The missing Dutch girls in Panama
part 3 - all the chronological photos and the diaries
part 3 - all the chronological photos and the diaries
October 11th 2019 - This is part 3 with the chronological photos and diaries of Kris and Lisanne. If you are new here, please start reading about the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne in my first blog post, here. And in part 6 you can read the most important interviews with the parents and families of Kris and Lisanne. - Sas asked me below one of my youtube videos about the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne: "Is there a website on which the readers here can see the official chronology of the Photos that were made by Kris and/or Lisanne? Which were taken with the phone, which with the digital camera and what are the times and days on which the pics were made..? Do you have a link to such a website for the readers here..? It could be convenient for the readers to have that oversight in this case." - Great suggestion! I have photos from the fantastic Juan, who has done an insane amount of work on this disappearance case; not just in his own videos on youtube, but also from years and years of following and writing on different forums and doing a lot of investigation of specifically the photos and their EXIF data and whether or not some may have been photoshopped. Here you can see some of his videos. And here you can find a video I made, showing you all the photos Kris and Lisanne took with their camera, or at least: the ones we now know of. Photo's were taken mostly all with the Canon SX270 HS digital camera. DISCLAIMER: The quality of many (not all) of the photos is not ideal. The reason for that, as I also understand it from Juan, is that most (not all) of the photos as we know them have not been officially released in their original format by the family, but instead have been published by/leaked to the press or insiders. The Panamanian media who printed these photos readjusted the size of the original photos. Most versions as we know them are only between 1024x768 and 1600x1200 pixels in size nowadays, whereas the originals are 4000x3000 pixels. Lawyer Arrocha also gave a photo to a befriended journalist who posted it. And Dutch TV programs like 'Een Vandaag' and 'Break Free' also published some in their TV programs on this disappearance (whole series with subs can be seen in my main blog post on this case). We even had to work with screenshots from TV broadcasts sometimes, which resulted in even worse quality photos. There is also a better sized photo here and there. But the majority of the photos are too poor in quality to allow for proper zooming in. Which... results in us seeing all sorts of strange things when actually zooming in too much. It makes reliable analysis of the background difficult in most cases. The family have been asked in the past to publish all the original photos, to give the larger community online the opportunity to help 'detective' along, but at the moment only some people behind the scenes have access to all the original sized photos. So the mediocre photo quality is not the camera's fault: the original photos have a decent good size. It is the result of these photos having been resized before publication. It is great if the story of Kris and Lisanne is spread as far and wide as possible. But certain authors and online content makers have used more than just a little of my work (or plundered my youtube channel) for their own publications, without as much as a source mentioning. Don't be such a douche and give a shout out or a simple source mentioning when you use info from these blogs or my videos for your own videos or sites or publications. Give some credit, just like you yourself like to get credit for your hard work :)Chronological order of the photos taken by Kris and Lisanne
Photo #167 (IMG_0167)
Taken on March 15th 2014 around 07:00 AM.
First the photos taken in Bocas del Toro,
between March 16 - March 29, 2014
between March 16 - March 29, 2014
Last two pictures are taken by Kris from two young Dutch men who Kris and Lisanne befriended in Bocas del Toro around March 21st; Bas van Lieshout and Edwin Cornelis. They were not in Boquete at the time of the girls' disappearance and no suspects
Second, the photos taken in Boquete
between March 29 - March 31st, 2014
between March 29 - March 31st, 2014
On Saturday March 29th, Kris and Lisanne arrived by shuttle bus in Boquete in the afternoon. They met their host family and checked out the nearby Spanish language school that day. On Sunday March 30th they explored Boquete, had lunch in town in 'Boquete Bistro' and explored the direct area. On Monday March 31st they went to a local children's school in the morning to start their volunteer work, but were sent away and told they had no place for them that week. The girls then went to the Spanish language school to tell what happened and waited for a good part of the day there for a coworker to try to find them another volunteer job for that week. In the late afternoon they had a long massage with a Dutch lady. On Tuesday April 1st they hiked the Pianista Trail and possibly went for a swim. (Swim may have happened the day prior also).
Video stills from a short video taken:
Third, the photos taken in Boquete on April 1st 2014
We know that 33 photos were taken this day with the digital CANON camera. Out of those, 23 photos have been made public, one way or another. The other 10 have been seen by several people, but weren't published. Matt wrote: "All 33 images were taken in 8 groups of 2 – 10 images each and show the same subjects or scenery from slightly different angles within those groups. Therefore, if there is one image from a group available, it is very easy to visualize what the missing ones show." On April 1st the known photo numbers start at #476 (IMG_476) and end with #508. From Matt's article I take it that there was also a first photo taken before #476, of the trailhead. It was shot at 11:08 AM. I don't know if this photo was taken with the Canon digital camera or with one of their smartphones. But we do know that 11:08 was also the starting time of their hike. With regards to these times: I show you both the real time and the recalculated time (minus 6 hours), because the girls had not adjusted the correct year and local time on their camera. It was set to 2013 instead of 2014, and had the incorrect time. - Although there was a seven hours time difference between the Netherlands and Panama at that time, not six, I learnt that investigators may have been going with a deduction of six hours instead of seven because the default time zone for Canon cameras is usually set to London time (GMT), which was six hours ahead of Panama on April 1st of 2014).
Photo source: the BackpackerCoach
Specific photo numbers and times:
(*These are the official times as they were found on the camera, but they may or may not be correct/manipulated)
(*These are the official times as they were found on the camera, but they may or may not be correct/manipulated)
Photo #475 (?) - April 1st 11:08 AM (Photo of the trailhead)
Photo #476 - April 1st 11:18:24 AM (officially 17:18 PM)
Photo #477 - April 1st 11:18:34 AM (officially 17:18 PM)
Photo #478 - April 1st 11:18:39 AM (Photo of a creek)
Photo #479 - April 1st 11:18:44 AM (officially 17:18 PM)
Photo #480 - April 1st 11:25:05 AM (Photo of a field)
Photo #481 - 11:25:11 AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #482 - 11:25:27 AM (Photo of a field)
Photo #483 - 11:25:31 AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #484 - 11:25:33 AM (Photo of a field)
Photo #485 - 11:25:35 AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #486 - 11:25:45 AM (officially 17:25:48 PM)
Photo #487 - 11:42:14 AM (Photo of a small creek)
Photo #488 - 11:42:18 AM (Photo of a small creek)
Photo #489 - 11:42:26 AM (officially 17:42 PM)
Photo #490 - 12:02:40 PM (Same location as 491)
Photo #491 - 12:03:08 PM (officially 18:03 PM)
Photo #492 - 12:03:16 PM (Same location as 491*)
Photo #493 - 12:42:25 PM (officially 18:42 PM)
Photo #494 - 12:42:32 PM (officially 18:42 PM)
*Distance thicket of the forest, with the small log over the
creek in the foreground - similar location to photo 491
*Distance thicket of the forest, with the small log over the
creek in the foreground - similar location to photo 491
---
The next photos are all taken at the Pianista summit (the Mirador):
Photo #495 - 13:00:23 PM (Photo at Mirador)
Photo #496 - 13:00:36 PM (Photo at Mirador)
Photo #497 - 13:01:06 PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #498 - 13:01:14 PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #499 - 13:01:38 PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #500 - 13:01:44 PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #501 - 13:01:56 PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #502 - 13:02 PM (officially 19:02 PM)
Photo #503 - 13:06:15 PM (Photo at Mirador)
Photo #504 - 13:06:20 PM (officially 19:06 PM)
---
The next photos are taken behind the Pianista summit:
Photo #505 - 13:20:33 PM (officially 19:20 PM)
Photo #506 - 13:20:39 PM (officially 19:20 PM)
Photo #507 - 13:54:50 PM (officially 19:54 PM)
Photo #508 - 13:54:58 PM (officially 19:54 PM)
Photo #509 (Unknown) - DELETED
Photo #476 (IMG_476)
11:18 AM (officially 17:18 PM)
Photo #477 (IMG_476)
11:18 and 34 seconds AM (officially 17:18 PM)
+
Photo #479 (IMG_476)
11:18 and 44 seconds AM (officially 17:18 PM)
Photo #481 (IMG_481)
11:25 and 11 seconds AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #483 (IMG_483)
11:25 and 31 seconds AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #485 (IMG_485)
11:25 and 35 seconds AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #486 (IMG_486)
11:25 and 45 seconds AM (officially 17:25 PM)
Photo #489 (IMG_489)
11:42 and 26 seconds AM (officially 17:42 PM)
Photo #491 (IMG_491)
12:03 and 8 seconds PM (officially 18:03 PM)
(Last photo by Alexander)
Photo #493 (IMG_493)
12:42 and 25 seconds PM (officially 18:42 PM)
Photo #494 (IMG_494)
12:42 and 32 seconds PM (officially 18:42 PM)
Power-Pixie found the matching location of photo #494 here.
Photo #496 (IMG_496)
13:00 and 36 seconds PM (officially 19:00 PM)
Photo #497 (IMG_497)
13:01 and 06 seconds PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #498 (IMG_498)
13:01 and 14 seconds PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #499 (IMG_499)
13:01 and 38 seconds PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #500 (IMG_500)
13:01 and 44 seconds PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #501 (IMG_501)
13:01 and 56 seconds PM (officially 19:01 PM)
Photo #502 (IMG_502)
13:02 PM (officially 19:02 PM)
Photo #504 (IMG_504)
13:06 and 20 seconds PM (officially 19:06 PM)
Photo #505 (IMG_505)
13:20 and 33 seconds PM (officially 19:20 PM)
This photo was taken after the summit and can be found here.
Photo #506 (IMG_506)
13:20 and 39 seconds PM (officially 19:20 PM)
Photo #507 (IMG_507)
13:54 and 50 seconds PM (officially 19:54 PM)
Photo #508 (IMG_508)
13:54 and 58 seconds PM (officially 19:54 PM),
Photo #509 - DELETED
Update: photos taken with the mobile phones on the summit
On the summit of the Pianista trail, the Mirador, there were also nine known photos created with the iPhone from Kris and the Samsung Galaxy phone from Lisanne. Matt does not show them in his article, but he does describe them in little detail.
-IMG_2125; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14. This was around 6 minutes áfter the last digital photo was taken on the summit, photo 504, which showed the views down towards Boquete. So there were six minutes where we have no idea what happened, but then these eight images are taken in quick succession with the mobile phones. And going by the numbers of these images, there may even be more that we don't know about?
-IMG_2126; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14.
-IMG_2127; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14.
-20140401_131420; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:20.
-20140401_131424; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:24.
-20140401_131430; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:30. This image shows similar clouds and scenery as Image 502
-20140401_131456; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:56.
-IMG_2128; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:15:00.
-20140401_131513; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:15:13.
-IMG_2125; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14. This was around 6 minutes áfter the last digital photo was taken on the summit, photo 504, which showed the views down towards Boquete. So there were six minutes where we have no idea what happened, but then these eight images are taken in quick succession with the mobile phones. And going by the numbers of these images, there may even be more that we don't know about?
-IMG_2126; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14.
-IMG_2127; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:14.
-20140401_131420; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:20.
-20140401_131424; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:24.
-20140401_131430; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:30. This image shows similar clouds and scenery as Image 502
-20140401_131456; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:14:56.
-IMG_2128; taken with the iPhone4 on the Mirador at 13:15:00.
-20140401_131513; taken with the Samsung S3 on the Mirador at 13:15:13.
*******
Fourth, the photos taken in the
dark of night, on April 8th 2014
Specific photo numbers and times:
Photo #510 - April 8th 01:29:00 AM
Photo #511 - April 8th 01:30:00 AM
Photo #512-540 - 01:30-01:37 AM
Photo #511 - April 8th 01:30:00 AM
Photo #512-540 - 01:30-01:37 AM
Photo #541 - April 8th 01:37:57 AM
Photo #542 - April 8th 01:38:12 AM
Photo #543 - April 8th 01:38:28 AM
Photo #544 - April 8th 01:38:46 AM
Photo #545 - April 8th 01:38:57 AM
Photo #546 - April 8th 01:39:12 AM
Photo #547 - April 8th 01:39:21 AM
Photo #548 - April 8th 01:39:32 AM
Photo #549 - April 8th 01:39:42 AM
Photo #550 - April 8th 01:39:54 AM
Photo #551 - April 8th 01:40:07 AM
Photo #552 - April 8th 01:40:18 AM
Photo #553 - April 8th 01:40:32 AM
Photo #554 - April 8th 01:40:48 AM
Photo #555 - April 8th 01:40:59 AM
Photo #556 - April 8th 01:41:16 AM
Photo #559 - April 8th 01:41:26 AM
Photo #561 - April 8th 01:42:07 AM
Photo #562 - April 8th 01:42:25 AM
Photo #563 - April 8th 01:42:45 AM
Photo #564 - April 8th 01:43:14 AM
Photo #565 - April 8th 01:43:28 AM
Photo #566 - April 8th 01:43:45 AM
Photo #567 - April 8th 01:44:12 AM
Photo #568 - April 8th 01:44:37 AM
Photo #569 - April 8th 01:45:01 AM
Photo #570 - April 8th 01:45:14 AM
Photo #571 - April 8th 01:45:23 AM
Photo #572 - April 8th 01:45:32 AM
Photo #573 - April 8th 01:45:52 AM
Photo #574 - April 8th 01:46:01 AM
Photo #575 - April 8th 01:46:11 AM
Photo #576 - April 8th 01:46:20 AM
Photo #577 - April 8th 01:47:31 AM
Photo #579 - April 8th 01:48:10 AM
Photo #580 - April 8th 01:49:47 AM
Photo #582 - April 8th 01:50:05 AM
Photo #583 - April 8th 01:50:26 AM
Photo #584 - April 8th 01:51:56 AM
Photo #585 - April 8th 01:52:28 AM
Photo #586 - April 8th 01:53:02 AM
Photo #587 - April 8th 01:53:13 AM
Photo #590 - April 8th 01:55:01 AM
Photo #591 - April 8th 01:55:36 AM
Photo #592 - April 8th 01:57:03 AM
Photo #593 - April 8th 01:58:26 AM
Photo #594 - April 8th 01:58:35 AM
Photo #595 - April 8th 02:00:37 AM
Photo #597 - April 8th 02:05:25 AM
Photo #599 - April 8th 02:12:11 AM
Photo #600 - April 8th 02:15:25 AM
Photo #601 - April 8th 02:20:48 AM
Photo #602 - April 8th 02:31:25 AM
Photo #603 - April 8th 02:31:25 AM
Photo #604 - April 8th 02:37:11 AM
Photo #605 - April 8th 02:46:16 AM
Photo #606 - April 8th 03:09:35 AM
Photo #607 - April 8th 03:09:51 AM
Photo #608 - April 8th 03:22:47 AM
Photo #609 - April 8th 04:10:59 AM
All new night photos printed here have been first published by JUAN. Later Matt confirmed their authenticity to me, based on the official police files he has access to. These night photos have been taken mostly all at the same location. In this video I show how a very specific leaf keeps coming back and has been photographed from different positions and angles. The newly leaked night photos continue to show this leaf in different ways, just as the V-shaped tree keeps coming back. Details such as the exact timestamp have also been taken directly from these leaked photos. I later verified them all with the times mentioned in the official police files, as published by Matt. Also, there are a couple of new night photos that seem enhanced versions of others; not different photographs taken at the time. The parents of Kris and Lisanne stated that there were 90 photos taken that night, whereas Dutch newspaper de Telegraaf mentioned 77 photos. It is now confirmed that there were in fact 100 photos taken in the early hours of April 8th (the 'night photos'). The last known normal picture that was taken on April 1st was #508 (Kris at the small stream). The first nighttime photo is #510, which was taken on April 8th at 01:29 AM. Not all of the night photos have been made public, but Matt saw them all and has confirmed to me that the remaining photos all show the same dark surroundings and sometimes almost completely dark photos. Nothing of new interest has been held back, therefore.
Quick succession
From photo #510 onward, photos were taken in quick succession initially. At times as many as seven pictures were taken within a one minute. Sometimes photos followed each other every 10 seconds, sometimes every minute. Most photos were taken in a cluster between 01:29 and 02:00 AM. Then the frequency of the photos went down a bit. The last known photo was taken at 04:10 AM. It seems that the person who took the photos was seated or laying down even in one very specific area. You see the same trees and foliage coming back in many different photos, and often the camera is aimed at the sky and the tree line. So all these photos are now proving us that the flash of the camera was not used to find their way while walking around. No evidence for this whatsoever; more evidence for the contrary in fact. The photographer was pretty static. Also, the 'figure resembling Kris laying down in a ravine' now proves to be just a leaf, lit up by the flash of the camera. The outline comes back in many photos, taken from different angles, and is clearly just a leaf, not a body. There are drops lighting up in the dark sky in many photos; either they are raindrops, or perhaps water mist from a nearby waterfall. If the drops are rain, then it is peculiar that the camera lens rarely ever seems to be wet. And it begs the question why the photographer spent nearly three hours out in the open air, in the rain, in the dark of night? And why all these photos were taken suddenly, after a week of no photos or videos? Also very strange; not a single photo indicates who exactly is taking these photos. Not a hand or foot of the photographer is visible; not one lock of their long hair fell in front of the camera lens in any of those 100 photos. No selfies, nothing. It could be anyone. After the last normal photo 508 on April 1st, these girls basically turned into ghosts. There is just no clear evidence that Kris and Lisanne took these photos. Only the back of the head photo of Kris seems to prove that the girls were present. But that image makes no real sense either, if Lisanne was supposedly taking these photos. It was not blurry and most likely not taken while on the move. It seems to prove that Kris was present in the night of April 8th. But then the quetion arises why, if Kris was alive by April 8th, there had been an absence of normal PIN code entries from April 5th onward already. Unfortunately this photo #580 does not show us if Kris is dead or alive. And neither can we see who is the photographer :( Although it looks like the photographer at the very least pretends to be Lisanne. As many people have openly wondered: why are these photos so utterly devoid of any human presence?
FIRST: these two new photos from the girls' camera also showed up recently, published by Juan. Someone numbered them as IMG_479 and IMG_480, but they in reality carry numbers #477 and #479. Then there is a swimming photo. However, that river is not situated near the Pianista Trail, but instead lies more south-east of the trail, in the Caldera hot springs. Could this be the evidence that - as stated by some witnesses who also claim to have seen them there on March 30th and/or March 31st - Kris and Lisanne had already visited the hot springs in the day(s) before their started their Pianista hike on April 1st 2014? Their busy schedule and diary entries seem to indicate that they did not go swimming there in the days before April 1st however..
*******
Photo #511 (IMG_511)
Probably taken around 01:30 AM
Photo #541 (IMG_541)
Probably taken around 01:37 AM
Photo #542 (IMG_542)
Probably taken around 01:38 AM
Photo adjusted with lightness settings etc:
Photo #543 + 544 (IMG_543)
Probably taken around 01:38,28 / 01:38,48 AM
Photo #545 (IMG_545)
Probably taken around 01:38,57 AM
Photo #546 and 547 (IMG_546)
Probably taken around 01:39,12 AM
Photo #548 (IMG_548)
Probably taken around 01:39,32 AM
Photo #549 (IMG_549)
Probably taken around 01:39,42 AM
Photo #550 (IMG_550)
Probably taken around 01:39 AM
Photo adjusted with lightness settings etc:
Photo #553 (IMG_0553)
Taken around 01:40:32 AM
Photos #554 and #555
Taken around 01:40,48/ 01:40,59 AM
Photos #556 and #559
Taken around 01:41 AM
Photos #561 and #562
Taken around 01:42.25 AM
Photos #565 and #567
Taken around 01:43.28 / 01:44,12 AM
Photos #569, #570 and #572
Taken around 01:45 AM
Photos #573 and #576
Taken around 01:45 / 01:46 AM
Photo #unknown (probably #577)
Taken around 01:46 AM
Photo from Alexander:
Some of the papers found on the flat rock may have come from both part of the map Lisanne was pictured with a few days earlier during lunch. See Alexander's find in the photo above. Another matching detail was discovered by Dutch forum member 'Geruisloos'/ 'NostraSilencio' below:
It also seems that the previous photo #576 is of the exact same photo as 577, only altered in photoshop (by whomever leaked these photos I reckon, or even by investigators possibly) to make the details of the rock in the background stand out more. Hence why the foreground seems so over-lit suddenly.
Here you can compare the two photos. When you look at the specific specks of lit up water drops in the sky, you can see that these two photos were taken at exactly the same moment in time. Even a second later and the background drops would have looked different. So they are the same photo, one had its brightness adjusted to show the details in the background. And whomever leaked them gave both photos (erroneously) a different photo number.
Photo #580 (IMG_0580)
Taken around 01:49,47 AM
See the full photo HERE
So we finally have the full photo of the hair of Kris. The uncensored one, I should say. No clear head wound is visible. Aside from some vague markings under the hair, possibly. What does stand out, is how clean and dry the hair is looking. It makes you wonder how someone's hair can look so clean, 8 days into a disappearance in what is assumed the jungle of Boquete. Sleeping without protection from the elements, without a cap to put your hair under, without even a pillow to sleep on. Or does it only look clean due to the flash of the camera perhaps? BTW: the time on the 'old' Polaroid version of this photo which was used in Dutch TV program Een Vandaag is 03:54 AM. But ever since the night photos were all leaked, the real times became known and it was actually taken at 01:49,47 AM. Matt, who has access to the official photos, confirmed that this is the correct time. I have no idea why the TV makers made these time errors. I will add the photo copy of it which has this timestamp (don't forget to extract 6 hours from it):
Photos #582 and #583
Taken around 01:50,05 / 01:50,26 AM
Photos #584 - #587
Taken around 01:51,56 / 01:53,13 AM
Photos #590 - #593
Taken around 01:55,01 / 01:58,26 AM
Photo #594 (IMG_594)
Taken around 01:58 AM
Photo adjusted with lightness settings etc:
Photos #595 and #597
Taken around 02:00 / 02:05 AM
Photo #599 (IMG_594)
Taken around 02:12 AM
Photo #600
Taken around 02:15 AM
Photos #602
Taken around 02:29 AM
Photos #603 and #604
Taken around 02:31,25 / 02:37,11 AM
Photo #605 (IMG_605)
Taken around 02:46,16 AM
Photo #607
Taken around 03:09 AM
Photos #608 and #609 (IMG_608/609)
Taken around 03:22,47 / 04:10 AM
Photos #609 is the last photo that was
taken with the Canon camera, at 04:10
See all of this in video form here:
David pointed out to me that: "If the collection seen in Juan's album is accurate to the source retrieved from the original disc you meet huge problems in their credibility as several are indeed direct duplicates, and at least two of them are inexplicable: this one and this one. Look closer at the two, look at the raindrops frozen in time there, and you see that these are very clearly the same picture! The exact same photograph, but one has had the display completely smothered by a bizarre whiteout effect while the other is clear. How can this happen inside a digital camera? I have no idea. Surely it can't. And yet there is also a similar picture in the album showing the boulder/Marker display that has had a similar treatment... the exact same photograph but with one having extreme light strobing that obliterates the main object in the image. Are these leftover works from others who handled the images in the weeks and years since the Police received them, or original shots within the camera's memory card? We will likely never know. But as two examples of strange and inexplicable shots that are in fact duplicates of clearer images, you do wonder if deliberate manipulation was undertaken at an early stage and the 'originals' accidentally left saved to disc. And if that were to be the case then virtually all of the pictures have to be treated as suspect..."
I replied: "Yes those photos were of the same SOS marker, the same photos. With exactly the same water drops. They can't have been taken in quick succession of one another therefore, because even a second of added time would have changed the position of those lit up drops. Looks like someone brightened some of the night photos and left the adjusted photo in as well."
Juan posted a remarkable photo in it (photo #541 taken at 01:37 that night)All credits to Toni also for creating this overlap photo. One of the nighttime photos which were published by Juan, shows this odd picture. Around this point in his youtube video, Juan shows an overlap photo, very craftily found and made, which makes a convincing case for the assumption that the nighttime photo is an overly lit up close up from the face of Lisanne.. There are quite a few photos in Juans file, taken in the night of April 8th by supposedly Kris and Lisanne themselves - I have doubts about that personally - , which show a strange round lit up 'something'. You can see them all here (press the arrow on the right of the photo to go through them all). In some photos it seems that perhaps a finger was held before the lens and flash, but in other photos there seems to be light almost in the right top corner. Sometimes it may be a chin perhaps, being overly lit by the flash. OR....... could this be the lit up (by the flash) bent middle finger in front of the lens? In that case, this photo was taken by a man. Hardly any women have hairs on their fingers/hands. Anyway, you can check them out for yourselves. There is a very lively discussion also in that google album of Juan, really interesting to read up on.
And Mike made this photo overlap
(although Lisanne would have had to grin then.. No..)
Although others think that photo 541 shows a jawline and the cheek, like here:
But it could also very very likely be just a finger in front of the camera lens. If so,
this person seems to have had some hairs on his finger... I'd say it is more likely a
male than a young female, in that case.
Update: a video of ALL the photos taken by Kris and Lisanne's camera, chronologically
**********************************
Shoes of both girls
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The diaries
The diary entries from first Lisanne and then Kris, show you solely what they wrote about their time in Bocas del Toro and then Boquete. They were photographed in the girls' bedroom and later leaked by a Boquete source. Juan and I both each translated one set of diary entries from Dutch into English for you. We're both aware of the fact that these diaries were private and not written by the girls with the intend to be published online. But in the light of this drama, we just feel that they are important pieces of information about the state of mind of both Kris and Lisanne in the days leading up to their disappearance. Juan decided to make them public, because these diaries were traded behind the scenes for the highest bidder, and he did not believe such diaries should have been used for money; by publishing them for all to see, he tried to prevent this, considering they had already been leaked by someone else. And Jeremy Kryt already had insight in them also in 2017 and quoted from them. As for my decision to put them up here later on; I have tried to give Kris and Lisanne a voice throughout these blog posts, which I wrote and researched in my free time (and without monetizing my work). But ultimately I did not personally know Kris or Lisanne. And here we have their own voices, their own writings. Sad as it is to read this after their deaths, it is the most direct introduction into who they were at the time and what they felt like in Panama. Offering a small reality check for those of us overly eager to fill in our own images of who they were and what their interactions were like. Had this been a collection of generic holiday memories (or highly intimate revelations for instance), I wouldn't have published them, but the diaries contain interesting first hand accounts of their state of mind at the time. Especially Lisanne seemed to not feel good psychologically after arriving in Boquete. It also shows that they were cautious, but also young and fun-loving. These diaries give us a factual account of how they spent their time in Bocas, which may be the best indicator of what they may have looked for again in Boquete, after their volunteer work plans fell apart. I also feel that we should not underestimate just how bad Lisanne was feeling initially in Boquete. Her panic and anxiety are palpable through the pages and have to be taken into account when it comes to trying to unravel this mystery of what ultimately happened to them. Most of all, these diary entries provide you with Kris and Lisanne's own voices, in an ocean of other people screaming about them. Or as Dave Mullen wrote me about this: "As for the diaries, I always see them as Kris and Lisanne’s inadvertent/accidental cry for help. It’s somewhat of a gold standard for me as I cannot imagine the case without their own words, even if they were careless or not as forthcoming on every detail. Without their own words we’re left with chasing two ghosts."
LisanneMarch 15th, 16th and 17th 2014
"Waaaaah it takes so long! What a trip. Luckily I almost forgot about it already upon arrival in the beautiful and cozy Bocas del Toro. I would not want to be found dead in San Jose, although the chance of this is quite high in San Jose. But I could live in Bocas for the rest of my life. Maybe when I ever retire? I am sitting in the sun, which I can't hold out much longer by the way (hot!) and I take a good look around me at my new accommodation for the next two weeks. The heat is already very special by the way, even in the shade I have the feeling that I can still burn alive. But despite this, the sun is actually quite nice. How intensely happy it can make a person. Kittens, stray cats, yes, they are regular customers here. They walk everywhere! Just like mini salamanders, even in the shower! If they manage to keep the spiders away, they could actually become my best friends."
March 18th 2014 "Red Frog Beach, one word A - MA - ZING!! We have also seen a dolphin, the ultimate enjoyment. Drinking from a coconut, a real one yes! And getting sunburned, I worked well on my tan, what more do you want?!"
March 19th 2014 "Spanish Class, it's pretty complicated. Yet I do notice that I learn to recognize more and more when I listen to conversations, which is a fantastic feeling. The rest of the day we enjoyed relaxing around the hostel. Three lovely afternoon naps in the hammock, a game of cards, some food and snacks. In the afternoon (medio tarde!) we had a nice cocktail at Casa Verde. Lovely time alone with Kris, we had nice conversations and afterwards we were, of course, a little tipsy. Long Live the Holiday. La puda vida [sic. The good life!] In the evening we had cooking class, tortillas and gazpacho were on the menu. Fortunately we live completely according to the Caribbean style so I will have to withdraw from the Dutch [way of] life. A 7-hour cooking class means that at half past seven the ingredients really still have to be bought, haha. And that also means that there is food on the table at 10 o'clock. A very educational evening for my patience and concentration. I believe I failed! But the food was very good. After dinner quickly with our behinds under the shower because Wednesday evening is Aqua Lounge Day! A disco a la Caribbean Style. Large outdoor area with swimming pools and ocean views. Amazing! Enjoyed dancing and drinking with the boys. Yes, Bas and Edwin. Our Dutch hostel friends and not to forget Mart! Later Ethan, our Australian negro, joined. Around 3 o'clock we were kindly asked to go find our beds, but a tropical downpour made us delay this about 3 times. Eventually we finally went. Nothing was dry anymore!! But it was a special experience to dance in the rain when it is 30 degrees outside. By the way, you have to use the water taxi here to go to places, really cool. For $1 you can go to the other side, a small beach and Aqua Lounge. You can visit other islands for $5. Two down, so many more to go! Hasta manzana! (see you tomorrow!) Haha apple!"
March 20th 2014
"I have such thick legs, it must be from the heat that my ankles look like rhino legs. We had FAN - TAS - TIC food with the boys in a little Caribbean restaurant. I have never before eaten such tasty pasta with tomatoes. Then followed a little Snickers cake and a 2 liter can of sangria. Yes, this was again the ultimate enjoyment. Now fingers crossed for nice weather tomorrow, because today was three times nothing. Hasta mañana! Today's slogan: it was AMAZING hihi."
March 21st 2014
"This morning I had Spanish lesson, the last one for Ethan, Davis and Bas. It started raining at 8 AM and it only started to dry up again around 1 PM. Because the weather was so bad we couldn't really make plans. We have brought a deck of cards and have dived into Casa Verde! Initially together with Mart and later Edwin and Bas joined. It cleared up and the afternoon flew by with a number of beers and games. Wonderful! At 6 o'clock we had a BBQ with the whole group on the small island! We played volleyball and I got completely punctured by mosquitoes. Fortunately there was enough beer and fun! Later that evening we went out to La Iguana. A few dances and beers later it was suddenly 4 o'clock. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow the Deep Sea tour is on the program!"
"This morning I had Spanish lesson, the last one for Ethan, Davis and Bas. It started raining at 8 AM and it only started to dry up again around 1 PM. Because the weather was so bad we couldn't really make plans. We have brought a deck of cards and have dived into Casa Verde! Initially together with Mart and later Edwin and Bas joined. It cleared up and the afternoon flew by with a number of beers and games. Wonderful! At 6 o'clock we had a BBQ with the whole group on the small island! We played volleyball and I got completely punctured by mosquitoes. Fortunately there was enough beer and fun! Later that evening we went out to La Iguana. A few dances and beers later it was suddenly 4 o'clock. Time to go to bed. Tomorrow the Deep Sea tour is on the program!"
March 22nd 2014
"Buenas dias! No Spanish class today! Secretly that is kind of nice though, lovely weekend! Getting up with a clear blue sky and sun is really as it should be, lovely lovely! At 09:30 on our way to Zapatilla. Crossing over the water with the boat to spot dolphins and sloths. Well we were successful! So cool! Then sailed through the mangrove. That really made me realize that we are in Central America, far away from the Netherlands. After the mangrove with 300 km/h over the open ocean water to Zapatilla. I could not believe my eyes, it was one big paradise. Exactly like in your dreams, Bounty Bounty Bounty Island. Deep sea boarding, diving with a board into the water like a mermaid, and coming back up again, and all that while you are hanging behind a boat. What a cool experience. After that we had some free time (yes, English, Spanish, Dutch, it is very confusing sometimes all those languages). Made a wonderful walk on the dreamy Bounty Island (after a deliciously prepared lunch). I also snorkeled a bit and swam a little. Seen so many beautiful fish! Now chilling out in a hammock and will have a bite to eat soon! Today was really incredible!!!"
"Sunday morning, no warm buns at the Mathildehof but a watermelon smoothie and an omelet in La Buquita on Bocas del Toro. That's a different story! Learned a bit of Spanish and had an afternoon nap. In the evening we had a bite to eat together and were in bed on time, a real Sunday! 2 hours at the beach!"
March 24th 2014
"Monday morning, at 7 o'clock the alarm goes off, are we in the Netherlands? Noooo! We join Carlos's Spanish lesson. Nice guy, good teacher! Kris is still not feeling well, but we decide to go to Starfish Beach anyway. So cool! So many starfish in mega clear water. Another bit of paradise! Delicious dinner in our favorite restaurant on Bocas in the evening, two courses and a small jug of sangria! Holidays!"
March 25th 2014"Kris feels very unwell and decides to stay in bed all day. I have to make a switch myself, but I decide not to let my day be ruined because of this. Off to Spanish class! It went pretty well! After the lesson I chilled and brought the laundry away. It is not really wise to take to the streets on your own, but I did it anyway! Bought some postcards and went into some shops. Some Lisanne time! In the afternoon I picked up some smoothies for us and chilled with the boys in Casa Verde. Nice!!"
"I'm sitting here, with tears in my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. The view of the mountains is beautiful, the house is spacious and the family is friendly. I'm even here with Kris, who is so very familiar. But still I want to go home. I had no problems for two weeks and suddenly I went completely crazy. The transition from two weeks of lively holiday to stepping into the life of a real Panamanian family is just too much for me. I cannot make myself understood and this is real life, not a vacation anymore. I was way too naive to think that I could handle this. Because this is exactly the type of situation that I just can't handle. Not even now that I'm 22 and living on my own. I'm in way over my head. I want mom and dad to hold me tight and tell me that everything will be alright. But I can't let them know how I feel now, because I don't want them to worry. It is precisely because I am 22 that I think I have to solve this myself. Still, I now feel like a small child of 2 yelling for her mother who is 2 meters away. I didn't really want this, but I went anyway. I thought I should be able to do this, the final test before I can be really happy with myself. So far I have failed badly. Shit."
March 26th, 27th and 28th, 2014
"I just saw that I had skipped a few days, but I will of course quickly tell you what happened in those three days. On Wednesday the 26th we have lessons in the afternoon. Quite a shame for such a beautiful day, but we are in Bocas for the Spanish lessons after all. Around 5 o'clock we close off and we go into town for a bit, to see nice shops and stalls. We walked past the Wine Bar and decided to eat there. Shared 3 small appetizers and a glass of wine. Wednesday evening means only one thing: Aqua Lounge! Put on nice clothes and let's move it! We lose Bas out of sight already fairly quickly and so we celebrate the evening with the three of us. That evening I also meet the chef of our favorite restaurant, brilliant! Around half past three we are thrown out and it's time to go to bed. 4 o'clock in bed, and at 7 o'clock the alarm goes off for Spanish class oops oops oops ... the alarm clock rings ... I was just asleep! Groggy we drag ourselves out of bed. Today is the second last lesson. In the afternoon we decide to enjoy our vacation for a little longer. Off to Red Frog Beach! Yes!! Again beautiful and not crowded at all. The afternoon flies by. In the evening we join the boys. The restaurant with the fireworks show. Ate a delicious fish! Of course we play some more games of cards in Casa Verde. No matter how tired and broken we are, it is our second last night here so there shall be dancing in La Iguana. Again half past three, oops! Friday morning, 7 AM, the alarm clock rings. BROKEN! But today is our last day in Bocas, so we'll just have to work hard. Spanish lessons are fun! Learned animals, translated a song and learned games which we can play with the children in the children's school. Saying goodbye to Carlos. What a cool guy he is. In the afternoon also Skype with mom and dad and afterwards we spent a lovely time at the small beach. Stunningly beautiful for a "small" beach. Oh yeah! The power went out last night. All of Bocas was without! Very special to see how everyone conjures up their candles and emergency lights. Fortunately it was already fixed at 8 o'clock! Continued with the last evening. Of course three course dinner in our favorite restaurant, with the boys! Then we had a drink and played some cards. It was a perfect ending to our two weeks in Bocas. 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!!"
March 30th 2014
"Okay, the tears are gone but it is still strange. I still feel like a tiny intruder in this family. Delicious French toast for breakfast! Explored Boquete in the afternoon which was nice. What a world of difference with Bocas! Here its windy and everywhere around you there are mountains. Magnificent! You can go almost anywhere here for 60 dollar cents. In the afternoon we also went to the school to check out some excursions, that will be fine. We mainly eat rice here by the way! Tomorrow our first day in Aura! Exciting!"
March 31st 2014
"Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! Our first day was a disaster. As we arrive at Aura on time, we are not even recognized or given a friendly welcome. The only thing we hear is "no proxima semana" = we are only welcome next week. WHAT?! We returned to the [Spanish] school disappointed and indeed, the daycare only has work for us next week. But of course we don't buy anything for that. Maybe we will be able to start tomorrow at Casa Esperanza. Fingers crossed! To alleviate our disappointment we went to Sigrid for a full body massage. Some enjoyment! Another day tomorrow, hasta la mañana!"
April 1st 2014
KrisMarch 16th, 2014
"The time has finally come. We are in Costa Rica. What a trip it was! 12/10 hours flying to Houston, waiting 4 hours there and then another 4 hours to San José, Costa Rica. We arrived here at the hostel around 10 o'clock, which actually felt like 4 o'clock in the morning due to the time difference. How tired we were, because we had already got up at 4 AM to arrive at Schiphol airport on time, so we had been awake for 24 hours! We were picked up by a friendly little mister, together with his wife. The same man will soon pick us up again to take us to the bus. It is now around 7 o'clock in the morning. The sun was already rising around 4,5. I am writing this now in the garden of the hostel. Very cute little courtyard with many plants and a kind of fountain/altar made of mosaic. I can't wait to travel to Panama soon. I think the bus trip will be very beautiful, hopefully we will see some nice things from the country. So exciting, the journey has really begun!"
March 16, Monday (probably an error; should be March 17th)
(Drawing of a sun). "It is so hot here! I really have to get used to it. It's like 30 degrees here, sitting in the sun is way too hot. I am currently in the hostel. We arrived yesterday around half past six. The bus trip was an adventure in itself. The bus trip itself went well. But first we had to speed through San José by taxi because we had no cash on us. When we got out in Sixaola, we and two locals were the only ones left. We had to just figure out for ourselves how to get to the border. The bus driver only spoke Spanish. We were sent one way and with our backpacks we really stood out among the locals. We arrived at the border, which consisted of an old bridge. It was very bizarre to cross the border that way. Once on the other side we arrived at a building where we had to pay money for a sticker on a passport (I think we were scammed). When we stood at that real immigration [checkpoint] a man approached us and asked if we had to go to Bocas. We were a bit suspicious because we didn't know very well if we could trust him. All the people were in a great hurry because they thought we would not be able to catch the last boat. For this reason we decided to just jumped in the car and hope for a happy ending. And it came. After a hellish ride where the driver was driving so fast that I didn't even dare to look, we arrived at a small stepping stone for the boat to Bocas. After about half an hour we finally arrived. After two days of traveling it felt incredibly surreal to be at the destination finally. Yesterday we also had a bite to eat but I was so tired that it didn't really get through to me. But now that I am writing this I am sitting at the bar of the Spanish school with some nice Spanish music in the background and I am starting to realize that we are really here and that we can happily enjoy this holiday. Our first Spanish lesson will start in 15 minutes. I am very curious. It is wonderful here". (drawing of 3 suns and a sailboat). - Picture below of the border bridge, found by Power-Pixie.
March 20th, 2014(drawing of cloud with rain). "We are in Panama and it is raining. And not just a little bit, it is pouring down. We already came home last night due to the pouring rain. We then went to Aqua Lounge for the first time, a somewhat larger club just across the street. Fortunately we have lessons today in the afternoon. Let's hope that the sun will come through a bit again. The day before yesterday we went to Red Frog Beach. It was really beautiful. We were dropped off at a jetty and had to walk a bit ourselves and that was beautiful. The jetty continued over the mangrove and turned into a path in the forest with giant plants and beautiful flowers. The beach itself was also beautiful, very clear water and few people. Davis was with us and he is really a sort of survivor. There we were, drinking from a coconut on the beach, delicious. Today we are planning to do a tour on Saturday, looking forward to it!"
