore. On Monday, March 31st, at around eleven-thirty in the morning, I saw them coming out of the place where Mrs. Mariam's house is. That day I did greet them. The tallest and thinnest girl spoke to me in Spanish. The other didn't speak any Spanish. I asked her how they were and the tallest one told me they were from Holland. I asked her if they were living in Miriam's house and she told me yes, that they were going to be here for a few days and that they would stop by to say hello on Tuesday, my birthday." "On Monday, the thirty-first, they asked me where they could walk, and I told them to walk to the town. They never asked me about any specific place." "I saw her around nine in the morning or before nine, and that day I didn't see her more because she was very busy."
Then Verónica claimed to have last seen the girls walking down the street on Wednesday April 2nd:"On Wednesday, April 2nd of this year, there was a strong earthquake here in Boquete. I saw these two young women between 13:30 and 14:15 in the afternoon. They were walking down the street that leads to Mrs. Miriam's house, and I saw them both alone." "On Wednesday the second, I remember that day very well, because my daughter had an appointment with the dentist at three o'clock in the afternoon, and that day was also the day of the strong earthquake here in Boquete, from 13:45 in the afternoon to 14:15 in the afternoon. I couldn't ask her anything. The only thing I remember was that they were wearing leather-type sandals. I think only one of them was wearing white cloth pants, the one who is taller. I don't remember the other one, and since then I haven't seen them again. I do remember that they were in a hurry, and since I had to leave, I didn't pay any attention to them." "It did catch my attention that one of these days, specifically on Thursday of last week, which was April 3rd, it was almost 9:00 a.m., I saw a red pickup truck go by very quickly twice. It was the first time it had gone by, and it was kicking up a lot of rocks. The first time it went by, the windows were up, so you couldn't see inside the car. The second time, the car went by more slowly. It caught my attention because you know the neighbors' cars, and that one wasn't from around there, and the way it entered caught my attention." - When asked if they were accompanied by anyone that Wednesday, Verónica denied this and said it were only the two girls. Just like she had always only seen them alone during their stay. "From what I saw of them, it seemed to me that they were quite lost and didn't know anything about Boquete. What they did have was a map of Boquete." When asked if she knew which places the Dutch girls frequented, Verónica replied: "The Spanish school near my house, owned by Ms. Ingrid. There, they keep a record of people who use the internet, and it should record the last time they accessed the internet." When asked to describe their appearance, she replied: "The shorter one has broad shoulders, a round face, and yellow hair. The other is tall, thin, and has darker hair. They are about twenty years young or younger." "They told me their names, but I don't remember them, but I do know that they were from Holland."
On April 10, Verónica S. was brought in again for a sworn statement. This time she declared that her house lies more than 300 meters from her own, across the stone road from Miriam's house. She and Miriam mainly greeted each other in the street. Miriam was "not very sociable", according to Verónica. Verónica had spoken with Kris and Lisanne on Monday, March 31st, she claimed. Around noon. She asked the thinnest girl if they were staying at Miriam's house, and she confirmed this. Verónica declared under oath that she last saw Kris and Lisanne on Wednesday April 2nd. Her daughter Kathyuzka was also present in the house at that time. She said that she remembered that day, because her daughter had to go to the dentist then. The dentists name and details were written down by the interrogator. "That day, I wanted to talk to them to ask how they were doing after the earthquake, but I couldn't. At that moment, my daughter Kathyuzka was coming into the house, and I asked her if she had spoken to the girls, and she said no. I said to my daughter, ‘Why didn't you do so? They're not from here, and besides, my youngest daughter liked one of them, and she was the one who spoke the most Spanish.’ The girls were wearing something white, like a dress, that last day she saw them, according to Verónica . Not sports wear. When asked, she stated that at that time, there were no other foreign girls staying in the same area, as far as she knew.
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* Dave M: "She must have the date mixed up. From the time she stated though, this seems to be Monday afternoon, logically."
* Power-Pixie: "Most likely so. As no other witness, no photo, no phone ping nor any call record can support this. I find this witness to be unreliable as she cannot remember dates, she associates in hindsight details like a red-truck."
* Scarlet: That earthquake was registered to have taken place on Wednesday April 2nd at 11:13 AM. People in Boquete and surroundings reportedly felt it, but it was a minor tremor to them and not something that could have posed any danger (neither to Kris and Lisanne, if they had felt it). But it is as good as impossible for Véronica to have actually seen Kris and Lisanne walk through Miriam's street by Wednesday morning. Earthquake or no earthquake. It just makes no sense. She must indeed have mixed Monday up with Wednesday somehow..? This is a real headscratcher though, once again... I get that most witnesses got things wrong. But this was such a specific day, this Wednesday, with a unique thing happening with that earthquake, and a very particular reason why she wanted to talk to Kris and Lisanne. To ask them if they were OK after that quake. It cannot be true if we choose to believe the NFI report data. Their phones would have reconnected with the local cell towers if they had returned to Boquete by Wednesday. Although technically, those phones were left powered off the entire Tuesday evening and night. On Wednesday April 2nd, the Samsung phone was only powered on very shortly in order to try to call 112/911 at 06:58 AM and at 10:53 AM. And the iPhone was only very shortly powered on at 08:14 AM. So technically, the girls could have walked through Alto Boquete between 13:30 and 14:15 in the afternoon, with their phones powered off. But is it very likely? Not at all. So why is Véronica stringing such a detailed story together here?
* Dave M: "This statement is taken April 10th, so the week after. I can accept some faulty memory, as it wasn't made public that the two had vanished until Thursday or Friday. What does occur to me about all this though, is whether she, or anyone else, saw Eileen and Guide F. at the house? It seems he and she walked to and from the school at least twice, caused some fuss out the front and neighbours being neighbours in this quiet little area, I am sure curtains were twitching and tongues were gossiping that day."
* Power-Pixie: "A very strong magnitude 6.0 earthquake occurred in the North Pacific Ocean near Isla de Los Higueros island, Panama, in the morning of Wednesday, Apr 2, 2014 at 11.13 am local time (America/Panama GMT -5)". I believe some Losters point to this event as being what caused Kris and Lisanne to fall down the ravine and other bullshit they normally peddle. This is what made me question Véronica's story in the first place, as I did recall writing about this on Reddit some time back. So I really believe Veronica's making stuff up or has things confused in hindsight."
* Dave M: "I remember reading somewhere that they were late back to Miriam's place on the Sunday. There are no Wi-Fi Phone details for Sunday unfortunately, but to read that they were leaving Miriam's house at around 17:30 PM seems a little odd. They may have headed to a shop at San Francisco Plaza, but it is impossible to know."
* Power-Pixie: "If Veronica saw them leave at 17:30 PM from Miriam's, where were they headed first? The school or Plaza SF to get picked up by whom? Seems to me to not be as plausible. Anyway, Véronica seems like a very unreliable witness to me at this time, given she's parroting information and inserts details that she may have heard from someone first.
* Scarlet: Véronica comes with very precise details in her two sworn statements. It is very strange, as what she says cannot be true. But she is so specific, also about the day correlating directly with that Wednesday earthquake, and her specifically wanting to ask the girls about that experience.
- Véronica stated: “On Monday, March 31st, at around eleven-thirty in the morning, I saw them coming out of the place where Mrs. Mariam's house is. That day I did greet them.”
* Dave M: "At least this sort of fits with what we know about that morning."
* Power-Pixie: "Marjolein mentioned she saw the two get into a taxi at 11:00 AM..."
- Véronica stated: “The tallest and thinnest girl spoke to me in Spanish. The other didn't speak any Spanish.”
* Scarlet: This does correlate with what Maria Elena said: Lisanne spoke some Spanish but Kris not. Véronica says the same here.
* Scarlet: The structure of these sentences (strung together into one gigantic sentence) makes it sometimes hard to be sure if this is all about Tuesday morning, but I assume it is for now. In that case, this sighting kind of cements the timeline where Kris and Lisanne left Miriam's house Tuesday morning shortly before 09:00 AM. Just as I already understood from Yaileth's sworn statement.
* Dave M: "Yes, We know the two were at the school just after 09:00 AM, so it IS possible Véronica saw them here as they left for the school."
- Véronica stated: “I know from my aunt who works at the school that she takes in girls.”
* Dave M: "How fast the gossip spreads!"
* Scarlet: Véronica also stated that her aunt cleaned at Spanish by the River and knew that there was internet there. Maybe she also witnessed the records that were being kept there? Ingrid has confirmed in her sworn statement that she kept logs of a lot of things, after all.
- Véronica stated: “The Spanish school near my house, owned by Ms. Ingrid. There, they keep a record of people who use the internet, and it should record the last time they accessed the internet.”
* Power-Pixie: "My worry remains that she's turned gossip into facts."
- Véronica was asked: “Tell us how you know that the Dutch girls used or purchased services via the internet at the school on the road to Palmita?” Véronica replied: “Because I know that the school has internet access, and also because my aunt, Oderay Santamaria, works at the school where the girls went, and that's how I know that they have internet there, and if there is internet, there is always a record of use or visits.”
* Scarlet: This is still not 100% proof that Miriam's house had no internet, but this is a strong indication I think. They went to Spanish by the River to use the school's internet, is what Veronica says here and she knows this firsthand from her aunt who works at the school (possibly as a cleaner or a Spanish teacher?).
- Véronica stated: “From what I saw of them, it seemed to me that they were quite lost and didn't know anything about Boquete. What they did have was a map of Boquete.”* Scarlet: We've already come across so many dubious or ill-fitting witness statements in this case.. it is hard to be sure if Véronica is 100% truthful, or is embellishing things perhaps. By April 9th and 10th, she may also have heard things about the case and passed it on as her own intel to investigators. But she may be a chatty and friendly soul who was just very observant? Having seen that Kris and Lisanne looked lost and could do with a friendly gesture and some advice. Lisanne had a map of sorts with her at the bistro also, which they went to on Sunday. Maybe Lisanne carried a map with her most days in Boquete? But her recollection of the last time she saw them has to be off. It cannot have been Wednesday. But if we assume that she had Wednesday confused with Tuesday, then we also have the timing to deal with: between 13:30 and 14:15 in the afternoon. There we have that same time pop up again. It is a pesky one: Eileen and the other employee reportedly last saw them just after 13:00 PM and most Pianista witnesses also saw them in the afternoon, they declared. How can everyone collectively mistake a late morning sighting with an afternoon one? It remains a headscratcher. And yet, they have to be all wrong on that one, as the phone logs do not allow for a Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday sighting of them at the trailhead or in Boquete.. (Unless we start putting question marks at the NFI file now).
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Veronica was also earlier interviewed by officers as part of a neighborhood investigation. This was done around April 7, 2014. Veronica told the officers that she knew the young women and that on Saturday, March 29th, in the afternoon, she saw them when Mrs. Miriam passed by in the direction of her house. Miriam had been in the company of two foreign young women who at that moment were each carrying their suitcases. Veronica believed at the time that they were North Americans and she told her young daughters that Miriam had the luck to house foreign tenants. During the following days (Sunday and Monday) she saw these young women passing by in the direction of the Jehovah's Witnesses church, and she knows that it is them, since she has a girl of approximately three years of age. And these young women. when they saw the girl they caught her attention and one of them touched her head and face.
On Tuesday, April 1st, Veronica saw them pass by at around 09:00 AM, and she remembers this clearly, since it was her birthday. On Wednesday, April 2nd of 2014, she saw these two young women again approximately between 16:00 and 17:00 PM, when they were heading towards the church. And she remembers this clearly because that day there was an earthquake at around 11:30 AM, and another particular event was that at that time, in front of her house, a small flightless bird had fallen, and she grabbed it and took it to a vacant lot located in front of her house so that her cat would not eat it. At the moment of crossing the street, she was passing the two young women and she remembers at this moment that the taller young woman was wearing a light colored low-cut shirt, shorts and she carried it across her body like a small purse. She was also able to notice that the taller, thinner young woman speaks a little Spanish and that the shorter young woman doesn't speak any Spanish, since on one occasion she asked her where she was living, and she told her it was in Mrs. Miriam's house. [Scarlet: On April 9 she told investigators under oath that she saw Kris and Lisanne walk through the street on Wednesday between 13:30 and 14:15. But only two days prior, she had told officers that she saw them at between 16:00 and 17:00 PM. when they were heading towards the church. This doesn't add up, of course.]
And she also talked to Hardinghaus and Nenner. To them, Verónica reportedly said that she is certain that the girls were not wearing the same clothes as in the photos when she saw them leave Miriam's house at around 09.00 AM on April 1. She also talked to them about Lisanne's eye-catching three-quarter pants and Kris's white top. "They were both so striking, though. A lot of people must have noticed them." Verónica doesn't believe that they had intended to hike the Pianista Trail. "The last time we met, I invited them to my party, and they wanted to come over in the afternoon. I remember all that pretty clearly because it was my birthday on April 1st." In addition, Miriam's son Amilcar describes in his police statement that both girls often wore "jircas", by which he means tight-fitting, three-quarter pants.
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April 10, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF MRS. VIELKA
AFFIDAVIT BY VIELKA A.
Vielka was 18 years old at the time. She gave a sworn statement to investigators on April 10, 2014. She said she did not know Kris and Lisanne, but knew what they looked like through the media. When asked if she was aware of the disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, she said: “Well, yes, I know, through the mother of one of the girls who came by my house handing out flyers with photos of the missing girls, and through a classmate who informed me, and I also learned from the news that there were girls missing.” When asked if she lived near a path that is frequented by foreigners, she replied: “Yes, I live on the Pianista trail.” She specified that she lived at about a five-minute walk from the Sendero el Pianista trail.
When asked if she had any information about the missing Dutch girls, she said: “Yes, I saw two young women walk by, who I can assure you were them, on Tuesday, April 1st at 10:30 in the morning. I was at home at that time, finishing washing clothes outside and then two girls walked by. They were both wearing knee-length pants. I don't remember very well, but one of them was carrying a camera on her chest to take photos. In the few minutes it took me to finish, about ten minutes passed, and they came back down, alone and walking, on their way back.” When she was asked to further describe these young women, Vielka continued: “They were both about the same size, although one was a little taller than the other. They both had white skin. From what I remember, one had her hair loose to her shoulders, and the other had her hair tied back. That's what I remember.” Vielka was then shown a photo of Kris and Lisanne and she was asked to confirm that the young women she saw passing by her residence were the missing young women? Vielka: “Yes, they are the young women.” When asked if they talked to her, Vielka answered: “No, they just said hello to my two-year-old daughter.” Vielka was then asked: “I would like to ask if you can explain to the court how much time passed until you saw the young women returning from the path.” She replied: “It was ten minutes.”
When asked if she had any information about the missing Dutch girls, she said: “Yes, I saw two young women walk by, who I can assure you were them, on Tuesday, April 1st at 10:30 in the morning. I was at home at that time, finishing washing clothes outside and then two girls walked by. They were both wearing knee-length pants. I don't remember very well, but one of them was carrying a camera on her chest to take photos. In the few minutes it took me to finish, about ten minutes passed, and they came back down, alone and walking, on their way back.” When she was asked to further describe these young women, Vielka continued: “They were both about the same size, although one was a little taller than the other. They both had white skin. From what I remember, one had her hair loose to her shoulders, and the other had her hair tied back. That's what I remember.” Vielka was then shown a photo of Kris and Lisanne and she was asked to confirm that the young women she saw passing by her residence were the missing young women? Vielka: “Yes, they are the young women.” When asked if they talked to her, Vielka answered: “No, they just said hello to my two-year-old daughter.” Vielka was then asked: “I would like to ask if you can explain to the court how much time passed until you saw the young women returning from the path.” She replied: “It was ten minutes.”
“Yes, I saw two young women walk by, who I can assure you were them, on Tuesday, April 1st at 10:30 in the morning.”
She was then asked if they returned alone or accompanied by someone? Vielka said that they were alone and were not walking very fast. “Does the witness recall seeing these young women carrying anything in their hands when they set off on the trail and when they returned?” Vielka: “One was carrying what looked like a small bag, I don't remember the colour, and the other was carrying a camera.” When asked, Vielka stated that she did not see any vehicles pass by on Tuesday near the Pianista trail. “Please tell the court if you remember whether other people went up the Sendero el Pianista trail on that date.” Vielka: “I don't remember that day.” Vielka was then asked: “Please state if you remember seeing or hearing anything that caught your attention on that date.” She answered: “No.” She also said she had nothing to add to her statement.
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Scarlet: Some of these questions that were asked do give me the impression that the investigators, by April 10, were already trying to verify claims about a red truck driving up the Pianista trail (“Does the witness recall seeing any vehicles passing by on Tuesday near the Pianista trail?”) as well as claims that they had been followed up the trail (“Please tell the court if you remember whether other people went up the Sendero el Pianista trail on that date”). Interesting. - Vielka said: “Well, yes, I know, through the mother of one of the girls who came by my house handing out flyers with photos of the missing girls, and through a classmate who informed me, and I also learned from the news that there were girls missing.”
* Dave M: "Another good example of how these little communities thrive on gossip and word of mouth travelling. Vielka here lives on the trail, just past Il Pianista, and yet 'knows' people, who know other people, and seems right up to date with what is going on. This harks back to Osman and Milagros at the time, and the stories Jeremy Kryt reported were flying around town very early on already, concerning the gang etc. To me, it adds some further weight to the stories at the time having some truth to them... The more people who were involved in what happened to Kris and Lisanne, the harder it would have been to keep it completely secret."
* Scarlet: Agreed. And people did talk. We know through Jeremy Kryt's podcast series that Osman was told almost immediately after Kris and Lisanne disappeared, by his friend (turned Judas) Milagros, that she knew they were dead. And that the Pandilla was responsible. Margarita claims that Milagros also told Osman exactly what they did to the Dutch girls. “And after that, the threats began.” Kris and Lisanne disappeared on April 1st, Osman died on April 4th, and the threats lasted a few days, so Milagros must have known very early on what was happening, going by Margarita's testimony. The same must have happened among the residents of the Pianista area, and beyond. That story of the disappearance must have spread at lighting speed, once Guide F. broke that news.
- Vielka said: “I saw two young women walk by, who I can assure you were them, on Tuesday, April 1st at 10:30 in the morning. I was at home at that time, finishing washing clothes outside and then two girls walked by. They were both wearing knee-length pants. I don't remember very well, but one of them was carrying a camera on her chest to take photos. In the few minutes it took me to finish, about ten minutes passed, and they came back down, alone and walking, on their way back.”* Dave M: "It's interesting, she gives a very accurate description of them here, at a time when no one had the slightest idea what they were wearing, what they had with them, or even where they were. She even gets the starting time right more or less, at a time when 13:00 to 13:30 PM was being believed as the start of their hike. So I believe this girl is being honest here, and is reliable. But I imagine she wasn't taken seriously. It's a story she tells that does make me see the parallels with the Nelvis sighting a little earlier. Two witnesses who were going against the established story, by reporting a (correct) morning sighting, rather than an afternoon sighting...".