March 25th, 2014
"It is Tuesday around 10 o'clock in the morning and I should actually take classes but I am sick. After having had a nervous stomach - gippy tummy – for 3 days, it finally all came out today. This morning at once I had terrible diarrhea which now persists. Which sucks because now I dare not to go anywhere, and so I spend the whole day in my little room. Super lame but now I do have the time to write down everything from the last days. Friday we went to a school BBQ. Was good fun and then we went to the iguana again and had a super evening with Bas, Edwin, Davis and Chad. Saturday we did a super nice excursion. We went in a small boat and first we went dolphin spotting. We then saw one that we followed for a while but then more and more boats were coming so he was gone again. Then we sailed to the edge of the mangrove and there we saw sloths in the trees. We saw at least three and one of them climbed all the way in a tree and at the end he then hung like a hammock. That was very cool, I am really happy that I could see those animals so clearly. Then we had to sail for another half an hour and it looked like we were going to an island in the middle of the ocean. When we arrived there we went deep boarding. This means that you hold a kind of clear plastic board and you let it pull you through the water by a boat. You wear goggles and with this you can view everything that is under water. We saw beautiful coral, also those plants with long thick strings and many different fish. I thought I'd be pretty scared because I don't really like fish but it was really nice to see everything. The water is also so clear here. Then we had a nice lunch, pasta and we had time left. Then we went for a walk across the island and arrived at the other side of it, and it was super beautiful. Truly a fairytale island. Then we walked back along the coast. Super. The island was called Zapatilla. On the way back we made a quick stop at a spot with shallow water to watch all the starfish. The trip was really super. Yesterday, Monday we went to Starfish Beach. In a super hot and super crowded van we drove to the other side of our island. On the way there people were dropped off at places of which I thought, where would those people live? More or less in the jungle. Then we were brought to the end location with a small boat and at first we didn't see any starfish and we thought, well that's just great.. But when we went into the water we suddenly saw a lot of them and with the snorkel that we had rented we could see even more, and also some nice fish. So those are the adventures we had. It feels like we've been here for centuries already, but it's only 1.5 weeks. We still have so much to go. Hasta luego."
March 30th, 2014
"Wow. How much has changed since the last time I wrote something. We are now staying at the host family. The last days on Bocas we mainly enjoyed the beach, good food and going out. We had quite a bit of sleep to catch up on. The time we had in Bocas was really amazing and we really had a holiday there. So it really felt like goodbye, because we probably won't be coming back there. I have never seen a place with such a beautiful coastline and palm trees and such. Really super. Yesterday we arrived in Boquete. The journey actually went very well. The small bus even had air conditioning. We also found the school in no time. 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. It was really nerve-racking to wait for them because you really hope there is a click. Fortunately it went well. Last night we really had to get used to the new situation. You suddenly stay with a family that you are not (yet) part of. You know nothing about their habits and you actually don't know how to behave. On top of that you can hardly speak a word with them, so you also cannot express how you feel. We were also really exhausted yesterday, but after a good night sleep all is not so bad anymore. So once we have stayed here for a while I am sure that it will be all right. The family is very sweet. The mother's name is Miriam. The eldest daughter Y. Miriam also has 2 other children. A. and A. Y. also has 2 children, J. and S. The youngest is 1 and the other almost 3. They are all very friendly and used to visitors who cannot speak Spanish. The eldest daughter does speak English. But for our Spanish it is better to speak as little English as possible. We also went to Boquete today. Very nice and cute village. Tomorrow we will start at Aura. Very curious how that will go." [I removed the full names of the kids, Scarlet]
"Today was a strange day. We were going to the project for the first time. We were quite nervous and found it nerve-racking. When we arrived we introduced ourselves, expecting the woman to know who we were because she was expecting us, after all. But that was not the case. She showed no sign of recognition and said that it was not possible now [to start volunteer work there] and that we should come back next week. Very unfriendly and not at all warm or cordial. So when we left again we were very disappointed. We were not received openly and did not feel welcome at all, unexpectedly to us. We also did not understand what was exactly going on. Then we went back to the language school to tell our story and to get some answers. It turned out that there was no place/work for us after all this week, so we couldn't start yet. The school also found it very strange because we had planned things months in advance. Then we had to wait all day for Marjolein to hear if we could be part of another project for this week. Eventually we heard that she had not been able to speak to the volunteer coordinator yet, so she wasn't sure, but she did think we would be able to start there. She also said that it was a nice project and after reading about it we also became enthusiastic. Tomorrow they will try to get a hold of that woman and suppose that we like it there, then we can also just stay there. Because we both don't really want to go back to Aura anymore, because we didn't feel welcome at all there, and it was really a huge disappointment. Let's hope that the other project is really fun. Well, lets go with the Panamanian flow then."
The photographer of the diaries
By the way, This photo of Kris' passport was taken on the same afternoon of April 8th when local Boquete man Mark Heyer took the photos of the girls' diaries in their bedroom. For documentation value. Only this passport photo bore the name of a local Panamanian journalist in its exif data, Mr. Rosario. He was also in their bedroom that day, together with Heyer, taking photos of the scene. One can wonder why a journalist and a local photographer were allowed to roam through this bedroom by April 8th, taking photos of a possible (?) crime scene, on the same day when the forensic investigators inspected this room. If you are new here, please start reading the main story of the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne in my first blog post, here
Photos showing just how dry it was in the period of early April 2014
Despite claims of the girls having 'drowned in wild flowing rivers', this photo comparison shows just how dry it was in Boquete when Kris and Lisanne arrived there (and throughout their first week in Boquete it stayed dry, the rain season did not start yet). Right a photo of Lisanne posing next to a dry and run over river bed. Below there is on the left a photo I found here and taken in 2019, and on the right a photo taken on approximately March 30th when Kris and Lisanne explored the town. The entire river bed is dry. Plants grow in the gully where the river normally flows. This matches reports about the exceptional dry spell the town was in back then. You also see it on their photos of the Pianista trail; dry trails, no mud. And as we can now see also no 'wildly flowing rivers', as the tour guides like us to believe, as well as prosecutor Betzaida Pitti. As you can see in the shapes of the mountains in the background and other background elements, these photos were taken at almost the exact same location. But during very different climatological circumstances; one during normal conditions, the other during an exceptionally dry spell. And a Boquete local wrote this on a forum at the time (on July 2nd of 2014): "We must bare in mind that two months ago, there was a severe (fuerte) drought in the area, that affected the water levels in the whole cordillera of Talamanca."
Although this photo from a news item on TV shows that water streams usually on the left side of the green wild plan growth. Nevertheless: in the photos taken by Kris and Lisanne, there really is no water visible at all, not even a small stream on the left.
The Mirador photos revisited
Power-Pixie wrote me some more interesting things about the Mirador photos and the clouded sky in some of the photos. While looking back into it all, I realized that I have been wrong so far about my perception of where these different Mirador photos were taken exactly! Somehow I have assumed that the blue sky photos were taken on one side of the summit, while the cloud covered ones were taken on the other side. But this is not true, I only now realise. Very silly, as the Lost in the Wild crew has made it clear already what that summit looks like.
So I used to think that the ongoing trail was facing the north-east and that the blue sky views were on its left, so facing West. While the clouded photos were aimed at the East. While in fact, all the photos were taken on the East-side of the summit, facing the (South-)East. Just as Hans Kremers already showed the meticulous viewer in the Answers for Kris video.
Starting point for all this was that Power-Pixie brought a video of a group of Canadian travelers back to my attention. I had seen it before, but not been paying enough attention. Because these hikers actually showed the East-side view in one ongoing camera motion. I put it in a gif video for you:
The interesting part here is that I already felt that the clouded sky on one side (and in two photos) contrasted a lot with the blue sky on the 'other side' (and in most of the other summit photos). But now we have the fact captured on video that these Mirador photos were all taken on the same stretch of mountain, all facing the East/South-East. Here we can see the similar shapes of mountains in the background of 'our' photos, further proving this.
I still think that the contrast is extreme between both skies. Perhaps even more so, now that they aren't approaching one another on different sides of the mountain, but on the same side. Could this be a clue that those two overcast selfies on the summit were indeed taken on the way back, potentially? And that someone has been tossing the order and chronology of these photos, re-arranging some of them to make it look like all those photos were taken at the same time, after climbing up the Boquete side of the mountain? This is a big stretch of course and may not really be the case. Beides, there áre also some fluffs of white cloud drifting by in some of the sunny photos. Nothing like the coverage in the cloud photos, but with a bit of imagination, you can combine these photos and make a reasonable suggestion that it was just one of those cloud decks, which very suddenly cut off and went over in cloudless skies..
Power-Pixie posed an interesting question however: "It does look like significant cloud cover (in photos 500 & 501). Do you think that Kris and Lisanne, as they descended down towards the location of photo 508, would have been under all this cloud cover?" It is a good question and it was the reason why I looked into this sub-topic again. A question also, which I have not really seen posed before, as such. These clouds must be coming from the North or North-East, but they seem to stretch out all over the East. According to this weather site, on April 1st the wind came from the South at midday (noon). By 6 PM the wind turned to the north, northeast. However at noon, when these photos were taken, the wind would have blown that cloud cover straight up north. But since the trail continues in a North-Eastern direction initially, you would indeed expect that in the photos beyond the summit, Kris and Lisanne would have faced some clouds. And also: since the wind blew from the south, they would have logically speaking already encountered cloud overcast before they reached the summit. However, we have no evidence of this. Because none of their pre-summit photos show cloudy skies. They all show sunlight shining down. Photo #505 for instance, shows Kris goofing around with the sun shining on her through the foliage. It was taken about five minutes after the girls had left the Mirador behind them. And their other after-summit photos don't show any evidence of clouds either. Peculiar. But then again, we do not know what was pictured on the five photos taken on the summit by mobile phone. And how the sky looks in those photos. Still, there is so much cloud cover pictured in some photos, that I find it odd that there is no hint of it in the pre- and post-summit photos. And we know that it was not uncommon for that Pianista area to have dense clouds in juxtaposition with blue skies.
But Power Pixie's wondering why in no trail photos the girls seem to have encountered clouds overhanging, does interest me. At some point before or after the summit, they should have been covered by that massive cloud deck if the photos are shown in chronological order. And yet, we have no photos with an absense of sunshine. My guess would be that either the wind was blowing the cloud deck North at a steady pace and the girls were just on the sunny side of things. Or those cloud photos were taken on their way back, and then we have to come to the conclusion that those photos or their numbering have been manipulated and shuffled. Perhaps on June 17th, when Pittí altered the memory card by photoshopping some of the original photos. The very different colour of the sky may then have been the very reason for them to take some more photos. To document the difference between having had clear views and blue skies at the ascent, versus sudden thick grey clouds all around them on the 'way back' (of which there is no hard evidence by the way). I am not convinced that they returned, I just keep the option open based on these photos. As Dave Mullen wrote: "Too many people are fixated on the other side of the mountain, but after the full phone logs were released we learned that what we had always been led to believe on the loss of signal, and where, was all wrong. But people won't let go of that 'official' idea that the two friends got themselves lost on the other side as they weren't paying attention. I feel whatever went on that afternoon is more complicated than that simple thinking though." - See a string of photos with these different background skies below, accompanied by the exact camera times. And also notice how there are sometimes only seconds between photos, taken at different spots on the summit with different backgrounds and even different hairstyles at times. The two photos that stand out from the rest, with the full clouded background skies, are also the only two photos where Kris and Lisanne suddenly stick their thumbs up.
Notice also how in some photos it is Kris who wears the (light) backpack, while in others it is Lisanne. Did they simply switch carrying the bag on the way back, perhaps? People have also brought up the different hairstyles of the girls. This photo timeline shows that Lisanne had her hair still tied on the summit at 13:00:36, just like during the hike itself. But that she had thrown her hair loose by 13:01:38. One possible explanation is that these are two sets of photos combined, taken at different times. Lisanne wearing her hair tied back when they reached the Mirador for the first time, and loose when they returned there after taking photo 508 at the stream. Another possible explanation is that Lisanne untied her hair on the summit, just for the photos... To create more varied photos, where she sported different hairstyles. Perhaps the loose hair made her feel more glamorous. The same can be seen with Kris, who wore her hair tied back in most hike photos that day, but loose on the summit photos. Only in Lisanne's case, there are sometimes mere seconds between these photos. For instance, photo #498 (Lisanne with tied back hair) was taken at 13:01 and 14 seconds, while photo #499 (Lisanne with loose hair) was taken at 13:01 and 38 seconds.. At different places on the summit. Not a lot of time to do all that, ánd take a good photo of it.
UPDATE
in this travel program, I saw the following images come by of a cloud forest in nearby Costa Rica. Near the border with Panama. I screensaved them, because it does look like very localized patches of cloud seem pretty normal in this terrain.
WILDXPLOR
Look also once more at wildxplor's blog post and his photos. Still going by the afternoon (old) timeline, he went up the Pianista trail in the second part of April 2014, by 15.30 PM and was at the summit by 17.30 PM. Now compare his background with Kris' photo, which was said to have been taken at 13.01 PM (instead of 19.01 PM as the camera originally indicated). In his photo there is similar light clouding, but with a bit more blue still visible. The sunlight appears still pretty good for a late afternoon photo session. To me the light seems pretty similar in fact, despite the gap in time (according to police). Now in that regards: although it appears to be correct what police did in terms of recalculating these photo times to an 11:00 AM start of the trail and 13.00 PM summiting, I am also still not entirely sold on this. We have not seen the evidence, have not been presented the findings of the 'sun specialist' (which I have been told was not really a specialist at all, but just an employer from the NFI). Nobody bothered to explain away all the off witness accounts either. I don't exclude the possibility that the old timeline is correct after all.
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Power Pixie's thoughts on authorities messing with the photo chronology"I think the images are mixed up. Especially #499, #500, #501, and they have probably had to remove #509 first before mixing that set. They may have removed even more after #509 or perhaps not, but in trying to be clever they left behind a gaping hole. EXIF information is written when a photo is taken/created. It contains all the technical information like date/time stamps, when it was created/modified, camera lens used, focal length, exposure, etc. It's just a digital fingerprint of a photo. Once this photo file is created and the EXIF information stored as part of the file, if opened at a later time whether it is just to view it or edit it, more information is then written to the EXIF file as part of a running record. So if you open and edit it with Photoshop, this information is then noted in the EXIF and date/time stamps are also noted along with this new update of information. Juan discovered the inconsistencies years ago when he looked at the EXIF files. He saw that someone used a Window based software to edit the files. The basis of evidence tampering is there for all to see after this, no matter what theory you hold. And no explanation was given at the time as to why or what was done.
The main aspect to their photography is the pattern that was established:
- Kris somewhere in the composition
- Lisanne somewhere in the composition
- Establishing location/area where they took the above two photos
- Selfies
All of a sudden past the Mirador we don't see this pattern repeated. While hey had nice weather and bright light for a few more snaps. If the intention was to turn back, there would have been a final closing photographs, at the very least of the upstream or downstream views with both Lisanne and Kris. Think back to the first two stream photos (#479, 480) that to me were mundane, but important enough for Lisanne to take a couple of photos at least. Expectation vs Reality. Very few photographers past and present knew/know how to capture what they see/saw in the moment. Most capture 50% - 80% of what they saw. I'm not knocking off Lisanne's attempts. I'm saying that at River 1 or River 3, compared to the stream by the Iron Bridge, these two river crossings offered her just as important and interesting a view up and downstream. Whether she took another mundane photo isn't the point. She nor Kris took any more photos in keeping with the pattern."
About photo #550
Bennengelly wrote me below this blog post in Spanish (translated here): "Hi. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the picture where you can see a branch with pieces of red plastic was taken at 1:05 AM." - I suspect he bases this for the most part on the Dutch TV program Een Vandaag, who showed this:
Good question! Yes unfortunately the Een Vandaag team made errors in their display of the photos. In this screenshot, they show that photo 550 was taken at 01:05 indeed. But this is incorrect information. [Update: Matt had access to the case files and confirmed that photo 550 was taken at 01:39:54 AM]. They may have been very sloppy there because in the same TV program they also showed extracts from the official police file documents. And on it you see the times for the photos 510, 511, 512. All taken in the night of April 8th, at or around 01:30 AM. Photos were taken in close succession and photo 550 comes obviously after photo 512, so could in fact never have been taken at 01:05 AM. As the program makers showed (screenshot on the right), they had the correct police file info, and they also had a public prosecutor/investigator and police member in the studio during the show, to emphasize that they indeed shared such case file info with these journalists. Juan also noticed this inconsistency and wrote the following about it:
Juan also checked the EXIF data of all the photos that have been made public, and found the following data, which match the ascending (time) order which we saw in the police case file screenshot above. So the general consensus is that photo 550 was taken around 01:39, corresponding with its EXIF data and matching with the screenshots we have of the official police case file report... Thanks to Juan for explaining me this further today.
Interesting 2-part podcast on the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. They also discuss the missing photo #509
Here is the main page, below I add the youtube versions of this episode. Its from November 13th, 2018.
Some interesting comments below the video on the main page, concerning the missing photo #509. Someone called Mary wrote about this: "I’m a photographer and wanted to answer your question about deleting the photo. If the photo was deleted from the camera it still exists on the memory card and can be retrieved. The only way to permanently delete the image would be to format the card, which can be done using the camera, but it would permanently delete all of the images on the card. You could probably permanently delete only a single image from a computer, but if you know that then you are probably aware of the fact that you could permanently delete all of the images right from the camera without going through the hassle of taking the card all the way to a computer and then putting it back."Alex Poland wrote on November 15th, 2018: "So I fully expect this to be redundant by now, but jumping in before I even finish the last 10 minutes of the podcast: quick layman's terms explanation of How Camera Memory Works (and any electronic device's, really). Forget, for a minute, that a digital camera stores information as 0s and 1s and imagine its memory as a pile of Etch A Sketch toys, or maybe like an old timey slate tile they'd use to write on with in chalk in schools before paper became cheap to produce. One photo is always one tile. Say your camera's memory has fifty tiles and as such can fit fifty photos. At first all tiles are blank and all lie on one pile. The 'free to use for photos' pile. You want to snap a photo. You grab a tile on random from that pile and quickly draw photo #1 in chalk on what we will call tile #1. You put that tile aside. You then draw photo #2 on tile #2 and place it with tile #1. They are now a new, 'currently in use, do not wipe' pile. You continue snapping pics, but pause after, idk, photo #7. You've decided you do not like photo #2 after all, and you only have 50 tiles, might as well free up some space now. So you grab tile #2 from the 'do not wipe' pile and put it back on 'free to use' pile, but /don't actually erase the chalk drawing. This is what happens when you erase a photo from camera's memory. The data making up the photo is not instantly gone, the device just makes a note to itself that 'this particular tile/fragment of data can now be reused if needed'. If you don't do anything else photo #2 can still be viewed and recovered using special software after connecting to a computer, even though just by flipping through from camera it appears to be gone. Now, what happens when you want to take photo #8... This is where it gets interesting. You grab another tile from the 'free to use' pile. It might be a completely new tile #8 you haven't used before OR it can be the former tile #2. What you do in that case is erase the chalk lines of photo #2 from and draw photo #8 instead. At this point photo #2 has stopped existing and cannot be recovered anymore. That's theory. In practice this does not work quite like this, new photo will not usually immediately replace another for a number of reasons, including photo not being necessarily stored in memory as one chunk of continuous 0s and 1s. It could be in several pieces and some of it may be gone and some still possibly recoverable. Now, I have an engineering background, I'm not a forensic data recovery technician and don't have experience with recovering stuff from physically damaged memory, but some things that come to mind assuming the camera wasn't damaged:
- if nothing resembling the missing photo can be recovered from the 'free to use' memory it could mean it was deleted by a user (one of the girls purposefully deleting a bad selfie or someone's finger slipping, the fact that my old digital camera had a 'delete photo' button physically on the device comes to mind) and it has then been overwritten by the device itself in the course of taking further photos. This is somewhat likely if the camera was already quite full, if there were already 500 photos on its memory card and then it proceeded to take 90 more... well, exact type&specs of camera would be helpful to know here.
- if nothing resembling the missing photo can be recovered from the 'free to use' memory it could also indeed mean someone took the camera, connected it to a computer, went in with a software made to delete files forever and erased it... IE picking up tile #2 and wiping the drawing before placing it on the 'free to use' pile, which is not what happens by default."
Juan said about missing photo #509: "All we know is the Dutch Forensics Institute (NFI) couldn’t find a trace of photo or video #509. Not even 1%, or the name.. If this file was manually deleted by Kris or Lisanne, you’d expect a 100% recovery, if no one touched the memory card. Some people claim the camera can skip a number, which has never happened to me [Juan bought the exact same Canon photo camera and tested it out thoroughly], 20.000 pictures down the road.. So it’s very suspicious, especially since it’s sitting in between the last regular photo and the night pictures. And the girls never ever did even zoom in.. They didn’t have an understanding of the camera really. And deleting a file isn’t that easy, on the camera.. You need the right menu first and then push the trash can on the not so obvious second click wheel.."
I'm not even so sure that the Panamanian investigators don't know what's on photo 509.
Juan showed that some of the photos have not only been viewed already on June 17th, before the card went to the Dutch investigators, but that some of the photos were also altered in a photoshop-type of program. So who knows if these people have seen things on the card, which the Dutch 'may' never had the chance to see. We just don't know... We don't even know if that photo #509 still existed on the card when it was handed to the police, or whether it was already missing before they had their first look. Surely the Panamanian investigators can shed more light on that. But if you consider what a botched investigation they did overall ... no fingerprints of the searchers were taken or stored, no soil samples taken from the place where the bones/bag etc were discovered, no soil samples compared to those found on the bag, no water samples taken from the water bottle, the guides house wasn't searched or checked for DNA, hairs, blood spatters etc, no suspects were interviewed and the list goes on and on. So maybe we shouldn't expect too much transparency from Panamanian police in that respect.. Isn't it astonishing that there was never any inquiry or follow-up investigation by the Dutch police on all this though.. From what we know and what has been made public, the Dutch basically said: we just couldn't find back photo #509. In this video, police explain what they do know about the phones and the camera.
David M. wrote about this: "My phone has long-since made my digital camera redundant, but back in the day it received regular use from me and I have a fair bit of experience therefore in using the card for convenient storage and transfer, and then removing its content for editing etc. So what strikes me the most about the 'cut & paste' conclusion is that cutting and pasting from your card to your computer and/or image editor is not something you would do, it is easier and natural to just drag & drop or open the photo file directly by just double clicking on it - the photos are automatically Jpeg on cameras usually so every computer and image editor can open then up without any issue. So simple. To cut and Paste on the other hand requires you to create a new page/window in your editor and make sure it is of the right size (huge given the image is digitally captured) and it is far too much hassle to do that, nobody does that. As the fact is it isn't necessary to do that.... So all it tells me as a certainly is that this one photo, out of all of them on there, was struck from existence very intentionally and very deliberately. I myself had no idea it was possible to read the history of a card as Juan demonstrated, no idea, it isn't common knowledge at all you can actually do that, and without a doubt whoever first accessed the camera and card and interfered with that picture etc didn't know it either. I don't think #509 would show on the camera review screen when reviewing so whoever erased it from existence thought they were doing something that could never be detected, the photo was gone with no evidence it had ever even existed. That belief, that no one but they would know there WAS a photo, is an important detail in itself. There was something about what that picture showed that they felt was very inconvenient and had to cease to exist..."
Juan said about all this to me: "No one uses cut and paste in such a situation, no, when you want to get one photo off the memory card and onto the PC. Because if you can't display the 'paste', you've lost everything. But that's not the point. The point is, suppose that someone removes photo 509 on the camera, or removes 509 from the card and puts it onto a PC; even then you can always recover the entire file with recovery software, or at least a percentage of it. But certainly the title, certainly the evidence that that a file 509 existed. If you format a memory card, there is also no problem: then only the index is deleted, which tells you on which jumble of sectors that one photo is stored. But recovery software does not care about that: recovery software scans all those sectors and sees what photo fragments it can still find. Only if then new photos are saved, after formatting, do you have the chance that parts of photo 509 will be overwritten by new photos. But if you prepare a memory card as a murderer yourself, that will always come to light. Your PC ensures that the field LAST ACCESSED is changed with every photo, internally, by your PC . You won't get to that, you can't reach that part. And it is then possible that the LITTLE ENDIAN indicator may change to BIG ENDIAN. I think someone may have created his own scenario on that memory card, and he did so with a lot of ignorance and violence. And that is why the data looks so sloppy, bad and incomplete on the photo copies. It may have been a mistake of him that photo 509 is missing .. or the Panamanian investigators did that. Pitti's helpers.. They didn't care about doing that whatsoever. But in any case, it is highly unlikely that Kris and Lisanne did that.."
Jason Burbank wrote: "When files are “deleted” they are not actually erased. The operating system simply removes part of the file that says it’s an active file and it can now be written over. The way to truly delete a file is to write over it with other data, like all zeros. If you don’t, you can recover it with free programs such as: https://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec This is probably why the investigators said someone must have deleted it from a computer because If you delete a file from your micro sd card on the camera, it doesn’t write over it. I know this because I’ve accidentally erased the wrong photo from the camera and was able to recover it."
Juan said some more interesting things about these photos He said regarding the year 2013 coming up in Kris and Lisanne's photos, instead of 2014 (the actual year); "Uhm it is just standard for every camera you buy, that the year of production is the first thing that shows up in the time/date settings. In this case 2013. But there is no default. With the Canon Powershot I bought after getting interested in this case, the first archive number was 102 by the way, and not 100. Pay notice; in Kris and Lisanne's camera the photos from April 1st started with archive number 102. But there is this thing with these powershot camera's, that this number jumps up one digit EITHER every new month OR every new day. And when you read out the memory card on a computer, the new archive number goes one digit up anyway once you put the memory card back into the digital camera. So, if Kris and Lisanne happened to have had my Canon camera, their photos would have started with the number 102 in Bocas del Toro (first stop in their holiday and first time they made holiday photos). The official EXIF name for those photos is then 102-0491.JPG. And then the next set of photos (for instance those of the Pianista hike) would have started with the number 103, automatically. I would love to have access therefore to the case rapport of those photos. See if the pictures taken in Bocas del Toro have the numbers 101-400.JPG. If not, manipulation has taken place."
But we do know that in the case of Kris and Lisanne's Canon camera, the night photos (taken 8 days later) also started with 102. Photo #542 for instance has the full code of 102-0542.JPG. Although this code is visible in the copy of the original photo, which we've had access to through the press. So in their case the file numbering does not jump one digit every day, automatically. Their default setting must thus have been 'file numbering - continuous'. And below it "Create folder - monthly'. It takes quite a few steps to manually alter these settings. Too many steps for the girls, considering their general straight forward, no fuss use of this camera. They never even zoomed in while making photos. Just like the different photographing modes their camera offered were never further used. With one click of the wheel, you could manually choose between 12 different modes, from manual to action to high speed to macro to video, etc. But their camera was always set to AUTO, going by the Exif data of their photos.
Juan: "And I would like to know when that digital camera of theirs was exactly purchased. Or when it was given to them at the very least, perhaps right before they took off to Panama. Because normally when you receive such a camera, you first make a round of test photos. And then watch these test photos on your PC. I would like to see for myself with what number their photo sequences started. If theirs did start with archive number 100 (and not with 102 like with my newly purchased canon camera, the exact same model as they had), then when exactly did their archive numbers jump to 101? Was this the next day? Or later? I'd want to know when exactly they started using this camera, because that may have been with their last Christmas for instance, meaning they could have already made 200 photos with it before even setting foot on Panamanian soil, and then it would have been impossible for their Panama series to start with 100. The numbering goes on, by the way. When I take photos 0 to 200 in February, meaning 102-0001.JPG to 102-200.JPG, then the first picture I take in March automatically becomes archive number 103-201.JPG. And you can not bring that archive number down yourself, not even with a hard reset of the camera; you won't get to that part of the memory. So, that once again tells us that that digital camera from Kris and Lisanne is the only reliable witness here, and the ignorant Dutch forensic institute did nothing with it. Too afraid to offend the Panamese."
Another trail
Juan mentioned a link to a travel blog. Two tourists who went with the guide on a hike, describe how on that day, the guide discouraged them to walk the Pianista Trail, but instead suggested a 'secret trail' that only he knew about. This may or may not be a trail close to the Pianista Trail. They write: "From Bocas del Toro we went by bus to the mountain town of Boquete. This is known for its beautiful hikes, waterfalls and walks. Unfortunately we were both sick, no fun. We had to skip a few things. But when we recovered a bit, we set off with our Panamanian friend F. This was really fantastic. We asked him if he wanted to walk the Pianista Trail with us. That trail must be very beautiful and is also known for the disappearance of two Dutch girls, Kris and Lisanne ... F. soon asked if we knew for sure that we wanted to do that trail, as if he had doubts about it. You should always take advice from locals, so we immediately said that if he had a better idea, we wanted to do that instead. The mountain of the Pianista Trail was covered in clouds so that, according to him, it would not be so special there today.
Juan mentioned a link to a travel blog. Two tourists who went with the guide on a hike, describe how on that day, the guide discouraged them to walk the Pianista Trail, but instead suggested a 'secret trail' that only he knew about. This may or may not be a trail close to the Pianista Trail. They write: "From Bocas del Toro we went by bus to the mountain town of Boquete. This is known for its beautiful hikes, waterfalls and walks. Unfortunately we were both sick, no fun. We had to skip a few things. But when we recovered a bit, we set off with our Panamanian friend F. This was really fantastic. We asked him if he wanted to walk the Pianista Trail with us. That trail must be very beautiful and is also known for the disappearance of two Dutch girls, Kris and Lisanne ... F. soon asked if we knew for sure that we wanted to do that trail, as if he had doubts about it. You should always take advice from locals, so we immediately said that if he had a better idea, we wanted to do that instead. The mountain of the Pianista Trail was covered in clouds so that, according to him, it would not be so special there today.
He has been walking through the jungle every single day for 19 years and had a "secret track", as he called it. A very nice walk and the weather was good there at the moment. No other guide knew which route he was taking and he was clearly proud of this track, we were looking forward to it! Along the way we spoke about Kris and Lisanne, how that was for the locals. He was very angry with the government, when Kris and Lisanne got lost they sent distress signals, but the government responded much too late. There were also no signs placed along the road. He was very sad about what happened to them. Fortunately the trail has improved in the meantime, but we prefer to go into the jungle with a guide. When we arrived we were given a walking stick which turned out to be very handy on the way. Lots of mud and unpredictable plots of land, it could suddenly be slippery or suddenly collapse. However, the area was beautiful. We soon saw a beautiful rare bird with a kind of mustache. We walked up and down, it was quite a wild track. [..] We also ate a pineapple and bananas that he had brought for us from his own garden. He said that he himself had a small farm with a small coffee plantation." - Perhaps his 'secret route' coincides with the routes which Jeremy S. discovered and sent me:
UPDATE: In their new podcast series, which I cover in great detail in this post, Jeremy Kryt and Mariana Atencio went back to Boquete and discovered a secret trail.
PATA DE MACHO TRAILKryt and Atencio go out with Jose to explore the Palo Alto area and drive to The Crow, Cuervo's, house. The place with the mango tree. "Not thirty metres from a hotel". They do multiple drive by's in fact. 'The House' is described as a relatively small, one story building. Painted in a sickly shade of orange-yellow. There is a dog on the porch, the front door is ajar, a television plays inside. It does seem that Jeremy and company are aware there may be someone in the house. While they are stood on the door of the (empty?) house, one of the crew spots a mango tree on the other side of a fence, at the rear of this house. They sneak around. The tree is in or by a small creek, along with other small trees and shrubs. You can actually hear the breeze and water bubbling as Jeremy speaks while evaluating this space. This place is rather concealed, Kryt says, and indeed has no cell reception within a hundred meters, the podcast makers confirm: "Within about a hundred yards of the Property, headed into the jungle, there is no cell reception." Pondering a hidden, secret trail Jeremy speculates that "There may be a trail that connects this house, or the grounds behind the house, with the Pianista trail." - In the Aftershow of episode 6, Kryt describes the house and its surroundings as "A residential neighborhood. The road switches from pavement to gravel, just about 100 metres north of the Palo Alto neighborhood. There are plots of farmland sprinkled about. There áre houses nearby, and those houses were there in 2014. Certainly within earshot. In the vicinity. If they were calling for help, someone would have heard them. We've also been told it is a party house where there were commonly parties, so loud music or people shrieking with laughter.. the neighbours could have become accustomed to that. So they maybe didn't respond or didn't bat an eye. And from Margarita's description, based on what Murgas told her, Kris was killed very quickly, But she does talk about how Lisanne began to scream. So that made me wonder." Mariana adds that this is a rural place, and that she doesn't know really if people live there all year round. Jeremy: "There's a hotel not 30 meters away." And when they are on the Pate de Macho trail, Jeremy states that Cuervo's house is "about two kilometres down the hill". [Scarlet: This seems to roughly align with the area to the north of the Tree Trek Adventure park].
There is also a back road leading from the Pianista trail to this Palo Alto area. It's called Pata de Macho ('hoof of the tapir'). Interesting.. I long assumed there were other, unkempt and small trails leading away from the Pianista trail. Trails which could have been used to kidnap Kris and Lisanne, without them being seen. But this is a very interesting bit of information on at least one such a path, confirmed by Kryt and Martin who saw the trail and its linking to the Pianista with their own eyes. Mariana rightly makes it clear that this discovery is a *huge* deal and it really shouldn't be downplayed. Discovering the (back)trail that connects the Paolo Alto house to the Pianista should probably be a turning point for everyone. This Pata de Macho path is not used a lot, the podcast makers describe. It's flatter, longer, less strenuous and pretty empty. Only park rangers and possibly hunters [and local tour guides of course] still use it. It's also overgrown and hard to spot and it takes almost twice as long to lead to the Mirador than the Pianista does; between three and five hours. [Scarlet: So if Kris, Lisanne and their company had started marching after 14.00 PM, they would have most likely still been walking down this trail by the time the first two emergency calls were made. Given they were approaching civilization by then - going by this theory - is that a logical thing or not?] This route could have certainly been used to move people or remains around unseen. In theory... Jose Donderis, the former head of Sinaproc, confirms that this Pata de Macho route was NOT or barely searched. "Because we were prohibited". "We had problems with the authorities. The director of the operation was not comfortable with my participation on the site, due to political problems." In the Aftershow of episode 6, Kryt and Atencio discuss this further and Kryt corrects Donderis here and says that the police report states that this area of Pata de Macho was in fact searched. The podcast makers also share that they ran into a puma on this trail, but that the animal ran off instantly and was very skittish. "It wanted nothing to do with us, and I think that is typical behaviour for those big cats", Kryt says. Jeremy Kryt also says something else interesting: "Even the bigger reveal is that when we sent our head guide up the Pianista to find the mouth of the Pata de Macho trail, he was told by multiple sources on the mountain that guide F. had ordered that trail to be closed. And he thought that was very suspicious. I think this is very interesting, if we're right and guide F's son Tito and the other members of the Bandida did use this trail. And we already know guide F. is threatening other sources. He's threatened the entire community of Alto Romero. So we know he has a history of trying to cover this case up. He actually threatened the landowner to get him to close that trail down. Of course, according to sources on the mountain." How interesting.. Guide F. said nothing about the existence of this other trail when Roelie and Hans Kremers asked him about side trails on the Pianista. Roelie noticed a third path there. "A temporary path.." says guide F. Hans quickly diverted the conversation elsewhere, but when you look at the body language of guide F.'s assistants, you wonder if there is some fear there, While that particular side trail appears not to be the Pata de Macho trail (but perhaps it is, I don't know for sure), the guide also makes no effort to inform his paying customers about OTHER back trails. Guide F. may have been right about that specific side trail which Roelie points at. But they hired his services in order to scour that Pianista trail and the ongoing trail beyond the Mirador for possible exits. That was their goal. See if Kris and Lisanne could have exited or fell down at any place. So knowing this was their purpose and knowing why they were there, hiring his expertise, I find it very odd that he is caught on camera telling others in Spanish not to talk or tell the parents about .... (muffled) and that he never informed them about this Pata de Macho trail. A trail he clearly was aware of. Doesn't look good. And now we learn that guide F. also prevented people from searching this trail back in 2014... While single-handedly steering everyone to the wrong side of the Mirador. Why would that be? Peculiar. Not to say damning information, if those witnesses tell the truth.
And something else: in my main blog post on this case, I refer to a short article in a Dutch newspaper, dated May 15th 2014, in which tour guide F. is interviewed. Somehow I only really highlighted what he stated in that interview about the need to search through abandoned houses and sheds, in the search for Kris and Lisanne. But now some other people have re-read the interview and they focused on some other details. The tour guide also stated in this short interview with the Dutch newspaper Algemeen dagblad (I translated it in English): "Because he had walked the trails as a guide countless times, and during the first track he had brought a lot of fruit in his backpack. 'The girls will be hungry, I thought.' But in subsequent searches he no longer did that. Now his searches for them are not as coordinated anymore as in the beginning. He doesn't know where to look and does not believe that the girls are in the jungle. because it has already been searched." "They can be everywhere, also here in Boquete. I think there is a chance of that." There are many new built houses that are empty in Boquete. "None of those empty houses have been searched by police. Nobody knows who lives there. You can easily hide two girls there", he said to reporters. So, what did I overlook? The following statement: "When the language school manager told me that the girls were missing, I was convinced they were lost. All their belongings were still with the host family where they were staying. I saw it myself, I went with them when they looked in their room. I saw the bags, their identity cards, the cell phone. And they were last spotted on the Pianista Trail, where you can go for a walk."
This is what Juan wrote about this: "I saw the bags, identity cards [plural, meaning passports]... THE MOBILE PHONE. ----> Yet both the (two) mobile phones were found inside the backpack, found outside Alto Romero. Also, Lisanne's passport was missing, and now he claims he saw two (or both their) identity cards in the room. So, is this a case of, a slip of the tongue? The backpack was found on June 13th or 14th of 2014, one month after this interview.. In other interviews in Spanish, this tour guide talks about seeing mobile phone chargers when he speaks about what he saw when he entered their rooms.." Great detective work Juan. So if the tour guide literally saw a mobile phone in the girls' room at April 2nd of 2014, when we know that both the girls carried their phones with them when they went missing (and they didn't carry extra mobile phones), then doesn't this mean that they did make it back from the Pianista Trail hike? Or that a 3rd person was involved in their disappearance and got hold of these phones, placing one back in the room? Or that they brought a 3rd mobile phone with them theoretically? (No word about this from the families or the investigators, however..). A strange statement, for sure.
I tried to make some more detailed and comprehensive maps of the exact area where Kris and Lisanne walked and where their remains were found, also indicating where approximately were finca's, wooden huts and houses in the vicinity
Was helped tremendously by Jeremy who found great online maps of the area and did a lot of searching work for finca's. I'll keep reading on public forums (some have thousands of pages..) about this disappearance case, and adjust the maps accordingly if needed. As the map shows, Kris and Lisanne could have walked wrong already after the meadow (where Kris' parents end up near the end of this video), but then they must have also found small wooden sheds and even the first inhabited house. And if they walked further even more houses (Alto Culebra).
And David M. also pointed me to Satellite Pro, where you can see very detailed maps of the world
Here you can zoom in on the Boquete area. Dave wrote: "Something that has affected the way I read what may have happened to the two friends is discovering the excellent Satellite Pro site, which offers astonishingly detailed and powerful aerial views of the Pianista wilderness and the ability to zoom in in a way that leaves Google.maps far behind in terms of quality. Using it, studying the area and potential routes, really opened up my mind to the reality that this is a story that can be divided into two halves. The first act is the initial disappearance on April 1st, and when I say disappearance that is exactly what happened to the two friends, although the Elvis Gonzales camp suggests their presence it remains unconfirmed, and so the two have literally dropped off the face of the earth, not got 'Lost'. But vanished. So anything anyone can think of here is largely meaningless as there is almost nothing to go on after the final Photo of the day. Act Two however begins with the finding of the backpack, and here is really where the attention should be as by its discovery (planting) comes virtually everything we know - the remains, the phones, the camera, etc. It all springs from the finding of that backpack. And that point has long fascinated me as this part of the story is where it is all at: the backpack leads to the remains discovery, Kris Kremers' shorts which have miraculously stayed in place in some eddy beside the river not far from the cable bridge, meanwhile we are to assume 97% of their remains have been washed away into oblivion... which when you study the route of the river on Sattelite.pro is a near absurdity really. A winding rubble strewn river would catch much of the remains along its channel, any flood powerful enough to wash away all of two bodies would certainly take a pair of shorts with it, and geographically if this had all washed down the river it should collect some remains at certain points. This is what happens on mountains and river channels - debris tends to funnel to certain points thanks to gravity and the geography, but all along the river and past Alto Romero no one notices all this human debris washing by, over at least several days...? I find this hard to believe to say the least. Something that also occurred to me was that given the searchers found numerous small fragments of bone, which turned out to belong to bodies from possible washed out graves of locals, it demonstrates that the search was reasonable thorough. If they found such small fragments like this, many years old, where is the rest of Kris and Lisanne...?"