* Scarlet: Yes that 10:30 detail is very noteworthy. Very few witnesses placed their assumed sightings of Kris and Lisanne in the morning. Vielka (only 18 years old at the time) does. She was also shown an actual photo of Kris and Lisanne, and confirmed that the two women she saw ten days earlier on the trail were the same persons. I wonder if she also was granted a visit by Guide F., like Mrs Martina. But then she says that after ten minutes, they came back down again. I'm not sure if that information is correct? I guess Kris and Lisanne may have walked a short while back, perhaps, for whatever reason? A new photo? Something that had fallen from their pockets and them searching for it? All a bit far-fetched.
- Vielka was asked: “I would like to ask if you can explain to the court how much time passed until you saw the young women returning from the path.” And Vielka replied: “It was ten minutes.” * Scarlet: They are talking about the Pianista trail here all this time, but could the witness be confused with the Piedra de Lino trail? What if they started that hike by 10.30 AM, only to realize this was not the Pianista trail and so they came back down again and headed up to the Pianista by 11.00 AM? Which matches with the known timeline? Then Pedro's sighting of them going up the Piedra de Lino could also be true in part.
* Dave M: "I think it would take too long to walk from the De Lino trail up to the Il Pianista. We know they left SbtR between 09:00 and 10:00 AM roughly, we assume they went to Miriam's to change, get a lift either to Restaurant Nelvis or straight to Il Pianista, so I think the question rests on how long it would actually take to walk from the De Lino entrance, up to Il pianista... it's quite a walk as I remember."
* Scarlet: I used this site and made a correct connection with various lines between the trailhead of the Piedra de Lino trail and the Sendero el Pianista trailhead, and the distance by is 1,35 kilometer. Which is roughly a ten minutes walk. But we also have to take into account the short stretch they would have hiked up the Piedra de Lino trail, before quickly heading down again. So all in all, it does seem like too time-consuming to fit into a Tuesday April 1st timeline. But Monday afternoon their movements are still unknown, so maybe Vielka saw Kris and Lisanne on Monday instead, and was (again..) confused? These witness statements are doing my head in, as none seem to fully match and all are asking for strange theories where everyone was collectively confused about the day or the time of day :/
* Dave M: "If you give her the benefit of doubt and say she was honest in what she saw, then we can say the description of Kris and Lisanne is fairly accurate - no one would know what the two were wearing until late June. She is seeming to say she lives five minutes from Il Pianista, so we can say this is before the Iron Bridge. She says Kris and Lisanne came back down just ten minutes after passing, so might this be suggesting uncertainty from the two? Ten minutes is long enough to walk to where the Iron Bridge is located, was there some confusion about the terrain and route that made the two retreat, but they decide to have another go and find the correct route...? Perhaps it was the semi-hidden bridge that was the problem initially? I don't know. It's an interesting sighting, it rings true to how Kris and Lisanne were dressed, and it would be somewhere around the time that Guide P. and his brother would pass the two. Guide P. and brother don't admit to advising Kris and Lisanne, they may not even speak english, but they could still point to the correct way, regardless... You have to try and keep an open mind on it. I do think it is very possible they could have been confused by the time they reached the Iron Bridge crossing-point, not knowing whether to cross it or carry on. After they find that bridge IS the right direction, then it is a very straight-forward walk over to the mountain, with not too many complications.At the four minute mark in Romain's video you see a series of huts, and washing hung out to dry on the fence opposite - that's about a five minutes walk from Il Pianista restaurant. The Iron Bridge is a four to five minutes walk from these huts. And so you can appreciate Vielka's statement has a very strong ring of truth to it... I do believe her claim that the two friends came back down after ten minutes - four to five minutes to get to the bridge, be confused, and walk back down. Clearly they seem to have rallied (got advice?) and gone back up yes, but this is a very nice witness account, and by far the most honest (believable) of the lot in my opinion.
* Scarlet: Nice. Yes that video of Romain does give a very good idea of the sort of time and distance between various points along the trail. It is easy to think I know how to walk, but when you are actually on that trail and see trails crossing and distracting sounds and streams and houses, it may be easy to take a wrong turn or at least be unsure whether you are going the right way or not. I agree, it makes sense that Kris and Lisanne could have backtracked just a little bit, allowing for Vielka to see them come back. Details she got more or less right are the time of 10:30, the camera which was carried by one of the two young women, one being a little taller than the other (her ' both being about the same size' comment, may simply reflect that both were considerably taller than the average Panamanian woman, so they were both tall, but then Vielka specified correctly that one was slightly taller than the other). And one having her hair loose to her shoulders, and the other having her hair tied back is also possible, as there are photos of both Kris and Lisanne wearing their hair alternately loose and tied back. So we don't know how exactly they wore their hair at the exact time when Vielka reportedly saw them. Both wore pants that were a little bit shorter than knee length, is all I can say here. Maybe Vielka's witness statement is one that actually took place in more or less the manner in which she claims it did.
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April 7, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF MR. LAZARO
AFFIDAVIT OF MR. LAZARO
Mr. Lazaro was interviewed on Monday April 7, 2014 at 14:20 PM. He was summoned to appear at the Office of the Municipal Ombudsman of the District of Boquete for the purpose of rendering an Affidavit required of him, legally sworn in after the reading of Article 385 of the Penal Code, he agreed to tell the truth regarding what he was asked and to make a statement. He identified himself, said he was single and 65 years old at the time, a farmer by trade, with an education up to the fourth grade of elementary school. When asked if he knew Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, he replied that he did not know them. He confirmed to be living near the road leading to the area known as Culebra, in the Bocas del Toro region. He said that there is only one road to access the Culebra area of Bocas del Toro, where he resides. He gave his phone number to investigators, but indicated that he has no signal on the phone and cannot be reached.
Mr. Lazaro declared that on April 1st, he saw two relatively young female tourists on the road leading to Culebre around 16:30 or 17:00 PM. “I was at home, my house is about fifty meters from the road, and I saw two girls walking up the road. But since my eyesight isn't great, I couldn't make them out clearly. It caught my attention that they weren’t carrying anything. The only thing I remember is that they were tall, with fair skin, and one was wearing shorts. I don't remember the other one.” When asked what the colour of those shorts were, he replied: “I think the shorts were cream-colored, that's what I remember.” He also declared: “I saw the two girls/young women (“dos muchachas”) walking alone.” When asked if he ever saw them again, he said: “No, I haven't seen them again.” Mr. Lazaro also said that there are any other houses near his residence and further up the road. “No, there aren't any houses nearby in that area, not until you reach the other side of the mountain range. But I heard that they went to check the house of a man named Pitti, to look for her (probably means ‘them’).. And they didn’t find her there—that’s what I heard.” Whn asked if anyone else may have seen the young women on the trail, he mentioned the Hurtado family, who live at the start of the path to El Pianista. When asked if this was the first time that people have gone missing on the Pianista Trail, in his recollection, Mr. Lazaro replied: “A couple went missing some time ago, but they were at Mr. Luis Sánchez's house. But it seems they already went there and didn't find them.”
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- Mr Lazaro gave his phone number to investigators, but indicated that he has no signal on the phone and cannot be reached. * Dave M: "He's somewhere on the Pianista trail, with no connectivity to his phone. Interesting to think on, do we know exactly where he lives?"
* Scarlet: From descriptions it appears to be about 50 meters west of the trail, and the "last inhabited house on the Boquete side of the Pianista". It reportedly stands together with two other simple huts in the middle of the forest and can be reached from two sides via a small path. But by the sound of things, his house/hut isn't directly alongside the Pianista trail, so how did Lazaro see them if hey followed the trail? Lazaro implies that they walked past his hut. They also say in SLIP that Lazaro was also arrested, and held for 22 hours by police, "possibly for intimidation". Quote: "Lazaro, who had already been questioned by the Personería on April 7, unexpectedly appeared again voluntarily at the municipal prosecutor’s office a week later, on April 15, because he had made an important inquiry. In a second affidavit, he explains that on April 2, one day after the disappearance, his neighbor Keni G. observed two girls in a paddock on the slope in front of the summit. They had been followed by a man with a tattooed shoulder and a cell phone to his ear." - That story again, which I already covered earlier. The lone stranger on the trail, who Guide P. and Lazaro both described voluntarily to investigators. In this case when Mr. Lazaro returned on his own initiative to tell them this.. Almost as if they agreed to both bring this up to investigators. I understand that the German authors really got activated by this information, but I still think it may be a red herring.
SLIP: "That same day, the 23-year-old wage laborer Keni is summoned to the Personería office and interrogated. He claims to be Lazaro’s neighbor. On April 2, between 6:00 and 6:30 p.m., on his way home via the Pianista Trail in the direction of Mirador, accompanied by his mother and brother, he saw two girls in shorts on a hill near the mountain range. His younger brother Rodrigo G., who, like his mother Victoria T., also observed the girls at the same place, adds during his questioning that the paddock where the girls were walking belongs to a Señora U. He also says that he has never seen a person there before. Astonished, the family assumes that the girls would come to meet them to walk back to Boquete, as there are usually no hikers on the trail at this time of day. But no one comes to meet them, and the girls disappear. Unlike Lazaro, the brothers say that they did not see the man with the girls. Keni explains that the strangers could only have gone one of three ways. Either towards them, in the opposite direction up to the summit, or eastwards to M.’s estate. The mother, Victoria, is not questioned at all, but on the same day at 4:30 p.m., a total of nine investigators from the Personería and the SDIJ visit M.’s property."
* Dave M: "'Keni explains that the strangers could only have gone one of three ways. Either towards them, in the opposite direction up to the summit, or eastwards to M.’s estate.' - Very interesting witness account this. I can't quite get a grip on this Paddock they were seen on, it seems to be on the Boquete side? And given the two phones are switched off before 18:00 PM, it is tempting to think this possible sighting is indeed Kris and Lisanne. But 18:00 PM? Where would they have been for the last three to four hours...? And since sunset was no more than an hour away, where could they have been headed?
Guide F. knows the trail, he knows where the houses are and therefore who might have seen something. He doesn't however have any real reason to think Kris and Lisanne went on this trail. All of his argument comes down to what Eileen supposedly saw and heard, and this search history on a computer. So him being so confident right away that Kris and Lisanne set foot on the Pianista trail is quite an extraordinary belief within this context. It's only the camera that shows in June that the two friends did indeed walk this trail. But in that first week of April, there shouldn't be any way at all that he could be so sure that the two set out for this trail, or indeed that they had set out on any hike at all...! But somehow, he Knows.
- Mr Lazaro said he saw young female tourists around 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday the 1st.* Dave M: "This was the belief at the time obviously, Wildxplorer confirmed this was what was being reported in the news, and what he himself was initially working off when he went on the trail himself..."
- Mr Lazaro stated: “The only thing I remember is that they were tall, with fair skin, and one was wearing shorts. I don't remember the other one.” “I think the shorts were cream-colored, that's what I remember.”
* Dave M: "The shorts people are reporting are an interesting point, I think. We can see that Kris and Lisanne do wear shorts while in Bocas - but given Boquete was cooler than Bocas, they seem to have switched to pants (Sunday) and only when this offer of a hike out of town arrives, do they switch to shorts again."
* Scarlet: On Tuesday if was reported to have been warm and sunny. I forgot how many degrees, but 24 to 26 degrees Celsius up in the mountains near Boquete is what I read somewhere. Those are considered peek summer temperatures in the Netherlands (even when the sun is out and it is 15 degrees Celsius, the Dutch tend to already walk outside in t-shirts and soak up the sun on cafe terraces). So in that respect, their clothing makes sense. But apparently the shorts and the tank tops did not make sense for a Pianista hike, as several witnesses mentioned this and commented on how inappropriate their clothing was for the jungle. If only from a practical point of view. If they all mentioned those shorts, then perhaps this was unusual to them? But going through Guide P's many tourist photos online, I do get the impression that other tourists also went up the Pianista in shorts and t-shirts on sunny days.. It can't have been that rare. But were there other female duo's in shorts hiking up the Pianista on April 1, 2014? Unlikely. Their clothing choices and not bringing extra clothes with them, seem to indicate that they just wanted to hike up the Mirador and then turn back. Given their interest in waterfalls (vocalized towards Marjolein on Sunday and confirmed by their parents), they may have been told by Guide F. or somebody else beforehand that there was a small waterfall to be seen after the Mirador? The hidden waterfall is also somewhere in that region, they may have been lured to there as well? Or they simply had the energy to venture a bit further, by 13.15 PM.* Dave M: "It's still a little odd how no one knew what they were wearing this day. It are all either vague descriptions, or outright false descriptions!"
* Scarlet: Guide P. is friends or at least friendly with Lazaro. There are photos on his social media, chilling at his hut. So Guide P. came up with the cream coloured long and short trousers when he had to describe the clothes of the two young, female, European-looking tourists who he passed. And Lazaro also saw them, was also out that Tuesday and gives the same detail about cream colored shorts. Either these were two completely different European hikers with cream coloured pants on the trail that morning, or he and Guide P. agreed to give the same clothing description? Distancing themselves immediately from all this, by turning themselves into unreliable witnesses? In any case; all of these witnesses remain a problem in this case.
A photo of Ivan Batista on the Mirador, with Guide P. also present. Some people think he was mocking Kris here and her pose in her own Mirador photo.
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April 7, 2014
AFFIDAVIT OF WAITER EDWIN OMAR
AFFIDAVIT OF MR. EDWIN OMAR S.M.
Mr. Edwin Omar S.M. was interviewed and gave a sworn statement on Monday April 7, 2014, at 15:00 PM. He was read Article 385 of the Penal Code, he agreed to tell the truth regarding the questions asked and to make a statement. He declared to be 47 years old at that time. He stated not to know the young women Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers. He heard about their disappearance, but said not to know any details. He also saw a flyer for the missing women outside his establishment. Edwin Omar was asked: “Please state whether you own a restaurant in this area.” He replied: “YES; it’s called Neybis Restaurant and is located on the street behind the Lirio del Valle church.” [Scarlet: this is probably a typo and needs to be Nelvis Restaurant]. When asked if the young women appearing in that missing person's flyer had ever come to his restaurant, Edwin Omar replied: “They look similar to some young women I served about a week ago, but since it's a busy place and so many people come in, I think they were at one of the tables outside the restaurant, and that’s where I served them.”
“They look similar to some young women I served about a week ago”
When he was asked whether those people who resemble the images in the flyer spoke Spanish, Edwin Omar replied: “Not very well, but they understood me.” He denied that the young women were accompanied by anyone else: “No, the two of them were alone.” “I haven’t seen them since.” Edwin Omar was lastly asked: “Please state whether the young women you mentioned, who you served at your establishment and who resemble those in the image, ever mentioned to you that they were interested in visiting any specific place in this district?” He replied: “No, nothing of the sort.”
In LITJ, the authors claim that Ewin S, as they call him, served Kris and Lisanne on the terrace of Restaurant Nelvis. Nelvis is the cook. He saw them at breakfast at one of the tables outside the building. One of the girls was wearing shorts. One was about 63 inches and the other taller. LITJ claims that Edwin remembered specifically the reddish hair of Kris. “Although in my opinion many European women look alike. But Kris in particular was very recognizable with her reddish hair.” Edwin Omar S.M. is the cook at Nelvis, they write. They claim that Edwin remembered a short conversation he had with the young women and that they told him that “they wanted to hike to the mountain”. Edwin said that he was as good as certain that he served Kris and Lisanne that morning, and he claimed to have told police the same thing.
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- Edwin Omar S.M. said: “I served about a week ago.”* Dave M: "So this Edwin works in Nelvis? Or is the owner. And this is April 7th he is speaking on... From what he says here, he isn't the person who triggered that Facebook police request of a sighting of the two having breakfast there with two young men. And yet he is still basically saying that, yes, he saw the two sat outside his venue. What is strange here is that, as with Eileen, Cubilla doesn't press on and does not ask obvious and vital questions such as:
- What time was this
- What were the two wearing?
- What were the two wearing?
- How long were they there for?
- Were there any other witnesses who saw the two?
It does seem that this interview with Edwin is separate from the Press release of the sighting of Kris and Lisanne with two young men. So while the two accounts are separate, they DO actually match!"
- Edwin Omar S.M. said: “They look similar to some young women I served about a week ago, but since it's a busy place and so many people come in.”
* Dave M: "Do they? It's a very small place, with three very small tables outside, with maybe six seats. This place is tiny. I have the suspicion he isn't being honest here? It's interesting when you look at the pictures of Nelvis and see just how small those tables and the outer patio is. If you can only seat six people there at best, and Lisanne and Kris were supposedly seen sat there with two men... You have to ask yourself whether Edwin here knew full well who these two men were. And this is why he is keeping shut?"
-"In Panama, the police are looking for two boys who are said to have had lunch with the Dutch women who have been missing for more than a week. The four would have eaten at restaurant Nelvis in the city of Boquete on the day before the disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon."
-Another witness also stated (s)he saw that the girls were approached by two local men there while they had a cup of coffee.
-In a Dutch newspaper article it was written that "Missing friends Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon were allegedly approached by two unknown young men on March 31 while they were having lunch in the Nelvis restaurant in Boquete."
-Following this tip-off, three employees of the restaurant were questioned by the police in Boquete on April 7. They claim that two girls had consumed coffee, sausages, and pastries at the restaurant between 08.30 and 09.30 AM. The employees only describe them as "white" or "similar to those in the photo," with no concrete evidence that they were Kris and Lisanne. The owner of the restaurant in question does not believe that he saw Kris and Lisanne eating in the presence of men, however. "I'm almost certain that I saw them sitting here on the terrace," he told Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf. "And I can explain that they sat alone and had a cup of coffee and then left."
-Nelvis restaurant was also mentioned in April of 2014 on local Boquete forum 'Boquete Ning': People witnessed Kris and Lisanne having lunch there with "two Costa Rican boys". "A person who preferred to reserve his name approached and said that the girls looked like good people and that the friendship they established with two boys from Costa Rica was remarkable. "Hopefully they have run away with the boys and nothing bad has happened to them," he said.
-In another witness statement, Kris and Lisanne were seen having brunch and not breakfast with two young men, before embarking on the trail.
-A traveller wrote about two other men that the girls had met on her blog: "In April my Spanish teacher told me that two young women had gone missing from the sister school in Boquete, Panama. They had left all of their belongings, and not told anyone where they were going that day. The last anyone saw of them they were talking to two strange men, making plans to see the waterfall."
-And then there was witness Vega Moises, who says he saw Kris and Lisanne on Sunday and Monday at Cafe Bistro. Serving the two friends on the Sunday at around noon. And yet the next day, on Monday at around noon, he somehow saw them walking through a park towards Romero supermarket. "They were in a great hurry, one of them had a phone in her hand"
* Dave M: "April 7th and the Police take this interview, and simultaneously release a call for help in the media, with a witness having sighted Kris and Lisanne with two men at Nelvis - But they don't even press waiter/owner Edwin S. hard on any of this? That same day. This is yet another example of how nothing was being cross-checked. And things were not being followed up on."
* Scarlet: “I served them about a week ago”, Edwin declared on Monday April 7th.