Thank you Dave, that is indeed an excellent site and I already made some great screenshots from it in the past, of the places where Kris and Lisanne's remains were found along the river. I agree that the river is littered with rocks and it winds all over the place. It is unbelievable that entire bodies would be dragged away, never to be seen again, in such a winding bendy obstructed small river. The professionals agreed on this. They would in that case have found bodies or -parts stuck in bends.... Professionals stated the same, they found bodies in river bends who had been there for over a year. Intact bodies, despite of course being altered in appearance by decomposition. But it is unbelievable that those tiny rivers who go all over the place and have rocks everywhere, stunting flow of objects, could have made the bodies for 98% disappear the way they did. People also live alongside these small rivers, there are houses and farms nearby. The backpack was found by people bathing in the river, supposedly. So entire bodies floating by... exactly. Bodies with a 40.000 dollar reward, no less. Here are some photos showing just how teeny tiny those rivers are. They also show just how much open terrain there was in this area. Just how many places where Kris and Lisanne - had they truly been lost by themselves - could have stood, waving their coloured shirts, signalling the helicopters which flew over this area many, many times. But the helicopter pilots saw nothing, no sign of the girls. These are the locations where the (few) bones were found close by:
if Kris and Lisanne started their hike later (matching the witness statements from the language School staff and the taxi driver), they would have started their Pianista hike around 13:45 PM, would have been at the summit around 15:30, then at the quebrada (first stream) around 16:30, so ten minutes before first calling emergency services at 16:39 PM. Within this old timeline, the girls would have started calling emergency services either 10 minutes after crossing the stream (pictured on photos 507 and 508), or they would have turned around and called 10 minutes after the start of their walk back to the summit. At the first small stream, the distance from the Mirador (summit of the Pianista Trail) and this small river crossing is around 45 minutes worth of (normal) walking distance. It is possible, not to say likely, within this timeline that the first emergency call was made somewhere on a hill that can be seen in the left side screenshot. It’s actually a decent increase in height. With thanks to Jeremy S. who made these screenshots. One shows the elevation, another shows roughly where the girls would have been when they made their first emergency call - assuming the witness based timeline. Again: the distance from the Mirador to the stream is the equivalent of 45 minutes, and we for now assume (with this screenshot) that the first call to 112 was made 10 minutes after crossing the stream.
Maps
These images also show quite clearly that the girls had gone no real distance after the Mirador yet and that they were still a long way from the first cable crossing over a further away river. It also clearly shows the girls were no real distance from the stream they'd just crossed and in fact, given it was a hill rising from the stream with worn areas it's possible that when they made the first call they could look down and see the stream crossing still. It's also possible that they called when they reached the top of the hill and realized that the way ahead didn't lead to a path taking them back to Boquete, but instead further away. Jeremy S. also wrote me: "Although I firmly believe the girls were victims of crime I'm open to the possibility that the girls got lost first. For that reason I've created this map with shows all possible routes to the 1st stream." Thank you also Jeremy for your great maps.
The waterfall
These days there are signs placed at the top of the Pianista Trail, warning people not to keep walking further without a guide, because there is more treacherous terrain ahead. But there is also a small water fall ahead... On the photos 507 and 508 of Kris crossing a small river, a trail is shown that goes to a waterfall. A larg waterfall beyond the Pianista summit. But it is hard to find. Is it possible that the girls deviated from the main path at some point to find this waterfall? And that they got lost along the way? Jeremy S. managed to find aerial 3D imagery of this mysterious waterfall! See screenshots below:
On guide F's TripAdvisor review site, there have been 27 lovely positive reviews so far. 5 out of 5 stars. But 4 weeks ago, someone posted a rather negative review.
Sophie J. wrote around July 22nd 2019: "Great guide, but not for women traveling alone. - It took me almost a year to finally post this review. I strongly recommend women to not hire F as your guide if you’re by yourself. It’s a big contrast if you look at the other reviews, where F. is described as a very nice person, which he probably is for many people. I have to say, he’s very charming, funny and you can probably, as you will read in the other reviews, have a great day with him. Did a walking tour with him. He’s the guide that knows the area by heart. Not long after we left he subtly started to flirt with me and also touching me, first my hand, but also my arms, shoulder and legs, even after telling him many times to stop doing that. He wears a big machete and suggested to chop off my legs (this of course was a joke but still...). He has an obsession for Northern European women and I felt very unsafe. It’s a personal story, but google his name and you’ll unfortunately find more stories like this about him." - Date of experience: September 2018
Violet rose commented on this topic: "I’ve read some of the reviews, and the fact that one of them commented “The hike we did was very cool and completely off the beaten track. We saw no people other than the indigenous people who live in the area” struck me. There are photos the girls took, of which locals said they couldn’t have gotten to those areas without a guide."But others disagree: And say that most comments are positive, and one negative comment shouldn't be given more attention or credit that is reasonable. This tour guide jumps out because he was involved in so many steps along the way in this disappearance case. He claimed that he talked to the girls before they disappeared; he was the first to enter their room; the photos from the room show their belongings having been rummaged through and a business card from this guide having been placed on the bed of one of the girls. He was the first to look for them in the jungle (but still two days after being alarmed that they never showed up); he was called first by the woman who found the backpack before it was handed to police. He is said to have found all the bones, including a foot-in-shoe that lay behind and "almost under" a tree, by his own admission. The bones were found relatively close to Alto Romero, where he is said to have a finca. He personally guided the parents of Kris and the brother of Lisanne around, and he popped up in many video reports on the case. He gave contradicting statements in the media about when he saw them or not, and when he first went looking for them. So I suppose that is why some people ask questions about this specific person. But even if he was too flirty or pushy with one client; that does not mean that he is a criminal or involved in the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. By all accounts, he spent a lot of time and energy trying to find the missing girls and help solve this case. And his services were used by both the families of the girls. The Froons call him a family friend.
These travelers also walked the Pianista Trail in 2019and knew of the tragic ending of Kris and Lisanne. They paid their respects to them at the top. They also wrote some more interesting things: "Before you enter the dense jungle, you walk for about twenty minutes through open fields with an total clear and open view. The paths largely lead themselves, but there are still a few points where you can go the wrong way. After a 5-minute walk, you can cross the river through a small bridge and then turn right onto the path. If you don’t do this, you have to cross the river through the water a few minutes later. Once in the jungle we had to cross the river again and immediately afterwards we missed a path that led us to continue our route across the river. Fortunately, a friendly local gave us a little further the advice to climb up and follow the usual path. The higher you go, the narrower the paths become. You will also notice that the path is getting soggy and that the necessary grip is required (think of good shoes and possibly a walking stick). Just when you think there is no end to the climb, you are there. What a nice feeling to be ‘on top of the mountain’ in the clouds. And yet you also get a completely different feeling at this place because you will also find the memorial to Lisanne and Kris here. Goosebumps. It is nice to see that the memorial to this terrible event is well maintained by the local guides. The Pianista Trail is a much harder trail because it has many height meters. If you are not trained at all, then we do not recommend this draw. In addition, it is quite muddy, and it gets slippery the higher you go. We were there during the dry season and for the most part walked the way back with a stick to avoid slipping. When it has rained for a few days, it seems uncomfortable and irresponsible to go to the top. The trip takes about 4 hours and we personally do not recommend doing this hike on your own. You encounter very few people along the way and especially during the last part there is a risk of slipping. We met one boy at the beginning and otherwise only one Dutch girl with a guide. She indicated that she was happy that she used a guide. She has chosen F., a famous guide in the area who also maintains the memorial site of Kris and Lisanne."
Power-Pixie summarizing the links of Guide F. with this case
The person mostly connected with all of this is guide F.. Thanks to Power Pixie for the following summary. Mind you, I don't think guide F. is directly involved in their disappearance. There is also no evidence for this. But the following links do show that it was really poor investigating from Betzaida Pitti, to not even look into him (and his phone, computer, whereabouts, properties etc etc) and prove his innocense. As David M. stated: "If this was any western police investigation, Feliciano would have been an immediate figure of interest as his story in those first days is questionable, and his interest in all aspects of the disappearance very odd indeed - why would two young clients who never showed up concern him so much? Even when the authorities had the matter in hand and a search was launching? Eileen meanwhile runs off after the first few days. Why? Did the police not pursue this key witness?"
- "Told the media that he saw Kris and Lisanne, waved and said hello to them some time before they disappeared
- Non-existent Booking for April 2nd (Coffee farm, strawberry farm, overnight stay or Pianista Hike?)
- First one along with Eileen to go in K&L's room on April 2
- First one to know Kris and Lisanne were missing from looking inside of their room on April 2
- First one along with Eileen to file a missing persons' report on April 2
- First one to report to the town council about K&L missing on April 3
- First one to search the trail and find no trace of them on April 3
- First one to mention in the media that Kris and Lisanne may have fallen off a bridge
- First one to also mention in the media that vultures would be seen circling around if Kris and Lisanne had an accident or been attacked by wild animals
- Was involved in leading some of the search parties in April
- Was involved in finding the backpack
- Was involved in discovering Kris's shorts, though he seems to not try to take credit for it these days
- Was involved in discovering the remains of K&L
- Was involved in guiding the Kremers on the trail
- Was involved in accompanying Martijn Froon on his return to Boquete and the trail for the breakfree video
- Told the media that he never saw Kris and Lisanne as well as that he greeted them ('Hola!') while they were out at Spanish by the River.
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Feliciano:
- Knows the trail and generally the area beyond the continental divide based on his decades of experience hiking this terrain with tourists
- Knows of secret trails that he has mentioned to tourists as late as 2018. Feliciano knows of secret paths
- Knows of various other geographically similar locations to the one shown in the night photos to which he's taken tourists to like the Caldera Hot Springs, Los Quetzales trail, Lost Waterfalls, the Hidden Waterfall somewhere off the Pianista trail, parts of the Baru Volcano
- Drives a 4x4, owns a farm in Alto Romero, and in Alto Quiel, and some fincas
- Employs residents of Alto Romero and his step son Henry to work on the ranch in Alto Romero
This graphic makes me think that Kris and Lisanne were returning from their last photo location River 1, when they may have been intercepted by Henry and his friends, and they convinced Kris and Lisanne that the hidden waterfall was nearby. Taking them through one of these secret paths, but that did not lead to the hidden waterfall but may have taken them further away from Boquete and into very unfamiliar territory."
Interesting Dutch blogger has dedicated a string of blog posts on the Kris and Lisanne disappearance and calls Ingrid Lommers a spider in a criminal webHere you can read his blog series. They are all written in Dutch, but I am sure your web browser has a translation option if you don't speak Dutch. I will summarize some of the authors findings more elaborately below. Author Ilidio Tavares has combined information he found online on the case with his own ideas of what happened with Kris and Lisanne. He tries to paint a full story, from A to Z, which he believes can explain all the strange details in this case. In his version of events, Kris and Lisanne met Eileen already in the Netherlands, where she studied tourism. Through this connection, the girls came into contact with Ingrid Lommers, the owner of the Spanish language schools in Bocas del Toro and Boquete. Ilidio calls her The Empress, the black spider in a web of intrigue, crime and corruption, who used the girls as pawns and sacrificed them to a crime cartel. Ingrid was the one who not only arranged the volunteer work in a local school (despite neither of the girls speaking Spanish), but she also cancelled it for the girls, without their knowledge. That is also why the staff of children's school Aura never gave Kris and Lisanne a proper explanation for the refusal to have them start their volunteer work on Monday the 31st of March. Ingrid and her staff pushed Kris and Lisanne to go explore the area in their first week there, feeding them with info on the Pianista Trail. He writes that in his scenario, the girls were already dead women walking at that point. Ingrid is the bad one in this story, not a tour guide. He had heard something about the kidnapping, but only wanted to help in the end. And Eileen is the beautiful but naive pawn in his scenario. The Empress wanted to gain more power and let her empire grow. She got involved in the dark world of the cartels. She received money and protection in exchange for western good looking female tourists, and according to Ilidio, she delivered. On Tuesday the 1st of April, the staff of the language school arranged for a taxi to pick the girls up, to bring them to the start of the Pianista Trail. They have been given orders by their boss, who resides still in Bocas at that moment.
I always like reading theories and scenario's from other people who closely follow this disappearance case. Ingrid, the owner of the language schools, had arranged the volunteer work at the local school for Kris and Lisanne. The girls had called and contacted her multiple times beforehand, asking again and again confirmation if they really could start working at the school, Aura, on the morning of Monday 31st of March? Yes, they were told consistently by Ingrid and/or her staff. The parents of the girls confirmed this on TV, they also read the confirmation emails. So how is it possible that the school staff knew nothing about these Dutch volunteer workers when the girls arrived there? And sent them away? You'd normally assume that there was just a kink in the cable and a problem with communication. But, could it even be possible that Ingrid set them up, as Ilidio suggests? Or cancelled their work, without their knowledge? And then had her staff push them for excursions that week, including the Pianista hike? It sounds pretty extreme. But some people knew they were up on that mountain that Tuesday April 1st. Some locals said and wrote that she has some bad connections in Boquete. Maybe some criminals put pressure on her to deliver female tourists, in exchange for... protection? Or something else, money, power? At this point, nobody can probably with 100% exclude this hysterical sounding option, although it is probably not true. But Ingrid knew they were coming and helped set it all up when Kris and Lisanne were still in the Netherlands. She said to have arranged the volunteer work at the local children's school for them. She or her staff seem to have made errors with this, as the Aura staff were rude to the girls and sent them away. Or were the Aura workers to blame? Regarding the rest of this Dutch bloggers' views, his theory as a whole attempts to explain the disappearance, the motive of the criminals, the broken bones and the phone use and night photos. It isn't completely fitting however, theoretically, in my view. Some open endings for instance:
*If Kris was still alive but too weak on April 11th to type in her PIN code in her iPhone, how come then that on April 5th/6th (when she supposedly had fled her ordeal, carrying her backpack) she no longer entered her correct PIN code? While her phone had 70-something attempts to activate it?
*If both girls took a serious tumble during their escape after April 6th and did fell into a ravine of sorts, how come their backpack and shoes were found showing no signs of this? No serious tearings or extensive slid marks. The backpack would certainly have showed specific signs of a fall in that case. The jeans shorts showed some damage, but not seemingly matching with a huge fall.
*If Lisanne's body was buried already at the start of the second week of April 2014, how is it possible
that a near intact foot of her was found in June of 2014? With skin and meat on it and all? And how can an intact rolled up ball of skin from her have been found then at the end of August of 2014?
*Why would cartel members allow the girls to keep their mobile phones? Kris and Lisanne could have hidden all sorts of secret Dutch messages in those phones, for instance under the contact data of others. And what a risk it would have been to later place those phones in the backpack again and have authorities investigate them.
"Scary! When I first heard about the El Pianista trail, it gave me shivers down my spine! Two girls (Lisanne Froon & Kris Kremers) lost their life's during this trail, when supposedly they got lost. What exactly happened is a mystery to this date. As Lisanne and Kris were from my home town, I wanted to do this hike even more to show my respect, despite all that could happen. The track was easy to navigate and I nowhere felt unsafe. The hike was actually very beautiful, besides the uncomfortable feeling I had about what had happened here 5 years ago. As I already reached the summit after 1,5 hours of hiking I spotted a memorial that was placed to remember the girls. To this day, there now is a sign that says not to walk further, as it's dangerous to continue. Despite all the horrors this Forrest holds, and me being curious, I went past the sign. As I descended more down along the muddy road it started to rain heavily, as from that moment, and with the story of the girls in the back of my mind, I decided it would be too risky to continue and turned back from hence I came. All by all it's still a mystery what happened, but I can say this hike gave me the shivers all the way."
Michael K. replied to Ricks post: "You don't know me, but I knew Lisanne. I've been working on this case for a while. I don't know how much research you've done in advance, but in this area there is probably a serial killer at work. In addition to these two girls, several tourists were found dead. And according to local residents in that area, more than 20 people were killed. Many suspect that a 'much too friendly tour guide' has something to do with it. Good job of you though! But I don't know how prepared you are .. Just .. don't make the same mistake. Expect the unexpected in such a country, but don't let it blind you to have fun. Good luck, have fun!"
Rick replied: "Hey Michael, how interesting to read. I did look up a few things on the internet before I did this hike and came to the same conclusion. I also came across this specific tour guide during the hike, but at that moment I did not yet know who he was and that it was him. All in all very crazy. I hope I don't disrespect someone by sharing this story this way, I wanted to do the hike out of compassion for the girls. Hopefully you could give her loss a place."
Photos from Kris at a
Halloween party in 2011
3D images of Kris and Lisanne Photos from Zachary Womack
Zachary made up several 3D images from some of the pictures which Kris and Lisanne took on their trip. He explained to me that 3D photography relies on taking two pictures (one for each eye) and then blending them together in one image. 3D images can be useful as they provide depth information compared to a normal 2D image. Also, items that are in one image and not the other “pop” out making them easier to spot. Last, 2 images of poor quality can be “enhanced” in 3D allowing you see more than if looking at one image. Colored glasses, or other types of glasses are needed to give the 2D image a 3D appearance. For these images, you will need to get the “red blue” (Anaglyph type) glasses to view them. Zachary also explained that the 3D images are in no way perfect, as the girls were not trying to create them… He did the best he could given the angles and the fact that there was only a few that could be converted.
Thank you! Click on each photo to view it enlarged
Host family mother Miriam Guerra has stated to the Panamanian press at the time that Lisanne was not feeling good the day(s) before the Pianista hike. From her diary we know that she wasn't feeling good psychologically when she stayed in Boquette. And physically she was said to suffer from asthma-related respiratory symptoms, as well as a leg injury. This non-specified leg injury may have stemmed from her volleyball sport. But in this close-up from Lisanne's right foot for instance, taken the week prior to their Pianista hike (while in Bocas del Toro), you can see that Lisanne had a red swelling on the bridge of the foot. In her diary Lisanne confirmed also to have suffered from circulation problems due to the heat: "I have such thick legs. It must be from the heat that my feet look like rhino legs".
Near the end of the year 2014, an American tourist couple was robbed at gunpoint on the Pianista Trail, on the same stretch which Kris and Lisanne walked
"UPDATE on La Pianista / Palo Alto Criminal activity - - Before Christmas this year, a tourist couple was robbed at gunpoint while walking on the Pianista trail above La Pianista restaurant in Palo Alto. In collaboration with the victims, who had left the country, a private investigation was conducted, which resulted in the identification of two suspects, whose names were handed over to the police by Alto al Crimen. Unfortunately, because the victims had already left the country and because only untraceable cash was taken from them, no further action was possible at the time. Since then, the home of Carol and Tom Hurst was broken into in the same neighborhood, and a failed break-in was attempted of the Rock Restaurant. And a few weeks ago another tourist couple was robbed at gunpoint on the same trail. These victims reported the incident to the police, and immediately the previous suspects were brought in and positively identified. Unfortunately, the victims had to leave the country before they could testify and the suspects were let go and allowed to run free again. It's only a matter of time before these guys are eventually removed from the community, but in the meantime, it would be a good idea to prevent anyone from walking the trail above La Pianista and especially to alert visitors for this area." - In addition: the two turned out to be two brothers who lived along the Pianista Trail, or so I read. Also, a woman has been physically attacked nearby the Pianista Restaurant, several burglaries took place (example of an armed robbery here) and several foreigners living nearby have been murdered. And that is only for the year 2014, there has been a lot more crime in the years prior. It is clear however that known criminals walking around in Boquete, of which police know that they have committed crimes in the past, who either were or were not prosecuted. But NOBODY was officially interrogated in the Kris and Lisanne disappearance. Not a single person was interviewed or had their house checked for DNA or scent or blood of the two young women, just in case.. Another example:"August 8, 2012. BREAK-INS – PALO ALTO LOOP AREA. Unfortunately, over the last two weeks, we have seen an eruption of break-ins on the Palo Alto loop between The Rock restaurant and the area of the Palo Alto bridge. We can confirm the following: About a week ago, a single female walking on the road was assaulted in the vicinity of la Pianista restaurant. She was attacked from behind by a male Panamanian 15-19 years old, but was able to kick him in the genitals and scream, which ended the attack. Apparently the objective was to steal her backpack, which commonly have laptop computers in them."
And these Dutch bloggers and tourists also went to Boquete; their blog details their experience with the Pianista Trail in July 2013 (so 3/4 year before Kris and Lisanne went there, and look which dog accompanied them)
July 20, 2013 (Translated from Dutch), bloggers are Thijs and Anique: "We arrive in Boquete mid-afternoon. We notice immediately that it is indeed cooler here. Through the accommodation of our choice, which is full, we arrive at a great hostel where we are the only ones. We continue with our culinary wizardry from the past weeks, and start cooking here as well. For the remainder of our stay we remain the only ones in the hostel, except for one night. In the evening we watch movies in a communal space. Good for our Spanish. The day after our arrival we make a walk through the pleasant, but otherwise not very special village. We also make a plan for the coming days, because over here it is more about activities in the area, than about Boquete town itself. We make a great hike, partly through meadows and mountains and we get company of a nice husky dog. Safer and convivial! However, we only hike to the point where the cloud forest takes over from the grasslands. Both in the hostel and on the way we are warned that tourists have been robbed on this trail in recent months. This, combined with the cloudy weather, makes us decide to [turn around earlier and] go back to the hostel."
Gruesome slaughter in an area relatively close to BoqueteJanuary 16th, 2020. (Source, source) I have always cast the suggestion aside that Indigenous people could be behind the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. It seemed to me that they had no reason to do so, other than what some suggest to be cannibalism. Now it is breaking news that members from this Indigenous Ngobe tribe, which has been mentioned so many times in this disappearance case of Kris and Lisanne because it were members from this large tribe who helped to find their bone remnants as well as their backpack, have now fallen victim to a crazed religious sect. Panamanian police have discovered a freshly dug mass grave in the community of Alto Terrón, with the bodies of six children and one pregnant woman in it. All but one were siblings and descendants of the woman, ranging in age from 1 to 17 and according to police they belonged to the Ngobe tribe. They were most likely the victims of bizarre exorcist rituals, according to officials. Police came to the remote area after three tribe members showed up in hospital with extensive injuries and told that they came from a sect, who were torturing other members. The police had also been made aware of a social media post, showing one victim being burned. “The victims had been kidnapped from their homes by other members of the community, beaten and killed, said Rafael Baloyes, the chief prosecutor for the province of Bocas del Toro.” “On their arrival, the police interrupted a haunting religious ritual unfolding inside a makeshift church. “There were people held against their will, being mistreated,” Mr. Baloyes recalled. One of those detained was a nude woman. Al Jazeera: “There was a naked person, a woman inside the building, where investigators found machetes, knives and a ritually sacrificed goat. The rites had been going on since Saturday, and had already resulted in deaths. They searched this family out to hold a ritual and they massacred them, mistreated them, killed practically the whole family," said Baloyes, adding that one of the suspects in the killing is the grandfather of the children who were slain.” - The captives, who had been tied up and tortured, as well as beaten with bats and Bibles, were going to be killed “if they did not repent their sins,”. 15 people were freed from captivity by the police, including several pregnant women as well as children. Ten suspects — nine adults and one minor (nine males and one female) — were arrested and placed under investigation on charges of deprivation of liberty, homicide and sexual abuse. Newspaper El Siglo mentions the names of all the suspects here. Staggeringly, one of the suspects was the grandfather of the children whose bodies were found in the grave. The authorities also seized machetes “and other tools” that were presumably used against the victims, according to a statement from the Public Ministry of Panama. “The suspects are members of an evangelical church called the New Light of God, officials said. Interviews with community members revealed that the sect began practicing rituals more than three months ago, Mr. Baloyes said, though the kidnapping and torture started only last Saturday, when a sect member claimed to have received a message from God. Investigators have found no evidence of other victims or secret graves, the prosecutor added.” All the victims and suspects were residents of Alto Terrón, a community in Ngäbe Buglé, an Indigenous administrative region in a densely forested peninsula in western Panama, between the Caribbean Sea and the Chiriquí Lagoon. I am curious if we will ever hear of more victims. Update: some of the perpetrators have been arrested, but more than 8 other perpetrators/killers are still out on the loose.
Cody_nzealand also got slightly lost on the Pianista trail, and díd in fact video document it, here and here.
And this is a video that shows very clearly the start of the Pianista Trail
After 23 seconds you see the house of Oliva on the left.
After 1.04 minutes you see the garden of Martina.
After 2.32 minutes you see the bridge you have to cross according to Lonely Planet.
After 5.00 minutes you see a truck (with people).
And on the right another good video showing the Pianista Trail:
Excellent work from an online sleuth named Barbarossa170, who investigated the angle of the sun in the summit photosHere this disappearance case is discussed in detail. Barbarossa170 writes on May 8th 2020: "I worked in IT forensics in the past, supplying services for local as well as state law enforcement in my country. I have worked on digital evidence relating to cases ranging from copyright infringement to homicide. I'm not an accredited subject matter expert however (I worked under the supervision of several during my time in forensics though), do not represent any official forensic institution or law enforcement agency and haven't worked in the field for a while. None of what I am going to put forward here is based on a claim to authority in any case. You can research and recreate all of this yourselves. This is just to put my interest into this particular aspect of the case into perspective. In this case there has been ongoing discussion about the veracity of EXIF file data (data embedded in images on the womens' camera showing the time and date of the pictures taken). Discussion specifically focuses on the timeline as the EXIF data shows Kris and Lisanne on a mountain summit at around 1300h local time when several eye witnesses place them in the village where they had been staying at that time, making it unlikely that they would have reached the summit before 1500h. The camera on which the pictures where found was missing for some time after the girls' disappearance, alongside their cellphones, only to be found by locals, contained in the women's backpack, in good condition, despite them allegedly having been "dragged to death" by a river. This opens up the possibility of the files having been tampered with to plant false evidence. The time the women reached the summit is of importance since it would put the first distress call they made at 1639h into perspective. The pertinent question being: was there enough time between them reaching the summit and the first distress call to make the hypothesis that they walked on for a long time after the summit and thus got lost at some point (more or less) likely. The official position of the Panamanian government as well as the Dutch investigators is that the EXIF data is correct. Various online sleuths have called this into question, in the case of the Panamanian officials with good reasons since the case was botched at every turn, with such enthusiam in fact that one cannot help but think that they intentionally tanked the investigation.
When I first read this, I was taken aback at how much credence was given to the metadata given the camera may have been in the hands of the perpetrator for a long time. EXIF data on a camera/SD card can be easily manipulated given access to a computer and the willingness to research how to do it. It is by no means complicated at all. Added to this is the fact that one picture seems to have been securely deleted from the camera, which would not have been possible for the women to do but would have required the camera to be hooked up to a computer. The picture I looked at in particular is image IMG_499, showing Lisanne Froon on the summit. In the koudekaas blog I linked above, it is stated the experts determined the EXIF data to be correct and the picture to be taken around 1300h local time. I set out to see if I could replicate that result, especially since the blog calls the determination by experts into question and since there is no further information as to what exactly the experts did to determine the time of day retroactively. My methodology was as follows: I used a rendering engine commonly used in visual effects (Octane Render) to light a 3D model of a human. Octane Render has a so-called daylight model, which enables the user to input coordinates, date, time of day and GMT offset (for the local time zone). Thus, the user is able to accurately replicate lighting conditions of a clear sky at any given time anywhere on the planet.I used the following data;
Coordinates: 8.78024 | -82.441360
Date: 1st of April
GMT offset: -5
I then rotated the model so the lighting direction matched the photo (meaning Lisanne's rotation relative to the sun, not the sun's position) and input 1300h, 1400h as well as 1500h as the time of day. Here is the result. As you can see, the image most closely matching the pattern of light and shade on Lisanne's face and body, particularly the arm, is in fact the rendering with the setting of 1300h. The lighting pattern on the arm and the face changes drastically as the sun's position changes, the forehead receives much more light at both 1400h as well as 1500h and the angle and extent of the cast shadow of the head also changes noticeably.The conclusion to this analysis is that the Dutch investigators where in all likelihood correct in assuming that the time of day contained in the EXIF files was authentic. In fact they probably used similar methods to the ones I used to test their hypothesis.
There is a word to be said about the next photo, showing Kris Kremers standing at a similar spot but with much more diffuse lighting. There have been allegations that these photos were in fact completely "photoshopped", with the disparity in lighting between these photos as well as distortion often cited as evidence. Regarding the changing lighting conditions: every photographer will attest that this can happen very quickly. A cloud drifts in front of the sun and suddenly you don't have clear cast shadows anymore, only diffused light. The change of lighting can also be seen in the surroundings; less harsh shadows overall. As to the allegations that these photos are completely photoshopped (as in: the girls were pasted into the images) - Without the original files, no conclusive judgement can be made, but suffice it to say that photoshopping people into photos like this, especially with hair blowing the the wind, as is seen in IMG_499, is far from trivial. It would have taken a person with professional expertise in retouching to "fake" these photos. Personally, I see this option as very unlikely. There is an obvious drawback to this analysis: while it does show that the time of day contained in the EXIF data is most likely correct, we have no way of proving the date was not tampered with (meaning the pictures could have been taken a day before their vanishing, for instance). That being said, the Dutch investigators also had access to the data contained on the women's cellphones, including at least one picture taken on that day. If there had been a disparity between the date of that photo and the photos on the camera, it would have been noted in the investigation. Could the data contained on the cellphones have been tampered with as well? Technically yes, of course, but practically it would in fact require specialized hardware, software and extremely niche know-how to extract and the re-import the files. This hardware, manufactured by companies such as Cellebrite, is very expensive and only available to law enforcement, the military and intelligence services. The bottom line here is: the official timeline, placing the women at the summit at around 1300h is in all likelihood correct and the hypothesis that the EXIF files were tampered with in regards to date or time of day seems highly improbable."
When asked in the comments below his post what Barbarossa170 thinks of the phone and camera use in this case, he brings up arguments which I have stressed as well all throughout these blog series on the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne, and he answers: "There usually is a single reason for such a bizarre array of evidence, clues and lack of data, and that is shoddy-beyond-belief police work. We're left to wonder about all of this because this whole case was botched so thoroughly. What sticks out to me most in terms of IT related issues is what in IT forensics is called the "pattern of usage" of the cellphones and the camera starting from the first distress call, which is highly unusual to put it mildly. People who get lost or in trouble at some point start to record videos, messages or write up texts in their cellphones. This was 2014, cellphone usage was not that different from today and the women were young and competent users. It is also really strange that only 112/911 was called, right from the start and all throughout the recorded cellphone activity. Does this indicate foul play, the perp perhaps making those calls? It might look like it, but the cellphones were in fact logged into with the correct PINs (until one wasn't anymore, usually this is taken to mean that Kris Kremers had become incapacitated somehow by that point in time). Could the perp have forced the women to give up their PINs so he could manipulate the cellphones, e.g. to erase data? Possibly, however, particularily in the case of erased data the Dutch forensic team would with 100% certainty have found traces of that. You can securely erase data from a PC if you know what you're doing, but data on your phone once deleted isn't really deleted at all until it gets overwritten (there are ways to secure delete on a phone but that requires specialized apps, the presence of which again would have been noted in the investigation). So either the women for some strange reason showed very unusual usage behaviour while they were in distress or the perp got them to give up their PINs to do nothing else but periodically call 112/911. Did the perp have insider knowledge about IT-forensics and knew he couldn't do much else besides dialling without leaving traces? Seems even more unlikely. Just bizarre."
"Regarding the night time photos, again they are just bizarre. I keep using that word but it's just a perfect fit for all of this.. The only time I've ever seen something vaguely similar is when I examined cameras used by a person suffering from mental illness. They were taking pictures in their dark basement, hundreds of them in fact, showing nothing in particular. Some of the pictures in this case do show something however (hair, the little twig contraption with the red material, the paper/receipts arranged on the floor) but all of them seem to be shot in such a way that it's impossible surmise what is really happening. That not one out of 90 pictures clearly shows, for example, the SOS written in paper (which is the prevailing theory) is just bizarre, yet again. Now, I wasn't a police officer or criminal investigator, I only worked in tech, but in all cases I had access to the corresponding case file and in some I spoke with the investigators about what they had been doing, so I have some experience with police procedure. Based on that second hand experience alone I can tell you that there is no way in hell that had this happened in North America or Europe, there wouldn't have been several people brought to the police station to question with a high degree of scrutiny and a lot of pressure applied via interrogation techniques. Beginning with all the eye witnesses, including the taxi driver, the restaurant owner and the school teachers, who place Kris and Lisanne in the village/ at the trail much later when in fact the photos show they were on the summit at around 1300h. They just let that go. Baffling. The often brought-up guide F. would undoubtedly been taken into investigative custody, due to his highly suspicious behaviour (going to the place of residence of two customers who didn't show up to a tour, whom he had allegedly never met before, entering their rooms and also inserting himself into the search effort with such enthusiasm. Not saying any of this is proof he is guilty, but it is more than enough to hold him and question him thoroughly). But Panama wasn't interested in clearing this up, and so we're left with this mess."Lossincasa replies: "The night photos, I said elsewhere, at first impression were as if taken by an animal. What you say, is how I rationalize it immediately after, a sick person or injured, confused etc. If it had happened earlier and not that eleventh(?) day of their ordeal it wouldn't have been as mysterious. There are a lot of days in between with no evidence at all. Great catch on the 911. Why not use or enter another number? Call their parents out of panic etc. I understand conserving battery, but when in panic or fear you tend to at least attempt something. All their possessions neatly placed in a bag is also highly suspicious. As if someone gathered everything idk and placed where water or elements couldn't harm. The police handled this extremely poorly."
About the discrepancy between image 499 and 500 in which the sky and shadow angle change considerably in the span of 6 seconds, he says: " I don't really see a huge red flag here. We don't see the patch of sky containing the sun (it's off-screen to the right), so we can make no conclusions if there were clouds there or not. What we do see is: diffuse light everywhere- including the foliage. If you compare 499 and 500, it's not just Kris who is lit with diffuse light, it's also the surroundings. So that much is consistent at least." "I'm also struggling to come up with a reason for a perp to mess with those daytime photos. The night time photos are another matter entirely. I'm not sure at all who took those and why." "Regarding the EXIF/ XMP data, it would be interesting to see the original forensics report from the Dutch investigators. This kind of nitty-gritty detail is often lost even on the police officers and prosecutors assigned to such cases. Given what we know from public sources the report should have clearly stated that there are anomalies in the data which cannot be explained without intervention with other means than just the camera, at which point all of the information gleaned from the data is potentially tainted and not to be trusted. Pretty much the only thing we can test as far as I can tell is the sun's position in the photos vs. the alleged time, as I did. They seem to have done that. It is possible that much of this digital mess was produced without bad intentions due to ineptitude of the Panamanian investigation. The way this usually works is that the drive containing the data (whether that's a hard drive, a flash drive, an SD card etc.) is backed up and all the digital investigation is then done on those copies to preserve the original state of the evidence. If Panamanian investigators were just completely inept as well as ill-equipped (meaning they didn't have forensic software) they may have simply plugged that SD-card into a PC and examined the files, perhaps even moved files to the PC's hard drive and back onto the card. At this point everything beyond what is actually shown in the images is pretty much completely unreliable. I've personally "lost" complete drives during forensic analysis, because of technical issues or human error. Not a problem in those cases since those were just copies, you just start over again, but if you don't have the technical know-how you can end up unintentionally destroying evidence."
Barbarossa170 acknowledges some other inconsistencies though, regarding the often changing hair styles of the girls and the appearing and disappearing 'bracelet' on Lisanne's wrist: "The hair observation is interesting. Both Kris and Lisanne have their hair done up at the beginning of the trip. At the summit, Kris has her hair open in all shots, then done up again in the subsequent shots until the last daytime photo (as you said of course). Lisanne has the hair done up in all summit photos except two, one of which is #499 (which I looked at) and doesn't appear in the pictures after the summit. This is from the blog, showing the second photo of Lisanne with open hair and #500, showing Kris. And this photo shows Kris standing in the same spot as Lisanne, with the same lighting conditions. I'm not sure what to make of this. I hadn't noticed this before. Could just be the girls letting their hair down for (some) pics and then doing it up again of course. But it somehow resonates with the arm rings/bracelets that Lisanne wears in the summit photos but not in the photos before, as if we might be looking at two separate sets of photos here somehow. I can see them letting their hair down/ doing it up again for sure. But they changed their hair style in the course of seconds for the different photos, especially on the summit." The 'bracelet' on Lisanne's wrist is probably the hair elastic (ponytail holder).(1) Here No 'bracelets' (=hairband), hair done up:
(2) 'bracelets' on both wrists, hair open:
(3) 'bracelets' on, hair done up:
Good posts from Barbarossa. The bracelet is a hair band and coincides with Lisanne's hair being loose or tied up. It's not so much a mystery what the 'bracelets' are exactly, that is clear. The question is more so why Lisanne had her hair up and down and up again within seconds, minutes, of rushing from one spot on the summit to another one for photos. It can be vanity, girls sometimes like their photos to be taken with their hair loose or the other way around. But I still believe this detail leaves the option open that the order of these photos has been messed with and we are looking at summit photos which were taken some time apart; one set when ascending the summit, another set from when they returned to the summit from the stream and were ready to descend back to Boquete. It remains to be seen if Barbarossa's light/shadow analysis is correct, but so far the only person who did something similar is a member of the Dutch forensics team. And we the public never saw those end results on paper or heard about the details. So I consider this a much welcomed second opinion. As you can read further down this part 2 blog post, there has been a swimming photo unearthed which shows Kris and Lisanne with some male youth, who both also died relatively shortly after. I do think that Kris and Lisanne turned around after photo 508 was taken and made some more photos on the summit (2nd time). This may also explain the different clouds in the summit photos, the many shots taken in super quick succession supposedly, the changing hair styles within 8 seconds. And then went back down the mountain. The missing photo 509 may therefore not so much show a person they met, but possibly also a location which would have completely discredited the official (Panamanian) reading that they kept walking into the jungle and got lost. In fact, they went back down, were seen by several witnesses around 16:00 looking for a taxi and they went swimming. The local youth they met there.. well they met their own different fates and I think they were kidnapped afterwards. But also keep in mind here that there is one more very important witness to mention: Kris' boyfriend spoke with her on Tuesday around 14:00 PANAMANA TIME. If they really were at the stream of photos 507 and 508 by then, they wouldn't have had cell tower reach, so how could Stefan call or text with her then? (The family says 'contact' but didn't specify what exact type of contact). They told this a few days after the disappearance, very early on, when memory was still very fresh about such details. Roelie even corrects Hans on it. To me that says they turned around and walked back. In theory it also leaves the door open for a 13:45 PM start of the trail, because up until the summit there is cell phone reception. But not after the summit. Also check out the great artwork made by Dwain Reynolds to go by this youtube video on the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne; The Lost Girls of Panama
Also check out this fab video from the same makers about the
Mystery of Mysteries: the Dyatlov Pass Incident!
Missing Mysteries, June 14th 2019: "If you pause @ 12:32.... that is the exact spot where Kris was standing. Except the rock she was standing on is gone... quite literally where the stream is now cascading down.... that's where the rock was. In fact... all those big rocks are gone. Could that be from the river? Those rocks were pretty big... I don't see that river moving them. Its almost like someone wanted to redirect the stream. But why? I'm sure its not anything crazy and completely natural... just found it peculiar that those big ass rocks she was standing on are now gone.
I replied: "Well spotted!! You are right. I made photo comparisons of the photo of Kris in April 2014 and this stream in August 2014 when the Kremers family walked there. Wow, only a few months between them but there is more water and you are so right, where is the big rock where Kris stood on? Perhaps with the rain season starting late that year, by August the amount of rain flowing down had somehow created a new stream path. But how did it get rid of that large rock? Your guess is as good as mine! I have no clue how such a heavy rock could have moved by natural forces like that either... HERE and HERE are the original photos from Kris in that same stream.
I honestly don't know why some of the bigger stones would have been removed.. The rainy season did start from April onward and the video from the Kramers was shot in August of 2014, so perhaps a lot of rain had fallen, making the stream swell up. But would it have been able to dislodge some of the bigger stones? Who knows. The day after the girls went missing, there was also an earthquake. It had its epicenter more south, in David, but it was noticeable for the people in Boquete. Perhaps the earthquake was to blame? Another more far-fetched explanation could perhaps be that something happened at that point to Kris and Lisanne. And there was blood from one of the girls on one or two of those bigger (missing) rocks for instance, and it was disposed of by a 3rd party soon after photo 508 was taken? Seems really far-fetched though. Besides; the rock Kris was standing on would have been heavy, is someone really going to move it to confuse people? The missing rock isn't in the Answers for Kris video at all, so if someone moved it then they carried it completely away from the stream crossing. The key question would then be: why? It doesn't make sense for someone to move the rock, the photo of the stream crossing isn't crucial evidence or that picture would have been removed like 509. And aside from A. natural causes and B. human intervention, Jeremy S. also suggested to me a third possible option here (C): the Kremers were led on another path after the Mirador than the one Kris and Lisanne were following. He marked several routes down the Mirador, all passing the same stream, but at different locations. Could it be that the Kremers simply were led along another path and another stream crossing?