It is very well possible that Edwin remembered to have seen them at Nelvis on Tuesday morning, therefore. Or on Monday morning March the 31st of course.. We also know through LITJ that the online internet surfing by Lisanne, covered in the NFI file, was that morning (in part) taking place at Nelvis. “Until 10:16 AM, Kris and Lisanne were on the Internet via the Wi-Fi of Nelvis. Lisanne is briefly on Facebook and looks at the Dutch news app (NOS). Then she opens Google Maps and downloads a map for offline use. The NFI report doesn't reveal what exactly she is downloading, but we consider it very probable that it was the map of Sendero el Pianista. At 10:26 AM the last Wi-Fi contact at Nelvis is registered, shortly after, Kris and Lisanne settle their bill and leave. They grab a cab to Il Pianista restaurant to start their trip a little after eleven.” But on page 250 of the ebook version of LITJ the authors suddenly write that Kris and Lisanne were at Nelvis between 08.30 and 09.30 AM (?). An hour difference suddenly with what they stated on page 192.
* Scarlet: “I served them about a week ago”, Edwin declared on Monday April 7th.
It is very well possible that Edwin remembered to have seen them at Nelvis on Tuesday morning, therefore. Or on Monday morning March the 31st of course.. We also know through LITJ that the online internet surfing by Lisanne, covered in the NFI file, was that morning (in part) taking place at Nelvis. “Until 10:16 AM, Kris and Lisanne were on the Internet via the Wi-Fi of Nelvis. Lisanne is briefly on Facebook and looks at the Dutch news app (NOS). Then she opens Google Maps and downloads a map for offline use. The NFI report doesn't reveal what exactly she is downloading, but we consider it very probable that it was the map of Sendero el Pianista. At 10:26 AM the last Wi-Fi contact at Nelvis is registered, shortly after, Kris and Lisanne settle their bill and leave. They grab a cab to Il Pianista restaurant to start their trip a little after eleven.” But on page 250 of the ebook version of LITJ the authors suddenly write that Kris and Lisanne were at Nelvis between 08.30 and 09.30 AM (?). An hour difference suddenly with what they stated on page 192.
* Dave M: "'Another witness also stated (s)he saw that the girls were approached by two local men while they had a cup of coffee'. - The 'coffee' seems a consistent point in these statements. I tend to doubt Nelvis was a busy place, as there isn't the seating outside to prove it, and Los Establos has cafe's that would be much more up-market. On the other hand though, there are businesses like a garage and that Pool bar very close by, catering to people who would find Nelvis very convenient. Still, I wonder if Edwin Omar S says one thing in his statement, but his conscience makes him perhaps contact the police anonymously later on? As he knows the '13:00 PM afternoon set-out' story that is being pumped out in the media and around town is completely wrong? It seems to me that whoever contacted the police here, did so as they knew the truth. I can imagine Edwin from Nelvis looking at the news, seeing how everyone was being told the two set off in the 'afternoon', and he is the only one who knows what actually went on, and quite likely he knows who was probably involved as well, as they were sat there with the two friends... reportedly."
* Scarlet: I vaguely remember that SbtR recommended Nelvis to its students, or had a flyer or something like that. Otherwise, why would Kris and Lisanne opt to go there for a drink or snack? As you say, it is not the nicest environment, not the swankiest cafe, not on the main street per se. But it is close to the pool hall and maybe they were told by Guide F. to wait for H. thére? To take them on a hike to the Pianista? But he never showed up. That's perhaps why they waited for some time at Nelvis, instead opting to then order a taxi and hike the trail themselves?
* Scarlet: Perhaps Martin's theory about them having met the Pandilla already on Boquete's town square at an earlier moment in time, does hold some truth? By the way, there was also the anonymous phone call made to police in May, about two bodies having been spotted in the Pianista backlands. And when investigators went to the spot, those bodies were nowhere to be found. The anonymous caller was never identified, as far as I know. Never made a claim for the reward money that was made available. Just to say that there were anonymous phone calls made to police regarding these missing Dutch girls. Same for that anonymous informant who clung to the two officers in David, informing them about Murgas.
Nelvis back then and now:
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TRYING TO WRAP IT ALL UP
DEDUCTIONI believe Guide F. indeed went back to the school. Went back, because we now know from Yaileth that the girls were still at Miriam's place on Tuesday morning at 07:45 AM. And we know from Marjolein that she left SbtR at 07:00 AM; and we know from Guide F's affidavit that HE brought Marjolein to David. So the only possible consequence is that he drove back to SbtR after his pinky finger cast treatment in David in order to be able to see Kris and Lisanne there 'in the morning', as he stated under oath. And he may have done so because Marjolein told him in the car about the trouble she'd been through the day prior trying to get them replacement work. Eileen also called him about this same subject on the phone (as was also declared in Guide F's affidavit), apparently while he was still in the hospital. So he knew that they had no replacement work, and that they had a lot of time to kill that week. So in my theory, he went back to sell them tours, starting right that minute, to the Pianista. Adelita Coriat wrote that Guide F. had worked behind the Pianista trail on his cattle that Tuesday afternoon. If true, it means he had different plans for that day. Hence: H. was called in? It would have been an impromptu thing. The timeline as we now know it implies it was an improvised opportunity. His son H. may have been promised to them, before F. actually broke the news to his moody son. This may explain why the girls could have already headed to Nelvis or been dropped off at Nelvis, only to kill time there, going by their phone records. Checking the online Dutch news, social media, toggling with Google Maps. Waiting. And ultimately taking a taxi themselves to the trailhead. It is of course also possible that it was Kris and Lisanne's own initiative to sit around at Nelvis, but they had already eaten breakfast at Miriam's place two hours earlier, and they could have headed to the Pianista earlier, instead of hanging around at Nelvis for ... what exactly? They were seen with two young men at Nelvis by various witnesses, so for now, I am working with the assumption that they were indeed at Nelvis that morning and they were waiting for someone.
CAFE NELVISI vaguely remember that Spanish by the River recommended Cafe Nelvis to its students, or had a flyer for it. We know from LITJ that Kris and Lisanne's phones made contact with the Wi-Fi of Cafe Nelvis at 10:16 AM. Lisanne's Samsung phone last made contact there at 10:26 AM, according to LITJ, which was co-written by former prosecutor Betzaida Pittí herself. Meaning those authors probably had prime access to case files and sources. The NFI file does not specify where these Wi-Fi connections were made, which is a major failure of the NFI employee, in my opinion. But it should be noted here that the NFI report does systematically mention 'SbtR' when the Wi-Fi login took place at the language school. Whereas in this case, it only states 'unspecified location'. This makes it indeed more likely that this 10:16 - 10:26 AM Wi-Fi use was not at the language school (or the NFI guy would have specified this, you'd think, as he did systematically for SbtR). - LITJ claims about Cafe Nelvis that Kris and Lisanne surfed the internet there between roughly 10:00 and 10:26 AM on Nelvis’ Wi-Fi. The cook of Nelvis said he saw Kris and Lisanne sitting on the terrace. He declared under oath on Monday April 7th that this happened roughly a week ago, possibly matching the morning of April 1st. Server Edwin also had a short conversation with the girls at that time, he later declared. They were alone and told him about their plans to ‘climb the mountain’. Police also interviewed various employees of Cafe Nelvis, with some even describing Kris’ striking strawberry blonde hair. Further supporting this Nelvis visit is a police announcement from early April, 2014: “In Panama, the police are looking for two boys who are said to have had lunch with the Dutch women who have been missing for more than a week. The four would have eaten at restaurant Nelvis in the city of Boquete on the day before the disappearance of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon.” Nelvis restaurant was also mentioned in April of 2014 on local Boquete forum 'Boquete Ning': People witnessed Kris and Lisanne having lunch there with "two Costa Rican boys". In another witness statement, Kris and Lisanne were seen having brunch and not breakfast at Nelvis with two young men, before embarking on the trail.
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CONNECTING THE STATEMENTSSo let's assume that it is correct to say that Kris and Lisanne were at Nelvis. They had first gone to SbtR around 09:00 AM. Just as Marjolein told them to (per her Letter). Eileen had been there and had tried to get them replacement work with Casa Esperanza, which failed. Guide F. was there, as he admitted in his own sworn statement to Betzaida Pitti (he saw the girls on Tuesday morning). Marjolein wrote in her Letter that she was picked up and brought to David on Tuesday morning at 07:00 AM. Marjolein also confirmed this by email later to the LITJ authors: she left the language school already at 07:00 AM to travel to Costa Rica (via David)... So even many years after the fact, Marjolein still sticks with this detail and there is no reason to doubt her on this point, in my view. Ingrid also doesn't dispute it, in fact: she confirms that Marjolein traveled to Costa Rica that morning. We now also know through Yaileth's affidavit that she heard the girls moving in their room that same Tuesday morning before she left the house at 07:45 AM. But she never saw them. So we know now that they stayed in their room that morning until the house was quiet. Lisanne's clock app confirms that they were set for a 09:00 AM visit of the language school. They physically couldn't have been at SbtR already at 07:00 AM. And so Guide F. couldn't have seen them on 'Tuesday morning' when he picked Marjolein up at the school by 07:00 AM. He drove to his hospital visit in David after dropping Marjolein off at the bus station in David. This must mean that on his way back to Boquete, after his quick hospital visit for a simple pinky cast, he stopped at the language school and that is when he spoke to the girls. In his later, second affidavit, he specified that he was back in Boquete by 13:00 PM. This can't be true then. Either he lied under oath in his first sworn statement when he said he saw Kris and Lisanne at SbtR 'in the morning'. Or he lied in his second sworn statement about returning from the hospital visit in the early afternoon. They can't both be true at the same time.