I have to say: for me the above photos from the Kremers' video and the photo 508 are shot at the same location, without a doubt. I cannot imagine that another route, passing the same stream but at a different location, could look also so alike to the original. I just cannot imagine that, I reckon the other stream passing will look different from this one. But by itself, it is an interesting proposition; that guide took them on another route. I just have never seen photo evidence of different trails to choose from on the Mirador... Everything everyone always writes and says (incl the Kremers) is that once you follow the path (clearly filmed by them) on the Mirador, it is one ongoing clear route. NO crossing paths, no ways to go left or right, no intersections; just a clear to follow trail, embedded in rocks and walls of stone initially and then easy to follow near the streams. So where would the family exactly gave been whisked off to an alternative route? And why has no blogger or writer (as far as I know then) reported and documenten these alternative trails? Also to me the river crossing in the Kremers video is identical to the one pictured in photos 507 and 508. To assume that another trail passing the same stream further up or down the road, would look identical to it.. I find it too far fetched personally as long as there is no photo evidence to back it up. Below images of the alternative routes which could have theoretically have been taken, down the Mirador and past the first stream:
UPDATE: Juan mailed me a photo he took himself in the past, overlapping the photo 508 with a video still of the Answers for Kris video. And it does look to be the exact same crossing.... He first thought the same: that Kris' parents must have passed that stream on another route than the girls did. But he is now convinced it was the exact same crossing. That leaves us with the unexplained missing stones.
Update 2: see much more up to date footage of the streams behind the Mirador in my latest update blog post 4.
Video footage of two photo locations: #491 and #505
The first footage is taken before the summit and can be found here. The second footage is after the summit and can be found here. It looks like these are the two locations of both photos..
Aerial footage of Boquete and Alto Boquete, where Kris and Lisanne stayed with a host family
More reports on local crimeFebruary 2nd, 2021
I find it important to emphasize, again, that nobody has been found guilty in the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. And that everybody is innocent until proven otherwise. I realize that people following this case all have different ideas and suspicions about what happened and who may or may not have been involved, but in a free democracy you just have to live with that and hope that the actual law enforcers do their job properly and give any possible suspects a fair trial (and a fair grilling.. without corrupt protection systems being put in place). I personally found it impossible to write about the details of this case without mentioning some local people who have been on the forefront. But the fact they have caught high winds does not make them prime suspects. I personally think that the people who are most visible here are actually not the most likely to be directly involved. Sure, there are some criminals in this world who love to play cat and mouse games with authorities and who show up at the funerals of their victims and who revel in meeting the relatives, or in interfering with the investigation. But they are a statistical minority. In most cases, perpetrators are protected from higher up or by their own protectors, and actually stay out of the limelight. So instead of only focusing on those who had their faces appear most in TV reports and articles about this case, nobody should forget about the silent unknown people who have kept mostly out of the aftermath of this disappearance. They may have helped with the searches, together with other volunteers. They may have put up posters. Or maybe not even that. I try to also look at general public reports about crime and violence in the area of Boquete. It does not mean that Kris and Lisanne couldn't have simply gotten lost and died by accident. Many people who follow this case believe so. We hardly know anything for certain in this case, neither how they died. But as you know, I think that Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon met foul play. Highlighting general crime in the area, for me, serves as a reminder that the local tourism agencies and the diplomats may tout Boquete as a quaint, sleepy expat village, but people actually living there sometimes tell a different story. And so do the statistics. Below some more info about all this.
A forensic anthropologist with Panama’s Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Science (IMELCF), a high-ranking examiner, told Jeremy Kryt: “The lesson, unfortunately, is that women still can’t walk safely alone in the campo in Latin America.” He agrees to be interviewed only under the condition of anonymity, saying he has received death threats after discussing sensitive investigations in the past. “That [Bocas] area is swarming with sicarios,” the IMELCF source says, referring to the cartel smuggling routes that link Panama’s porous eastern coastline with Colombia and Venezuela to the south, and Mexico to the north. “There ought to be a national red alert for foreigners, and especially women,” he says. “But of course that would be bad for tourism.” “Panama is a commercial port for the Sinaloa cartel and others,” he says, and goes on to mention both forced prostitution and organ trafficking as other threats posed by organized crime operating on the isthmus. Part of the problem is that publicizing such dangers could weaken the crucial influx of tourist money, which makes up almost 20 percent of Panama’s GDP. But the problem goes beyond a lack of will, the forensic scientist says. It’s also a lack of skill. “Without competent [law enforcement] officials,” he asks rhetorically, “how can you hope to control crime?” - There have been many dozens unsolved murders and disappearances in this remote, rural stretch of Panama since 2009—with more than two thirds of those in the years around 2014. In the majority of these cases, no bodies have been recovered, no rigorous investigations launched by authorities.
Boquete's forum members discussed also a warning safety leaflet, issued locally in town
By Linch K., April 16th 2014
Source
"Despite what people in Boquete think, Human Trafficking is here and has been for a long time. Panama is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced prostitution. Although some Panamanian women and girls are found in forced prostitution in other countries in Latin America and in Europe, most Panamanian trafficking victims are exploited within the country. Although statistics were lacking, both NGOs and government officials anecdotally reported that commercial sexual exploitation of children was greater in rural areas and in the city of Colon than in Panama City. NGOs report that some Panamanian children, mostly young girls, are subjected to involuntary domestic servitude. Most foreign sex trafficking victims are adult women from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and neighboring Central American countries; some victims migrate voluntarily to Panama to work but are subsequently forced into prostitution. Weak controls along Panama’s borders make the nation an easy transit point for irregular migrants, from Latin America, East Africa, and Asia, some of who may fall victim to human trafficking.
The Government of Panama does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. During the reporting period authorities increased public awareness about the prostitution of children through seminars in schools and an outreach campaign with the tourism sector. Despite such efforts, the government showed little evidence of progress in combating human trafficking. Law enforcement efforts remained weak, the Panamanian penal code did not prohibit trafficking for forced labor, and the government failed to provide adequate assistance to victims and to identify trafficking victims among vulnerable populations; therefore, Panama is placed on Tier 2 Watch List. Recommendations for Panama: Amend anti-trafficking laws to prohibit forced labor, including involuntary domestic servitude; intensify law enforcement efforts to investigate and prosecute trafficking offenses and convict and sentence trafficking offenders, including any public officials complicit with trafficking activity; train government officials in anti-trafficking laws and victim identification and care; dedicate more resources for victim services; and develop a formal system for identifying trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, particularly women in prostitution.
Prosecution
The Government of Panama maintained its law enforcement efforts against trafficking crimes during the reporting period. Article 178 of the Panamanian penal code, which was updated in 2008, prohibits the internal and transnational movement of persons for the purpose of sexual servitude or forced commercial sexual activity. The prescribed sentence is four to six years imprisonment, which is increased to six to nine years if trafficking offenders use deceit, coercion, or retain identity documents, and is further increased to 10 to 15 years if the victim is under 14 years of age. Article 177 prohibits sexually exploiting another person for profit. Under aggravated circumstances of threat, force, or fraud, this constitutes human trafficking as defined by international protocol, and carries a sentence of eight to 10 years. Article 180 prohibits the internal and transnational trafficking of minors for sexual servitude, prescribing prison terms of eight to 10 years imprisonment, and Article 179 prohibits subjecting an individual to sexual servitude using threats or violence. Prosecutors may also use other statutes, such as anti-pimping laws, to prosecute trafficking crimes. The above punishments are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for rape. Panamanian law, however, does not specifically prohibit human trafficking for the purpose of forced labor, including domestic servitude. During the reporting period, the government investigated eight human trafficking cases and seven cases of commercial sexual exploitation of a child, which is comparable with last year’s efforts. During the year, however, authorities achieved only one conviction, compared with two achieved during the previous reporting period. The trafficking offender was sentenced to 72 months for pimping a child, which was reduced to 48 months incarceration for unreported reasons. This sentence does not appear to meet the standards established in the Panamanian penal code for this crime. Authorities maintained a small law enforcement unit to investigate sex trafficking and related offenses, and Panamanian law required that one prosecutor in each of Panama’s 13 provinces be trained to prosecute trafficking crimes. One prosecutor based in Panama City was dedicated exclusively to prosecuting trafficking crimes. There were no reports of partnerships with foreign governments in joint investigations of trafficking crimes during the reporting period, although Panamanian authorities met with Colombian officials to exchange information. The government opened no formal trafficking-related corruption investigations during the reporting period. Some judges received training on sex trafficking. There were no reports of training for the members of the diplomatic corps abroad.
Protection
The Panamanian government sustained limited efforts to assist trafficking victims during the reporting period, though overall victim services remained inadequate, particularly for adult victims. Authorities did not employ systematic procedures for identifying trafficking victims among vulnerable populations, such as women in prostitution or detained irregular migrants. Panamanian law requires the National Immigration Office’s trafficking victims unit to provide assistance to foreign trafficking victims. During the reporting period, however, authorities did not report extending victim services to repatriated Panamanian victims or foreign victims of trafficking, and the Immigration Office indicated that there were no foreign victims of trafficking over the past year. The government continued to provide partial funding to an NGO-operated shelter with dedicated housing and social services for child trafficking victims. This shelter, in addition to another NGO shelter working with at-risk youth, and the government’s network of shelters for victims of abuse and violence could provide services to child victims of trafficking, although the government did not report assisting any child victims last year. A shelter for child trafficking victims, funded by a foreign government, was in the process of being constructed. There was no shelter care available exclusively for adult victims of trafficking. The government could house adult victims in hotels on an ad hoc basis but did not report doing so or providing any legal, medical, or psychological services or long-term care to adult trafficking victims during this reporting period. In past years, Panamanian authorities encouraged victims to assist with the investigation and prosecution of trafficking offenders, although few victims chose to do so. The government did not provide foreign victims with legal alternatives to their return to countries where they may face hardship or retribution, although in past years foreign victims were allowed to remain in country during investigations. Trafficking victims were not penalized for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked; however, due to the lack of victim identification strategies, not all foreign victims may have been identified before deportation.
Prevention
The government maintained efforts to prevent human trafficking during the reporting period. To raise awareness about commercial sexual exploitation of children, the government conducted seminars in 84 schools, reaching 6,900 students, 230 teachers, and 140 parents. In collaboration with the ILO, the National Commission for the Prevention of Crimes of Sexual Exploitation, a multi-agency task force, sent 300 letters to the tourism sector to raise awareness of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child sex tourism is prohibited by law, though there were no reported prosecutions of sex tourists during the reporting period. During the reporting period, the government implemented its National Plan for Prevention and Elimination of Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents by publishing a comprehensive guide on health care of children and adolescent victims of commercial sexual exploitation and through supporting a study of sex trafficking in Panama. The government undertook no initiatives to reduce demand for forced labor.
This was taken from a Department of State Report on Human Trafficking. I thought I would put this out there since I read a post by BEC that made mention of preventing future issues. From what I hear around Boquete, most people are naïve or simply in denial. It is common around the world even in quiet Boquete. I love to point out statistics and facts, and this would be a primary reason this particular popular tourist destination was most likely selected. Keep in mind that this is the 4th case in the last 10 years, which is extremely low by most agency or country standards. However it does lend credence to the fact that it's here. There are many steps that can be taken to prevent or slow the rate of Human Trafficking, I would suggest that training be attained from Qualified Professionals in the field. And the neighborhood watch does not count, well... unless it involves the responsible use of a boat horn. If Ning users want to be proactive, and personally contribute to the search for these young ladies I would suggest going to a website named Backpage.com and breaking it up by country and compare the pictures of the escorts to those of the missing girls. I have personally worked 4 recovery missions that were given actionable intel from this site. Start with the middle east, UAE being my first choice.
Replies (some of them)
Lee Zeltzer wrote on April 21st, 2014: "I have thought a lot before taking the action of closing this thread. It was of interest although the information cited was years out of date. Panama is a tier 2 country as are most non "first world" countries that do not fall into tier 3. Panama is not great on protection of victims of human trafficking in fact they offer Colombians a special sex trade Visa. None of this except the claim of four possible abductions in all of Panama is relevant. Since the one I know about, and the only other case in Boquete was a 29 year old British male. I doubt he was abducted for sex trade so that tragedy is probably not related to the content of this thread. I do not want to discount the problem nor the risk of abduction or being lost in the wilderness surrounding Boquete. I realize closing the barn door after the horses have escaped is important as a precaution for others still inside. There are people trying to do that now, Fran, Lori and the Spanish Language Schools are all trying to prevent this from occurring again. We are all hoping for a positive event and positive ending of this horror for Lisanne and Kris but this thread has become shopworn and is now closed."
C. B. L. wrote on April 20th, 2014: "Don't believe me then! Keep skipping around town pretending everything is la di la. Go check yourself. It's public record. Go to the DIJ and the sala judicial and ask them for files about the child porn case in Boquete. I don't need to give you specifics, do the work yourself if you want verification. I was there. I saw the kids and the perps. I don't need verification that Boquete is about to go the way of Costa Rica. [..] Isn't the sex traffic theory speculating as well? Give me a break. This is reality. I can't sugar coat this nor it shouldn't be. My heart goes out to the family, but this is the real world, the 3rd world. This idea, you call it speculating, should have been investigated on day one. Many investigations and crimes are solved in the first 48 hours, after that, the odds of solving drop exponentially. You can read about the 2007-8 case, I don't know the exact date in the Prensa archives. there is also a youtube video about child porn that mentions Boquete and that case. The DIJ has info as well. You won't read about it in any Boquete welcome center."
Linch K. replied on April 19th, 2014: "Susan, I gave credit where it was due, the call center is a good thing even though I personally disagree with it. I feel if you chose to live in a Spanish speaking country then you should be able to communicate in said language. I have no axe to grind other than AAC has no business involved in a case such as this. They should know their place and stay in it. As far as being a true professional, brutal honesty just comes with the territory, sorry my chosen profession does not afford me the privilege to hug a tree every time my feelings are hurt. I tell you what, when everyone involved with AAC produces some credentials that validate their existence, I will close my ning account and leave the neighbor hood watch alone."
Henrietta V S wrote on April 19th, 2014: "WOW! Your post - your novella - is so wrong on so many different levels it's actually quite sad. I mean WOW. Good luck with that."
C. B. L. wrote on April 19th, 2014: "Why argue with these people? They're nothing but hero complexed expats with no achievements. Ask for credentials, you get silence. Ask them for schools, nothing. All they do is brag, and brag about what they know is good for other people just to reprimand them later. You can't praise and scold in the same paragraph. Just leave them alone. Let them waste their energy.
Safe Home Security of Panama wrote on April 18th, 2014: "No one did a damn thing to research human trafficking/kidnapping or think about "what if there is one ounce of merit to the stories and the mayors warning". Hey "we have many young people that visit here maybe we should have the hostels, and other venues have some basic warnings and guide lines for our young visitors". Thankfully my kids school did up the security and protocol for pick up at the time of the reports. We are all aware of the evil in the world, especially to young women but most made the choice to dismiss the mayors warning and media coverage in Oct 2013. Instead of being pro-active, the warnings I posted were considered rumors and made fun of. I just feel bad, if our community would have used common sense maybe two young women would be home with their families. Hopefully in the future, young visitors that vacation in Chiriquí will be given some safety advise on their arrival." [..] "I posted several stories from local tv and newspapers in Oct 2013 about alleged kidnappings in Chiriqui on Ning. Many of the usual negative people chastised me for writing and called it a rumor. Many did not take me or any of the kidnappings seriously. I was overreacting and all the media outlets were lying, even the mayor.. A statement from the mayor Nov, 2013: the Mayor of San Lorenzo district, eastern Chiriqui, issued a statement alerting parents to pending departure of students in the college, and also monitor small when they are at home. Mireya Rodriguez Moreno, Deputy Mayor of San Lorenzo district, said the statement is a warning to parents, mainly because information was received from the National Police over an alleged kidnapping in the village of Mount Boca, San Lorenzo. "Yesterday the police told us of an alleged kidnapping in Boca del Monte community. Well if the community would have taken any of it more seriously, maybe tourists would have been warned about traveling alone, recommendations about not taking rides with strangers, not hiking alone or informing foster homes where they were going and when they were scheduled to return. Pathetic... Linch..good job, tag your it!"
Mark Heyer wrote on April 18, 2014: "Linch, Your comments are right on the money, thanks. Although we don't know for sure, this event fits the profile: Attractive young women traveling UNACCOMPANIED are spotted at airports (San Jose) and turned over to catchers who befriend them and get them into a car under some pretext and convey them to the "business." Boquete itself is not being targeted, it was just the place where they let their guard down and took a ride, if indeed that is what happened. Human trafficking is an international problem, but it is also preventable if we took it as seriously as, say AIDS. Much more to be said going forward."
C. B. L. replied on April 20th, 2014: "When I started to come back to Panama to visit my parents and contracting with the U.S. embassy, in 2008, the child sex ring was recently busted in Caldera. It surprised me because I grew up here and that was unheard of. Among those found were many missing children that were kidnapped from around Panama, Costa Rica and Columbia and used as sex slaves. I did many details with the embassy and no one paid much attention because none were American. It was found that some kids were sent to other countries or even murdered. Some of those bodies were found without organs. No one can tell me crime is not a happening here. I am here because of crime, a personal one. There are murders, kidnappings, rapes, burglaries and simple attacks on people here that did not happen before. The Pianista trail is famous for those attacks. No one knows if the girls were kidnapped and used for sex slavery. It is just a theory. Another is that it was foul play, and the girls are... you know what. The thing to know is that if that's the case, the person or persons are still on the loose and will strike again. I've done too much and been though hell training to not know that. All of you should too. Take your hands from your eyes and ears and wake up."
Jim T. wrote on April 17th, 2014: "Don't forget the owners of Montañas de Caldera. Maybe this explains their disappearance.:)" [..] "When I first came to Panama I was standing in Line at the airport talking to a man from Miami. I asked why since he lived in Miami would he be going to Panama. He looked me up and down for a moment, got a small smile on his face and said "Because señor, You can get anything you want in Panama".
Panama mission doctor from Zionsville faced with multiple sexual abuse allegations in Boquete
March 13, 2018 "Mission Coffee has been a staple at the Carmel Farmers Market, practicing “entrepreneurial philanthropy” by donating its proceeds to a medical mission in Panama, according to Mission Coffee founder Peter B. But others who have spent time at Panama Christian Evangelism in Boquete, Panama, said the mission isn’t what it seems to be. They said it serves as a shelter for its founder, Dr. A., to sexually abuse teenage girls who are dependent on him for jobs and security for their families. [..] Dr. A., 79, was detained in Panama last week and will voluntarily return to the U.S. in the coming days, A spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy in Panama said authorities detained A. - former director of public safety for the City of Indianapolis and former senior vice president of medical and academic affairs at St. Vincent hospital - through migration law articles 50 and 63, which outline requirements for emigrating or leaving a country temporarily and give the ministry of the interior authority to expel a foreigner whose presence is contrary to national interests. Dr. A's wife told her of "her husband’s issues with control, anger, manipulation and inappropriate behavior with girls at the mission"
Lynn Pike of Anderson spent a week at the mission in May 2014. A campus minister’s wife and veteran of short-term mission trips, Pike said she spent the week delousing children’s hair, picking up trash and assisting students with homework. Dr. A's wife told her of "her husband’s issues with control, anger, manipulation and inappropriate behavior with girls at the mission". “I also suspected that his inappropriate behavior with the young girls was not simply inappropriate but much more serious.” So one night she reached out to the Panamanian teen to see if her suspicions were correct. When she awoke the next morning, she said she found a string of messages detailing the sexual abuse the girl said she suffered at the mission between ages 12 and 15. “My 19-year-old friend begged me not to tell a soul. Her mother, brother and she all owed their livelihood to and were dependent on this angry, abusive husband, doctor and director of the medical mission in a third world where men and white skin wield the power and influence over those they deem of lesser intellect and value,” Pike said. After much “distress and prayer,” Pike said she contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement to report what she had learned. An official with ICE referred Current to the United States District Court for more information. USDC Spokesman Tim Horty stated in an email that he could neither confirm nor deny a criminal investigation before formal charges are filed.
Dr. A's wife spoke with Panamanian authorities, asking them to investigate allegations that her husband had sexually abused young girls. Court documents show that she stated that a 19-year-old female said Dr. A. inappropriately touched her when she was 13 or 14 years old, and by age 15 the two had sexual relations. In the document his wife outlines other allegations of sexual abuse she heard about from the young employee, including an alleged incident from earlier in the summer of 2014 involving a 15-year-old student/employee and allegations that Dr. A. had sexual relations with a student in 2007 and required her to get an abortion. “I had heard rumors that A. had sexual relations with minors, but I didn’t believe it considering that one time he started to touch a girl in public and I called him out on it and he told me he wouldn’t do it again and he didn’t do it again,” his wife states in the complaint, translated from Spanish. “I did see that A., while giving temporary jobs to the girls, gave them gifts and responsibilities that called for them to be near him. We had several arguments because I was not in favor of this action, but I didn’t suspect that there were sexual offenses behind all these attentions.” She later retracted the statement she gave to authorities.
At least two girls gave testimony to Panamanian authorities in November 2014, after Dr. A's wife made her statement, outlining how Dr. A. had allegedly sexually abused them.
At least two girls gave testimony to Panamanian authorities in November 2014, after Dr. A's wife made her statement, outlining how Dr. A. had allegedly sexually abused them. One girl stated that Dr. A. repeatedly had sex with her despite her objections beginning when she was 15 years old. She also stated that she tried to commit suicide. Another girl stated that he touched her private areas when she was 12 years old. On May 18, 2015, the Panamanian court dismissed the complaints, as authorities were unable to prove that a punishable act could be tied to Dr. A. But this wasn’t the first time Dr. A. had faced allegations of sexual abuse. In October 2007, three sisters who were 9, 12 and 14 years old at the time gave statements to Panamanian authorities accusing Dr. A. of sexual abuse. The statements outline details of the alleged abuse and state that he threatened to fire the girls’ father. The oldest girl stated that Dr. A. forced her to have sex with him repeatedly beginning when she was 12 years old. Her 12-year-old sister stated that he touched her private areas, and her 9-year-old sister stated that he grabbed her private areas. But on Feb. 28, 2008, authorities dismissed the charges also, stating that medical examinations showed that all three sisters were virgins and that the Dr. "suffered from a condition that made some of the allegations impossible". [Scarlet: Or perhaps the good doctor only suffered from such 'inabilities' when it came to his old wife?] The complaints were cast aside as lies and attempts of extortion.
She was troubled to see that Dr. A. would have young girls spend the night at his house when his wife was gone.
But others had also been raising questions about Dr. A’s interactions with young girls in the years leading up to the formal complaint. T. H. and her family sold almost everything they owned to move to the Boquete mission indefinitely in May 2005. A nurse now living in San Antonio, she said she helped do a lot of good during her time there, even attempting to help a very sick baby who had been dropped off, unwanted, get adopted. The family enjoyed working with the local population so much that they’d like to still be serving there. But they left in August 2006 after finding it nearly impossible to work with Dr. A., whom they had been warned about by another missionary family before heading to Panama. “They told us, ‘It’s not what it looks like,’” H. said. “They told us they suspected Dr. A. was abusing girls. They didn’t have any proof, but they suspected it.” “It was always weird to us, this man who has all this money but yet he wants to run around with little girls all the time,” said H., adding that she never saw him touch anyone inappropriately. H. said she was troubled to see that Dr. A. would have young girls spend the night at his house when his wife was gone. “That was totally inappropriate,” H. said. “We just knew you couldn’t say anything to him about it.” But looking back, she wishes she had done more. She said she wasn’t surprised to learn of the content of the allegations against Dr. A., but she was shocked that the girls shared details with the authorities. “He has so much power down there. I couldn’t believe they had stood up against him like that,” H. said. “If you make him mad he will make your life hell.” D. Emberson also “knew something was wrong” as “there was rarely a time there weren’t little girls following him around.” She found Dr. A. to be harsh, controlling and deceptive and left after seven months.
“He has so much power down there. I couldn’t believe they had stood up against him like that,” H. said. “If you make him mad he will make your life hell.”
The missionaries weren’t the only ones questioning Dr. A’s actions. The mission, Panama Christian Evangelism, originally operated as a nonprofit, governed by a board of directors. As early as 2006, board members were troubled by Dr. A’s interactions with young girls. Board chair Joanie Grimm wrote a letter to her longtime friend on behalf of the PCE board in 2006 outlining several steps they’d like to see him take to improve the mission and its image. The letter requested that Dr. A. be more careful about his interaction with the girls at the mission. “It should be agreed that girls, regardless of the number, not be in A.’s home, truck or anywhere alone with him,” it states. Grimm said that Dr. A. didn’t seem to make any of the recommended changes and continued to see the girls, so the board agreed to dissolve. She alerted supporters that PCE would no longer need their funds. In 2012, the IRS automatically revoked PCE’s nonprofit status because it hadn’t received a filing in three years. But Dr. A's supporters say that “This has been investigated three different times by three different levels of government and everybody concluded that there wasn’t anything to it”. Nevertheless Dr. A. was arrested, also in relation to him being wanted in the US for sexual abuse of minors, and was sent away from Boquete, back to Zionsville in the United States. "He was detained for violating Article 50 and 65 of the Panama Migration Law which states that it may deny any foreigner entry or transit through the country, as well as revoke the visa or permit if there is a criminal record in the country of origin. Article 63 states that the ministry of the interior may agree to expel a foreigner whose presence is contrary to national interests. He was referred to the National Immigration Service and is now behind bars awaiting deportation to the US to face the criminal charges." [Source]
*****
Matt looked more closely at the night photos
Chris from Imperfect Plan published his findings. I will summarize the gist of it for you here. I will add first that I know that these photos are the more eerie and fascinating part of the case for many people. I understand that, I watched the Blair Witch Project in the cinema at the time; these photos are appearing to us like potential messages from the grave. But I personally see them as red herrings. Staged photos, taken by someone other than Kris and Lisanne in an attempt to make it look like the girls were out in the jungle alone in the night of April 8th. I've written enough already in this blog about my own suspicions, but this is why I am not that keen on analyzing these photos without end. We have already established long ago that there is no head wound or blood clearly visible on the back of Kris' head. That it is not certain without a doubt where these photos were taken (in a gully/on top of a cliff looking down/on a rock along the river looking up?) and that we have no proof whatsoever of who took these photos. No selfies, no arm or hand from the photographer visible. No bag with belongings or a leg with shoe pictured from the girls. So all the hours and meters of text spent on the analysis of these photos may just be wasted energy to the amusement of whomever did make these photos. But because not much in this case is certain at the end of the day, and I may be wrong with my suspicions, here we go.
The quality of the photos
Matt looked at the night photos, numbered #510 to #609, which you can find in my part 3 blog. Going by the date and timestamp on the Canon Powershot SX270 HS digital camera, they were shot between 01:29 and 04:10 in the early morning of Tuesday April 8th. Of these 100 photos, only about 50 have been made public by Juan after leaks by an anonymous source in November of 2019. Matt observed that these photo files were damaged to some degree: most photos have been resized from their original resolution of 4000 x 3000 pixels. Matt writes that "the publicly available images were all resized to 1280 x 960 and 772 x 963". But just to be precise; a couple of photos that were taken on the summit are in fact 1600 pixels. For instance this one, photo #499, which Martijn Froon used as a background photo on his facebook. It has 1600 x 1200 pixels. This one is also 1600 x 1066 pixels and this one 1600 x 1205. And the last two photos of the day, #507 and #508, are also 1600 x 1200 pixels. But even then, they are unfortunately still a lot smaller than the original files. This is a problem with all the photos from the girls' memory card. They were mostly all published through media sources or leaks and all those photos were made smaller. And it is tricky to zoom in too much on them, therefore.
Nothing but darkness
Matt establishes that a lot of the night photos had their brightness and contrast enhanced in a straightforward manner before they were leaked. I assume this was done by the anonymous source, because in their original state many of the photos truly seemed to be mostly black. Matt writes that he thinks it was a truthful description by Dutch officials and the Dutch families to describe the night photos as nearly black: "This is also an explanation for the statements made by people that saw the original images. Apart from a few of the night photos, the original night photos would have been mostly black. Furthermore, it would be a fair to refer to even almost black pictures as “black” unless you are examining them meticulously, as is done here. Thus, I’d like to point out that the statement describing the night images as mostly black was truthful and not intended to be misleading." But what the investigators said was that the remaining night photos show mostly nothing, or 'nothing but darkness'. I probably have to disagree therefore. We're not talking about inexperienced people who just took a quick glance at the photos and came to this conclusion. The Dutch prosecution had investigated these photos at that point and this includes inspecting if changes in brightness and contrast could show more in the darker photos. They already knew there was information on these photos about rocks, about trees, about surroundings. But they had no intention of sharing them with the public, and thus they were downplayed. Which in itself is fine, but based on that non-correct statement, the discussion out on the internet has been warped before these other night pictures were leaked. We could have known all along that the person who took the photos was not running around, on the run or picturing her dead friend down a ravine. On top, the following photos were also included in the 'nothing but darkness' comment and these are not photos of nothing:
Matt confirms what Juan and I also concluded, that some of these leaked night photos are simply manipulated originals with the brightness adjusted. Nothing strange about that, whomever leaked these files had clearly already done his or her homework, as we all would have done. But some of the photo numbers could be incorrect, possibly because the source may have mixed some of them up while handling/working with these photos. Matt also notices that the camera bag on the photo of all the collected belongings of the girls seems not a good fit for the camera.
Then follows a table with all the night photos numbered below each other. There is a gap between known photos #511 and #541 (taken at respectively 01:30 and 01:37am) and Chris tries to fill in the hiatus by adding approximately 14 seconds to each photo in between. This elapse time is of course an estimation, as neither these photos themselves nor their real times are known. But it seems a reasonable estimation. The police report, as seen in the Een Vandaag tv program, only went as far as showing the data until photo 512. I'd want to go as far as saying that we also cannot even fully trust the official photo times and neither those of night photos 541-609. The source who leaked these photos could easily have added them or (theoretically) made them up. We have no certainty here. So, we also do not know if photos #512-#540 were taken for instance in clusters of quick succession, followed by a minute here or there when no photo was taken, or if the photographer indeed clicked systematically, every 14 seconds. But taking a photo with the flash on, as was the case here, would have required a minimum of 6,5 seconds per photo, Matt says. He also keeps the option open that no more photos were taken after #609 because the battery of the Canon camera ran out. But I don't think this could be the case. Because when the camera was found mid June, it was found in good functioning order and to still have normal battery function.
Camera temperature
Matt also writes: "The internal camera temperature is also recorded in the EXIF data and this temperature rose from 19C (ambient) to 34C after 331 images." Juan wrote me the temperature of the camera was around 24 degrees, not 34C. I couldn't see in his text where He found a 34C. degrees reading. Juan found these data:
Photo 491: 24 C. degrees.
Photo 493, 499, 500: 22 C. degrees
Photo 505: 25 C degrees, the peek
Photos 507, 508: 23 C. degrees
Photos 542, 550: 24 C. degrees
Juan added that the camera temperature is measured with a censor within the device and that it does not reflect the outside temperature. It could be 30 degrees during the day, or -10, and you will normally still see a 24 degrees camera temperature.
Photo overlay collage
Matt created an overlay of the night photos. A very interesting and pretty looking collage. He more or less digitally stacks a selection of the night images on top of each other, showing you how many of them overlap in the center. But also showing the parts where they do not overlap. He writes about this: "The images are simply overlaid so that common features show the most overlap. Perspective is not considered so that image that are to the sides are distorted. In order to create a perfect panorama, it would be necessary to stretch the images to correct for the perspective. Since there are not enough images and the angles they were taken under are too great makes this impossible." For each image there is a red frame that shows how the camera was held and a red dot that shows the center of each image. He also shows the process step by step in this video.
Location
Matt also writes: "Although many aspects of the official investigation are questionable, it appears that there’s little doubt that the images were taken in the “Boquete Area”. Followed by: "They may not have been taken near El Pianista trail though. We cannot be certain of the precise location.". Personally I have not seen a single piece of hard evidence for this. But this is one of the biggest and most important questions regarding those night photos. Where were they taken? None of these night photos have been claimed by someone to have been for a fact taken here or there. Everybody hoped this would happen once these other night photos came into the public domain, but nothing. No official has ever identified the location of the night photos with evidence, nobody has made photos of any location and put them next to our night photos to show they were from the same location. Many people think that these night pictures were taken somewhere else entirely. Some people seem to have made the suggestion that these photos were taken at the first river crossing behind the Pianista summit, a good amount of hours of walking up north. But all the evidence for this is a photo of a rock next to the river, which in my opinion looks just like any other rock of about that size over there. Regarding collages, I did something a bit different last year, placing these night photos together by matching edges. You can read about it in my part 2 blog. Also a video from me about how the same V-shaped tree can be seen in the majority of these photos, and a video about the returning typically shaped leaf which was first confused with a dead body.
Recreating the hair photo #580
Then follow some other observations, such as who could have possibly taken these photos (Lisanne, Kris, Kris and Lisanne, Someone else). No sublist of possibilities for Someone Else unfortunately. Matt tries to recreate the hair photo of Kris, pretending to be Kris herself. Wearing a beautiful wig :) In other words; can one take a selfie of one's own back of the head? Fast forward: no. "Having longer arms than Kris, being rested, warm and dry, not in a state of distress and having had time to think about how to take the picture and the issues that arise, e.g. how to aim. I was able to take the following image":
"I did not even manage to get the back of my head into the image." An interesting observation from Matt has to do with the location of the flash on the camera: "It is important to remember that the camera has the flash on the left side so the light, especially at close distance would come from the left and cast a shadow on everything on the right that is further away from the camera. This explains the lower right corner where the hair is darker and appears to have a different colour. This is caused by the flash being shadowed by the head." Matt thinks that photo #580 could have been an accident. That Kris may have been walking close by Lisanne and that she got in the way of Lisanne.... who was trying to make a 40th photo of the V-shaped tree? This is by far the most interesting photo of the series. But Matt himself also deems the accidental photo theory unlikely, because you'd need to focus to get such a sharp photo. In other words: you'd need to have intent. He also finds it astounding that Kris' hair is completely dry, with not a spec of dirt and not a single leaf or twig or anything in the hair. "At the time this image was taken Kris would have been outside for 7 days and 7 nights and it is hardly imaginable that her hair would be completely clean and dry. The only possible foreign object in the hair is in the upper left corner. This could be a leaf or torn piece of paper. It is difficult to say for sure due to the low image resolution. I do not think that it is hair." Mind you, he worked with a wig. But he tested the wig anyway outside in the rain. "I have taken the image below after 15 min. exposure to 40 – 70 mm of rain. It is very clearly visible that the hair is very wet after only 15 min." But not a hint of wetness on Kris' hair in the photo, after hours in the rain by then. The dark spots under Kris' hair, I have discussed them for lengths in part 2 of my blog series. Matt thinks they are shadows caused either by the flash or by two crossing hair strands. He does not believe that the spots are stab, bullet or other wounds, because there is no blood visible anywhere and no disturbance of adjacent tissue. He believes that we truly look at the back of Kris' head, not at a frontal with hair flipped over the face. Matt: "It is remarkable that the image is framed in the way to show just hair, which raises suspicion that something might have been cropped out that is not supposed to be visible." But he sees no evidence for this in the pixelation and dimensions of this photo (although we know that it is reduced in size, like all the other photos
Who took these photos
(Photo on the right is from Juan). As for Kris and Lisanne alternating the camera to take pictures in turn that night, Matt quite rightly comments that there is essentially no way to prove or disprove this, but that it seems unlikely to him because most images show similar compositions. But if someone other than Kris or Lisanne took those photos, then there is a good chance in Matt's opinion that he had bad intentions and may have acted in a fit of rage, confusion or mental illness. (I'd say; because he wasn't completely stupid and knew how easy it was to make some abstract photos of absolutely nothing of interest in a jungle, making it look like Kris and Lisanne took them). Matt disagrees: "For someone not to at least delete the photos or destroy the camera, the person would have to be extremely stupid or a psychopath. It is unlikely, given the circumstances, that the assailants were truly stupid enough to take photos of their crime, and then let the photos get away to the police, unless they are also very incompetent, and the camera got away inadvertently." Hmmm, no. I think he may be overlooking the reality that is glaringly staring us in the face. The photos were found and did they prove that a crime took place? Nope, exactly the reverse. Did anyone high up in the investigation teams even suspect that these photos were taken by a 3rd party - despite having zero visual evidence of who held that camera? Nope. I always find it interesting to read online how many people deem this very simple thing, a 3rd party zapping away some photos of the exact same location for over three hours, some sort of extreme psychopathic scenario. It's bloody simple and effective, folks. Nothing more and nothing less. Anyone of us could replicate that string of night photos, if we wanted to. And I think a couple of hours in the rain does not deter any tough Panamanian man either, not at all, and especially not when there is a potential jail sentence on the line. It rains more often than it does not in the cloud forest above the Pianista trail, and people absolutely don't huddle around the fire all day if it does rain there. And as for someone else finding that camera and having taken those pictures; passing on the chance to gain $30.000 dollars at that point in order to make not one accidental photos, not ten, but close to a hundred? And then dumping the camera and the bag with belongings that came with it near Alto Romero, again without cashing in on the reward money? Ludicrous. Matt concludes that Lisanne most likely took these photos.
White dots
As for the white dots, Matt believes they are either specks of rain or water drops from a waterfall, that are lit up in the flash of the camera. He tried to recreate the situation, going out at night in the rain (40-70 mm), picturing bushes and trees with the flash on. The photo was resized to 1280 x 960. Left photo is one of our night photos, right is Matt's result. His conclusion: "It is very apparent that the white objects look identical to those in the original images and we can concluded that the white objects are raindrops. I marked one dot with a red circle as it exhibits a phenomenon caused by the flash. It gives the drop an elongated shape and it points IN the direction of travel of the drop. This is a completely normal instance of flashing a moving object. Waterfall spray is less likely the culprit. Based on the location of the camera, pointing away from the edge of a ledge, we can conclude that the white dots in the original photos are rain, which must have been strong at times."
Red orbsSeveral images show red hexagon shaped “orbs” for example in image 585. Matt concluded that these orbs are caused by the flash hitting skin and reflecting back into the camera. It is possible that in our night photos, "the reflection was another person that stood close to the camera to the left of the photographer (the flash is on the left side of the lens) or it is possible that the red reflection is from the hand of the photographer who placed one hand in front of the flash either while holding the camera or while trying to shield the camera from rain with one hand. It is likely that in most cases the orbs are caused by fingers or a hand close to the flash and the lens." Very interesting. And bright blobs are caused by a skin coloured object close to the camera, Matt writes, when an out of focus object near the camera is lit up by the camera’s flash. In our photos they were exaggerated when then image’s brightness and contrast were increased with photo editing software.
The same happened in photo #577, as I in the past already illustrated with this gif: same photo, but two versions were leaked by the anonymous source. "By increasing brightness and contrast, it is possible that even an object in focus was overblown and therefore looks like an object that’s nearer and out of focus. Here the existing bright detail was totally overblown and turned into a bright white blob."
Photo 541
Matt looked more closely at this mysterious photo. It has been the subject of a lot of discussion online, because no one knows for sure if we are looking here at an over-lit close-up of Lisanne's (or Kris') jaw and cheek, or perhaps at a finger? Especially the presence of some strands of hair is fascinating. Is it scalp hair or the sort of fine hairs some men can have on their knuckles/ fingers? Matt adds another possibility: someone’s bare arm, where we see the elbow in the lower portion on the real image (but where do those hairs then belong to or come from?). Matt: "it is very likely that this image shows skin and hair that was 12 cm or closer from the lens of the camera unless the image is heavily modified and detail lost. However, I don’t believe this is the fact since the hair is not overblown." Matt tested if he can recreate the photo while using an artificial head "and the best I can do, with many tries, is this" And: "It took me several attempts to get the camera close enough to get this angle of view and I was essentially pushing the camera into the head and holding the hair out of the way. I could still not duplicate the original. And there was not even a "upper body" in the way since the dummy is only a head.." (Left the original night photo, right Matt's photo)
Not a bad result, I'd say! Thumbs up to the model also, a makeup dummy with wig and hair tied together in a pony tail. But Matt is critical: "The photo was taken from behind. The bright area is the “chin”. It is nearly impossible to get as close as necessary. And it would be even more difficult with a real person because their body would be in the way." He comes to a very good conclusion: "Photo 541 also shows one reoccurring problem that we see with many of the images…. even if something is visible, they show very little or it is not distinguishable exactly what they show. Although it is easy to take bad or blurry pictures, it is very difficult to take numerous obscure photos that show something but also show nothing at the same time." This is a conclusion which I have also discussed in the past with someone called David M. in the comment sections; why are all these photos so unclear? Why is it in their composition always just out of reach for us to see what we're really looking at? A few steps back before clicking the shutter and we would have known. Matt concludes that photo #541 most likely shows a head or arm or arm/shoulders, no more than 12 centimeters from the camera lens. The person was not laying on the ground (because otherwise the ground would have shown up in the pic) and the photo was taken accidentally. "The camera has a built in focus light that impressively illuminates objects and therefore, it is rather easy to take photos in the dark. Photo 541 demonstrates that the focus light was intentionally ignored in taking the photo. It must have been taken accidentally." (Of course I think this was the work of a 3rd party, who showed us just enough of a dead or incapacitated Lisanne to make us believe she was out there with Kris, alone, trying to survive).