THE PIANISTA HIKEGuide F. knew that the girls had time to kill, because Marjolein had told him during the car ride about their issues with Aura and finding these girls replacement work. He would have asked how she was doing, and all Marjolein had been preoccupied with the day prior and that morning (according to her Letter), was finding replacement work for Kris and Lisanne and the stress of Maria Elena cancelling on them. So Guide F. would have sensed potential business with these Dutch girls. He likes European women, and he speaks a bit of Dutch. He was going to speak with them and maybe arrange some tours. He may have said to them: "Look, I have no time today as I have to tend to my cattle, but my son H. is about the same age as you and a very good tour guide. He will take you up the Pianista Trail". Because Kris and Lisanne were disappointed with all the schools, and wanted to turn things around and make something out of that week, they would be open to this suggestion. Monday had been miserable, with the exception of Sigrid's massage in the evening. According to Ingrid, who declared this under oath, they had various tours booked with Guide F., and she claimed to have the files to prove it.
THE LOCAL YOUTHAnd perhaps the girls had gone out on Monday evening and already met with H. and his local youth friends. That is what Martin O'Donnell has stated, as well as Osman Valenzuela. Kris and Lisanne were reportedly seen in 'Richard's' red pickup truck on Boquete's main square before April 1st already. Miriam and Yaileth admitted in their sworn statements that they both saw Kris and Lisanne for the last time on Monday during the day. The mobile phones of Kris and Lisanne were also not charged overnight, which leaves the option open that they weren't at home. I am not sure if there is any truth to Martin's claim that they consumed marijuana with the Pandilla, but Hans Kremers has declared in his April 9th affidavit that “Not only alcoholic beverages are permitted, but also marijuana. But my daughter did not use any of that, and I know very little about Lisanne.” Martin O'Donnell and some other witnesses also declared that Kris and Lisanne were at a party with the Pandilla, or seen in a discotheque. There is no hard evidence for this, but there is also no evidence discrediting it. The NFI focused primarily on April 1-11 and left big holes for the remaining days. We do not know where their phones were on Monday afternoon and there is a general lack of details and interest in the NFI file for the days leading up to the disappearance.
THE MEETING SPOT
In any case: Guide F. may have sold them a tour with H. If Martin's info is correct, then Kris and Lisanne were no strangers to H. and would have perhaps accepted his guiding services. They were instantly enthusiastic and immediately walked the five minutes back to Miriam's place in order to change clothes, put on their hiking boots and pack their backpack lightly. Miriam's son Amilcar saw them leave the house again, lightly dressed and with that one backpack. Is this when they headed to Nelvis? H. was known to help his father with guided tours, although he was only about 24 years old at the time and gets described in blogs by some tourists as moody and impatient. Guide F. may have called H. to go to Cafe Nelvis. We learnt through Murgas’ affidavit that the local pool hall was a hangout place for the Pandilla and for H. Cafe Nelvis is literally right around the corner. A mere few seconds' walk away. (It is also near one of the Sabrosón restaurants linked to his friend E.A. 'Richard'). The same pool hall where H. ran into Murgas, telling him about being in a pickle over having been the last one to see gringas before they disappeared. And maybe that's why Kris and Lisanne reportedly were at Cafe Nelvis around 10:15 AM? Because it was right around the corner of this hangout spot pool hall of the Pandilla, and thus a convenient place to meet up with (or be picked up by) H. Something which waiter Edwin seems to confirm, although he isn't specific enough about the date when he saw the girls at Nelvis. But he did see them there in the morning, sitting together at Nelvis' terrace. Making plans to hike the mountain. And his date estimation seems to line up with April 1st. So let's assume that Kris and Lisanne were truly sent there and were indeed seen there having a drink, downloading Google Maps. Scrolling online, checking the Dutch NOS news site. Waiting.. Would they have gone to that place by their own initiative? It is a small, green, unpretentious looking building. It isn't on the main street. It is not one of the more swanky cafés, like the Bistro they had visited on Sunday. But it is the type of joint where H. and his friends would go, near their beloved pool hall. So perhaps Kris and Lisanne were at Nelvis because they expected to see H. there, who would take them up the Pianista. Just a theory.
THE MEETING SPOTIn any case: Guide F. may have sold them a tour with H. If Martin's info is correct, then Kris and Lisanne were no strangers to H. and would have perhaps accepted his guiding services. They were instantly enthusiastic and immediately walked the five minutes back to Miriam's place in order to change clothes, put on their hiking boots and pack their backpack lightly. Miriam's son Amilcar saw them leave the house again, lightly dressed and with that one backpack. Is this when they headed to Nelvis? H. was known to help his father with guided tours, although he was only about 24 years old at the time and gets described in blogs by some tourists as moody and impatient. Guide F. may have called H. to go to Cafe Nelvis. We learnt through Murgas’ affidavit that the local pool hall was a hangout place for the Pandilla and for H. Cafe Nelvis is literally right around the corner. A mere few seconds' walk away. (It is also near one of the Sabrosón restaurants linked to his friend E.A. 'Richard'). The same pool hall where H. ran into Murgas, telling him about being in a pickle over having been the last one to see gringas before they disappeared. And maybe that's why Kris and Lisanne reportedly were at Cafe Nelvis around 10:15 AM? Because it was right around the corner of this hangout spot pool hall of the Pandilla, and thus a convenient place to meet up with (or be picked up by) H. Something which waiter Edwin seems to confirm, although he isn't specific enough about the date when he saw the girls at Nelvis. But he did see them there in the morning, sitting together at Nelvis' terrace. Making plans to hike the mountain. And his date estimation seems to line up with April 1st. So let's assume that Kris and Lisanne were truly sent there and were indeed seen there having a drink, downloading Google Maps. Scrolling online, checking the Dutch NOS news site. Waiting.. Would they have gone to that place by their own initiative? It is a small, green, unpretentious looking building. It isn't on the main street. It is not one of the more swanky cafés, like the Bistro they had visited on Sunday. But it is the type of joint where H. and his friends would go, near their beloved pool hall. So perhaps Kris and Lisanne were at Nelvis because they expected to see H. there, who would take them up the Pianista. Just a theory.
THE LONG WAITH. was probably just awake when his father called him with this tour opportunity. He may have been grumpy. He may not have wanted to get out of bed yet, after a night of partying. Or he may have been late at Nelvis. Or he may not have appeared at all. Is that why Kris and Lisanne waited for some time at Nelvis? They couldn't have been there simply because they were hungry, as Miriam confirmed that she left them breakfast on the table by 08:00, which they consumed. So they waited, maybe had a coffee. Some witnesses later claimed they had seen the two young women at Nelvis with two other men. Others said they were seen there alone. Who knows what the truth is. But it is most likely, in my view, that Kris and Lisanne eventually, after half an hour of waiting, decided that it was taking a bit too long and that they would make their way to the trailhead alone, opting to order a taxi (as confirmed under oath by two taxi drivers, no less). Seemingly deciding to hike the trail themselves. Kris and Lisanne did go up the Pianista by themselves, because their photos prove this. Guide P. also seems to confirm this, as do witnesses like Martina and Mr Lazaro.
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THE TAXI DRIVERBut the taxi drivers both gave incorrect statements to police. Humberto G. declared at an early stage of the investigation to Sinaproc and to police that he picked up two European girls (believed to be Kris and Lisanne) at 13.15 PM and drove them to the start of the Pianista trail, where they said they wanted to go. However, he wasn't talking about April 1st, but about March 31st. And taxi driver Leonardo claimed to police on April 11th that he picked the girls up on April 1st between 13.10 and 13.20 PM on the way from Alto Boquete to Bajo Boquete. But he initially didn't want to give any statement to police, unless there was security. "Because I know if I talk, they will kill me". Leonardo the taxi driver also went back to police to change his sworn statement. Jeremy Kryt insinuated that he was stopped and questioned by the Pandilla on the way back from the Pianista trailhead, that Tuesday morning. And that he told them where he let the girls out of the taxi. But he may also have known that the girls spoke with H. at Nelvis if that is the spot where he (perhaps) picked them up? To drive them to that trailhead? He may have known something quite significant, to warrant his anxiety about talking to police and going back to them to change his initial statement. Because on April 24, Leonardo confessed to the criminal investigation department that he had not told them the full truth in his first affidavit. Leonardo testified now that when the girls got in the taxi, there were already two other men inside the car. A fact that he had previously concealed. He had let the men out in the center of Boquete at the Danka pharmacy on the edge of Domingo Médica Park, before driving with Kris and Lisanne to the entrance of the trail. And also interesting: once he voluntarily gave police a second sworn statement, he introduced the... same stranger that Guide P. and Mr. Lazaro had spontaneously told police about. Leonardo now said that at the trailhead, he noticed "a conspicuous foreigner, about 60 years old, wearing strange medical glasses". How convenient. Unfortunately, the taxi driver did turn up dead almost exactly a year later, on March 2nd 2015. I do not consider it impossible that Leonardo was concealing something to police and that he perhaps saw who went after Kris and Lisanne on the Pianista trail on April 1st.
THE PURSUIT
THE PHONE LOGS SAY NO* Power-Pixie: "The elephant in the room is the phone logs and cell tower pings. You can't have selective pings from towers just because we need to have a theory workout. If they went to this party on Monday where they met this Pandilla, supposedly, it most definitely had to be before April 1. Why? It is the information that was ignored by the NFI. While they do seem to mention phone data information for Monday and Tuesday, they do not seem to focus on cell tower pings in depth. As far as I understand, they also do not provide any information for Sunday. Perhaps because they assumed the two were fine and so there was nothing to look at. Or maybe the NFI was asked to leave it out entirely."
* Scarlet: "True. The NFI guy did not mention any GSM connections or tracks for Monday and Sunday."