Photo 542 shows water
Photo 550
Regarding photo 550 Matt thinks we are seeing the red plastic from a local shopping bag and that the markers are not likely intended to be a marker. Instead it may have been used to collect water (a bad attempt at this then) or to hit insects with. Or built out of boredom... But another person could not have put the thing there. Very unlikely, he believes. Anyway, we all have our own theories. I really enjoyed reading this piece and the photo recreating attempts were very interesting, thanks so much! Great initiative and very comprehensive research.
Regarding photo 550 Matt thinks we are seeing the red plastic from a local shopping bag and that the markers are not likely intended to be a marker. Instead it may have been used to collect water (a bad attempt at this then) or to hit insects with. Or built out of boredom... But another person could not have put the thing there. Very unlikely, he believes. Anyway, we all have our own theories. I really enjoyed reading this piece and the photo recreating attempts were very interesting, thanks so much! Great initiative and very comprehensive research.
Last bits and pieces-Matt thinks it most likely that the girls took the night photos in an attempt to signal someone. Search troops and helicopters were not out in the middle of the night, but perhaps they expected a house to be nearby or a farm, or even a search teams' camp.
-He thinks that the images must have been taken at the shore of a river.
-In image 550 is also a remarkable straight line visible. This line does appear to be man made and could be a cable for a money bridge or a cable that is installed for climbing or other leisure activities.
-Matt deems it unlikely that the night photos were cropped by someone.
-Matt deems it unlikely that the night photos were cropped by someone.
-The objects in the background of #590 are less than 30m away.
-He also sees no evidence for photo manipulation where things were added or erased from the photos.
-Matt deems it possible that more photos were deleted. "It is possible that unwanted images were deleted as it might have been done with image 509. This would require that there are gaps in the image numbers, like image 509 is missing or that all images were renumbered and the EXIF data edited. It is possible that images after image 609 were deleted. Considering that at least one image is missing, it is possible that more images were deleted."
Update: The night photos have by now almost completely lost their fascination for me. It was chilling to first see them. Then it was interesting to look at those newly leaked night photos last year and to discover that the 'body' was just a leaf which came back again and again in the photos. Or to make the first overlap collage and discover how the night photos were NOT taken while on the run, or even while moving. But I don't think much more can be extracted from them. Certainly not who took those photos. And the location has so far also proven to be too vague and generic to be discovered, going by the continued lack of hard evidence of the location of this spot. These night photos were not made by Kris and Lisanne in my opinion, so analyzing the work of a 3rd person for years on end is probably useless up until a certain point... They seem to have been made vague and dark and non-descriptive on purpose, by whomever took them.
Newspaper La Estrella de Panamá published a guide for tourists and hikers back in 2014, preparing anyone for a jungle walkJuly 9th 2014 - "The disappearance of young Dutch women Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers in the Boquete area has been the front page of the main national media during the last weeks, and it has also had an international impact. Without entering into speculation of what were the real reasons and causes of this disappearance, it seems obvious that people very often venture into nature without the right equipment and precautions, thinking that they will enjoy a simple walk, without realizing that many areas of Panama's forests are still very remote and desolate. On this subject, check out my last collaboration with newspaper La Estrella de Panamá.
EXPLORING NATURE The love of excursions to the countryside and the mountains has become popular lately in our country, but we must take certain precautions so that they do not end up becoming unpleasant episodes. The news of the disappearance of two young Dutch women in the area of Boquete when they were apparently trekking the area, has unleashed a deep public debate in recent weeks about the dangers that such situations can entail. Panama has many forest and mountain areas that can be ideal destinations for outdoor and country activities, but you don't have to be reckless: take care of the activity planning, as well as the equipment that we are going to take with us.
THE PREPARATIONS When going out to nature, the most important recommendation is not to go alone. Having at least one or several companions (better if someone is an experienced guide) will be vital for emergencies, and for a successful rescue if needed. Family members, friends or authorities in the area must be informed of our planned route and schedule. We always have to obtain prior information on the route, distance and difficulty of the route that we are going to make, as well as consult the expected weather conditions, postponing the activity if they forecast heavy rains and storms. Before starting the route it is suggested to apply insect repellent, and even if it is jungle land, wear the legs of your long trousers tucked into long socks, to avoid unwanted visitors.
THE PREPARATIONS When going out to nature, the most important recommendation is not to go alone. Having at least one or several companions (better if someone is an experienced guide) will be vital for emergencies, and for a successful rescue if needed. Family members, friends or authorities in the area must be informed of our planned route and schedule. We always have to obtain prior information on the route, distance and difficulty of the route that we are going to make, as well as consult the expected weather conditions, postponing the activity if they forecast heavy rains and storms. Before starting the route it is suggested to apply insect repellent, and even if it is jungle land, wear the legs of your long trousers tucked into long socks, to avoid unwanted visitors.
MINIMUM TEAM We must wear comfortable and appropriate footwear for the ground you'll hike on, as well as resistant clothing if we are going to transit through areas of forest or closed jungle. You always have to bring water and some food, preferably foods that provide a lot of energy and that are light to carry, such as nuts, cookies, chocolate, or fruit, even when we only anticipate a short journey. If we are going to make a long walk of many hours, or if we even have the plan of spending a night in nature, it is convenient to carry in our backpack the following implements, protected in plastic bags: an identification and some money; a clock or GPS to control the time and distance travelled; dark sunglasses; cell phone with charged battery; an emergency kit to treat cuts, blisters, insect bites and relieve of pain; toilet paper; a whistle to make us be heard from a distance; flashlights or headlamps with charged batteries to illuminate at night; sunscreen cream; a raincoat for rain; spare clothes, especially socks; a lighter in case you had to make fire; a machete, knife or razor to break through and cut; Quality tent / sleeping bag if you have to spend the night.
DURING THE HIKE It is necessary to maintain a constant rhythm but adequate to the capacities of the less strong member(s) of the group, so that the group always stays together. Make scheduled stops of 5 or 10 minutes every hour to rest. None of the members should stand anywhere where they cannot see the others, because when you lose track of your team for even a short period of time, you may end up lost if the land is dense wilderness. With steep slopes it is preferable to climb them in a zigzag motion, and when passing through private farms you have to leave the gates closed to avoid their cattle to flee off. Do not ingest natural fruits or fungi that you find underway if there is no full conviction that they are edible.
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY If due to bad weather conditions, disorientation on the route, exhaustion, accident or illness, we must suspend our planned itinerary or be rescued, the following tips will be very helpful: if one of the members of the expedition cannot continue the hike, others they will seek support while someone stays with the injured / sick person; if we lose the path we should be following, it is best to return along the same route looking for the starting point, and not improvise alternate routes; In case of a thunderstorm, you have to stay stuck to the ground squatting away from metal elements and trees.
RESPECT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT In nature we must have environmental awareness, leaving the areas we pass in the same conditions in which we have encountered them. Therefore it is not necessary to cut or destroy vegetation on a whim, or more than strictly necessary to facilitate a passage. We will never contaminate water resources with soap or detergent, we will carry the waste with us back in a cartridge intended for that purpose, and our toilet stop needs will be away from camps and roads. In case of lighting a fire, do so with caution and only in authorized places, paying attention to the direction from which the wind blows, and extinguishing it perfectly with dirt and stones on top once we leave the area.
CANINE COMPANIONS Many people like to take their dogs on the walks in the countryside, both for company and for protection. Keep in mind that not all races are trained to withstand intense physical exercise, so they should not be accompanied by specimens that are not accustomed to long walks, are old, or are sick. Dogs have a very good sense of smell and sense of direction, being able to give advance notice of the presence of certain animals or unscrupulous people and defend ourselves from them. You always have to count on that, just like we will need water and food, and although they will usually walk without a leash in unpopulated areas, in case of camping at night they should be left tied tightly next to our tent.
This writer from a local Boquete forum said about the Kris and Lisanne disappearance on April 23rd of 2014:
"Youth has nothing to do with it. You only have to be fearless and trusting to become a victim. Maybe only trusting. It has been over three weeks since their disappearance, and while I would like to think they might still turn up alive, the odds are not high for that happening. There was a university student that was killed a year or so ago and it was said that it was to harvest organs. While older people may be mugged for money, young people may be mugged for more sinister reasons. [..] I believe the population of Boquete is doing all that can be done in the search, however, crime investigation is not one of Panama’s strong suits. I hope there is some finality to this case by the time I return from my trip, but I wouldn’t count on it." - Nevertheless the official Panamanian reading is that Kris and Lisanne got lost and fell off a cliff.
Then follow a host of safety advises for those living in the Boquete region, underlining that even back in 2014 it was not the peaceful sleepy expat-retirement village that the Panamanian media wanted to portray it like: "While I am gone, I want you all to be cautious. Be aware of your surrounding and who is close by. When you get out of your car, lock it as you stand by it. Do not walk away and lock it as you walk. When you get money from an ATM, do it is a secure location and be aware of anyone watching you. There are many areas even in David that it aren’t wise to be walking at night. If you do so, don’t do it alone. Don’t make a practice of wearing a lot of jewelry. Leave gold watches and large diamond rings at home. In fact, it is better not to bring them to Panama. Panama is a poor country. It is easy to be a target if you appear to have money. It also doesn’t have to be that much money. Don’t allow anyone to enter your house that you don’t know. There have been recent cases of people dressed in high profile company uniforms that appear to do repairs that don’t work for the companies. All doors should be locked at all times. Unlock to leave and lock once outside. In this house, every bedroom is locked when we retire for bed. That is right, All rooms have doors with locks and all of them are used at night. Iron gates are double locked. Once with a lock and chained and locked. Our neighborhood is vigilant for strange people and cars in the neighborhood. Most houses have dogs inside and or outside. Our neighborhood also has a paid security that patrols at night. Some houses have alarms and cameras. There is so much beauty in Panama and it is such a tranquil place that it is easy to lull yourself into thinking that nothing can happen in paradise. If you live correctly, you will most likely enjoy Panama. If you live thinking that nothing will happen to you in your neighborhood, them you may have a rude awakening. It might be to a man standing over your bed with a gun. The current case of the two Dutch girls is another wake-up call that everyone needs to be careful. My heart breaks for the parents who are wondering what is happening and can do nothing but wait. Be safe."
Ross Blankert replied on April 24, 2014: "[..] My advice is the same. Don’t be a target. Don’t do stupid things. I don’t go out at night. I don’t drink and I try to make friends of my neighbors. For the girls, I believe these two spent time on the internet in the Bibliotecha each morning."
Boquete's forum members discuss a Jeremy Kryt article and a removed news item that said Lisanne's entire foot was found in June and that it was intact
By GP91, July 31rd 2016
Source and source
There were two interesting discussions on Boquete's own forum community, called Boquete Ning. I highlight a couple of things that were discussed mid 2016 about the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne. These are people commenting on this forum who mostly all live in Boquete.
"The title of this second article ['The last man to see the lost girls of Panama alive', by Jeremy Kryt] in the series is misleading, as the writer did not even get an interview with the unnamed guide thought to be “the last man to see the lost girls of Panama alive.” And then the writer says in the article that this local rancher/part-time guide was “one of” the last people to see the women alive. Other questions/inconsistencies that have surfaced in this latest installment from The Daily Beast:
- “The pulverized remains weren’t sufficient to determine the cause of death”
- “Witnesses say this same guide met with Kris and Lisanne less than 24 hours before they disappeared, on the campus of an all-inclusive language school called Spanish by the River, where the women were staying in Boquete.” - What witnesses? When were the girls last seen by the school/hostel? Why is there no interview of the staff of this small school/hostel?
- “Early the next morning, Kris and Lisanne set out to climb up to the Continental Divide on their own.” - How is it known they were on their own?
- “Contradictory testimony from eyewitnesses also hampered rescue attempts. It would be months before investigators confirmed Kris and Lisanne had in fact set out on April 1, instead of the day before.” - Again, what eyewitnesses? When were they last seen?
- “The pack was wedged into a mess of flotsam on the bank, the Ngobe woman said, and she was sure it hadn’t been there the day before.” - So the backpack had just recently washed up, after over two months in the elements, but in good condition, with cash, phone, and cheap sunglasses intact?
- “By the end of August, a total of 33 skeletal fragments had been linked to the missing women using DNA tests. Twenty-eight of the recovered bones were the small metatarsals of Lisanne’s left foot, still in its boot and sock, and reportedly found behind a tree near the river.”- We are not anatomists, but according to Wikipedia, the human foot has 5 metatarsals, and a total of 26 bones.
Further, we remember seeing photos and reading at the time of a complete foot, undecayed in the boot, which was a shock to the examiner conducting the autopsy.
There was reported at the time a part of a pelvis found and identified, why no mention of that? And finally this journalist does not bring up the fact as stated by La Estrella de Panama at the time that Kris was wearing brown boots as was apparently Lisanne, yet the empty blue boot that came forward as evidence was assigned to Kris, without DNA testing.
- “If it was really an accident why couldn’t they find more remains?’ says guide Tornblom. ‘Where are all the big bones? Where are the skulls? There are no animals up there that would eat a skull.’”- Good questions. If you were finding “pulverized” bone “fragments,” why wouldn’t you also be finding large bones?
- “At some later point, the same guide who first invited the women up to the Divide became involved in the search for the girls. ‘He’s the last guy to see them alive—and then he’s the one who finds their bones,’ says fellow guide Tornblom. ‘Something about that just feels wrong to me.’”- So is this unnamed guide in question thought to have led the Ngobe search workers to the bone fragments they then collected and submitted?? And how exactly does anyone find bone fragments washed up on a riverbank? And if they were submitted by the Ngobe in a bag to authorities, how does anyone know they came from the riverbank?
This writer has a lot of questions to answer, and in a short amount of time/space… If this journalist is going to focus on a guide, who according to “witnesses” met with the girls concerning a hike to his ranch, as the “last man” to see them and a possible suspect (really these theories are not explained clearly at all in the article), then why did he completely ignore at least two others in national/international news reports from the time who saw them after that?
- One, taxi driver Leonardo Arturo Gonzalez, who died under strange circumstances in a river in Gualaca in March, 2015, and was headlined by the Panamanian news as having been investigated for having transported Lisanne and Kris to the Pianista trail. (Fallece taxista investigado en caso de las holandesas, tvn-2.com , 03/03/2015 - 7:54 AM, also in elsiglo.com, critica.com, and laestrella.com)
- Two, “an inn keeper” who saw them on April 1, “when the women asked him for directions for their hike. Tired, they later returned to the man and asked for help getting back to town. Police said the man advised them to take a taxi, but he said he didn't see whether the women returned to town or went back to the mountain.” (Dutch Police Hint at Criminal Activity in Women's Disappearance, NBCNews.com, Apr 22 2014, 11:47 PM ET
Also we did a quick search for the whole foot and boot online as it was all over the internet when it was first found. Can't find it anywhere, just the empty blue boot. Changed dates, changed evidence- is this rewriting history?"
Concerned replied on August 1, 2016: "In this article Jeremy has accepted wrong information about the date (April 6th) Sinaproc started searching the Pianista and surroundings. The date of April 6th serves as a basis for the following proposition present in his article: If Sinaproc would have started their searches earlier than April 6th, the two young ladies could have been found alive. Well, Sinaproc did start searching earlier than April 6th. At least TWO days earlier. Why didn't Jeremy verify this properly? Numerous postings in BoqueteGuide/ning at the time show when and where the searches were taking place and there are numerous other records, here is one of them. Sinaproc was physically involved in the searches as from April 4th. So, to go back to the proposition: If Sinaproc would have started their searches earlier than April 6th, the two young ladies could have been found alive. Sinaproc started on April 4th. Were they found alive? No. Were they found at all? No.
GP91 replied on August 1, 2016: "Yes, proposition is unfounded based on inaccurate dates given, not to mention other factors. Also we did a quick search for the whole foot and boot online as it was all over the internet when it was first found. Can't find it anywhere, just the empty blue boot. Changed dates, changed evidence- is this rewriting history?"
Concerned replied on August 1, 2016: "In all accounts about hikes on the Pianista trail, there are encounters with others on the trail. Regardless the weather conditions, rainy or not, muddy or not, there is always someone else on the trail. The trail serves as a pedestrian highway between Bocas and Chiriquí. So why should two beautiful young ladies be the only ones not to have encountered anybody on this trail? On a warm, sunny and dry day without any mud on the way? Here are some recorded encounters. You can find more recorded encounters along the Pianista trail in internet. For instance the most recent one, the Colombian lady who went missing. She supposedly bumped into her saviour Aristides."
Paul Jones wrote on August 1, 2016: "Personally, I would not consider it accurate to say that someone is always on the trail. In the half a dozen times we've hiked Pianista, I've only come across one other person, and that was a farmer working off the trail in the land before reaching the actual trailhead (there is a significant hike from parking to the actual trailhead).
Concerned replied on August 2, 2016: "That's good to know. How far on the trail did you get? Did you cross the CD? One of the links I posted, shows an encounter with 1 person behind the Mirador so at the bocas side."
Paul Jones wrote on August 2, 2016: "We would only go to the CD [summit] and turn back. However, since the search on Pianista, we no longer hike this trail."
Concerned replied on August 7, 2016: "3rd part: The Lost Girls of Panama: The Camera, the Jungle, and the Bones. If the two young women were at the river crossings, than that alone is proof for them not being lost. The crossings in question are found on the main path. Why would the two women want to cross at night? How sneaky. Why not in daytime?"According to the official necropsy reports, those fractures could only have been caused by a “fall from a high place,” likely while Lisanne was still alive." The same forensic expert who examined the bones and who worked on that report, Van der Goot, says that those fractures don't have to be caused by such a fall: The fractures can easily be caused by long distance hiking. "every year we see such injuries in hikers".
Regardless the weather conditions, rainy or not, muddy or not, there is always someone else on the trail. The trail serves as a pedestrian highway between Bocas and Chiriquí. So why should two beautiful young ladies be the only ones not to have encountered anybody on this trail?"
Concerned replied on August 8, 2016: "I understand what you mean. But sadly enough, the parents were compelled to accept the lost and accident scenario because they did not get any support by the Dutch authorities. There are many discrepancies in this case that could still be tackled."
And GP91 wrote another great post on August 7th 2016
"There is no evidence that the pictures were even taken by the girls.
1. There is no picture of the girls, lost and in the dark.
2. The time/date stamp on this camera can be changed. According to Wikipedia entry for this model, “the timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.” Therefore, someone who got their camera could have stood in the same spot and clicked the camera repeatedly, and even changed the date and time while doing so.
3. None of the pictures are clear, so the writer had to draw in and explain in great detail what we are supposed to think about them.
4. Pictures taken over and over in the same spot in the dark were stated to perhaps be (Lisanne) “trying to use the camera to tell us something she thinks is important,” but it is anyone’s guess what that might be.
5. The picture “possibly” showing a wounded Kris is not shown or verified by anyone as Kris, nor where she is. Yet it is used as the sole evidence for another far-reaching theory of how Lisanne may have left her there.
6. Articles placed around the rocks and identified as “possibly” signals for rescuers could also be entirely consistent with a cover-up of a crime. Anyone could have put them there. Then the article presents the thoughts by email of Dr. Reichs, “world-famous forensic anthropologist and best-selling author,” who offers these theories: A “flap of Lisanne’s skin that survived intact” can be explained by rainforest “micro-environments.” Concerning the fragmentation of the remains, she says, “Further damage from animal scavenging can be very diverse due to multiple transport modes: avian, fish, turtle, crab, small and large carnivores, etcetera.” (Though there is no noted damage to the remains from animal scavenging_. And her most 'powerful point': “Why would any criminal or criminals ‘leave cash, a passport, and electronics in the back pack?’”(That is a no-brainer, because again, it would be consistent with the cover-up to a crime).
Other Ning posters have spoken very well to questions about the conditions of the trail and how the girls could have ended up at the cable bridge, which was still part of the trail. And further, no one saw them there over the span of several days? None of this is in keeping with them getting lost, or that they even would have attempted to go this far. It is a stretch to think they did. Yet this entire article engages in wild and far-flung speculation, to arrive back at the official conclusion. Major unanswered questions remain, that fit a “crime and cover-up” more than “lost in the jungle”:
- The backpack and bag of bones brought in by the Ngobe, and no one even knows they were ever at the river.
- The condition of the backpack and the contents (they sure don’t appear they were ever at the river).
- The condition of the remains, and lack thereof.
- The forensic reports, and lack thereof.
- The lack of interviews as evidence from multiple eyewitnesses, including: guides (the one named in part 2 and Walter’s), hostel/school staff, people who sighted them near the trail (and don’t forget Blue), the Ngobe man and woman who reportedly found and brought in the bag of bones, and others.
- The reason for this whole article which leads us in spite of all these unanswered questions to believe, “this is a story with no real villain.” Therefore, we do not even know that Kris and Lisanne died on the Serpent River. Boquete, the authorities of Panama, local resident expats, the school/hostel who received them are all responsible to take care of guests who come as tourists, or to do volunteer work. If there was a failure, then it is the responsibility of those in the community to submit the facts of what is known for the safety and decency of the community. Further, if this is a crime, the perpetrator went too far this time, and the international community will find out what happened. He/they left too many clues.
Paul Jones replied on August 7, 2016: "I, for one, do hope that answers are found. No, Lisanne's father had not accepted the "lost in the forest" theory the last I heard, but this was around the time I attended the candlelight vigil in the square. I'm sure there's no harm in any new information coming to light. I hope someday it does. I've always leaned towards the foul play theory, due to several factors, but I'm definitely not sure of anything at this point. I do think that a particular guide and his son should have been investigated, and seemingly was ignored, as they own a place near the Pianista and he was one that was in the middle of it all (down to actually finding remains). That being said, I'm sure we don't know all the info obtained in the investigation. The government does have the motive to lean towards a lost girls theory, as tourism is good money in this country."
GP91 wrote on August 8, 2016: "Walter, I didn’t know the investigation was closed. Concerning “Mission Director,” if you were here, you would know he’s still cruising the streets. So again, why did you take your replies off the first part post about the missing girls?"
Concerned replied on August 8, 2016: "I still have to read the 3rd part properly, but I can say this: the forensics expert said that the girls "intelligently" left signs. How intelligent were they then?
- intelligent to knowingly cross the CD? Knowingly, because apparently they knew that the trail took to Bocas province, they were told the day before. They knew that they had to turn around to get back to Boquete.
- intelligent to supposedly follow the trail up to the official river crossings and not to take any side path? Many a time Boquetenos warned about the Path: "El sendero se bifurca..."
- intelligent to stay hidden for a full week and not to make photos in daylight?
- intelligent to make strange photos of their signs in night time?
- intelligent for not leaving a message to their loved ones, in plain Dutch instead of in gibberish (their signs)? I understand that hikers in distress leave such signs, but they also had the opportunity to leave some kind of message in their phones.
- etc"
GP91 wrote on August 9, 2016: "Thank you Walter for clarifying some important information. You are forgetting, however, that “Dutch police said an inn keeper saw them on April 1, when the women asked him for directions for their hike. Tired, they later returned to the man and asked for help getting back to town. Police said the man advised them to take a taxi, but he said he didn't see whether the women returned to town or went back to the mountain. Dutch police spokesman Bernhard Jens said Tuesday on Dutch media that "it was unlikely the women would have returned to their hike." NBCNews.com, Apr 22 2014. There were other reports of them at the time that they were seen on their way back to town. So if anyone reading this has a sighting to report, it would be helpful to post that to establish again if the girls returned from their hike or not. And Walter, are you saying that the guide you talked to and know is the same guide Jeremy Kryt is referencing in the second part of his article as “the last man to see the lost girls of Panama alive”? If not, please clarify. Because again, if Jeremy is zeroing in on your guide, seems like he didn’t do his homework if this guide was already thoroughly investigated, and wasn't the last one to see them."
Concerned replied on August 9, 2016: "A Panamanian criminologist studied this case too. I don't have the details at hand, but you can find some in the internet, published by La Estrella. Her conclusion was clear: manipulation. I wonder whether the Canadian criminologist mentioned in Jeremy's account, has studied the whole picture or whether she only looked at the photos and concluded that the girls were very intelligent to use their toilet paper. It's the pattern that counts. The selfies and demeanour of the girls before they reached the Mirador, and records of whatever happened after are a huge contrast."
GP91 wrote on August 9, 2016: "The job of an expert who’s analyzing photographs is to determine the time of day they were taken by the shadows from the sun which is fairly easy to do, the dates and times on each picture’s original jpeg file, the number sequence, camera name, person’s name, to first establish if the files have been altered. Instead of that to attempt to figure out what is going on in someone’s head by looking at unclear and dark pictures, is strange fiction. No, nothing too intelligent here."
Concerned replied on August 10, 2016: "I agree. The authenticity of the nightly photos remains uncertified."
GP91 wrote on August 10, 2016: "Why wasn't it certified? Does anyone know who has the disk from Lisanne's camera?"
GP91 wrote on August 10, 2016: "To say that we shouldn’t look at what may have happened to the lost girls because it is too hard for the families or just too sad and uncomfortable is one thing. But to say after all the questions raised by professionals who have looked at the case and now again this investigative reporter that the possibility it was a crime is near “zero” is demonstrating extreme defensiveness of the “official” conclusion, to say the least. These girls’ smiles are etched in our minds. To think a possible perpetrator(s) may still be running free in the area should drive us all to find answers in this case. In addition to many unanswered questions and discrepancies, there’s the witness of absolutes. In spite of our instructors telling us from the 60s on that there are no absolutes, now that we are old we realize indeed there are. There are absolutes in chemistry, biology, physics, that can’t be changed. One of those absolutes is that when we step out of our body, it starts a process that returns us to the earth. This process is consistent, you can google it yourself.
To simplify, the body will be nothing but skeletal remains within as little as a month in hot climates and two months in cold climates. The only “micro-environment” that would slow this process would be refrigeration (temperatures between 2 °C (36 °F) and 4 °C (39 °F)).
The environment of these trails and the Culebra River with its temperature, moisture, and diverse and abundant scavengers, insects, and microorganisms would in fact speed up the process. Delivering the remains to the authorities in a plastic bag, with no crime scene to examine, eliminated the evidence that this environment would have provided. What were the examiners supposed to do with that?
Concerned replied on August 10, 2016: "Thanks for sharing. However, many discrepancies remain. Firstly, the girls had dry sunny weather and could tell the difference between the Bocas and Boquete side. It is new for me to know that they were offered an excursion to the finca behind the CD, just the day before (or perhaps 2 days before?) I assume that the cable bridges were described as well. In other words, at some point they should have understood that they were descending on the wrong side. But no, the supposedly went on, kept low, kept quite for a full week, making no photos or selfies at all and then decided to make pictures of their signs AT NIGHT. Why not in daytime? There are other ways to make signs without offering the only pair of pants you are wearing. And place them at an official crossing near a cable bridge?"
Concerned replied on August 11, 2016: "I think the family has or the Dutch / Panamanian forensics. But it's my guess that the disc will not be released. The data should have been analyzed."
Concerned replied on August 11, 2016: "I appreciate your standpoint. Yes, I have hiked in the jungle, many times. And I know that you can get lost and unlost. I agree that it is hard to find the way in the dark, but why oh why would the girls have attempted to cross a dangerous cable bridge AFTER MIDNIGHT? Why not wait till sunrise? After a full week in the jungle?
GP91 replied on August 11, 2016: "The Panamanian examiners did the best they could with what they were given, and reported accordingly. Does anyone remember what was actually submitted of Kris and Lisanne’s remains, as reported at the time? The story from The Daily Beast seems to be altering and leaving out details of what is known of the evidence, in its quest to settle the “no villain” conclusion.
- Lime was found on the femur and left foot of Lisanne, and the pelvis and rib of Kris. “This would explain the state of the bones; without traces of blood, appearance almost intact, off-white, and without trauma”
- “The bones found do not have marks from the current or from blows by rocks...” Further “at the beginning of April the Culebre River did not have the force sufficient to sweep a person away.”
- “The evidence showed the first signs of decomposition and was covered in dust. The remains were found on 29 August.”
- “If we suppose that the girls died during the first week of April, right now, after 5 months of death, larvae shouldn't be seen. This points out that the body is or was kept in a humid place, under shadow and in low temperatures, according to the reports.” (i.e. refrigeration?)
- “During an examination to the tibia, the medical examiner stated that it didn't have any alterations. When he cut the bone to the bone marrow, he detected a dry, well-kept bone without any signs of putrefaction. The same happens with the femur, where the bone marrow is almost intact. How could the persons who picked the bones conclude that the mass covered with earth was part of the evidence?”
- According to the criminologist Calderon, “We don't know if it was plain ignorance or a plan, but all the information that could have helped us find out the truth behind this case was destroyed”. Los huesos presentan rastros de fósforo, Laestrella.com, 24 Sept 14
Concerned replied on August 12, 2016: "This is about it, I think. The journalist who wrote this report in La Estrella took the trouble to visit the IMELCF where she was shown around and where she interviewed the examiners. If I recall correctly, the examiners were struck by the piece of skin. How could it have been spotted and recognized as such by the finders?"
GP91 wrote on August 12, 2016: "Yes, they were surprised. That is a huge red flag on this evidence. Use of lime by a perpetrator on the bodies would have explained the condition of the bones and why a piece of skin could have escaped decomposition as the spreading of the lime was uneven. Another quote from the first article above regarding this: “Humberto Mas, director of IMELF, is analyzing the possibility that the dismemberment of the bodies is a product of treatment with lime. Mas explains that the effect of lime is corrosive and previously he has had the experience that by covering the body with calcium oxide it is possible that the extremities are detached. If we continue this line of hypothesis, this would explain why the left foot does not present traces of cutting.”
GP91 replied on August 12, 2016: "True. The zigzagging conclusions of The Daily Beast on this story and the final angle of “lost in the jungle” is yet another huge mystery in all this. For any police investigator, this is in your face, a crime. One thing we can say for Walter’s posts about the guide in question, he might have saved him from getting thrown under the bus, as that seems to be where Part 2 of the article was heading. Clearly a crime of this nature would have had to involve more than one person, and someone who could/would plan out psychopathic twisted trails of evidence, much like a crime novel.
Concerned replied on August 12, 2016: "Tnx. It doesn't make sense to spend a full week in the jungle, not making any photos nor selfies (even if you are in distress) and then decide to cross a dangerous cable bridge AFTER MIDNIGHT. Unless you are fleeing from somewhere. That criminologist from Montréal failed to point this out."
Concerned replied on August 13, 2016: "The photo of the cable bridge in Jeremy's article, where the young lady wearing the green shirt is crossing the bridge: she is walking in the direction of Boquete. Westbank = boqueteside, eastbank is Bocas side. Kris' pants were supposedly found on the eastbank. She therefore supposedly had crossed the river already (from Boquete to Bocas). Or: Lisanne managed to cross the bridge in the direction of Boquete, coming from Bocas. So presumably on their way back from where?"
GP91 wrote on August 13, 2016: "Very interesting points. Either scenario is illogical and unbelievable, to take your shorts off and leave them “zipped and folded and set on a rock high above the water line” perhaps “placed at the crossing as a marker” as per The Daily Beast. These are apparently the same shorts that were later found to have “no evidence of blood or DNA” per the lawyer quoted in the La Estrella article “Los Huesos Presentan Rastros de Fósforo.” Even top Boquete Ninger Walter blogging from Montreal concluded in what was to be his “final post” that the shorts could have been “placed to draw attention to the fact that there was an accident.” It is not a fact that there was an accident. What is a fact is that this article from The Daily Beast is the latest chapter in the continual manipulation of the evidence and story of the missing girls."
Concerned replied on August 14, 2016: "IF the girls are the authors of the night photos and the timestamps are authentic, then what do we see? The night photos (taken AFTER midnight) are close-up images. One (or more?) shows a close-up of what is supposed to be Kris' hair. That would indicate that Kris and Lisanne were next to each other at that moment on one side of the river. Presumably the side where the items were placed? The items and the paper seem to be DRY, indicating that they had just been placed. In other words: Kris removes her pants and places them on a rock and then crosses the bridge. Remains the crucial question: why in the middle of the night instead of waiting till dawn? And why try to attract the attention by placing items if you are sneaking around in the dark? Because of the fall? And seeing the place where the items were placed (if correct), then couldn't they have just climbed out of there? And, being an official crossing, wouldn't anyone show up eventually? I don't believe that these 2 young women would have created so many questions for their loved ones without leaving behind some kind of concrete message in their mother language."
GP91 replied on August 14, 2016: "These are all key questions. So, this series of images all taken at night; none are clear; supposed markers placed in odd unintelligent way; though the girls were likely weak and possibly injured, one or both had the strength to cross the bridge and place the shorts high on a rock; no one saw them over a week span on a main trail at an official crossing; and…no note/message/picture left to loved ones in their native language. That this could have actually happened as presented by the articles defies the imagination. It appears to be a total and complete illogical, botched attempted cover up of foul play, no matter what levels of status were solicited for help."
Concerned replied on August 15, 2016: "And TWO governments go along with it, shaking hands."
Concerned replied on August 26, 2016: "There is something else: one of the phones (Samsung) connected to GSM on April 2nd."
Guy Craig replied on August 28, 2016: "Money and expensive electronics left in a knapsack? .... not very ominous."
And GP91 wrote another great post on July 25th 2016
"Sure, everyone for a time was led to believe that the girls had likely gotten lost and perished in the jungle, which is entirely plausible. But if the investigative journalist at the Daily Beast and others he interviews and provides documentation from were nearly sure of that, then he would not be providing this investigative report with so many question marks, including:
- “Why had so few remains been found?”
- “Why were there no marks on the bones?”
- “What did the presence of other human remains mean?”
- Why “after the discovery of the identified remains, [did] Panama’s attorney general [call] the case ‘a crime against personal integrity,’ but when forensic examiners reached an impasse, the Panamanian government simply declared the case closed”?
- Why does the lawyer for one of the families believe “the evidence seems to have been manipulated in order to hide something”?
- Why though there were “more than 30 unidentified fingerprints” on the backpack did Panama fail “to record prints from any of the Indigenous people involved in the case”?
- How can “the intact conditions of the clothes and wallet,” backpack, and electronics be explained? (and we heard reported that the pack was found hanging on a branch, not “washed up on the riverbank”; which was it?)
- Why is it that “no forensics examination was ever done at the crime scene”?
- Why as Concerned already posted did “none of the dog teams ever [get] near the scene either—including the Dutch dog teams”?
- Why were the local resident Ngobe the acting ‘forensics’ team, with the bag of bones they brought in not even verified?
Though we can’t imagine the pain of the parents of these girls, a full investigation of whether or not it was in fact a crime would serve to PREVENT other victims and other grief-stricken parents. So we look forward to follow these reports and anything else that comes out to see if any light will be shed on these unanswered questions."
And GP91 wrote on July 24, 2016: "I also find it interesting that I saw the Volcancito Mission Director (who we've posted about before) visited by the local police for advice about the missing Dutch girls (so he told me after they left) the day before the backpack was found. He also announced at Sunday night church early in April that he had gone with his head groundskeeper to help with a search on the Pianista Trail, as a good Christian should do. So glad this case is being investigated.
Disappearance of Dutch women affects tourism in western PanamaMay 30th, 2014
Source
"The disappearance at the beginning of last month in the sector of Boquete, western Panama, of the young Dutch Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers, aged 22 and 21, respectively, has affected the economic activity of this area based mainly on tourism. According to a report by the Boquete Chamber of Tourism, published today by the local press, the impact on tourism has basically been due to inaccurate information on social networks and electronic media. The morning paper "El Panamá América" highlighted that these versions confuse people abroad and "mistakenly sell Boquete as an unsafe district." The president of the regional Chamber, Jorge Tovar, estimated the damages that have occurred in the area at 10 percent, although he indicated that the economic losses could not be quantified now due to what has happened. Tovar added that the effect of "the bad image" created by the news among tourists can be clearly seen with the reduction of the so-called "backpackers", which are the travelers who are more exposed because they do not make reservations and arrive in the district. for recommendations.
"75 percent of Boquete's economy is generated from tourist activities"
He recalled that 75 percent of Boquete's economy is generated from tourist activities and, he ventured that there will therefore be damages if the other side of the district is not sold, which includes the security and diversity of activities that people can carry out. He calculated, as it was added, that each backpacker spends an average of $150 a day in the community, paying for lodging, buying food in supermarkets, transportation and expenses for activities such as hiking and canopy, among others. He added that the problem goes much further, because in the district (of Boquete) there are 46 businesses dedicated to hosting tourists, including hotels, hostels and cabins, and that they are already receiving calls from tour operators to cancel reservations, specifically to cause of the news about the disappearance of the Dutch. The Chamber acknowledged that tourist activity is low at the moment in the area, but that generally people prepare for the months of July and August, when the summer holidays are given and the increase in flights from Europe is expected. It was added that there is therefore concern about the repercussions that may have due to the disappearance of the two young women.
He recalled that 75 percent of Boquete's economy is generated from tourist activities and, he ventured that there will therefore be damages if the other side of the district is not sold, which includes the security and diversity of activities that people can carry out. He calculated, as it was added, that each backpacker spends an average of $150 a day in the community, paying for lodging, buying food in supermarkets, transportation and expenses for activities such as hiking and canopy, among others. He added that the problem goes much further, because in the district (of Boquete) there are 46 businesses dedicated to hosting tourists, including hotels, hostels and cabins, and that they are already receiving calls from tour operators to cancel reservations, specifically to cause of the news about the disappearance of the Dutch. The Chamber acknowledged that tourist activity is low at the moment in the area, but that generally people prepare for the months of July and August, when the summer holidays are given and the increase in flights from Europe is expected. It was added that there is therefore concern about the repercussions that may have due to the disappearance of the two young women.
Ramón Hernández considered what is happening worrisome, and assured that it is urgent to ask the media to handle the information about the Dutch with much more restraint.
The vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture of Chiriquí -province border with Costa Rica-, Ramón Hernández, considered what is happening worrisome, and assured that it is urgent to ask the media to handle the information about the Dutch with much more restraint. Tovar immediately explained that strategies are being considered to try to counter the negative image that the case is giving Boquete. This week a team of rescue experts arrived in Panama from the Netherlands, accompanied by 13 dogs to help search for the young women. According to some known versions, the young women disappeared in the mountainous area of Boquete, and when they were apparently preparing to start an excursion along an ecological trail with a guide, F." - Here the article is discussed on a local Boquete forum.
'Kris and Lisanne must be found'
May 3rd 2014. - INTERVIEW The friends Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon should have returned from a wonderful trip through Panama last Tuesday. But the reunion with their parents at Schiphol did not take place. The families are doing everything they can to find their missing daughters and end the nightmare.”
'When Lisanne and Kris return from Panama, she's in for a blast. The whole of Amersfoort will come out to celebrate their homecoming, it will be a warm bath'. A smile appears on the lips of father Hans Kremers when he talks about the moment when he will see his Kris again. 'When the time comes, Kris and Lisanne won't know what hit them'. Diny Froon nudges her husband: 'Peter sometimes says that he is afraid that he will hug Lisanne to death when she returns back home.'
But Lisanne and Kris aren't home. The Amersfoort friends, aged 22 and 21, seem to have disappeared from the face of the earth in Panama, the country where they would learn Spanish together and do volunteer work at a daycare center. They planned their trip down to the last detail. Learned Spanish songs and games to keep the kids entertained. Put together an itinerary. The sporty, somewhat introverted Lisanne and her crazy, spontaneous friend Kris would have a wonderful time.
Black Forest
Father Peter was very proud to be at Schiphol when it was time for Lisanne's departure. He and his wife Diny never traveled further than Germany's Black Forest. 'Make ithe most of it,' said Diny. 'Have fun,' cried mother Roelie Grit, flanked by Hans. When the four parents had a cup of coffee at the airport, they exchanged phone numbers. But we won't be needing them, they thought. Cheerful messages from Panama follow. They Skype. And then, in early April, in the middle of the night, Diny gets a phone call. She hears how a stranger asks for Lisanne. Diny explains that she is Lisanne's mother. She then understands that her child has not returned to the host family where she is staying with Kris.
Emotions
'I was very shocked, but you immediately try to put it into perspective.' It won't be that bad, they'll show up again, she tells herself. But they need to find Kris' parents' phone number. In the middle of the night they find out, that Lisanne and Kris have already been missing for more than 24 hours. That's why they haven't heard anything lately. 'You explode when you understand that something is wrong,' Hans Kremers says about that moment. "But pretty soon your emotions are blocked."