* Power-Pixie: "Cell tower pings suggest a change in service location, for example a cell tower serving downtown Boquete would not really inform the NFI they moved around downtown Boquete much, unless they honed in on the specific routers where they connected to. However, if they went to the Caldera, yes it would be obvious if their phones switched from Boquete cell tower to a Caldera cell tower." "So what were the two phones doing on Monday between 13:13pm - 16:44pm? What was Lisanne's phone doing that whole morning until 13:13pm? Where are the local cell tower pings and once pinged, what time is the established ping to the cell tower maintained until? Same questions for Sunday. So this party, if it took place before April 1, there should be an established ping set at a particular time. If it changes towers, say, from the local tower serving Miriam/SbtR/Sigrid's place to somewhere in Palo Alto/Jaramillo/Alto Quiel, then a handshake would be established and that tower is locked and logged until it changes towers again, assuming they both had turned on their phones on Sunday. Did they? What evidence is there that they did have their phones turned on Sunday? Did they connect to the SbtR Wi-Fi on Sunday? Or to any other Wi-Fi for that matter for the same day? So, Sunday and Monday are possibilities to me for this supposed party. The main reasons being:
-Their phones could have been turned off, and nothing was logged for this time, or...
-Their phones were turned on, but locked on to the closest local cell tower, which means then the location of this supposed party was also within the vicinity of the cell tower serving the area.
As for Tuesday, I don't think this party was deep in the jungle on April 1, but them being lured to this party when the gang intercepted them on April 1 on the Mirador or River 1 holds a stronger reason why they initially and reluctantly may have gone with the gang. Not at knife-point in my opinion, as their actions or inaction or reaction seems to align with someone they met that they felt familiar enough to briefly trust.
* Scarlet: For Tuesday, there is indeed no cell data as both phones were inexplicably powered off before 18:00 PM.. Kris left her phone powered on overnight between Monday evening and Tuesday morning, but without charging the phone, or using it. Could this indicate they were out the house? Or simply that she forgot to charge her phone while sleeping? The iPhone was used until 19:07 PM on Monday. Then the iPhone was locked and no longer switched on or used until 11:07 AM the next day, so April 1st. And the Samsung phone wasn't charged overnight either between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. The Samsung had 64% battery by 00:40 AM and drained to 60% by 08:10 AM. Why wouldn't they charge their phones during sleep? Maybe because they weren't at home? Same for the night prior, Sunday evening to Monday morning. The Samsung phone was not charged then either. It was put on a charger at 09:11 AM on Monday morning. Battery level of the Samsung phone was at 16% by 0:03 AM local Panamanian time. By 08:40 AM the Samsung battery had drained to 13%. I know, not very fitting evidence for this, but maybe a window of opportunity? Considering this persistent rumour about them having met E. and H. at a party. It would then have either had to be a party in the vicinity of Miriam's place (so that the NFI guy never spotted it), or the NFI guy just didn't log those details, for whatever reason (deeming them irrelevant for instance, since Kris and Lisanne were seen at SbtR again the next morning, or was asked by Pittí not to include it?). * Power-Pixie: "We have to ask ourselves then... when do people like Kris and Lisanne sometimes forget to charge their phones on TWO nights in a row? Possible scenarios could be:
- When they are not sleeping where they normally sleep.
- When they are with other people doing unplanned activities.
- When they are distracted or emotionally shaken.
- When they do not have access to their chargers.
- When they are afraid.
- When they are in an environment where phone use is inappropriate.
- When they are with men they do not want to reveal their home location to.
- When they are attending a party, gathering or meeting.
So Sunday seems like a likely evening or night they may have been out and about town or attended this gathering somewhere. I doubt it would have been somewhere remote, but a place in or closer to town that would not scare Kris and Lisanne or make them feel uneasy. This carries more weight towards H. talking up tours and boasting what he and his father do in town, as opposed to Jeremy's rumored Drinks, Drugs and a Murder At Cuervo's. Sunday also favors why the NFI ignored Sunday's cell tower pings. They were either instructed to ignore this or leave it out of the final abbreviated analysis report thinking no one would notice, or they weren't looking for anything out of the ordinary since the disappearance fixated on the timeline of 13:00 PM initially. And then the photos and phone logs revealed the two had been on the trail hours before."
* Scarlet: And a Monday evening outing is also possible when we take into account the sworn statements of Miriam and Yaileth. Going off her interview under oath, Miriam appears to tell the truth on April 4: "I received them on Saturday at four in the afternoon (4:00 p.m.), I saw them until Monday afternoon, it was the last day that I saw them because I didn’t see them on Tuesday." And Yaileth also stated under oath that she did not see them after Monday morning (quote taken from her April 22 interview): "On Monday, 31 March of this year [..] was the last day I saw them. They said good morning to me, and I told them that breakfast was on the table and asked them if they were going to let anyone know where they were going, and they said they didn't know. That was all. The next day, which was Tuesday the first, before leaving, I heard them inside their room because I could hear them moving things around, but I didn't see them that day. I left the house and locked up."
Power-Pixie: "This is the critical part of these two interviews of Yaileth and Miriam; that neither of them while in the house actually saw Kris and Lisanne after Monday morning. Another point I refer you to is Sigrid, who in her chat communication has stated: "They returned to the family they stayed with afterwards and spent the night there. They even wrote in their diary… and this diary was in the room…" - This is not an observation nor firsthand knowledge. It comes off as a conclusion which she formed later, most likely based on what she was told or believed back in 2014. What stands out is that Sigrid gives ZERO concrete evidence about the two actually directly returning to Miriam's house. So, yes it is quite possible Kris and Lisanne first went out after their massage."The mobile phones were - quite inexplicably - powered off shortly before 6 PM. What if the group did so before reaching a zone with cell reception again? Both phones wouldn't be powered on until the next morning. That leaves an entire evening and night of powered off phones. They could have been anywhere then.
* Scarlet: "So going by all this, we can safely propose the theory that Kris and Lisanne may have been out of the house on Monday evening. Yaileth heard them in their room on Tuesday morning, but nobody seems to know what time Kris and Lisanne came home on Monday evening or on Tuesday morning. Sigrid could only confirm with certainty that Kris and Lisanne were at her massage parlour in the late afternoon/early evening (although she didn't give a specific time in that chat). I agree that her stating they went home afterwards is just a deduction by her, by which she probably meant to say that they didn't go missing at that point, as they were seen at the school the next morning and went on their hike. - So let's say then that on Sunday and/or Monday, Kris and Lisanne may have had an interaction or even a party of sorts with the Pandilla. They were also seen in that red pickup truck of E. by multiple witnesses (also Vivian for instance). This may be linked. They may have hung out with them, smoking weed, for instance. What such an event serves as is an opportunity for Kris and Lisanne to get acquainted with H. and E. and friends. By the time they were intercepted at/behind the Mirador, they would still have been spooked most likely, but they already knew those guys, so it is more plausible then that they lured them somewhere under a promise and that Kris and Lisanne agreed. They voluntarily but apprehensively moved along then. This leaves the question of where they were taken. As Power-Pixie explained: "If they went to the Caldera, yes it would be obvious that their phones would have switched from Boquete to a Caldera cell tower." Wouldn't their phones have switched to a Palo Alto cell tower then? People online have mentioned Faraday bags, but isn't it more simple than that? The mobile phones were - quite inexplicably - powered off shortly before 6 PM. What if the group did so before reaching a zone with cell reception? Both phones wouldn't be powered on until the next morning. That leaves an entire evening and night of powered off phones. They could have been anywhere then. The next morning, both phones were very shortly powered on and off in order to try to call 112/911, but this was definitely done in a place without cell reception. I understand that some sleuths definitely want this place to be behind the Mirador, in a hidden stream or down a ravine, but it may just as well have been done by a 3rd party in a cellar. Or on private property near Alto Romero, just to name some place.
Some people seem desperate to believe that Kris and Lisanne just kept walking by themselves after taking photo 508. Because they supposedly thought the trail was a loop. This, despite the fact that all the information available to them at the time was telling them otherwise. I think this is a total red herring and a narrative that those insisting on a 'Lost' scenario are stubbornly holding onto. But there is no evidence whatsoever that Kris and Lisanne believed the trail was a loop. Quite the opposite: there is a lot of evidence that they were told, read, or knew that the trail DIDN'T loop. Marjolein told them explicitly so on Sunday, going by her detailed Letter to Ingrid. I see no reason not to believe Marjolein on this. All Ingrid's tourists were given such a welcome and introduction talk. It was standard business to tell newcomers about the most popular tours in the area, and to take Guide F. as a guide, and tips and warnings. Ingrid said in her own sworn statement: “Yes, maps were given and a talk was given on Sunday about places to visit.” We know from their parents that Kris and Lisanne were interested in the Pianista trail. Their last searches on the school computer were about the Pianista trail. They heard the info from Marjolein (don't hike the Pianista without a guide and you have to come back the same way you go up, by the same trail). Lisanne downloaded Google Maps about 45 minutes before they hiked up the trail. She last checked it on the Mirador (and never again was Google Maps activated after that point!). They even took a photo on the Mirador of Boquete down in the distance. It is pure fantasy at this point, I believe, to still hold onto the theory that both girls thought they could just walk on and on in order to get back to Boquete. And the main motive to stubbornly do so, against all logic, is because someone needs a motive for them to 'get lost'.
- I don't think the girls were intercepted literally on the Mirador. I believe it happened around the first stream, where they took their last daytime photos. So this means they would have had to come to their own decision to continue walking after reaching the Mirador. What could have been their motive to do so? Given their interest in waterfalls, they may have been told by Guide F. that there was a small waterfall to be seen after the Mirador (the second stream, which they never photographed). The hidden waterfall is also somewhere in that region, and they may have been lured there as well. Or they simply had the energy to continue a bit further, by 13.15 PM.