Because a call must be made to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A report must be filed. It must be ensured that everything is done to find Lisanne and Kris. Roelie and Hans Kremers leave for Panama to help with the search. Roelie: 'We wanted to be there when Kris was found.' From their home in Amersfoort, Diny and Peter Froon help where they can. All four parents assume that the girls got lost during a hike near Boquote, the place where they are currently staying.
Other scenario
But now that the area has been scoured and no trace of the girls has been found, they assume a completely different scenario. A dark scenario, in which their daughters are taken against their will. It doesn't change their task, they say from their couch in Amersfoort. Their daughters múst be found. They cán be found. That's what they hold onto. But every morning they have to deal with that same hammer blow again. The two young women are not there. They find the strength in each other to continue searching, in spite of this, but in particular from thinking about their children.
Still, they don't imagine where Lisanne and Kris are right now, or what they're going through. The parents cannot afford to spend energy contemplating horror scenarios. Hans: 'We have to remain strong for the girls, to find them and help them when they get home. That is our motivation, that's why we keep going.'
Moving
They prefer to focus on the Find Kris and Lisanne Foundation. The whole of the Netherlands can help to finance the search, by depositing money. The number of responses is overwhelming. Sometimes small amounts of 1 or 2 euros are donated, because the giver cannot afford to lose any more money. Peter: 'That's so moving.' The messages written with the deposits warm the hearts of the parents, who have so much to bear. "Take courage." "We sympathize." Diny: 'That keeps you going; it is a helping hand.' If someone speaks about their daughters in the past tense, as if they are no longer there, it is very difficult for Roelie. 'We don't want that, because we in fact have the confidence that they are still alive. Those times in the day when I make myself completely free to think about her, I get such a warm feeling. Then I have conversations with Kris, then I feel that we are in contact.' Then Roelie just knows that her daughter is still alive. 'If Kris was no longer out there, it would feel different.'
Important video. Peter R. de Vries, crime reporter, and Martijn Froon's final (lost) take on the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne
With a ficker of doubt.
Een Vandaag April 11th, 2014:
Pauw, November 21st, 2014
EEN VANDAAG, April 11th, 2014:Local: "We assume and hope that the girls returned once it got dark. And that they have gone in the direction of a beach. It is really necessary that the searches are increased."
'This criticism comes from a local guide, who helps the police looking for Dutch Lisanne and Kris. And this same afternoon the Panamanian police declared that the searches for the girls will continue until at least Sunday. But that the search operation will not be further expanded. With me in the studio is crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. Well Peter, no new discoveries and the search will continue until Sunday... These girls have been missing for ten days now. What does it tell you that the searches are prolonged until Sunday?'"Well to be honest, that sounds a bit economical and frugal to me. I would expect a statement in the order of; for now we will continue to search, as long as we haven't found a trace of these girls. I know from experience and from other cases, that it is exceptionally difficult to find in these type of surroundings. I know cases where searches continued for weeks and weeks, and nothing was found in the end. Only to find the bodily remains half a year later. And such a case ended fatally."Presenter: 'And what about this new criticism that the searches should be expanded?'
Peter R. de Vries: "Well I am inclined to agree with that. Two girls have disappeared and there is no trace of them. Everything also points towards them not having disappeared voluntarily or that they went elsewhere. All their belongings are still there [in their room]. Well then you have to use all the available means, including tracking dogs."
Presenter: 'Let's look at all the events that took place so far.' 'April 1st. As far as we know now, Kris and Lisanne started their hike on the Pianista Trail as late as 3 PM. They were seen by witnesses. "Around this time they went up the mountain." That evening, the two girls don't return to their host family. Clothes that would have been necessary for a long hike, turn out to be still in their room. Nothing points towards them having planned to stay away for long. It is not until the next morning that a guide, who was supposed to take them for a guided mountain hike, raises the alarm.
Guide F: "Once we realized they hadn't spent the night at their host family, we reported them missing as soon as we could." 'On April 3rd, the families of Kris and Lisanne go public. They create a special facebook page.
Hans Kremers: "Something has happened that isn't right. And if that means they got lost, or had an accident, or I don't know..." 'In Boquete, Panama, the search operation becomes more extensive. But police have yet to find a trace.'
Search member: "It is very cold at night and we are very worried because the girls did not wear appropriate clothing."
Dutch Ambassador in Panama Wiebe de Boer: "We are very content with the cooperation with the Panamese. They have put a lot of people on this case right from the start."
Hans Kremers: "Something has happened that isn't right. And if that means they got lost, or had an accident, or I don't know..." 'In Boquete, Panama, the search operation becomes more extensive. But police have yet to find a trace.'
Search member: "It is very cold at night and we are very worried because the girls did not wear appropriate clothing."
Dutch Ambassador in Panama Wiebe de Boer: "We are very content with the cooperation with the Panamese. They have put a lot of people on this case right from the start."
'The parents of Kris are meanwhile in Panama.'
Hans Kremers: "Everybody who here in Boquete and in the whole of Panama is busy with this... It feels really good. And I am convinced that they will pull out all the stops."
'More than a week after the girls went missing, sniffer dogs are used for the first time.
Arturo Alvarado: "But unfortunately the weather is poor. That makes the search more difficult."
'And yesterday and today the search continues in vain with the help of Indigenous people who know the area.
Local: "Here the search for the missing girls has not stopped for a moment. Their disappearance touches us deeply."
Presenter: 'Yes, back to crime reporter Peter R. de Vries. You already said, the approach seems a bit frugal. Until Sunday they have searched. What is your impression from the approach of the Panamanian authorities? They know the area, they use the help of locals. Do you think they do well?
Peter R. de Vries: "Well, like I just said, it is very difficult to search in that terrain and the guide has said that it ís easy to get lost in this area. And you have to keep in mind: imagine that these girls did in fact get lost .. and it gets cold there at night, then it is possible that they searched for shelter from the cold in a cave or a crevasse. And if you then are caught up by the cold that night, then you are hidden there, more or less. And this prospect makes the search more difficult."
Presenter: 'Shouldn't we also consider the worst scenario; a crime?'
Peter R. de Vries: "Yes, it is certainly possible that it was foul play. It remains speculation for now. I myself am inclined to think: they were together. One person alone can slip and fall in a ravine for instance and then it is difficult to find this person. But for this to happen to both of them, that is less likely. There is usually one left to look for help. Who can follow another trail back. And that is seemingly not the case here. And then you have to consider the possibility that a 3rd party had a hand in it and that they met foul play."
Presenter: 'Exactly. Back to those searches, do you think there are consultations between the Panamanian police and justice department and the Dutch?
Peter R. de Vries: "Well, if that is the case it will be minimal, and a bit of a formality. Look, if it is about a drug cartel, they will always contact the Dutch and ask with what type of people they are dealing here, and ask for more information or a dossier. But these are completely innocent girls. They got lost over there, everything happened over there. The Dutch police can really do nothing, in my opinion."
Presenter: 'The Dutch do say: Listen we have sniffer dogs, searchers and special troops available. When can we send them over? Does something like this happen more often?'
Peter R. de Vries: "Of course you would have liked to do that yesterday already. Every minute almost counts. But we also have to trust that they have some experience with these things over there, and that people get lost more often there. And that they need to be searched for. So they should be able to do this."
Presenter: 'Yes, thank you, Peter R. de Vries.
Pauw, November 21st, 2014Jeroen Pauw: "I have never been there [in Panama]. Have you ever been there?
Peter R. de Vries: "No."
Jeroen Pauw: "You have."
Martijn Froon: "Yes".
Jeroen Pauw: "Everybody says: you almost cannot get lost there."
Martijn Froon: "Well yeh that is what we have experienced ourselves also. On the north side.. no on the south side on the trail facing the village [of Boquete] it is nearly impossible. It is one straight forward path. Only going up. It is a difficult hike because you have to climb quite a few meters. And when you leave the trail you can go quite a few meters down also, there are steep slopes where a lot of things could happen. Like I said; on the south side the trail is not that difficult but once you reach the summit and go over to the north side, then the trail changes completely."
Jeroen Pauw: "And what do you think is the most likely thing that has happened then?"
Martijn Froon: "Well, what our conclusion is... here you see a photo of the other side of the trail. It is one big blubbering mudfest. The walls are reaching up. I really struggled to walk there [Scarlet; but when Kris and Lisanne walked there the conditions were dry...] As you can see here, I sometimes couldn't even pass through upright and had to bend. They walked this trail for almost an hour. So then you reach the spot where the last photo was taken around 2 PM, 2.30 PM. [Scarlet: camera data says they were there at 2 PM and it was less than an hour's walk] And then you know that you need to walk back for at least 4 more hours, the same route, until you are back in Boquete." [I'm sorry, I don't understand his calculations.. It took the girls 2 hours to reach the summit and less than 1 hour to reach the stream of photo 508.. Going back would have taken them significantly less time than those 3 hours, as they would be going downhill for the most part.]
Martijn Froon: "And then they would have returned past this same trail, and I know my sister a little bit and she would not have liked that. So then they would have reached the point at 2:30 PM where they wondered; what should we do? Either we turn around and walk back. Knowing for sure that it is 4 more hours of walking [Scarlet; wrong calculations imo]. Or we keep walking, in the hope of reaching something.
Peter R. de Vries: "Well I don't think you can say... that is in my opinion the most basic error they have made..
Jeroen Pauw: "Who are 'they'?"
Peter R. de Vries: "Well, the media. The people who have spoken out about this. Saying that you cannot get lost there. But that is something, then you are arguing from a certain logic, which is especially in these type of circumstances not applicable. I have climbed mountains myself, and so I know a little bit about what it does to you when you have a shortage of water or food. How quickly you weaken then. And also what it does to your mental state when you sprain an ankle, for instance. And when you think: how can I go down as soon as possible. It is easy to say then that the route is straight forward and that you cannot get lost on it. But the moment you want to go down as soon as possible and when a certain panic washes over you, you will start looking for shortcuts. And then you go off the beaten track and off-trail. And so you can think of all sorts of scenarios which in my opinion have not been taken enough into account." [Scarlet: Peter has never been in Boquete, he never walked the trail for himself and he has no idea what options there really are to look for a shortcut. Everybody has spoken of and shown footage of one clearly defined trail. With no side trails to even choose from. Is he seriously considering that Kris and Lisanne would weed through foliage and down slopes, with a potential sprained ankle, to find a shortcut? In that completely unknown and new place in Panama? I find this very, very far-fetched and hypothetical. These two men are basically dissing the Kremers' findings.]
Jeroen Pauw: "And that is also the scenario which you both..."
Martijn Froon: "That is one of the conclusions which we have come to. At 4:20 PM that same afternoon, the first emergency call attempt was made [Scarlet: Official info says this was at 4:39 PM] There is an hour and a half in between. I find it plausible that something happened in the meantime. Uhm, maybe that one of the girls fell, or that something happened. Or that they at least knew that they wouldn't make it back out of the forest before sunset. And if we don't do something now, we will have to spend the night here."
Jeroen Pauw: "Yes. That is what they have most likely also done, in your story. They have made it through the night. They weren't really dressed for that, I don't believe they brought a lot of things with them."
Martijn Froon: "A tank top and shorts. No food and one small water bottle*." [*Kris is pictured with two water bottles in photo #491]
Jeroen Pauw: "No food, little water. No protective clothing. The day after it started to rain heavily in the area, I believe."
Martijn Froon: "Yes."
Jeroen Pauw: "That will leave you a little more cold also."
Martijn Froon: "Well.. not a little bit. You are getting soaking wet and then you won't be able to get warm again."
Peter R. de Vries: "You weaken very rapidly."
Jeroen Pauw: "So within this story as you are telling it now... backed by Peter.. what do you think happened on day 2, 3, or 4 or 5?"
Martijn Froon: "Well that... we will never know that. That will always remain an open question. You know, did one of those girls fall in a ravine? Did they get into an argument about what they would do. Did they both go their separate way? You won't get answers to those questions."
Jeroen Pauw: "There are a few things.. You wonder; did they get lost or not? Let's assume, based on your story and from what Peter says, that they did, presumably. Because something happened. A sprained ankle perhaps, maybe we can find a shortcut. Maybe if we turn left here we can get down just a bit faster. At some point you are lost. Those phones have been logged into, right? Several times. How often were emergency services called?"
Martijn Froon: "About 15 or 20 times, off the top of my head."
Jeroen Pauw: "Were text messages or other messages found in these phones, which gave any indication what happened?"
Martijn Froon: "No. No, no form of what sort of message at all. Those phone were switched on. The first six days the phone was systematically switched on and off about three times a day. And that suggests that they were clever about the state of the battery. It was an iPhone and everybody knows how quickly the battery is dead from those type of devices. [Scarlet; only this iPhone from Kris was powered on for 11 days, with a start on day 1 of only 50% battery..] Turning the phone on, making a call, switching the phone off again. Waiting for a better moment."
Peter R. de Vries: "That's the point, of course. Because you have no cellphone reception, there are of course also no text messages made." [Scarlet: Yeh let's all forget about the option of making unsent draft messages for loved ones]Jeroen Pauw: "Well.. you know yourself that you sometimes start typing a text message, and then it would have been still in the phone, without having been sent.."
Peter R. de Vries: "Well, when you see that there is no cell reception, you do not even start typing a text message, I think. But the fact that those phones were logged in over a longer period of time, and those emergency numbers were called is for me an indication that the chance of them being a victim of a crime is smaller. Because it is hard to imagine that if these two girls had been in the power of someone else, who had kidnapped them or who held them captive, that they had been able to use their phones still for several days."
Jeroen Pauw: "But then in the end, it is also the case that these phones were not entered correctly anymore. Or that no more login codes were entered correctly. This also led to thoughts with others that perhaps another person tried to work with these phones."
Martijn Froon: "Yeh.. well everybody who has a mobile phone and a screen lock; I ask you, how often does a login go wrong every day? That you accidentally press in the wrong number combination, or something. And the iPhone required both a screen lock and a PIN code. The first days they were entered both correctly, but later... And like Peter says: when you haven't eaten for six days..."
Peter R. de Vries: "You become disoriented."
Martijn Froon: "You no longer know what you are doing. [Scarlet: Except for 90-something sharp and focused night photos, of course, on day 8] And then you literally and figuratively are tripping'. And then I can understand completely that you are no longer capable of entering the right PIN code
Jeroen Pauw: "One more time, I'm sorry for bringing these things up but you are no doubt used to this. Back to the photo camera. We just saw photos [of Lisanne on the summit]. You say, these are the last photos. But there were more photos on the camera, right? Later photos. Vague photos. This.. Is this such a photo?"
Martijn Froon: "Yes."
Jeroen Pauw: "I have of course no idea what we are exactly looking at here.. You neither I think?"Martijn Froon: "No, well we have of course thought a lot about these photos and have been staring at them for many an hour. What could be going on here? Police have also looked into this photo. And they have used all sorts of photo editing programs to lighten things up, to find out if anything of importance could be seen here. But the majority of them... and that is the theory that came out of this, that they have tried to use the flash to light up the overhanging foliage, to try to signal overcoming air traffic, or something." Jeroen Pauw: "Yes, so the flash as an emergency signal."
Martijn Froon: "Yes. Or maybe that they heard something. And wanted to look what was out there."
Jeroen Pauw: "Is there also an explanation, and I ask this the both of you, for the last part of this story?
That the human remains of the both of them have been found a great distance away and that so little was left of them?"
Peter R. de Vries: "Well for me.. I already spoke with him about this before the show. It does not surprise me at all. I have been involved in numerous cases in which the same thing happened. Those processes go incredibly fast in the jungle. It is warm there, it is humid, there are animal who do certain things. [Scarlet; this was an elevated cloud forest, the bones of both girls were found in wildly different stages of decomposition and there were no clear signs of animal predation found on the bones....] I recently read a book about the FARC in Colombia, who kept prisoners in the jungle there at times, who sometimes died. And the fellow prisoners would go on to describe that the bodily remains would be completely gone and decomposed in 4 or 5 days. [Scarlet; this was not the case at all for Lisanne's remains, 10 weeks and even 5 months later though; why not give a possible explanation for this?] So it does not surprise me at all. It may even be called exceptional that something was found at all. [And how about the skulls, Peter?]
Martijn Froon: "Yeh, I also think, all the people who ask; why wasn't more found? I think you have to reverse the question: that we should be happy that something was found of them at all.
And the remains that were found were complete lucky shots from locals who live there.
And they weren't found by official police searchers. So we have to count our lucky stars that we found anything at all. Otherwise we would have never known anything.
Peter R. de Vries: "One thing I do like to add; what is perhaps remarkable, is that I did have the expectation and the hope perhaps that.. that the girls at any moment would have realized or thought; this is getting precarious. And despite not having cellphone reception, that they would nevertheless have been capable to make a video of each other. On their phone perhaps. Or to leave an (audio) message of sorts. Yeh...."
Martijn Froon: "Would you want to do that? I mean, they have searched the area with helicopters. I am certain that they were in that area and that they came very close during the search. And I know almost certainly that they have heard the helicopters in the distance. And then the question is: would you really turn that camera around and would you really make a video of that, saying, this will probably be our last images?"
Peter R. de Vries: "You are of course also always optimistic. Thinking it will all be alright in the end.
But well, that... hmm."
Jeroen Pauw: "It seems to me.."
Martijn Froon: "You have to be strong for that you know, to record such a video."
Jeroen Pauw: "But if they lost hope at some point.. It is.. it is of course a terribly sad ending. Do you have some degree of peace about it ending in this manner? And that there wasn't a big, violent sinister incident that preceded it?"
Martijn Froon: "Well if there is anything positive that I can take from this whole story, it is that they died a natural death. I do not want to think about a scenario where they ended up in the prostitution, or in the hands of human traffickers or something."
Jeroen Pauw: "The family of the friend of your sister [the Kremers] think differently about this, right?
They have not yet accepted that this is the full story."
Martijn Froon: "No. No they indeed handle things differently. Well, that is one of the reasons why we have decided to both go our separate ways."
Jeroen Pauw: "And now it is done?"
Martijn Froon: "And now it's hopefully done."
Jeroen Pauw: "Good. Thank you for telling your story."
I received some interesting observations from someone called Jeremy, who pointed me to a possible hiding of the dog Blue in one of the photos from April 1stHe found an image on a Russian forum on this disappearance case (when your computer allows you to auto-translate, it is very well readable when you're not speaking Russian), where forum members really studied photo #491, taken at 12:03 AM - according to the New Timeline. So after some meddling in photoshop with the photos brightness and contrast, people think they may have found, in the bottom right of the photo, the dog Blue. I have to say, I had to ask Jeremy for an outline of the dog, as I didn't see it myself, but after he kindly did I did see what he meant. The dog appears to be keeping himself cool in the shade, laying down with his mouth open or even his tongue hanging out. Of course, this may be like one of those infamous Rorschach tests; either you see 'it' (and once you do, you can not easily 'unsee' it), or you don't... So I may see things that really are just the equivalent of a suggestive ink dot, but is it possible that the black and white outline on Blue's face is visible here?
The colour pattern does roughly match the real colouring of Blue I think..? The white patches with the dark above. Of course, when you look long enough at something, your mind can see mostly anything in it. In the original photo I hadn't noticed a dog whatsoever and the tongue/mouth looked to me like the extension of a sunlit leaf. I truly saw nothing in the original, but did my own attempt to lit things up with some simple photoshop actions; adjusting brightness, contrast and such. I ended up with a photo with lots of chessboard type of patterns all over the place. Asked Juan about it, he said: that's due to the poor quality of the photo (which isn't the original from the girls' camera, but the photo we could all see through leaking of it in the local Panamanian media). This photo we have only has a small size: 1024x768. So once you zoom in or enlarge the photo, you can see the strangest stuff, according to Juan. But truth be told, once being pointed to this dog outline I find it just as hard as Jeremy does to not see the lighter and darker patches that could be the dogs fur markings, the eye sockets, the ears and one leg (dogs front left). Jeremy emphasized that it’s also the sort of behaviour dogs are prone to in warm weather; to lie down in the shade, sometimes with tongue hanging out, once the humans stop for a break or to take photos. Interestingly, if it is in fact the dog, then that implies the picture of Kris may have taken some time. The camera data does show that aside from this photo #491, another photo (#492) was taken within a minute. So they did stand still for a bit. And if the dog Blue was indeed with Kris and Lisanne on April 1st 2014, when they ascended the Pianista Trail, then that also tells us something perhaps about what may have happened to them; I don't believe that a known to be loyal dog like Blue, who features in several blog posts from tourists he accompanied on their own walk up there, would voluntarily leave Kris and Lisanne alone. He would more likely have been sent away then by them or by someone else, or got scared by something, or perhaps (theoretically) a relative of the owners of the dog - Giovanni and Doris from the Il Pianista restaurant at the start of the trail - 'may' perhaps have even been up there and took the dog back home (some locals linked him to a youth gang). I don't even exclude the possibility that Blue was never up there. Update: IP had insight into the police files and all the photos and confirmed that there is no Blue the dog visible in any of the photos on that camera from Kris and Lisanne.
I asked Juan about this photo #491, where Jeremy outlined the contours of a dog. He said: "I looked at the original photo 491, and I understand what and why he has outlined this. But I am afraid it is pareidolia [the tendency to interpret a vague stimulus as something known to the observer, such as seeing shapes in clouds, seeing faces in inanimate objects or abstract patterns]. Its something I am guilty of myself too at times: we have little to go by in this case, the photo resolutions are poor [we've got most of these photos through media leaks or publications and they down-scaled the photos size], so when you just glance long enough at a photo and blow the size up enough, you will find something. Your brains will make connections. If you look closely at the zoomed in photo 491, you see these patterns of black and white squares turn up all over the background of the photo. Yes, you can vaguely see a dogs outline, but then you see similar patterns all over the forest, criss-cross, only in the other cases they don't resemble a dog. Problem is that if there would really be a dog lying there, its outline would be more clear than this. It wouldn't be looking as vague as a ghost then. I think this is just coincidence and the result of too low a photo resolution. But it's normal to see all sorts of things when zooming in, as this case is lacking in material and we all desperately want to solve it. Something else however, I think, is the more than prominent photoshop suspicions of photo #499. There you really do see dark contours around the arm, seemingly something that was forgotten to be erased. Or Lisanne's face which looks blown up suddenly, as if it was stretched.
DISCLAIMER: The quality of many (not all) of the photos is poor. The reason for that, as I also understand it from Juan, is that most (not all) of the photos as we know them have not been officially released by the family, but instead have been leaked to the press. It was Panamanian media who printed these photos, always readjusted the size of the original photos therefore, and most are only 1024x768 in size nowadays. Lawyer Arrocha also gave a photo to a befriended journalist who posted it. And Dutch TV programs like 'Een Vandaag' and 'Break Free' also published some in their TV programs on this disappearance (whole series with subs can be seen in my main blog post on this case); there we had to work with screenshots from the broadcast in the case of some photos, which resulted in even worse quality photos. There is also a better photo here and there, one of Lisanne's relatives uploaded a large size photo of the girls on the summit as a facebook background photo and that one has a better resolution therefore. But the majority of the photos are too poor in quality to allow for proper zooming. Which... results in us seeing all sorts of strange things when zooming too much. It makes reliable analysis of the background impossible in most cases. The family hás been asked to publish all the original photos, to give the larger community online the opportunity to help 'detective' along, but they're not all that well-wishing towards 'us'. So it is not the camera's fault. The original photos have a decent good size. It is the result of these photos having been resized before publication (after leaking) and us having to do with these second hand versions. My verdict: there is no dog visible here. It's pareidolia. Question then: did his owners really say they saw Blue walk off with Kris and Lisanne? And if they did see that, how come there are no photos of the dog?- Just to be clear once more: I share on this blog all sorts of information on this case, including other people's theories. Just because I share them with you does not mean that I myself believe in each and every one. Try to keep in mind that this is a cold case currently and that not even the cause of death of Kris and Lisanne is known. Let alone what exactly happened. So any theory that could be theoretically true, I try to cover here.
I received more interesting observations and ideas from Jeremy. I will paraphrase some of it here
He wrote that nighttime pictures may really not have been taken at the second monkey bridge, as is assumed by some people. Or at any monkey bridge for that matter. J. doubts that their location was in fact by the rocks or on one of the riverbanks near one of the cable bridges, because to him, the specific patterns of rock eroding on the nighttime photos point more towards a place with consistent water erosion: for instance near a waterfall. J. looked at many pictures of the rocks surrounding the various cable bridges over the river: the rocks are right next to the crossing and whilst naturally higher than the river, these rocks are significantly above the river bank. Looking at these rocks, they are towering (in height) above the surrounding ground. So water erosion should only be seen on those rocks that are directly near the cable crossing and which thus catch water. [Or these high up rocks should be subjected to flooding regularly, perhaps, but the river had been very low and calm for a long time already however in the first week of April 2014 and the rain season had not yet started]. The rest is too far away and above the water to get that type of erosion. Honestly, I am not a biologist myself and I do not know if this is a correct assessment. Perhaps the markings on the rocks from the nighttime photos were created by mosses or after rainfall or whatever, I honestly don't know and it must be difficult to judge with certainty based on photos for many people. But I do like people who think outside the box and there may be truth to these assessments perhaps. So it's worth exploring a bit. - But, the nighttime pictures do show rock that is not only elevated by the look of it, but that also shows the effect of water erosion, J. thinks. Going in the direction of the drop off. He claims that the only type of place that has permanent erosion at the edge of a drop, are places surrounding waterfalls. Waterfalls also tend to have considerable drops offs, otherwise they'd just be rocky rivers rapids. So J. proposes the theory that the night pictures therefore weren't taken by a bridge, but by the edge of a waterfall. This may also explain another problem with the nighttime photos: One of the pictures is meant to show rain, even though the picture that covers the immediate area to its left shows no rain. [Same for the 'SOS' photos; supposedly taken on the same night, but there is no clear rain damage seen on the mirror or on the toilet paper - something which is usually clear to see, just try it yourself and spatter some water on toilet paper]. Of course, it could just be fine rain - even though the drops that light up in the flash look of a normal size. But maybe another possible explanation for this, J. proposes, is that it's actually water spray from a waterfall that lights up in the flash from the camera. Hence why you do see water drops against the dark background, but no real signs of water on the rocks and anything placed on top of them. This also means that the place where these night photos were taken does not necessarily have to be on top of a waterfall, but could also be (theoretically) around a mid point - a waterfall often has a series of levels. Then spray droplets could quite easily be in one picture and not in another, taken in the area immediately adjacent.
And another interesting aspect of the waterfall theory, is that often near waterfalls you can find caves. The lawyer of the Kremers family as well as the parents have long suggested that these photos could have been taken from a cave. (I don't see that myself in the photos however; they seem to have been taken outside I think, but it is true that despite the rain, there weren't many water drops on the actual camera lens in the night photos). Perhaps that could also explain why Lisanne's remains managed to stay intact for as long as they did; in late August 2014, a rolled up ball of skin from Lisanne was found after all, and turned out to be rather intact and in a very early stage of decomposition, just like her foot; this did not fit the time since death and the forensic specialist has stated that her remains must have been kept or stored therefore in a cool and dark place.... Indeed, caves generally are noticeably cooler than the local area. But even then we have the problem that her bones were found nowhere near a cave, and in fact near the hamlet of Alto Romero. There has been no information released however on the exact finding spot of the rolled up skin that belongs to Lisanne... The fact that many people have made the good point that the location of these cable bridges are far from desolate, reinforces this theory; the places near those monkey bridges have been searched and the girls were not found there. They are also daily crossed by people and have inhabited finca's nearby. No sign of the girls ever having walked around there or been looking for help there. Also, I am not convinced that the "give away" sign for the location of the nighttime photos are some cables in the background of the plastic wrapper photo. In the attached photos you can see where some people think those lines may be visible. I don't see them very clearly myself and even if they are there, they don't seem to match the direction which the cables make on photo. See my attached photo where I showed the cables direction with red arrows. None really match the very low (supposed) double lines in the nighttime photo. And none of the rocks appear to be near the point where these cables come together in reality. J. is also not convinced that the digital camera time and date stamp are 100% reliable, so doesn't rule out the option that these nighttime photos were not taken in the early hours of April 8th, but instead may (theoretically) also have been taken much sooner, even on the morning of the 2nd day already.
Waterfalls in the area So, J. wonders if there are many waterfalls in the area, and if so, whether or not they lie on the same main trail which the girls walked, or on a branch off the main one perhaps. Or perhaps there are more waterfalls in the area that are not on any trails, and only known to locals or guided groups. Waterfalls in the vicinity are the Three Waterfalls, also called The Lost Waterfalls. This chimes in with the messages I received from Sas, and which I already posted. I will combine these two updates therefore as there is a good overlap in information. So how far is the area of the Three Waterfalls (aka The Lost waterfalls), from the Il Pianista Trail? In this blog post, hikers describe it as follows: "Today we had something much more mellow in mind – we wanted to get to the “secret” waterfall that Susan and I had not seen yet, but the others in our group had been raving about. The trail begins at the Il Pianista Ristorante (outstanding Italian food, BTW) in the Alto Lino area just north of Boquete. You need to wade across the Rio Pianista after 200m, but then it’s a steady, leisurely incline for 2km before you start to climb a steeper, narrow path. Today, we were accompanied by two young guides, Jefferson and Miguel (as it happens, these cousins are nephews of our gardener, Sergio) – and it was a good thing, because finding the waterfall required us to get off the trail and take another cow path that leads into the cloud forest. We could not have found it on our own. Since we’re right in the middle of rainy season, it was a pretty muddy slog – but not too bad." - So part of the trail is indeed the same route that Kris and Lisanne took. But then you deviate (to the left on the map) and go in another direction. Still, it is technically very well possible that Kris and Lisanne wandered around in the vicinity of where their last normal photos were taken, and ended up near the hidden (and thus not that easy to find) waterfalls on day 8. And with all the talk about the night photos 'possibly' having been taken in a cave - which has never been identified further by the way - these waterfalls also are near a cave: "Upon your arrival to the second waterfall you can explore an underground cave and enjoy a picnic at the base of one of Boquete’s most exquisite waterfalls & rejuvenate yourself with an invigorating shower in the falling waters." Issue is that they are often visited by tourists, as well as by volunteers and search teams, ánd that they are only about 20 kilometers/15 minutes drive away from Boquete... So why wouldn't Kris and Lisanne have been found if they were holed up there?
So the waterfalls are in the vicinity, but not very close by. It's a big hike to the west. On a smaller map of the Il Pianista area, websleuth member Matteo_111 has discovered some side trails. See the map he made on the right here, with the side trails marked in red. We know already that you can reach the Lost Waterfalls by cow paths through the jungle, while starting at the Pianista Trail, as the cited blogger confirmed this. Matteo_111 may have marked this path on his map, or maybe the cow path is too small to find on satellite images online.. So it is possible to reach those waterfalls from the north-east, if you are desperate enough to get there. But it is not the official way to get there; these three waterfalls lie on private land and you normally need to sign in to enter the grounds. But maybe there is another way to reach the waterfalls without having to pass the main entrance and sign-in post, when going through the jungle and coming from the other side.. The Lost waterfalls also have a cave. At first glance it does not look like the nighttime photos though... Blogger Ian Mackenzie wrote about his hike to these waterfalls on August 2018: "My hike to find the “lost waterfalls” of Boquete began. A hike that would find me climbing up through thick jungle via a steep, muddy and rocky trail, occasionally aided by ropes. A hike that was undoubtedly one of the most taxing I’ve ever done. But one where the payoff of three beautiful waterfalls surrounded by jungle dripping with every hue of green imaginable was more than worth the effort. Located just outside Panama’s backpacker and ex-pat hub of Boquete up in the coffee-growing mountains of Chiriquí Province, the lost waterfalls aren’t really “lost” at all, of course. “Hidden waterfalls” would probably be a better description." He wrote about the first of the three waterfalls: "Directly ahead of the trail, a huge stone wall covered with foliage played host to a single-drop fall that plunged into a deep canyon below. I looked for a way down to its base for a closer look but that proved impossible. So instead, I made the most of my time alone to enjoy what seemed to me like a hypnotic slice of jungle paradise. Where the only sounds were the persistent calls of the forest and the plummeting river. A lost waterfall indeed. And then it was time to move on deeper into the jungle. The lung-busting steps that led up from the waterfall eventually brought me back on to the main trail. And that was by now on a distinctively upward trajectory."
And about the second waterfall he wrote: "So, after checking out a nearby cave, I took the rope-enabled trail to the top of the waterfall and stepped out on to the rocky precipice. Holding back the vertigo whilst triple-checking my footing on the slippery rocks, I stood there for a while to drink in the incredible view over the jungle canopy to distant Volcan Baru. Once again, without anybody else around, it felt as if I’d truly found something special. I’m sure that in the high season (between December and March) this spot wouldn’t be so tranquil. But right then, at that moment, it seemed like this jungle wilderness was just mine to discover." - So there is a cave, visitors can go in and April would be outside of the tourist season and possibly not very busy there... 
About the third waterfall Ian Mackenzie wrote: "Things started to get very serious when I set off again in search of Waterfall 3. This was by far the most challenging section of the trail and it’s one that many don’t even attempt. No wonder given the steep, muddy conditions and a not-so-obvious route at times. The jungle began to thicken and I became aware of the foliage closing in around me. Of particular concern was the warning I’d received about looking out for snakes in the trees rather than on the ground. So not only was I searching for firm ground to step on but my eyes were at the same time looking around for signs of slithery movement above. at last, I arrived at the end point of the trail and another stunning waterfall. [..] This time it was more about the sense of achievement in getting there rather than seeing the waterfall itself. It was also an opportune moment to rest and regain my strength while the spray from the falls provided a welcome cool down." Thanks for the information Ian and here you can see his great blog with lovely photos. He also uploaded two videos from the waterfalls, here they are:
And there is more... This blogger, Susan Saundercook, describes the road towards the entrance of the Three Waterfalls: "If you are renting a car, drive up the Bajo Mono loop, passing prime tourist sites: the rock climbing wall, the San Ramon waterfall and the abandoned castle (a beautiful, possibly haunted, home right next to the river). You'll get to a point in the road where you have to go left or right – turn right, following the Lost Waterfalls signs and drive for about 1 kilometer. Park on the side of the road and walk in. If you are taking a taxi up, let the driver know you want The Lost Waterfalls (there is another great trail in Bajo Mono called the Waterfall Trail, which can cause some confusion). Most of the taxi drivers know the owner of The Lost Waterfalls (either personally or by reputation) so if there seems to be some confusion, clarify by saying 'Wendy's Waterfalls'. The little buses you see in town (buses ruta urbana) also go up there." So, this abandoned castle, I had seen it come by on a youtube video already... Locals had gone to this eerie looking abandoned place, when out look for Kris and Lisanne, who were still missing at that point in time. They talked in Spanish to each other about how good a location this place would be to hide someone. Well, turns out it is right on the road to the Waterfalls! Could it be, theoretically, that the girls were kept in that solemn looking horror building? And managed to escape in the night of the 8th, make it to that touristic park and up that waterfall where they tried to hide? Covered by the natural sounds of the water? - Ok this is not the same video, I cannot find it back now, but this one does show this freakish abandoned place better than a photo. I think you can actually hear the noise of one of the waterfalls in the video.
So.... the Lost Waterfalls are on a private trail and on private property (maintained by Eliecer, a caretaker who lives on site with his family) and you are required to sign in and pay a fee. And the trail features three waterfalls in three different locations. The first two are more easily accessible, but the third one lies in more wild terrain and is the one for the more adventurous types. And the second waterfall features a cave to the left of the waterfall, a trail that allows you to hike up to the top of the waterfall and look down on its clear pool. I honestly don't know if this is the location of the nighttime photos... I am certainly not convinced that they were taken near one of the cable bridges, as I don't see any bridge lines in the background and I also don't think those supposed lines would follow the general direction of the wires as you can see them in photos. But it is also a matter of guessing and believing that the night photos' location is a waterfall. But let's play the thought experiment game again, and assume it is correct; the girls or someone else took those photos in the cave of Waterfall Two, or on top of/near one of the other waterfalls. How would that link to our information about Kris and Lisanne?
Possible Scenarios for the night time pictures There are 5 possible scenarios then, Jeremy elaborated further, and some are more likely than others in his opinion. Aside from the OBVIOUS scenario where the girls got lost and were out there alone, trying to notify search teams from afar. But aside from that obvious possibility, there are: 1) The Attackers take the photos to support the "lost in the jungle" theory.
2) The Attackers take them as part of a game with investigators, like a hidden message; the attackers know the girls and the location they've been held in are documented but they know that investigators will just see a black picture. The real location is documented in theory, but the photo settings are so poor that no photoshop specialist will be able to unveil them. It allows them to have a good laugh at the investigators whilst congratulating themselves at how clever they are.
3) The Attackers let the girls escape as part of a "fun" cat & mouse game and then take pictures of the game as it plays out.
4) One of the girls takes them as part of a brief escape*, knowing they can't outrun their attackers in the dark in an area she doesn't know, she hopes that the flashes might be seen by someone. She climbs to a high point above Kris (or above Lisanne depending on who is in the picture) and flashes until caught.
5) One of the girls attempts to sacrifice herself as part of an escape* hoping to draw all attention to her and leaving the other free to make a run for it.
Jeremy's opinion: It's entirely possible, assuming the night pictures happened on the 8th and not the morning of the 2nd, that the attackers weren't on location all the time (jobs, other commitments) but rather only there on an ad hoc basis. If the girls somehow managed to escape, but were entirely unsure where the attackers were in relation to themselves, they may well have opted to try using a sudden burst of activity, in the hope that something would be spotted, or in the case of the sacrifice theory, in the hope that one of them got away. Jeremy: "If the girls did escape, then the sad part of course is that on the left of this FBI enhanced photo you can see a light source, with what looks like a person holding it and almost directly behind the girl, slightly to the left, is a man with a hood I think, his lower part is obscured by foliage i.e. their escape failed totally. There may be another light source on the mid upper right". And Jeremy also has a theory about the night photo that shows sticks with red plastic attached to them: "The way illusionists/magicians work, is to get the attention focused on something specific, whilst something else is actually the important part. I wonder with this particular picture, whether or not we've been tricked. That we're focusing on what's in front of our nose rather than what we should be looking at, given that it's most likely one of the attackers taking the photo. The attackers are probably having a good laugh at us trying to work out the meaning whilst in the background waiting to be revealed might be the girls, the rest of the attackers, the location, who knows what. It's a pity we don't have access to a copy of the source photo data so we could do our own manipulations because I suspect that hidden in the background, waiting to be revealed, is something we need to see.
The big question is of course if this area has cell phone connectivity; can you call here with your mobile phones, yes or no. If the answer is yes then the chances of Kris and Lisanne having been here and freely using their own phones is smaller... But it would still be possible then that either this phone data was incorrect or meddled with, or even (theoretically) that someone else handled their phones and called from a cellar or from the jungle. And if Kris and Lisanne were indeed at the waterfall at any night, either the 8th or earlier, then they must have been there temporarily; perhaps during a nightly escape. Because these waterfalls are tourist attractions and they have been searched by volunteers and Sinaproc, plus there were tourists there regularly; possible every day. The girls would have been found if they were holed up there. Same for the big cave, people would have found them there I think. But perhaps there are some caves behind the waterfalls which we've not heard about? Seems unlikely, or else tourists would have written about them in the many blog posts available online on these waterfalls. But I do think it could still be possible that the girls encountered foul play, and that the perpetrators loved to toy around with not just Kris and Lisanne, but also with police and everyone else investigating. If so, they must have a right laugh about all the videos and blog posts still coming out, seriously discussing their false leads. And the suggestion from Jeremy that one of the girls may have sacrificed herself to give the other a chance is original. I'd never thought of that yet. It is hard to explain those 90 nighttime photos, taken over just less than three hours in the middle of the night. Could that perhaps be a possible explanation for them? But in the end their bones were found more or less in the same area, near Alto Romero. There is no doubt that they either died in the same area, or these few bones were thrown out in the same area. But Lisanne's remains had a peculiarly slow decomposition rate; flesh and skin still on the foot, a rolled up ball of skin from her shin bone was found, still intact and with maggots. This was found at the end of August and it did not match a 5 month deceased state. Whereas Kris' bones were bleached and looking like they'd been out there for years instead of 9 weeks. May this mean that Lisanne died much later than Kris? Its remarkable that intact skin from Lisanne was found at the end of August. Either she had not been dead long, or her skin and bones had been stored in a dry cool place for a long time. For some poeple, all this points toward a 3rd parties involvement, while others think ti does not.
The Hidden Waterfall nearby
Then there is also a hidden waterfall, located closer to the last known location of Kris and Lisanne (the stream of photos 507 and 508). Here and here you can read blog posts about this waterfall. Perhaps the night pictures also look a little bit like the top of one of the big waterfalls? Which would be much nearer to their last known location... Shame there is no photo taken from the perspective of the top of the waterfall, so we can see what it looks like from above....
Sas wrote me: "I was looking on the internet and I was on this site called ailishinwonderland [since removed, Scarlet]. I think its from a woman that makes journals of her trips ..the photo that catches my eyes was this one: the type of rock does remind me of the photo in the Kris and Lisanne case. I don't say its the same spot, but the rock type looks in my honest opinion the same.. Maybe that woman on that website knows more about the location of the photo.." [..] "Because the 'looks' of the rock parts look to me quite the same kind as on one night photo. I think that night photo was taken from above, looking down. Where in that area are the same kind of rocks and views..? To be honest when I compare this with these photos, I see an open part in the bushes on the right side...on both pics.. (On the place where some people think there could be laying someone, mostly thought Kris). Could it be the same spot as on the night photo? I don't know..but the shape of the rocks, and those brow/pink dots (vegetation plants) on the rocks.. look to me the same. Even the rock on which the girl stands.. In the area next to her left foot, it has the same kind of carving as on the night photo.. The night photo was taken further to the right, and you see that shape from another perspective.. Those lines and carvings in the stone are almost like a signature or fingerprint of the stone." (Added is a photo of a woman standing on a rock overlooking one of the Lost Waterfalls).
I replied: "Ahh ok, yeh I understand what you mean. Hmm... The grey rock looks kind of comparable in colour and texture. Although similar looking rocks may be found all over Panama of course... But the night photo seems to have a lot more foliage, green plants etc around the edge? I think (?) that it also has a more gradual descend down, whereas the photo you shared has less green foliage and plants at the edge and shows a steeper decline in height perhaps? But its hard to say with certainty, because of the night versus daylight and the angle also of the photos. Ah yes I agree, the brown/pink dots principle on the grey stone is kind of similar. (Btw: I don't know how common such speckles are on all the other rocks in that region?) Indeed they must have taken the photo then at another part of the rock. But the more dense vegetation at the end of the rock of the night photo does seem different perhaps? Ah yes I understand what you mean with the lines and indentations in the rock making it like a personal marking of sorts. And the discolorations do indeed look a bit similar. Here the three waterfalls are on the map. Compared to the Il Pianista Trail (not a huge deviation and in the same area).
And there may be another waterfall. In fact, next to the small and narrow waterfall which the girls would have passed after the small stream where they took the last daytime photos #507 and #508, there is also another, larger waterfall beyond the Pianista summit. But it is hard to find. Is it possible that the girls deviated from the main path at some point to find this waterfall? And that they got lost along the way? Calista Hart wrote about the girls' disappearance in 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." In this blog post, a description of how to get there is given, plus photos of the fall. This waterfall is considered the hidden one, as there is no official description of how to get there. "The Pianista really is a knockout, winding through meadows with stunning mountain vistas along the rushing Rio Pianista, and with an abundance of lush cloud forest vegetation. This trail goes up to the Continental Divide (a more ambitious hike that we did with a group last year), and if you’re especially adventurous, it can take you all the way to Bocas Del Toro on Panama’s Caribbean coast. (CAUTION: no one should EVER go beyond the Continental Divide without an experienced guide. Just Google “Dutch Girls in Panama.”) Today we had something much more mellow in mind – we wanted to get to the “secret” waterfall that Susan and I had not seen yet, but the others in our group had been raving about. The trail begins at the Il Pianista Ristorante (outstanding Italian food, BTW) in the Alto Lino area just north of Boquete. You need to wade across the Rio Pianista after 200m, but then it’s a steady, leisurely incline for 2km before you start to climb a steeper, narrow path. Today, we were accompanied by two young guides, Jefferson and Miguel (as it happens, these cousins are nephews of our gardener, Sergio) – and it was a good thing, because finding the waterfall required us to get off the trail and take another cow path that leads into the cloud forest. We could not have found it on our own. Since we’re right in the middle of rainy season, it was a pretty muddy slog – but not too bad."
View of the Lost Waterfalls from above...
Crime in general in Latin-AmericaI always assumed that Panama was unlike Mexico, to name a rogue Latin-American state. That Panama was a cute little country with small friendly people who may love pan-flutes and who have a famous canal. Well, that is most likely a wrong assumption. A lot of people have spoken out about crime in Boquete and how cartels are drughuman trafficking are tolerated and pretty common in Panama. I have covered some of this information in my blog series here. I have also watched many series and documentaries about the state of Mexico (not Panama, but still interesting) with its rivaling cartels, brutal violence and mass corruption. Journalists are also killed there (assassinated, murdered I mean) at a staggering rate. There is a good BBC documentary on youtube called 'Dying to report - BBC News', its not very long but very raw. Here you can find a database of those Mexican journalists killed in the past 19 years only. It's claimed in one of those documentaries that up to 90% of Mexican state officials and politicians are in the back pockets of these cartels. Police included. Sounds wildly incorrect, or so I hope.. I wouldn't know myself though, never been to Mexico or done any further research into it. But it's estimated that an average 90 people are killed every single day in Mexico (and that figure does not include drive-by shootings, kidnappings, extortion and other serious crimes, as cartel and gang violence continue across the country). Anyway, Mexico is not Panama, but Panama may have its own share of small and large crime, with the drugs routes from Colombia crossing the country, and with the general level of poverty. Over 20 people went missing in this exact same region (near Boquete) in the few years after 2014. Some were found eventually, murdered, some have never been found at all. As a youtuber called Dorian Gray wrote about this: "I was reading an email report about forced prostitution and slave-labour, in Panama as well as other areas, where criminals tend to pick off poor migrant for "work". They call them "meat". Victims include many Russians and East Europeans, too. [..] I see no reason why Kris and Lisanne weren't (or couldn't have been) targeted, due to their looks, figures, youthfulness and vigour. I'm not sure why people cannot get their heads around this possibility, as it happens all the time in these corrupt places. Also, Kris & Lisanne were "shy", so their 'isolation' from large groups could have made them a greater target, as I truly believe they were targeted as far back as in Bocas."
And for anyone just reading up on this disappearance case: it is never too late to chime in and to help think along. There are lively discussions in the comment sections under youtube videos dedicated to this case, as well as on forums for instance. Anyone can always join in. Because nobody knows for a fact what happened. I may highlight crime scenarios here, but not even that is proven. The girls may have gotten lost and by sheer bad luck never have been found. It happens all the time. People go missing all the time in nature, never to be found back, or some are found back eventually and turn out to have been close to civilization all along! But mysteriously never made it out nor were found. And every new set of brains that helps with brainstorming, may help broaden the spectrum of discussion, so to speak. But there is no all-round consensus. I think this disappearance case speaks to the imagination of many people because there are so many puzzle pieces to work with. The phone usage, the times of calling or switching the phones on and off, the photos, the found items, the bones, the fingerprints, the things they did and also the things these girls DIDN'T do. You could pick so many angles to approach this disappearance. I mean, I think there have been meters and meters worth of texts written about the folded up bras alone, no kidding. Would they or wouldn't they have voluntarily taken them off, while lost in the jungle? And there can be things said about dozens of other little aspects of this case. It often feels like the truth is there in plain sight, in front of us. We just have to see it. So many puzzle pieces.. But we lack the vital ones. It will never be solved as it stands now. Of course, if it ever were solved and we'd know for a fact what happened to Kris and Lisanne, discussion forums, videos like Juans and blogs like mine and others would no longer have much appeal. It would only be funny to see how 'right' or how 'wrong' we have been all along with our suspicions and analysis (I may be totally wrong too in my beliefs!). Yet everyone wants to see a breakthrough, me included...
Another case where the Latin-American authorities were very quick to conclude that an 'accident' took place - only here they were actually wrong In April 2018, German cyclist Holger Hagenbusch and Krzysztof Chmielewski has from Poland were holidaying in Mexico. During a pan-American (world tour) biking holiday, the two men went missing in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Holger had already traversed Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. The 43-year-old German cyclist was planning to travel throughout Latin America, after which he would continue to Africa. "You can only really experience foreign countries without the pressure of time," Hagenbusch wrote in a blog post for German biking supply manufacturer Mainstream MS-X. "So I let myself be inspired locally by the locals and experience what is happening right in front of the wheels." The cyclist met Krzysztof Chmielewski (37, a Polish citizen and had been travelling the world by bike for three years) in the town of San Cristobal de las Casas on April 20 and decided to travel together to the ancient Mayan ruins at Palenque, some 200 kilometers (130 miles) away. Holger Franz Hagenbusch's brother took to the social media platform on Sunday after failing to hear from the cyclist for 11 days. "He is cycling in Mexico. His last location was San Cristobal. His destination was Ciudad del Carmen, but he never arrived there," said Rainer Hagenbusch in his Facebook post. An appeal to find the missing German cyclist riding through Mexico gained traction online, with Facebook users sharing posts and possible sightings. The families of the men also ushered Mexican authorities and the German Embassy into action to find them. The Federal Criminal Police Office also got involved. Mexican journalist Ciro Gomez Leyva circulated a video that showed images of Holger Franz on his journey through Mexico. 'We're going to find Holger', it sounded everywhere.
Then on April 26th 2018, their bodies were found in a ravine. Mexican authorities soon after claimed that the two men had died from an accident. Chmielewski's body was found first, 40 metres below the road. His body was found next to a bike - but it was not his own. It belonged to his German companion, which aroused suspicions. Hagenbusch was found eight days later - on 4 May - further down the ravine, but beneath the same road that runs between Ocosingo and San Cristóbal de las Casas in the country's far south. After they were found dead at the foot of this sheer rock face in the Mexican state of Chiapas, authorities were quick to claim that they had accidentally both cycled off a cliff. The regional attorney general in Chiapas, Arturo Pablo Lievano, originally said there was no evidence of bad intent and everything pointed to an accident. He said they may have been run off the road by a vehicle. "Cycling here is very risky, they could lose control and fall into a canyon", explained the prosecutor Liévano. It was also claimed that the Pole suffered head injuries during the fall and his body was later partially eaten by wild animals. Investigators echoed Liévano's words, stating that the pair "appeared to have lost control of their bicycles" while on a winding mountain road. However, Hagenbusch's brother, Rainer, told the German press he believed they had been killed and there had been some sort of attempted cover-up. And when Rainer flew to Mexico and saw his brother and Krzysztof in the morgue, he was shocked. Holger had a shot wound in the head and Chmielewski was missing a foot and was decapitated. All that from a fall in a ravine, obviously. Rainer wrote on his Facebook page that both bodies had been mutilated. "The Polish cyclist was decapitated and had a foot missing," he added. Only then Mexican authorities, faced with the indefensible, retracted and had to admit that yeh...
It was only after this information that the prosecution’s office claimed the mistake had been made during the investigation. And after a group of fellow cyclists also questioned the official version of events, a special prosecutor newly appointed to take over the case concluded that the cyclists had in fact been murdered. "It may have been an assault, because our investigations up to now indicate this was an intentional homicide," special prosecutor Luis Alberto Sanchez - assigned to the case by deputy of Liévano - told journalists. "Our investigations up to now indicate this was an intentional homicide," he said. "The tests carried out definitely indicate that there is a hole in a skull. The skull may belong to the German cyclist. The hole looks like a typical result of a gunshot" – said Luis Alberto Sánchez. He added that the head of the Pole was torn off his body and there was a mark on his skull made by a heavy object. It is not known yet if it was made before or after the death of a victim. Talking to BBC Mundo, Mr Sánchez said the assailants were probably trying to cover their tracks. "Those that did this wanted to make it appear like an accident, so they put the bike there, but they made a mistake and used the German's bike," he said. He added that the motive appeared to have been robbery. Mr Sánchez also told the BBC: "We think that they were travelling short distance from each other, maybe one was assaulted first ... and then the second one arrived and they were both captured." "It was very premature to call this an accident. The bike [belonging to the German] did not show signs of having been in a traffic accident," he added. Investigators now believe that the pair
were assaulted on either the 19 or 20 April. In the end Mexico had to admit that the two men were robbed and murdered. Aaaaand as usual, empty and hollow consequences were promised (but never followed up on).The Chiapas state government vowed to "intensify the investigation" to solve the case. The region around San Cristóbal is apparently considered a tourist region, but, nevertheless, Mexico is struggling to deal with a wave of violent crime that has left a record 25,000 victims dead last year. Ever since the government launched a controversial military offensive to fight the country's powerful drug cartels in 2006, the country has registered more than 200,000 homicides."
Another case that was quickly ruled an accident is the case of the missing Canadian Jesse Galganov for instance, who went backpacking alone in Peru; never to be seen again. His mother even hired an Israeli private investigator, Mossad-style, and yet nothing was ever found back of him or heard about his whereabouts, despite the use of search teams, dogs, detectives and drones. Wiped away. And a few years ago I read about two West Australian surfers who were killed on a gang-plagued Mexican road. The van of surfers Dean Lucas and Adam Coleman was found burnt out alongside a Mexican highway with their charred bodies inside. The van was intercepted by a gang driving a car that flashed police-like lights. Mr Coleman was shot in the face when he tried to resist. The robbers then killed Mr Lucas, drove their vehicle to another location and set it on fire. Anyway, life is cheap in many countries. Not saying don't go on holiday abroad :) But I do think people should be aware of these risks and possibilities and keep a sane head, especially when venturing out alone on 'hikes' and such in lawless no mans land. See good and interesting videos on the disappearance of Jesse here and here.
An interesting discussion on Websleuths about the different clouds in Lisanne's photos
Het Lichtpuntje wrote: "I know this is already discussed, but I would like to bring this up again, because in my opinion there is something not correct. This is a photo of the Mirador (see photo A. below). Taken by local guide P.. Lets compare the photo with both the photo's of Lisanne (photo B. and C. below). Let's compare all three photo's (photo D below) and you can see that the two photo's of Lisanne are a Panoramic photo. The mountain in Lisanne's photos is almost fitting except in the middle. But that's a little, tiny bit. In the photo beneath, the top of the mountain is not visible due to the cloudy weather, as you can see. So both photo's of Lisanne are made within 6 seconds of each other?? The photo data confirm that these photos were taken within a 6 seconds interval, in which Lisanne had to walk to another spot, with a different background, change her hair from swept over one shoulder to the other and then the camera had to be aimed right too, without a screen that allows you to see if you focused correctly. Also true that the difference of the sky/clouds seems like night and day. It's not a fluid motion, like the mountains in the background. The mountains, they fit perfectly. Could these photo's therefore have been made on different times of the day? Morning/afternoon/late afternoon. One on the way up and one on the way back? Or is this just the special effect the Continental Divide shows some days; clouds on one side and blue skies on another?
Photo A.
Photo B and C.
Photo D.
If it is true that the girls turned around and went back to the Mirador after taking photo 508, then by the time they started making their two emergency calls from 16:39 PM onward, they could then not be lost in the jungle... Instead they would have been on their way back, down the mountain already. Possibly already had reached the main road again, going back to Boquete. This then changes the possible reasons why they could have called emergency services. They wouldn't then have called because they lost their way beyond the Mirador. They also wouldn't have called because they had fallen off a cliff: the cliffs along the Pianista trail were combed through and descended by volunteers, Sinaproc and local guides in the subsequent days and there was no trace of the girls. In fact, this scenario would then reinforce the chance of them having been followed or taken by a third party. Because someone or something may then have forced them away from the same path they had taken to walk up the mountain.
Het lichtpuntje then continues: "This was the weather at that day, April 1st. You can see that at exactly 13.00 PM was the highest amount of cloud(s) 14%. Is this what we see in the left photo of Lisanne? And then we have the photo on the right with less clouds, from which we can see due the shadow/sun that is was approximately 13.00/14.00? Don't tell me now that the sky/clouds are the difference between Caribbean and Pacific. This is too much of a difference. Also the right photo of Lisanne......it looks like she is way bigger than at the left. Also her hair is at one photo on her right shoulder and the other her left shoulder. There are things that don't make sense. But the point is that within 6 seconds, there would have been no time for (new) settings; they used the same camera, the same sun... the same light.... Maybe the only difference is where the photographer is standing.
DutchTreat replied: "IMO there's no way that the 2 pictures of Kris were taken within 6 seconds. Some other observations I made: - Lisanne on the right looks a lot more 'sweaty' on her forehead. There is no way that the sky is that different within 6 seconds and literally divided by a vertical line. I think that when you look at the sun's position in the sky and the shadows cast on Lisanne's face/body where Lisanne is on the right, that it does not match the position in the sky on the picture with Lisanne on the left. If you would put the picture with Lisanne on the right and Kris on the right next to each other, there is NO WAY those two pics were made around the same time. Look at the sun's position/shadows on faces/bodies. To me it looks like the picture with Lisanne on the right is made at 13.00 PM. But I think the other 2 pictures were made much later. My guess is on their way BACK TO BOQUETE. And by the way, the resolution of the picture with Lisanne on the right has a different resolution/pixels than the others. How is that possible? If the sun is shining from the right upper corner in the pic on the right. It is IMPOSSIBLE that Lisanne's butt in the left picture is illuminated by the sun, while her front is shadowy."
Het Lichtpuntje replied: "Next photo.....same sky....same sun.....almost the same cloud(s)........how much time is there between the 2 photo's?? I think not much, because of the cloud. So where are the sharp shadow lines at Kris?? The ones on Lisanne are clear. The sharp straight shadow line on her left arm (on the photo) looks still very strange to me. Next photo shows the clouds.
DutchTreat replied: "Kris' entire front and face should be covered with shadow, because she's completely standing with her back towards the sun. Baru, do you know how the sun moves during the day at the top of the Pianista summit? If it is a the right upper corner at 1.00 PM, at what time is it on the left side almost vertical?"
Matteo replied to Lichtpuntje: "All of this can be explained by looking at the position and angles from which the pictures were made. See comparison in this photo. In the three pictures, you can detect one plant. It is standing different towards its background. That indicates the direction from which the picture was taken. You can also notice the arrow marks at the horizon of the mountain rim. The horizon on the left picture of Lisanne stretches far more to the left (bow) than on the upper picture, the same goes for the right picture, but then to the right (bow). Considering the foreground, you should overlay the indicated same plant, but considering the background there is a part of the horizon / mountain rim not on the pictures. I split the pictures according to the background. So Kris AND Lisanne changed places in the 6 seconds between the pictures. Clouds are often very locally at the northern side of the CD as we know. The difference in angle is some 80 degrees I guess, so that makes it quite possible to have one sunny and one cloudy picture at almost the same time."
Het Lichtpuntje replied: "Well it's 6 seconds between the photo's and at the right photo there is much sunlight if you look at the bushes, leaves, shadow etc. The leaves are glowing in the sun in the right photo, you can see that very clearly. And then 6 seconds later at the left photo, where are the glowing leaves, where is the clear shadow on Lisanne..? It's all about the 6 seconds."
Het Lichtpuntje wrote: "I was only trying to explain that this photo and blue sky and abrupt clouds also look weird, but I believe this. And if I cut it in half, I still believe it. Like I said, this is 1 photo. The photo's of Lisanne are 2 photo's. You can fit them perfectly!
Chiatos replied: "I don't know what to think about this. Apparently, there isn't a gap between the 2 pics with Lisanne, but an overlap. You can deduce that by looking at the vegetation. So if we place the pics overlapping each other, then the clouds indeed do not coincide. I have also recognized the leaves and plants Matteo has pointed out. [..] Right photo: It seems as if the sunlight is perpendicular, so coming from straight up. Left photo: It seems as if the sunlight is coming from left. But: because Lisanne is leaning forward, she creates her own shade on her shirt with the upper part of her body. So actually, also here, the sunlight may also come from straight up? I'm not an expert in sunlight, but what I do see, is Lisanne's wrinkled shirt in both pics."
DutchTreat replied: "Regardless of the Lisanne on the left and Lisanne on the right picture. If you look at both Lisanne and Kris on the right, you cannot deny that there is something not right. Kris' entire front and face, should have been covered with shadow. Those two pictures cannot possibly have been made within 2 minutes time. It's more like 2,5 hours time difference. And what would be the implications of that ......."
Romijn replied: "The fact that it is the same plant IS important, because it makes clear that both pictures were take from a different angle, one in the east direction, the other to the south and that has a huge impact on the view and explains why on one picture we see a totally clouded sky and on the other an almost blue sky. You just should not put these pictures next to each other as if they were made in the same direction. It also explains why shadows and wind directions are different."
DutchTreat replied: "It does not explain why the sun is shining from the right upper corner on the picture with Lisanne on the right. And from the left upper corner, where Lisanne is on the left. The sun is at a fixed spot in the sky at a certain time of the day. The photographer cannot manipulate the sun's position. If the left side of a person is covered by shadow. The left side of that person will not suddenly be illuminated if the photographer takes an other angle/position.
Matteo replied: "Hi Lichtpuntje, Cameras do lie. Not deliberately of course. When you take a picture the camera measures the light and adapts to it, to make the best possible picture, all done by computer nowadays. When you turn and take another picture and the light is very different, the camera will create another optimum for the length of the opening of the lens and how far it is opened (diaphragm). You will notice that on the picture. This explains the big difference between the sunny and the cloudy picture of Lisanne. On the cloudy picture of Lisanne you see less contrast and the whole picture is lighter: the clouds are white and lighter than the blue air and everything is less sharp lined out. Even when you take a picture at the same spot but you capture less blue air or more dark corner, the light will change, and the camera adapts to less or more light. That is normal: With the picture of Kris it is more or less the same. Less blue air and Kris against a darker background makes her better visible in the picture. she is given more light by the camera. Lisanne at the same spot though, is taken against the clear sky. The picture suffers from contrast and Lisanne has much more contrast and shadow and less light. It must have been like this, so 6 seconds were no problem at all: Try some of these things when you take pictures next time.
DutchTreat replied: "[QUOTE: danyoromijn said: "On the picture where Lisanne stands on the left (with thumbs up), I actually get the impression the sun shines from up and a bit right, since the shadow of her arm on her t-shirt streches out a bit to the left. When the sun would shine from the left side, the shadow would stretch out more to the right of her elbow.] - "You're wrong. Look at the picture where Lisanne is standing on the left. Look at the thumb of her right hand. It casts a shadow on the fingers of her right hand. That is impossible if the sun would be shining from the same position as in the picture with Lisanne on the right. These pictures were NOT taken within six seconds. There should really an expert be looking at these pictures. Because if it can be established that this is not possible, it would also mean that the data of the pictures has been tampered with..... and we all know what that would mean."
Danyo Romijn replied: "I see what you mean with the thumb, but the shadow formed, looking as if it goes from up-left to right-down is caused by the shape and the direction of the thumb itself. On this picture the sun comes from up and a bit towards the photographer. The sun never could come from the 'left' side, because there is the north and the sun never shines from the north. It just is a bit difficult with those shadows and directions, mainly because the sun at this place on earth and a bit after noon shines from up (and not that obvious from the south)."
IceT wrote: "Here is another picture that illustrates your point. It shows tendrils of thinner clouds extending across the Continental Divide from the thicker masses of clouds north of the Divide. A photo taken from the Mirador toward the SE could show small individual clouds in a mostly clear sky, while a photo aimed 90 degrees to the left could show a much thicker cloud cover north of the Divide. This seems to be what we see in the photos of Kris and Lisanne."
Also, look closely at the shadows of the sun in the different photos on the summit
which were all taken within the same 15 minutes according to their digital camera data. In some there are strong shadows on Lisanne's body, while there is hardly a shadow visible on Kris. Is it certain that these photos were all taken at 13:00, going by the angle of the sun? But then again; check out the aerial photo below; it clearly shows the way in which cloud packs can close in suddenly over there:
Looking at the blue sky versus the cloudy sky in the background of the new Pianista photos, are these new photos perhaps indicating that the girls did in fact make it back down the Pianista Trail? Photos from the way up (sunny and blue skies), versus photos from the way down (cloudy)?
These summit photos were all taken within the same 15 minutes according to their digital camera data. Firstly there are the difference in sky in some of these photos. Although I must admit here that both the cloudy sky photos were taken facing the 'other' side the the Mirador. Possibly there was a very extreme division line during those 15 minutes between cloudy on one side of the mountain and sunny/blue skies on the other? I don't know, the contrast is quite extreme I think. Then secondly there is also the other matter, that in some there are strong shadows on Lisanne's body, while there is hardly a shadow visible on Kris. Is it certain that these photos were all taken at 13:00, going by the angle of the sun?
If it is true that the girls turned around and went back to the Mirador after taking photo 508, then by the time they started making their two emergency calls from 16:39 PM onward, they could then not be lost in the jungle... Instead they would have been well on their way back, down the mountain already. More likely they would have been already down at the start of the trail by 15:30, and they may have been already at the swimming location of the new photo by 16:39 PM. This then changes the possible reasons why they could have called emergency services. They wouldn't then have called because they lost their way beyond the Mirador. They also wouldn't have called because they had fallen in a cliff, or drowned in the river, as Betzaida Pitti keeps holding onto. In fact, this scenario would then reinforce the chance of them having been followed or taken by a third
party. Or could it be the other way, and were the cloudy photos taken on the way up, and the blue skies from their way back down again to Boquete? This was the weather at that day, April 1st. You can see that at exactly 13.00 PM was the highest amount of cloud(s) 14%. Is this what we see in the left photo of Lisanne? And then we have the photo on the right with less clouds, from which we can see due the shadow/sun that is was approximately 13.00/14.00? (Notice also by the way how on the right photo of Lisanne, it looks like she is way bigger than at the left). Also notice how Lisanne's hair is at one photo flipped over on her right shoulder, and in the other photo it falls over her left shoulder. And in a third photo she has her hair tied back. Supposedly those photos were made within 6 seconds of one another. On different sides of the mountain. Lisanne on the right also looks more 'sweaty' on her forehead. So maybe they are in fact taken at very different times; one on the ascend, the other on the descend again, after having walked to the little stream from photos 507 and 508. Also, there seems to be quite a different sun angle present in these different Mirador photos. Sometimes the suns position on the faces and bodies of the girls are more diagonal, coming from straight above, other times there are more shadows and a different angle of the sun. Some seem to have been indeed taken around 13:00 PM, but others may have been taken later in the afternoon, in fact. My guess is on their way BACK TO BOQUETE. I mean, these two pictures below of Lisanne and Kris have officially been made within a 2 minute time-frame. It looks more like a 2,5 hour difference though, going by the extreme difference in shadow on the face and body. Shouldn't Kris' entire front and face have been covered with areas of shadow? By the way, in none of the other photos of the girls, taken in those precious week of holidaying, are the ever photographed with their thumbs up like that. Could this be an indication that they were not alone on that summit?
CLOUDY
CLEAR
HALF CLEAR
HALF CLOUDY
Although this photo from a day or two before their hike does show that there can be tight cloud formations hanging over the mountains, right next to blue patches of sky:
Juan made an excellent photo collage of the known photos, picturing together the scene on the Mirador and showing (in my opinion) that these clouded skies were taken at a different time of day than the clear sky photos. It also shows I think that the girls were not facing the (opposite) other side of the mountain in the cloudy photos:
Pictures of Casa Verde Hostel
& Guesthouse (Bocas del Toro):
A lying, insensitive machine
Poor police work can not only be seen in places like Panama, but also in the Netherlands. (Thanks to Juan for finding this article). Master of law Sébas Diekstra concentrates on cold cases. "In one of my headache dossiers at the time, a group of individuals was completely mangled by the machinery that is the Public Prosecution."
April 16th, 2016 - Lawyer Sébas Diekstra dedicates himself with heart and soul to the relatives of people who died under suspicious circumstances. Cases which the police have insufficiently investigated and parked as an 'accident' or 'suicide' and which the ministry of justice prefers to sweep under the carpet. “It is abominable how the government leaves next of kin with important questions. As if someone is drowning while everyone is looking the other way. Then I will help." Lying to the media. Blatantly lying with a straight face that you threw away a dead girl's fingernails which you needed for forensics research. While in reality, the Public Prosecutor's Office has no idea where they left those nails. Then you really no longer understand as a government organization, with what task you are on this earth." Talking to us is lawyer Sébas Diekstra from Leiden. Together with Job Knoester en Richard Koner, he is one of the very few lawyers who stand by the relatives of people who died under suspicious circumstances. Cases which were directly labeled a 'suicide' or an 'accident' or a 'voluntary disappearance' and which as a result have hardly been investigated by the police and the Public Prosecution Service. For the next of kin I am the last straw and I pull out all the stops for them. Why I have this dedication? That goes back to the time when I ended up as a professional soldier in the military police service. I started out on the street as an investigating officer and I also studied law. Later I became an integrity officer and was responsible for investigations into my own personnel. There I saw how individuals can be crushed by a government agency.
I noticed how short-sighted the police and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) can be. Shouting from the rooftops that people are of central importance to them, while those organizations are too often concerned with egos and public opinion.
That is partly my drive to defend people. I noticed how short-sighted the police and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) can be. Shouting from the rooftops that people are of central importance to them, while those organizations are too often concerned with egos and public opinion. In one of my headache files at the time, a group of individuals was totally mangled in the machine that is the OM. I want to save people from this, if I have to. By fighting that big insensitive machine.
Your first cold case case was Talitha the 25-year-old Amsterdam girl who was found dead on the trail three years ago. Suicide? Or not?
Talitha was found lying between the train tracks. By police officers who had rushed to the scene, it was instantly ruled a suicide. But much in this case is atypical. The train driver stated to the officers that he had seen her lying motionless before the collision, between and parallel to the railway tracks. Her injuries also did not fit with a run-over. Yet Talitha's mother was immediately told by the police that her daughter committed suicide by jumping. Later she was allowed to pick up a bag of bloody clothes from Talitha. At the station, of all places. When the mother knocked on my door for help, I started a huge complaints procedure. Eventually, Chief Public Prosecutor Steensma apologized and said that the case officer should never have come to that conclusion."
What do you know about this scandal by now?
It is unbelievable how many mistakes have been made. The police did not investigate anything, the train tracks were immediately cleared. Forensic investigation was not started, any perpetrator DNA and trailing or footprints were not secured. A medical examiner could not say whether it was suicide or murder. There was some correspondence between the prosecutor and the deputy officer, but we still don't know what that involved. What I do know is that Talitha's body has been taken care of [washed and prepared for a wake site]. Later the officer started having doubts and ordered for a section after all. But any traces there may have been, were almost certainly destroyed by the previous care of the body. We called in an external pathologist. He concluded that the injuries could have emerged earlier. There is a real possibility that someone else is involved in her death.
It is unbelievable how many mistakes have been made. The police did not investigate anything, the train tracks were immediately cleared. Forensic investigation was not started, any perpetrator DNA and trailing or footprints were not secured. A medical examiner could not say whether it was suicide or murder.
What do you know about this scandal by now?
It is unbelievable how many mistakes have been made. The police did not investigate anything, the train tracks were immediately cleared. Forensic investigation was not started, any perpetrator DNA and trailing or footprints were not secured. A medical examiner could not say whether it was suicide or murder. There was some correspondence between the prosecutor and the deputy officer, but we still don't know what that involved. What I do know is that Talitha's body has been taken care of [washed and prepared for a wake site]. Later the officer started having doubts and ordered for a section after all. But any traces there may have been, were almost certainly destroyed by the previous care of the body. We called in an external pathologist. He concluded that the injuries could have emerged earlier. There is a real possibility that someone else is involved in her death.
Like in so many other cases, justice seems to do a flip here too. What was the story about those fingernails?Talitha's nails were clipped during the post-mortem. Those fingernails are important though, because they can contain culprit DNA. The OM then casually says to the ANP to have thrown away the nails. If I later confront the justice department with this, I am told: 'The nails are missing. We don't really know about it.' In other words, 'We had to say something to the media. The fact that we don't know doesn't make us look very smart. So we just say we threw them away.' I find that bizarre, this lying. Meanwhile, we still don't know what happened to Talitha and the family still has questions. I then think: make up for that and do that last bit of research. But they refuse to, because there is no detection indication; no suspicion of a crime."
Meanwhile, we still don't know what happened to Talitha and the family still has questions. I then think: make up for that and do that last bit of research. But they refuse to, because there is no detection indication; no suspicion of a crime. Because they didn't do anything to find one."
This is often argued by OM and investigators.
It would almost be funny if it wasn't so sad. The police and the judiciary usually reason in a circle in these cases. They claim to have done nothing in those cases, because there is no detection indication. Then I say: there is no detection indication, because you didn't do anything to find one. Then the answer is: that is because we have no detection indication. You could write meters of text about it, in the end it comes down to that idiotic little circle."
Is that different in other countries?
In some countries, the premise is that with any unnatural death, a crime should be rule out first. That means a forensic section to the cause of death. That is pure. The Dutch system leaves too much room for errors: the public prosecutor decides what he or she does. With this, you accept errors of judgment."
The big problem is that the police and the judiciary system are far too concerned with public opinion. Improper interests play a role in this. Moreover, they are hierarchical organizations with too many officials who are busy keeping their own street clean.
You now have seventeen such cases under your care, including the case of the Polish boy Tornasz Kosmala. There must be a pattern in this error festivals.The big problem is that the police and the judiciary system are far too concerned with public opinion. Improper interests play a role in this. Moreover, they are hierarchical organizations with too many officials who are busy keeping their own street clean. The essence in these cases is that the emergency aides who arrive first - often insufficiently trained surveillants - are directly focused on one scenario and are blind to other possibilities. When a body is found on the train tracks, it must be suicide. When a body is found in the water: suicide or an accidental drunkard. If things go wrong there and the forensic investigation does not arrive on the scene immediately - you see that in all those cases - then it's over. Then it is finished. The police and the judiciary sometimes admit that they wrongly assumed one leading scenario and delved into it incorrectly. But they don't learn from those mistakes. How long has this misery been going on now?"
There is contradiction these days. Highly educated employees that are brought into the police force to combat tunnel vision.
"That only looks nice on paper. The results turned out to be downright poor. What do you think? Those contradictors are crammed somewhere within the hierarchy and do not have the position they should be given. They are part of the clique. They become infected by the clique-thinking and go along with it. Contradiction is supposed to be independent. You should not stuff them within your own ranks and give them a rank or scale that makes the opponent subordinate. Hierarchy and criticism do not mix well.
The essence in these cases is that the often insufficiently trained surveillants are directly focused on one scenario and are blind to other possibilities. When a body is found on the train tracks, it must be suicide. When a body is found in the water: suicide or an accidental drunkard. If things go wrong there and the forensic investigation does not arrive on the scene immediately - you see that in all those cases - then it's over. Then it is finished.
As a surviving relative, you are therefore at the mercy of the gods?
You are without rights. It is difficult to initiate proceedings because there is insufficient research to substantiate a crime scenario. You are left with all your questions and can actually only start a crusade. You are then seen as a nuisance or someone who gets stuck in his grief [Scarlet; this seems to be exactly what happened to Hans Kremers; deemed a pest and a troublemaker by the OM, in Hans' own words]. In the meantime, justice will do everything in its power to prevent you from getting the police files. The bullshit argument that is always put forward, is that the privacy of the deceased should not be violated. But that doesn't matter to you, as a surviving relative. After all, you want to know what happened to your loved one and what has or has not been investigated. There is only one reason why these files are not provided: the police and the judicial authorities do not want errors to be discovered."
Lawyer Job Knoester previously argued for an independent committee that can have an investigation instituted after all.
I don't see much in a blunder committee. In my opinion there should be a civil court that can order Public Prosecution Services, police or other authorities to investigate. As an outgrowth of the right to life, there is also the right to know what killed someone. I am working on a letter to the House of Representatives with that proposal. I have already have the approval of [political parties] D66 and VVD."
It is difficult to initiate proceedings because there is insufficient research to substantiate a crime scenario. There is only one reason why these files are not provided: the police and the judicial authorities do not want errors to be discovered."
You must have made many new police friends by now?
Not exactly, but that's not what I'm here for. Of course some people are scornful towards me. Whatever. All this work does not benefit me. I usually assist relatives free of charge. Name recognition is nice. But for me it is all about that text message I receive from a surviving relative, with the message 'we are glad that you are here'. That is enough."
Back in 2013, four of Mexico’s Cartels operated in PanamaSeptember 17th, 2013
Marguerite Cawley
[Source] "Panama’s intelligence sources have identified four major Mexican cartels operating in that country, another sign of the widening reach of Mexico’s criminals across the region, and of Panama’s importance as a regional depot for drug traffickers.
According to Panama’s La Prensa, these groups are: the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juarez Cartel, the Zetas and the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO). Intelligence reports and officials have confirmed that these cartels operate in the country, says the paper, using it as an operational base to transport cocaine to Mexico and the United States. One sign of this is recent violence committed in the style of Colombian or Mexican hired assassins, Panamanian prosecutor Geomara Guerra told La Prensa, with dead bodies dismembered or showing signs of torture. Officials believe the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas may be killing off rivals in the country as they move more deeply into Central America.
In 2012, then-Attorney General and current Supreme Court judge Jose Ayu Prado said 100 Mexican prisoners held in Panama were accused of membership in drug cartels. Alleged Mexican criminals arrested in Panama include 16 Sinaloa Cartel members caught in 2007 with 19.5 tons of cocaine, the newspaper says. Members of the Zetas and the Juarez Cartel have also been caught moving cocaine through the country. In 2010, jailed capo Edgar Valdez Villareal, alias “La Barbie,” also testified that the BLO moved cocaine through Panama to Mexico. The evidence collected by La Prensa is another indication that the connection is deepening between Mexican organized crime and Panama, an important hand-off point for north-bound drug shipments, as well as a traditional money laundering hotspot. Earlier this year, an alleged link between Colombia’s Rastrojos and Mexican Cartels was arrested in Panama, and more recently, Colombian officials intercepted a FARC-owned cocaine shipment allegedly destined for Sinaloa Cartel contacts in Panama. Mexican capos have also been reported to do business in Panama, including captured Gulf Cartel boss Andres Vieda Duque, alias “El Duque,” and La Barbie. The cousin of Panama’s President Ricardo Martinelli was arrested in Mexico and charged with money laundering in 2009, but was later absolved. The Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas have shifted much of their operations into Central America, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). One major battleground is Guatemala, but the Sinaloa Cartel also operates in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica, and the Zetas in Belize."
And here is an article from 2014 from the BBC: 'Has Panama weaned itself off drugs and cleaned up? in Panama
August 2nd, 2014
And here is an article from 2014 from the BBC: 'Has Panama weaned itself off drugs and cleaned up? in PanamaAugust 2nd, 2014
Will Grant
"In 1988, a US Senate subcommittee headed by then-Senator John Kerry came up with a new word to describe Panama - "narco-kleptocracy". It referred to the years of corruption, cronyism and theft of state coffers under the government of military strongman Manuel Noriega. Noriega spent decades on the payroll of the CIA as an agent while simultaneously rising in importance in the powerful Medellin drug cartel. For years, Washington turned a blind eye to the Panamanian leader's blatant drug trafficking and money-laundering until it could be ignored no longer. The United States invaded Panama in 1989 in what it called Operation Just Cause. Noriega was ousted from power and arrested. Since then he has served consecutive jail sentences in the US, France and now in his native Panama. [..] So has Panama genuinely moved from a "narco-kleptocracy" to a peaceful and orderly democracy in just 25 years? "It's a difficult question to answer," says Prof Orlando Perez, of Central Michigan University. "Panama's institutional system has certainly improved significantly since 1988. There is no question about that." [..] That said, democracy and governance in Panama are still far from perfect. "Where I hesitate is in the question of corruption," says Prof Perez. "Corruption is still a major problem inside Panama. To some extent it's systemic to the way Panama's economy is structured."
Corruption
Panama has a very open, dollarised, service-based economy. In fact, more than 75% of its gross domestic product (GDP) comes from the service sector. While that has attracted significant foreign direct investment (FDI), it has also brought an undercurrent of less transparent business interests too. "Openness can be positive in terms of trade and FDI. But it can also mean openness to drugs, money-laundering, arms-trafficking and so on," says Prof Perez. The Russian mafia is believed to control some prime real estate in Panama City while the Sinaloa Cartel - perhaps the most powerful drug-trafficking organization in the world - brings its cocaine from Colombia via Panama on its route north. Compared to the Noriega era, the government has made significant in-roads in terms of improving cooperation with international organizations, tracking flows of money and strengthening the local police. But despite those advances, key structural problems still exist. "Many Panamanians tell me, 'We want to cooperate with the United States, Interpol, Europol and others over these illicit money flows,'" says Orlando Perez. "But they say we can't do anything to jeopardize the competitive advantage that Panamanian banks have. That would essentially destroy our 'brand'." [..]
Unequal society
Panama currently boasts much higher growth rates than the Latin American average and attracts greater levels of FDI than even Chile. But it is also one of the most unevenly distributed economies. While parts of Panama City are often compared to Dubai, Singapore or Miami, others have more in common with the slums of Rio de Janeiro or Caracas, and poverty levels in parts of the countryside can reach 90%. Furthermore, Panama is also yet to throw off its reputation as a haven for international criminals, fugitives and tax exiles. "Panama is a country of contrasts," says Prof Perez, "truly a country of paradoxes and contrasts."