EVIDENCE
* Dave M: "I have occasionally wondered on whether one of these ghouls would have photographed the bodies possibly, or whether there would be texts and messages passing between them that week, as the fallout began. Going by what we heard from Margarita and Murgas, would such evidence still exist today? After more than ten years now, this all seems unlikely... I don't know what the law is in Panama for example, but when the police investigated Osman's death and knew this gang was possibly involved, why were there no checks done on their phone contents? Then again, Boquete holds its dirty secrets very well. It still seems incredible no one had heard the rumours going around the town until the Podcast of Jeremy Kryt. They kept it all very close to themselves, and it may be that on some old phone or computer, there is still some evidence to be found from these people involved...".It is bewildering that they did bring in Murgas, but then did nothing with the leads he provided.
* Scarlet: Nowadays younger people seem to record everything, every beating or fatal machete attack in the street, and throw it online. But 12 years ago that practice may not have been as common? And the people who were reportedly (just a theory!) present at that house of Cuervo, or wherever else these girls could have been taken, may have been too afraid to record anything. I remember that Osman's phone was taken by police and that his mother never got it back. That swimming photo was reportedly found on his phone, but this may be misinformation. But if there were THAT many people involved and present during this reported killing and its aftermath, wouldn't there be someone who took photos at least? Wouldn't there have been text messages talking about the event and the fallout and how to deal with Osman for instance? But H. wasn't even called in for a sworn statement, as far as I can tell. Neither was E. Their phones were not read out by police. It is bewildering that they did bring in Murgas, but then did nothing with the leads he provided. Pitti just wouldn't have it. Just like Guide F's movements were never verified by his phone activity and movement. But indeed, those phones should have been read out and investigated. Rumour-wise, they are not new, there were rumours coming out of Boquete. Poekje wrote about this in August of 2014 already on the Dutch FOK forum, as he had a source in Boquete. Kryt already heard and wrote about snippets of it back in 2016. I have been contacted by various people from Boquete early on, about them having overheard H. and E. bragging in a bar that they were the last to have seen the Dutch girls alive. This was not entirely new therefore, but Jeremy Kryt had a massive scoop with Margarita's interview and he brought a lot of new details and theories to the table. And now these affidavits confirm Kryt's info to be more than mere unfounded gossip and rumours. And they confirm that this was truly what was going round Boquete at the time.
THE PITTÍ PROBLEM
THE ALTERNATIVE Kris and Lisanne were at the Mirador around 13:00 and had plenty of energy in the tank still to explore some more. I still don't believe in the loop theory, so in my book they then kept walking and for unknown reasons, Lisanne stopped taking photos after #508. I also don't believe in a very short-lived, convenient camera malfunction, only for photo #509, but if foul play or a malicious public prosecutor are out of the question, there must have been a rare camera glitch. With the camera recovering in time for the pristine night photos to be taken by April 8th. So Kris and Lisanne just kept walking on and on, until the monkey bridges. Which is when they had some energy left and both walked on them, only to fall and injure themselves. They then managed to avoid running into anyone else for 11 days, despite this being a frequently used route for locals, so they must have decided to get away from that main route and those monkey bridges, instead hiding further from the beaten track for some reason.
They chose to save their phones' batteries after two paltry 112 phone call attempts, instead opting to power both phones off for the duration of that first evening and night. They believed two attempts were enough, and that their location at that moment in time would not allow for a sudden cell reception. Then during the second night, Lisanne left her phone powered on (it had still 18% battery by then), and even checked the AccuWeather арр at 02:21 AM. But the phone was not powered off, despite having been on for 10 hours and 2 minutes straight at that point, and the battery level being at 5%. Then at 02:46 AM, applications of the Android OS were used for 41 seconds (not specified by the NFI which ones). At 02:47 AM an Android app launcher was started and it kept running until 07:36 AM. The Samsung phone had 1% battery left by 07:20 AM, rendering it useless from then on. Lisanne knew her phone was running out of battery, but she had stopped caring about battery savings, suddenly. So while this may look like a very deliberate action to render the Samsung phone useless, Lisanne just didn't want to fret about her own phone, while the iPhone of Kris had better battery life, and so they decided to focus purely on the iPhone from then on (using it only to check for a signal until April 5th). Kris and Lisanne didn't want to worry their parents, so despite being in a frightening and precarious situation, weakening by the day, they opted not to leave any draft messages behind, nor any video or audio recordings. Or explaining in any other manner what had happened to them. This may be a common thing for women especially to do, knowing the pain for loved ones of never knowing what happened, but the girls wanted to stay positive and simply didn't give in to any sentimentality, Lisanne may have sounded sentimental and emotional and homesick in her diary entries in Boquete, but once the going got really tough, an almost subhuman strength and discipline came over her. They also didn't try to send a text message, in case their phones had spotty reception at some point in time. In fact: they never left their phones powered on long enough to even receive any hypothetical text messages from their loved ones.
By day 5, they no longer felt like entering the PIN code of the iPhone, or they were weakened and forgot the code. After April 6th, the girls didn't deem the iPhone useful anymore, and left it powered off. This is probably because they were still stuck in one place, both rendered immobile by now, and didn't think it was useful to keep powering on the iPhone, as there was no reception. They did have the strength by April 8th to take a 100 very sharp, very stable night photos with the Canon camera (which they otherwise had neglected). But by 04:11 AM they had enough of it and rather went to sleep, instead of waiting an extra hour or two for the sun to come up, allowing for a clear, well-lit picture of their surroundings. They didn't take those night photos as a form of documentation, but to flash potential search troops, of which we never received any confirmation that they were active in the jungle during the night. Not even by SINAPROC. That's why Lisanne chose not to take any photos that could help her loved ones or investigators identify where they were or in what state they were or even who took the photos.
Kris and Lisanne were also very humble when it came to bothering the emergency services, despite their precarious situation. They only ever tried to call the emergency number (or any number, for that matter) on six occasions in total, and never after the third day of their disappearance, so April 3rd, despite one of the girls still handling the iPhone by April 11th. By then, the girl handling that iPhone had been lost for eleven days, but still kept all her composure and decided not to attempt another 112/911 attempt (if it didn't go through on day 3, why bother on day 11, after all?). This, despite the iPhone still having 33% battery left by then. She didn't use it for anything else either, just stared at it and then powered the phone off for the last time after about an hour.
Kris and Lisanne were in tune with nature and the sun, so they managed to power up their phone quite religiously at or around specific times, sometimes dubbed 'office hour times', unfairly. By coincidence, the phones were typically powered on and off at repeating times such as 10:16, 10:52, 10:26 and 10:51. No call attempts at night. No phone use to activate its flashlight. They may have been stuck in some gorge place, but after their passing, their remains and their clothes did succeed to escape this spot. It is unclear how the jeans shorts ended up closer towards Boquete, or how the shoe ended up behind a tree near Alto Romero, or how only a couple of bones made it through rock-littered, bendy streams. Even though the few bones found, showed no signs of rock indentation marks under the microscope, nor evidence of predator animal involvement.
But this theory is considered more in line with Occam's razor according to some, than the theory of a coordinated, calculated attempt by a 3rd party to stage a Lost in the Jungle scenario. Because who in their right mind would power an iPhone on and off in a cellar for six whole days (they had to take a respite on April 7-10)? During office hours? Who would get drunk and shoot 100 random photos in the dark, purposely showing nothing but abstract shots that prove they were stuck and lost in the jungle? Who would try to make never-ending searches by the families stop, by planting a camera after 10 weeks, proving the girls got lost? I honestly don't want to sound cynical, but this is where this cold case has ended up now: two camps who quite bitterly try to mock the other side.
But this theory is considered more in line with Occam's razor according to some, than the theory of a coordinated, calculated attempt by a 3rd party to stage a Lost in the Jungle scenario. Because who in their right mind would power an iPhone on and off in a cellar for six whole days (they had to take a respite on April 7-10)? During office hours? Who would get drunk and shoot 100 random photos in the dark, purposely showing nothing but abstract shots that prove they were stuck and lost in the jungle? Who would try to make never-ending searches by the families stop, by planting a camera after 10 weeks, proving the girls got lost? I honestly don't want to sound cynical, but this is where this cold case has ended up now: two camps who quite bitterly try to mock the other side.
Lastly, another thing. Remember this May 2014 (Dutch newspaper) interview with Guide F? What still stands out for me is what he said about what he saw in the bedroom of Kris and Lisanne: “When the language school manager said the girls were gone, I was convinced they were lost. All their belongings were still at the host family's house where they were staying. I saw it myself; I went along when their room was checked. I saw the bags, identity documents, and the mobile phone. And they were last seen at the Pianista Trail, where you can go hiking.” - 'Identity documents and the mobile phone'. Kris and Lisanne had brought their mobile phones with them on the Pianista hike... It does not appear that there was a mobile phone in that bedroom.... Hans Kremers stated for instance in his April 9th affidavit, that Kris only brought the following technological devices with her to Panama: “She brought an iPhone to Panama, which is a device that has cameras and everything.” So no multiple phones.. Just her iPhone. And Yaileth stated under oath, when asked if she had ever seen Kris and Lisanne with electronic devices such as mobile phones, tablets, computers, etc: “Only Lisanne told me that she had a mobile phone like mine, and mine is a Samsung, model Ace Plus.” Lisanne also only brought her one mobile phone with her to Panama. Both carried one phone and both phones were with them when they disappeared. So not in their bedroom. I have always wondered if that was perhaps a slip up. Because he did actually see those phones, but not in their room? (Aka: is he involved in the kidnapping and its aftermath?). Same for 'identity documents': one was found on Lisanne herself. Maybe there were several other ID documents in that bedroom, but how did Guide F. see them all? If he only stood there in the doorway to verify if the girls were present or not? He went through their stuff.
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