The search troops at work:
It seems there were some risks involved with this Pianista trailPeople had been robbed in the past. People had gotten lost in the jungle. A guide was recommended. The girls seemed confident however, perhaps due to the low difficulty grade of the walk. It takes around 1,5 to 2 hours to climb to the top, which has stunning views, reaching all the way to the coast on clear days. Then downwards is achieved in around an hour, depending on your level of fitness. Especially the climbing part can be tiring when the day time temperatures and sun are high, combined with the high humidity in Panama. But for young, fit people it should not be a problem. Lisanne was known to be sporty, she played volleyball at a high level and liked to go for walks. Kris was slightly less athletic but in good physical shape nonetheless, which is also visible in their photos on the trail and at the top. At the start of the trail, the path is clearly visible and well defined. But as you ascend, it gets more narrow and the jungle does close in. Nevertheless, it should be clear which is the main path and where to go. And once you descend again from the summit (which is cooler than the valley), moving on instead of the recommended turning back, the trail is for a long time still clearly distinguishable, especially on the dry and sunny day of April 1st 2014. However, the further you move on, the more risks of getting lost. It drags you further and further into the jungle, and the next settlement is a multi-day walk. And there are risks with the rivers too; they have monkey bridges; dodgy swanky frail cables where you can move over, but which can easily make you lose your balance. They are placed high above the river and a fall can cause injuries. If the water is high and runs fast, you can drown too. At the start of the girls' trip however the water was relatively low and slow flowing. There is also said to be another bottleneck on the route, where you need to pass a metal gate to continue the Pianista Trail, instead of walking along it (which would direct you in the wrong way).
La Prensa also criticizes the investigationMay 30th, 2014
Article. "The officials of the National Civil Protection System (Sinaproc) who initially attended the case of the two Dutch tourists lost in Boquete, did not follow the proper procedures of a judicial investigation.
Sinaproc overstepped the line in the Dutch investigation. This was announced by Rafael Guerrero, head of the Complex Cases Unit of the Public Ministry (MP), who since last Monday has been in the Chirican mountains along with the multinational search teams, trying to find the whereabouts of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kramers, lost since last April 2. "Sinaproc carried out proceedings that were not for them to do, without the endorsement of the MP," Guerrero explained to this newspaper, indicating that Civil Protection officials entered the room where the Dutch women were staying, without the company of criminalistics technicians. This action, he affirmed, prevented the scientific collection of clues that would have allowed for a better orientation of the investigation.
Guerrero also believes that if Sinaproc had initially entered the bedroon in the company of technicians from the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, it would have been clear [now] if it was a case of disappearance, kidnapping, homicide or if "they simply left Boquete".
“The alert for the disappearance was already being investigated by the MP. However, Sinaproc unilaterally began a process of interviews and judicial investigations. They even entered the residence where the young women had been staying. It would have been preferable if (they asked for the help of) the criminalistics technicians. (Thus) more scientific information would be obtained ... more evidence”, he added. Guerrero also believes that if Sinaproc had initially entered the bedroom in the company of technicians from the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences, it would have been clear [now] if it was a case of disappearance, kidnapping, homicide or if "they simply left Boquete". “If Sinaproc had entered with the technicians, we would have a fingerprint survey. We could have seen in the garbage cans if there were written notes, cigarette butts or any other evidence that would allow us to have clearer theories," added a source from the Judicial Investigation Directorate. “Obviously what happened was a mistake. I don't know why Sinaproc did that, considering they only have to deal with emergencies and disasters. The investigation processes do not correspond to them. I think they rushed and got carried away with urgency," the source added.
When asked about the statements of the representative of the MP, the director in charge of Sinaproc in the Chiriquí region, Francisco Santamaría, denied the information. “I don't know who collected the belongings. We didn't go. We are not empowered for that,” he replied. Despite this information, the head of the Complex Cases Unit of the Public Prosecutor's Office ratified his statement, and pointed out that Sinaproc's detailed actions appear in the case file, which already reaches a thousand pages. "Sinaproc even asked the police not to participate at the beginning of the search operation and when they inspected the Dutch girls' room," added Guerrero. On this matter, the director of Sinaproc, Arturo Alvarado, confirmed that officials from the Boquete delegation entered the room and took photographs and even questioned some witnesses before beginning the search. He explained that, in his opinion, his officials did not do anything inappropriate “because at that time there were no yellow tapes on the house. (When we entered) a criminal process (sic) had not started, ”he continued. Alvarado stated that to start a search "Sinaproc must carry out a preliminary investigation."
“If Sinaproc had entered with the technicians, we would have a fingerprint survey. We could have seen in the garbage cans if there were written notes, cigarette butts or any other evidence that would allow us to have clearer theories," added a source from the Judicial Investigation Directorate.
Through the photographs that the officials took, "we saw that their passports, toothbrushes and cream were there." That allowed them to "deduce" that the Dutch had not gone a long distance, since their backpacks were still in the room, he asserted. “Sinaproc was notified 44 hours after they were lost. We talked with the owner of the house and started the search. We delivered the photos to the MP two days later. We did not go in with the criminalistics technicians, because there was no crime. Still, one imagined that they could be in a restaurant... we did not touch anything, "added Alvarado, indicating that the officials of his institution walked 944 kilometers in search of the girls.
The guide speaks
During the night of last Wednesday, this newspaper managed to interview Feliciano González, the guide who had been contacted by the school where Kris and Lisanne were going to study Spanish, to guide them on the El Pianista trail. “The two girls who work at the Spanish by the River school contacted me. A German named Eileen and a Dutch named Mariolane. I speak English well, I am 58 years old and I have been a guide on the Boquete trails for 14 years,” said González, specifying that he charges 25 dollars for each tourist. “Eileen told me to come to Spanish by The River on Wednesday, April 2 at 8:00 a.m. to look for them. At that time I arrived there and together with her I waited half an hour for the Dutch. Time passed and they did not arrive. We decided to go together to the house where they were staying. Upon arrival they did not answer and we thought they were asleep. For this reason, we telephoned the owner of the house”. Being 10:00 a.m. [Scarlet: so they waited for two hours already for Kris and Lisanne?] the owner of the property authorized them to look for a key in the garden of the house so that they could enter the room. Upon entering, Feliciano says that together with Eileen he saw the unmade beds, some backpacks and cables to charge cell phones. "The owner of the house told me that she even made them breakfast, thinking they had come home late," he continued. “So as not to alarm anyone”, Eileen and Feliciano separated and did not resume contact until 5:00 p.m., thinking that perhaps the Dutch were walking around town. [Scarlet: in other interviews, both agreed and admitted that they spent that day together at F's coffee farm, before going to the police. How come there is a different version of events told here? And why shouldn't people be alarmed, nearly 24 hours after these young women were last seen alive? Why keep it a secret?].
During the night of last Wednesday, this newspaper managed to interview Feliciano González, the guide who had been contacted by the school where Kris and Lisanne were going to study Spanish, to guide them on the El Pianista trail. “The two girls who work at the Spanish by the River school contacted me. A German named Eileen and a Dutch named Mariolane. I speak English well, I am 58 years old and I have been a guide on the Boquete trails for 14 years,” said González, specifying that he charges 25 dollars for each tourist. “Eileen told me to come to Spanish by The River on Wednesday, April 2 at 8:00 a.m. to look for them. At that time I arrived there and together with her I waited half an hour for the Dutch. Time passed and they did not arrive. We decided to go together to the house where they were staying. Upon arrival they did not answer and we thought they were asleep. For this reason, we telephoned the owner of the house”. Being 10:00 a.m. [Scarlet: so they waited for two hours already for Kris and Lisanne?] the owner of the property authorized them to look for a key in the garden of the house so that they could enter the room. Upon entering, Feliciano says that together with Eileen he saw the unmade beds, some backpacks and cables to charge cell phones. "The owner of the house told me that she even made them breakfast, thinking they had come home late," he continued. “So as not to alarm anyone”, Eileen and Feliciano separated and did not resume contact until 5:00 p.m., thinking that perhaps the Dutch were walking around town. [Scarlet: in other interviews, both agreed and admitted that they spent that day together at F's coffee farm, before going to the police. How come there is a different version of events told here? And why shouldn't people be alarmed, nearly 24 hours after these young women were last seen alive? Why keep it a secret?].
“Since they didn't show up, at 7:30 p.m. We decided to go to the Police and they told us that at that time they had no officers available. Not having the exact data of the girls, we went back to the room where we found a card," said the guide. Then, together with Eileen, who had only lived in Boquete for three days and [soon] already left Panama, they went to Spanish By The River where they found the complete data on the company's computer. Shortly before 9:30 p.m., both returned to the Police and filed the complaint. On Thursday, April 3, Feliciano reported the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne at the Sinaproc headquarters in Boquete, at 7:30 a.m. An hour later he did the same in the municipal personería of this community. In the afternoon, the guide went to the DIJ to repeat the procedure. "Except at the Police, I filed all the complaints, only because the German does not speak Spanish," he said.“She told me that she thought the Dutch were going to go for a walk on the El Pianista trail. At school he heard them talk and saw a map of this trail. Even though she is German, she told me that she understood them because she studied tourism in Amsterdam”, continued Feliciano, clarifying that days after her disappearance, Eileen left Panama.
More inconsistencies
Accompanying Kris's parents at a vigil held last Wednesday night in Boquete, Feliciano indicated that on Saturday, April 5, he accompanied a DIJ commission to walk this path. “Unfortunately we found nothing. [In the Answers for Kris video, guide F. says that he walked the Pianista trail alone to look for Kris and Lisanne on Thursday April 3rd in fact]. Two days later I accompanied Sinaproc and we didn't find them either. In fact, during the two tours we saw many roosters in an area where they do not normally fly. When we went to those places we did not find anything”, confirming that “it is at the order of the authorities and the relatives of the disappeared for anything they need”.
Accompanying Kris's parents at a vigil held last Wednesday night in Boquete, Feliciano indicated that on Saturday, April 5, he accompanied a DIJ commission to walk this path. “Unfortunately we found nothing. [In the Answers for Kris video, guide F. says that he walked the Pianista trail alone to look for Kris and Lisanne on Thursday April 3rd in fact]. Two days later I accompanied Sinaproc and we didn't find them either. In fact, during the two tours we saw many roosters in an area where they do not normally fly. When we went to those places we did not find anything”, confirming that “it is at the order of the authorities and the relatives of the disappeared for anything they need”.
Search extends to the streets of Boquete
For the first time since the tourist tracking process began in Boquete, yesterday the team of volunteers brought from Holland inspected the streets of the upper part of this community. With the help of dogs and accompanied by local authorities, the teams inspected the entrance of private homes and farms looking for signs of Lisanne, who is a psychologist, and Kris, who studied fine arts. On behalf of the relatives of the two young women, Hans Kramers, father of Kris, recalled that the reward offered for information that leads to the whereabouts of his daughter and her friend is 30 thousand dollars. A Dutch television program also promised to pay another 10 thousand dollars to the reward in case the girls are found. Lisanne Froon's parents are currently in the Netherlands. During the second week of May, Peter and Diny Froon were in Boquete participating in the search for both their daughter and her friend Kris. The search is expected to continue today, again in the upper part of Boquete.
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I like to repeat one more time what issues I keep having with the Getting Lost scenario - pls skip when you are utterly tired of this: things nobody seems willing or able to solidly explain and rebut: the official version of events is that they either fell into a river and drowned, or fell in a ravine of sorts and couldn't get out, OR were eaten by wild animals. Pick your favourite and then try to explain how that makes sense considering that:
1. Ravine: assume they slid off a steep slope, and this slope may have been too steep for them to climb back up on without any gear and they were stuck. Firstly; this Pianista trail they were following was well kept, clear to follow, and no-one has to date fallen in a ravine there. So for this to happen to one of the girls, on a clear sunny day without rain or mud on the road, is hard to imagine. But for two of them, both, to fall in a ravine on this beautiful day of April 1st seems near impossible. But what if.. Lets follow this highly unlikely scenario; they both fell in a ravine: going by the dates on their pictures and mobile phones use, at least one of them must have been stuck there then for at least 11 days. No heavy rain fall was washing them out there in this first week as there was hardly any rain, only short showers: checking statistics about the local weather in Boquete that week, only on April 3rd, around 17:00 some rain started, which lasted throughout the next day until the evening/night of April 4th. Then it took until April 8th for more rain to fall, which only lasted a few hours in the late afternoon/ early evening. However, the place where some steep edges are, lie on the Boquete side of the Pianista trail (so the side very frequently walked by people), and close to the summit of the Pianista trail; NOT after the Pianista summit. If they had fallen there then rescue teams and searchers would definitely have found them. Sinaproc and volunteers combed through the entire jungle there, multiple times (especially the trail of the Pianista itself), and were certain the girls weren't there. They even scaled down on ropes down several slopes near the main trail, as was shown on TV camera. The spots that truly have some height are near the summit of the Pianista trail, and in this Dutch TV program, local guide P. even explains that they descended attached to long ropes down these spots to look for them. Then Dutch forensic investigator Frank van de Goot stated that he suspected that the girls fell down a ravine somewhere after the summit, but before the small stream pictured in photo #508. Yet, there is no place there where you can fall and remain unnoticed. The road is also mostly stuck between rock walls, has no cliffs or anything really to fall into. When Frank van de Goot, who led the Dutch forensics team in this case, hypothesized that the girls must have fallen into a ravine of 30 to 40 meters deep at the start of the Pianista Trail (and this being the only place where they could have fallen off the mountain; at the start of the Pianista trail), he offered no proof. Instead, this claim raises questions: why have there never been pictures released of this supposed spot? Why no proof of the underground there showing any signs of 2 people falling down there from 40 meters high up? SINAPROC are specialized in these things and regularly find missing hikers, they looked for trails and clues of a fall everywhere along that route and found nothing. They went down with ropes for no less than 500 meter in crevasses along the Pianista trail, so they combed the place out. And even stated so on TV; the girls were not there according to their findings. A fall there would have left traces and those first days after their disappearance it was dry and sunny, not rainy so no trails could go missing. Why would both have fallen there? No clear signs of a fall were found on the shoes and the backpack either. Contents of the bag were in good order, as we could all see for ourselves. There were only two minor tears in the backpack, caused by 'a sharp edge' but they were not consistent with the type of dragging damage you usually see when someone slides down a rock wall for 30 or 40 meters. Not a scratch on the sunglasses that were carried inside the backpack. But let's assume theoretically they fell in a ravine: why then wouldn't they have been found there by the onslaught of rescue groups and volunteers and army and dogs? They would have heard them so why not call out for help? Not to mention the rescue dogs easily being able to smell them down there [if this was a cliff near the Pianista trail, which is said to have been the most prevalent spot with slopes]. The girls were for many days seemingly capable of using their phones, attempting phone calls or looking for reception; so they were conscious and would have heard the rescue teams, dogs and all that came with it if they had fallen close to the main trail. There was a big reward for the person who found them so there was extra incentive to find them. Yet, nobody did..
And why wouldn't they have been able to call from there, given that that area has confirmed mobile phone reception? And even if this scenario is true: how did their backpack end up from the bottom of a ravine into the river, 14 walking hours up north, without any decomposing body fat on it. No blood, and most of all; everything in perfect order? You'd not think that two cheap sunglasses would come out of a 40 meter fall without a single scratch, yet these girls wére badly broken up from it. No damage to the bag for instance as you would expect to see it as a result of sliding down a stone wall or muddy ravine slope. And how could their (very few) remains been scattered over a huge area along riverbeds and behind trees, so many more kilometers up north and nowhere near the bottom of a ravine? Some north of the backpack, some south of it. Animals there are not eating bones and wouldn't drag a foot or a pelvic bone for many kilometers, and they are ruled out anyway as the bones found had no microscopic teeth or claw marks; they were completely clean of significant markings. Besides, Kris' shorts were also found near the river and their bras were in their backpack; would they have fallen down a ravine naked then? A pelvis broken in half and a severely broken foot would normally have prevented them from climbing out of a ravine themselves and moving 14 walking hours up north, away from civilization. Just like Kris' broken pelvis would make it probably unlikely that she or Lisanne would have taken off Kris' very tight jeans shorts. When you are injured, you stay put (and if they had done that, they would have normally been found on or near that main trail). But large scores of rescue workers combed through the entire jungle there, multiple times, especially the trail of the Pianista itself, and were certain the girls weren't there.
2. River: at that time (first week of April 2014) the rivers were rather shallow and not wildly fast flowing yet. It had been exceptionally dry at the time and the rain season had not yet started. From what was pictured and seen on news reports at the time, the river im sprache was not standing very high, and it wasn't very fast flowing at all. This in contrast with the rescue/body cam videos appearing much later, at a time where it hád been raining and the water wás now running much more wild. But this is not representative of the week when Kris and Lisanne had gone missing. Although the current is in general said to be strong, making it difficult to get back out once you fall in at the wrong place. But the girls could swim very well and the river wasn't that large that they couldn't make it to shore without drowning I think. It also has many rocks crisscrossing within the water, where you can hold onto. And although those monkey bridges are feeble, you don't cross them together at the same time; only one person can go at a time, so the chance that both girls fell into the river there at the same time seems also very small. Besides, then their backpack would have gotten wet, not to say soaked. If a river is said to be powerful enough to tear apart dead bodies, it can't leave a cheap lycra backpack floating in it for kilometers on end hardly damaged. Also, along the river near the monkey bridges are local people living; why wouldn't they go to them for help, instead of passing a monkey bridge and river, moving even further away from the Boquete region where they had to go? And if they were lost, why would they cross rivers anyway, leading them further away from their starting point, further into the wilderness? They took a photo of Boquete lying behind them on their way up the Pianista; they knew that Boquete was south of them, not north. So with no marks found on the few bones they did find, no animal jaws and teeth could have torn the foot off, in Lisanne's case, but there were also no signs of the river and rocks breaking up the bodies or damaging them with indentations and markings, as specialists would expect if the bodies and belongings had truly been bouncing over rocks and swept through wild rivers. And how did Lisanne's severed foot end up almost under the root of a tree on land, if she was floating in it?
3. Animals: (photo left the amount of registered snake bites) The black panther and puma are rare sightings there and shy; they don't go out to look for human contact. A jungle specialist from the region has wandered that jungle for 40 years and never ran into one, he said they don't even live in the Boquete region. Most bigger wild animals have long retracted to the deeper jungle, further away, due to the many humans walking through this part of forest. This travel blogger went to the same area and wrote about it: "We never saw a mammal and heard monkeys only once, quite different from our experience in other tropical forests." And even if we wildly assume a big cat attacked, them then the bones found would have had bite- or drag marks and their clothes wouldn't have been found the way they were; the jeans shorts from Kris would have had blood on them or been more extensively ripped or damaged (it also had no blood or other bodily fluids on it). The backpack was also not torn or damaged too much. So this in itself, and the fact Dutch investigators found bones with no microscopic signs of teeth, damage, bruising, biting or violence on the bones, which would be visible if an animal ate them clean, more or less debunks the animal attack theory. And a big snake such as the Bushmaster would have attacked one, not both the women, and would also have left marks on the bones. And none of those animals can crack big bones or eat and digest big bones, so where are their skeletons? Their skulls? Hardly any bones have been found other than one foot, one upper leg bone part (a femur), a lower leg bone (tibia) and half a pelvic bone and one rib. IF a wild animal in fact did kill them, how did their clothes come off - Kris' jeans shorts was found in one piece in/near the river and both the girls had their bras neatly folded in their backpack? So despite Betzaida Pitti naming wild animals as a possible culprit, this official statement was pretty vague and unfounded, and it wasn't well received. Nevertheless, this down to earth commentator - Danny R. Smith - said about this: "I've had cases where only a few pieces of the skeleton remained. Animals can take pieces and run off. Think of a pack of coyotes each grabbing what they could and heading over the hill. Searches are usually constrained by terrain and quite honestly manpower and hours. A fifty foot diameter or maybe a hundred yards, depending on the terrain. There is so much overgrowth in that region there could be bones within those distances that will never be found. As far as markings, the absence of the markings on the remaining bones just means an animal did not disturb that part."
Questions I have with the wild animal scenario are: - Why have none of the bones found shown a single clear microscopic marking from teeth or claws on them then? Also, where are the skulls and other big bones which animals cannot crack? Jaguars and panthers are so rare in those areas and so shy, that many wildlife specialists and guides from the area have never seen one in their lifetime. And would they really have both been attacked and killed by the same wild animals then, at the near same location? Because the few bone remnants of both girls were found more or less in the same area, close to Alto Romero. How can a rolled up mass of skin be found, but not.. two skulls? I think that the science in this case actually speaks against a wild animal attack... These forensic findings were leaked by the scientists, not spread by the official prosecution. They seem legit to me, people like Jeremy Kryt have had access to the autopsy and forensic reports and findings. And last but not least: if wild animals attacked them at some point,why did the girls then call emergency services on day one already? First emergency calls were made during daylight and by all logic still close to the Pianista summit and civilization. And if they took the night photos to scare off wild animals, then where is the Jaguar/Panther on these photo..? In fact; not even a single nighttime photo shows an animal, despite three hours of flashing the camera. Not once was an actual animal caught in the camera's flashlight. Which doesn't mean that there were no animals around, but they most likely weren't killed and/or dragged around by a big animal.
There are some serious issues with the official notion of the authorities that on the one hand Sinaproc and the volunteers and half the army searched that region extensively, for months in fact. Over and over again, including all the trails (and off trail) between the summit of the Pianista trail and Alto Romero, in which vicinity the remains were found. Sinaprocs director said it on camera; those girls were not there. They must have gone somewhere else. But at the same time these officials want everybody to believe that Kris and Lisanne have both fallen down the slope of the main riverbed that runs through that area. Near monkey bridges, no less; places which are passed every day and which the search troops certainly passed. They weren't there, according to the people who actually were physically in Boquete and doing the searches. Neither by bloggers who had gone out in may to help look for the girls and who passed all the monkey bridges, looking for clues. Yeh, says police on the one hand, yeh they did a magnificent job, the police and investigations. No stone was left unturned. But how can one maintain on the one hand that everything was properly searched, and on the other hand that Kris and Lisanne were withering away right next to this river in some riverbed they couldn't get out of and nobody heard or saw them. Despite the phone being activated until day 11 and them having be conscious by all logic, going by the phone log activity. They wanted to be found and yet nobody did. Despite normally finding anyone who went missing there in the terrain above Boquete. But here we are, that is just what authorities want us to believe. Everyone who takes a step beyond the summit is entering the portals of hell and risks their lives, even though the same region is visited daily, weekly by tourists who have a guide with them. It always was a normal continuation of the Pianista trail. Smiling photos on those monkey bridges, not a problem. Until the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne.They were there in a very dry and sunny period of early April without muddy trails even. But no, Pitti warns: one wrong step and you are gone forever. But nothing proves that they have gone off trail and got lost. Even in their last photos of April 1st, behind the summit, they are firmly on the main trail. And those photos and the video of the Kremers family shows clearly that this isn't 'wild unchartered jungle terrain' but a simple and clearly visible winding trail, passing some streams and trees and eventually a meadow. They weren't dressed to go off track and we have no indication that they did go off track, other than the impersonal odd night photos (do not forget that several different fingerprints and DNA from 4 unidentified people were found on the camera and belongings, people who have never been identified by police). But in the media, these university educated, fit women have been painted unfairly as two naive adventure seekers.
And the absense of anything personal is what stands out as well. Personal indications would be for Kris or Lisanne to have looked up the phone numbers of the parents (but a 3rd party wouldn't know what to look for then); personal would be to not only look up Myram's number (the only person in those phones which locals would have known) but to also try to actually call her (they never did). It would also be personal to write something in Dutch; some notes, some documentation (they both wrote in their diaries daily normally), or a draft message to a loved one. Of course, with a 3rd party not speaking Dutch, this was also impossible to fake for anyone from Panama. Selfies - nope. Movies (Canon had enough battery and memory) - nope. Daytime photos showing where they were - nope. None of that. In light of this, powering a phone on overnight but not using it for anything that would have been natural for these young women, such as calling loved ones, writing draft messages, anything personal really, is odd. It drained the remaining battery and for what? To check a weather app once, in the middle of the night. It's all highly suspicious and out of character for Kris and Lisanne who demonstrated completely opposite behaviour until then, taking pictures all the time, being in daily contact with their parents and writing in their diaries daily to document their days.
*And let me remind youonce more what a sh*tshow this entire investigation was
There are some serious issues with the official notion of the authorities that on the one hand Sinaproc and the volunteers and half the army searched that region extensively, for months in fact. Over and over again, including all the trails (and off trail) between the summit of the Pianista trail and Alto Romero, in which vicinity the remains were found. Sinaprocs director said it on camera; those girls were not there. They must have gone somewhere else. But at the same time these officials want everybody to believe that Kris and Lisanne have both fallen down the slope of the main riverbed that runs through that area. Near monkey bridges, no less; places which are passed every day and which the search troops certainly passed. They weren't there, according to the people who actually were physically in Boquete and doing the searches. Neither by bloggers who had gone out in may to help look for the girls and who passed all the monkey bridges, looking for clues. Yeh, says police on the one hand, yeh they did a magnificent job, the police and investigations. No stone was left unturned. But how can one maintain on the one hand that everything was properly searched, and on the other hand that Kris and Lisanne were withering away right next to this river in some riverbed they couldn't get out of and nobody heard or saw them. Despite the phone being activated until day 11 and them having be conscious by all logic, going by the phone log activity. They wanted to be found and yet nobody did. Despite normally finding anyone who went missing there in the terrain above Boquete. But here we are, that is just what authorities want us to believe. Everyone who takes a step beyond the summit is entering the portals of hell and risks their lives, even though the same region is visited daily, weekly by tourists who have a guide with them. It always was a normal continuation of the Pianista trail. Smiling photos on those monkey bridges, not a problem. Until the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne.They were there in a very dry and sunny period of early April without muddy trails even. But no, Pitti warns: one wrong step and you are gone forever. But nothing proves that they have gone off trail and got lost. Even in their last photos of April 1st, behind the summit, they are firmly on the main trail. And those photos and the video of the Kremers family shows clearly that this isn't 'wild unchartered jungle terrain' but a simple and clearly visible winding trail, passing some streams and trees and eventually a meadow. They weren't dressed to go off track and we have no indication that they did go off track, other than the impersonal odd night photos (do not forget that several different fingerprints and DNA from 4 unidentified people were found on the camera and belongings, people who have never been identified by police). But in the media, these university educated, fit women have been painted unfairly as two naive adventure seekers. 
*And let me remind youonce more what a sh*tshow this entire investigation wasOne wonders why the local government didn't get searchers in more quickly (during the first and most important days, no professional searches were organized) or even set up emergency cell coverage in the area; some sort of mobile network range extender, which is technically do-able with a helicopter, portable tower, or drone, from what I understand. And why were no thermal cameras used? (I guess these days with drones that would have been easier perhaps than in 2014). And have authorities tried to call the girls' phones, while they were missing? Why were not even their phone locations provided by the telecom operator in the area? Did Pittí not properly request for them? And why didn't she look into the phone use of other people in that area at the time? Telecom providers can map out exactly who were in the Pianista area on April 1st, based on their phone locations. But nobody seems to have investigated this... It is basic investigation stuff these days; checking surrounding phone activity (WHO were also in that area that day??), checking the phone and internet activity of potential witnesses. But I have verified that the official case documents, unfortunately, confirm that none of this was done by authorities. It's enough to make a grownup cry, this investigation. Why wasn't there a case official sent to accompany the locals who were searching for the girls' remains? Can you imagine the FBI asking locals to do the work for them, without even a single officer in place to oversee the operation? (No). Why were the houses of potential suspects never checked with luminol for traces of blood? Private land of people of interest should have been scanned for the presence of bones. Local soil samples were never properly commissioned, Dutch search and rescue dogs were somehow never allowed or able to search beyond the Mirador. We still don't know what type of water remnants were left in the plastic water bottles that were found in the girls' backpack, because the forensic testing was never requested by Betzaida Pittí. We should have known where they last filled their bottles; was this in a river? Was it filled with tap water in a house? Was there still commercial 'supermarket water' inside? Why do we not know these things? Crime scenes weren't secured, a private bedroom was trampled and raided before police even got there. Locals who should have been people of interest were protected and witnesses were cast aside. Notice how there is no official report on the factually established bleach on Kris' bones; no official mentioning/explanation of the mysterious disappearance of photo 509, no mention of the crazy timeline with the nighttime photos, the widely scattered remains, the absence of most other remains, the inexplicable fact that large scores of searchers couldn't find these girls in a relatively small area; the incompatibility of many solid seeming witness statements with the official timeline. No scientific evidence that they fell off a cliff, no signs of a slide down a mountain on the personal belongings... Their belongings were found undamaged, as far as we know. But the official story is that Kris and Lisanne simply got lost and fell to their deaths or drowned. Never mind that the rain season hadn't started yet at the time, never mind that the rivers weren't swollen yet, that these two athletic girls could swim or at the time have even hopped over river rocks from one side to the other, or wade to the other side. Autopsy reports weren't shared in the official case files, Pittí's end theory was never proven, not even partly. Specialists who offered their help were ignored. The prosecutor was more interested in parading in front of the cameras than doing the hard stuff. Despite having been fired in 2015, Pittí later betrayed the parents by trading THEIR daughter's private case files, against their will and probably illegally, with a bunch of opportunists who tried to clean her reputation for money. Absolute corruption. And yet, some people keep it up that the investigation was very thorough and professional...
Thanks for following this case and for everyone chiming in here or on my youtube channel to share your thoughts. I hope and believe that now that this case is properly archived and covered, now that the Dutch videos are for the most part translated and all the Dutch sources have been translated as well, and now that the story is being covered by writers, bloggers and youtubers all over the world, this will increase the chances that people who do know more will speak out, eventually. I truly believe that.
When I tried to make some sense out of this disappearance case back in late 2018/early 2019, there was on the one hand very limited public information with regards to what actually happened to Kris and Lisanne, and on the other hand a lot of journalistic work was done on the matter which had not always been highlighted equally well. It was clear that the story had some gaping holes and that there was conflicting information out there. I have tried to shine a light on all this publicly available info about the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne and I tried to bring it all together here, free of charge for all of you to see and if needed I translated it from Dutch or panish into English. I also tried to broaden the narratives about what may have happened to these young women. In the hope that when more people know about this case, chances would increase that we'd ever find more facts and answers. So, with this blog series I wanted to gather all the publicly available and relevant information in this case comprehensively in one spot (call it a form of Open-source Intelligence), with source links provided whenever possible. Instead of having all these pieces of information scattered all over the internet, I brought them together here in a (long) overview story of my own, reflecting what is known about the case by now. This includes interviews, journalistic pieces, statements from people linked to this case, investigation results, possible theories, arguments pro and contra and more. In part 2, part 4 and part 5 especially of this blog series, I cover many different theories from other people. I also translated many videos and articles of interest from Dutch to English for you, in order to provide you with the most detailed archive of this case. - Over time the media in general has gotten a beating for supposedly not covering this case well enough. This mainly comes from officials or their representatives, who are not happy with criticism. I strongly disagree with this however. I based nearly my entire blog series on public (media) information and as more official case info has become available slowly but surely, I am surprised how good the media did, all in all. Over time I only had to make minor adjustments to the story as we have learnt it from public media sources. Overall they were spot on. The case officials themselves have also chosen not to inform the media about certain things, but blatantly leaked other details they díd want to come out. So there you go. Oh, and it took me many months to find all the sources, to translate Dutch material and compose the summarized, detailed story here below, based on what is known from publicly available information (including official police information, news articles and interviews) so far. Some people have used more than just a little of my work for their own publications, without as much as a source mentioning. Don't be such a douche and give a shout out or a source mentioning when you use info from these blogs or my videos for your own videos or sites or publications :)
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, the lay-out of this blog series seems to be off on iPhones. For normal view, consider reading this blog on another type of device/ tablet/ computer. Blogger is not great with this and particularly seems to 'hate' iPhones. Make sure to read the proper page, so https://koudekaas.blogspot.com/2021/03/update-march-19th-2021_1.html, without ?m=1 at the end (for certain smartphones). This is how it looks then. 
I have nothing substantial to add, but wanted to thank you for your vigorous work in collecting and translating every relevant piece of news and evidence for this case. It was a great read that I enjoyed very much. The case itself is very unsettling and kept me up a few nights.
ReplyDeleteI do not personally think it is possible that either accident or crime theory can account for all of the evidence. Either they got lost first then ran into someone, or they ran into someone and fled then got lost and were eventually found by this third party.
Thanks again! I got weeks of reading material from your blog.
Thank you so much for your kind words and for reading about the case here. Like many others out there I am simply trying to do my part in an attempt to keep this case in the limelight and perhaps get it solved even, eventually. Although both the Panamanian and the Dutch prosecution and officials are 'dead set' on keeping the case closed. Yes I think you are right there, it is indeed a never fitting puzzle. None of the theories out there give a 100% fit and thus we keep changing around the puzzle pieces. But now that Juan published the never before seen night pictures and such, we have a few more facts to work with again. Glad to hear you also ultimately believe in an element of foul play.
DeleteBest wishes
IMG_0573-63.jpeg
ReplyDeletehttps://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOaDcK-zyudR_UXP4xNvvSpKhbEUNHFkl1cvaGaZrvkiKqkgSL0BK5mjUL2SGcDjw/photo/AF1QipPbiXn_VIr-YOegzlY7bqv4m-oyW5-xNi4uPXz2?key=UjkzUHpsRmtLNUc2RlphdjVTWHRZSVEySjNYS0NR
Is that a face in this picture? this was found on the photo album you had linked in this blog
Hi, thanks. Do you mean the outline of a skulled face almost? It may just be a pareidolia?
DeleteHi, I wanted to add that on the picture where you see the hair it really looks like you can see 2 teeth in between the red hair. You can see it on the right just below the middle. I've zoomed in many times and am really sure it's 2 teeth.
Deletehttps://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nora-quoirin-malaysia-closes-probe-21252733
ReplyDeleteThank you for this update! Seems another case where the authorities are quick to rule things an accident, and then close off the case. Where have we seen that before eh? :(
DeleteIn my opinion, the (little fact-based) argumentation of some people culminates when it comes to the 90 or so so-called night photos. Here, for example, you give a commentator who, precisely because of the absence of concrete objects in the photos, suspects a criminal mastermind behind these pictures. This is like arguing that the girls rarely used the mobile phone when they were in captivity, without realizing that captivity would likely have prevented them from using the mobile phone altogether. But the argument that the non-representational nature of the pictures was signaling a perpetrator as their author seems even more tendentious: This argumentation misses some of the rules of argumentative honesty, I guess. Particularly since it is based on a whole series of assumptions that are not mentioned in the context, such as that if Lisanne or Kris had taken the photos, concrete objects would be visible in the photos. But why actually? Because it must have been about capturing images?
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's fair to imply that. Obviously, it was about something else, because otherwise there would be more to see in the pictures than the night sky. You yourself give good clues that the purpose of the night shots could not have been to scare off animals or attackers either, because otherwise there would probably be animals or attackers in the pictures. It also seems impossible that the path should be illuminated because, as you were able to show very clearly, there was no change of location in the three hours during which the pictures were taken. Against this background, the interpretation must therefore be based on what is constant in the photographs, and that is simply the orientation of the camera and what was done with it, besides not taking pictures, namely triggering the flash. Therefore, the old, unexciting assumption that it was an attempt to send out light signals into the night sky is the most plausible one. Even if there may be doubts as to whether objectively the conditions were actually given for drawing attention to oneself in this way, this explanation is far more plausible than the more presuppositional thesis that someone else could have taken the photographs in order to create a false impression. A simple cost-benefit analysis illustrates this well: What value should it have had for the perpetrator or perpetrators to spend three hours (!), and thus a good part of the night, photographing the night sky several times a minute? And what use could it have had for the girls or one of them? Maybe even being in a state of half-consciousness. For whom, if not for Lisanne and Kris, could the flashing of light have been of such essential importance that they made producing flashes their main task for hours? While the subjective motives and the objective Benefits for alleged perpetrators remain completely in the dark and incromprehesible, it is obvious what the two young women, or one of them, might have wanted to achieve with the flashes. After all, search teams flew over the area the day before. Light signals couldn't be helpful at daytime, at night, that might have been her idea, they were.
It's difficult and I think some people make the mistake of zooming in too much to one or two aspects of this case. For instance on the night photos or the phone use. They can all be explained in whatever way you want. They could be rationally explained as the work of two girls delirious with hunger and first and exhaustion, or as photos made by someone else entirely, trying to create a fake trail of evidence. We just don't have enough facts to be certain about anything, when it comes to these photos and the use of their mobile phones. Yes thank you, there are soms things we can argumentate about them, for instance that it is less likely that whomever took thee photos did so to scare off an animal; because in the 90-something photos an animal hasn't been pictured once. Also, why would you keep making photos for 3 hours on end then? Also, there is zero evidence that helicopters were flying at night. All the info available indicates that helicopters only flew during a few days at the start of the search and always during daytime. There is zero evidence that helicopters would have flown in the dark of night, and as late as April 8th. I therefore dismiss (until new facts show up) that they were trying to flash an overflying helicopter. The same issue for search groups; we have no evidence whatsoever that search groups were walking out there in the dead of night. Yes same for the theory that they were lighting their way with the flash; all evidence points against this, due to the static nature of these photos. I agree that orientation is one of the most logical explanations around for now. Regarding light signals; that is possible, but I do wonder what triggered them to do that then, and why only on april 8th and not way sooner? They had been alone in the jungle for over a week (!) by then, and we have no evidence that troops were out between 01:00 -04:00 that night.
DeleteBut none of this disqualifies the alternative explanation of a 3rd person taking the photos. No, not at all. We have not a single photo identifying the photographer. Not even a hand or arm has been captured, enabling us to see if it was a he or a she. And you can personally think it is an illogical notion, there are no objective facts that disprove it, at the moment. I understand that you find it illogical that a 3rd party would make the effort to go out to take those photos. But I can think of a rational (I think at least..) explanation for that. IF a 3rd party was in fact involved then I don't personally believe that they would have done a hell of a lot of photoshopping or manipulation of the photos when they found the backpack and the camera. I think they went through them and only erased the photo 509, possibly because it contained something incriminating. The rest all told a perfect story, of kris and Lisanne walking alone in the wild there, unprepared, poorly dressed for the endeavor and going to the Pianista summit and beyond. Perfect stuff to allow the police to find. It just cements an alibi story on their behalf. People who say that criminals would just destroy a backpack like that, sometimes forget that there have been other missing people there including the missing British tourist Alex Humphrey, who has gone missing without a trace in the exact same area. You cannot continue to let people dissolve into nothing there, not with a mad circus of foreign press and searchers looking for these girls and demanding answers. If that backpack and those bone remains hadn't been found, the search would have gone on and on. The Dutch families had the financial means and the drive for it. Nobody living there wants that.. Indeed, a signal that the women were dead.
In light of this, it is not incomprehensible that a 3rd party would want to add more evidence to the camera, finishing the visual alibi of sorts. Now police and the families not only have photo evidence of the girls being physically on the Pianista Trail on day 1 and beyond the summit, but also an update from day 8, cementing the story (visually) that YES they got lost in the great unknown and yes they tried to survive for over a week. It really meant the evidence of an accident, for a lot of people, those night photos. Not all criminals are low IQ'ed brutes, some are highly pragmatic and logical.
DeleteAnd people must also not make the mistake of just zooming in on some aspects of this case, and then forgetting about the bigger picture. I like to look at all the details though and to zoom out. Everything must be incorporated into one theory or another, not just nitpicking about the psychological analytics of these photos. It seems a fact that Kris and Lisanne ventured out without taking the necessary precautions. They weren't properly dressed or equipped for such a trek into unknown wild terrain. They did not bring enough food and water or extra clothes, let alone a means to defend themselves or find their way back if needed. These two lovely girls made grave errors in judgment when they ventured out in unknown nature without the necessary precautions. That is something that stands above everything else.
But there are other reasons why an accident seems less likely to some people, me included. For instance:
-How come the entire skeletons were never found?
-How come the bodily remains of the two girls were find in the same vicinity, but one had her bones bleached clean and in a late stage of decomposition, while the other had remains in a very early stage of decomposition?
-How come 5 months after their disappearance, a rolled up ball of skin from lisanne was found (from her shin bone), in a very early stage of decomposition? Impossible for the skin to have been kept out in the jungle all that time, and still look like that. The forensic pathologist stated that either it was fresh or someone had stored it cool and dry for a period of time. How does that match with an accident scenario?
-How come their backpack was found dry and clean, 8 weeks into the disappearance when the jungle was wet and muddy? If they left it there themselves, why didn't they ask the help of the villagers living there?
-What happened to the completely missing photo 509, which couldn't have been so thoroughly erased if the girls just pressed the 'delete' button. They didn't delete any photos during their holiday so why was this one deleted if they just got lost at that point and had other things on their mind than selfies?
These are core questions and the accident believers always struggle to come up with a believable logic explanation for all the forensic facts, not just the ones they nitpick here and there.
it makes zero sense for an attacker to spend 4 hours taking night photos. To prove what? That the girls were lost? 1 or 2 photos during the day would do just the same. If I had killed those girls why would I hike my ass to a remote location and spend all night taking photos to convince the worlds that two girls assumed lost were lost? IT MAKES NO SENSE!!!
At best I would take a few d