The missing photo 509, the nighttime photos and the bones

The missing Dutch girls in Panama

The missing photo #509 

Some of the last photos on the camera that were made during the afternoon of April 1st 2014 are a bit strange, I feel. Kris is looking back at the camera, standing on a stone in a small stream. She isn't posing or smiling now. Is her face already looking worried? Or just serious? At this spot, the girls were still close to the summit and on the one trail that also could lead them back to Boquete. The picture is preceded by two stranger photos, one taken shortly before the summit and the other one after the summit and close to the stream; in one she is standing with her legs crossed in a sea of green, before a dark spot and in another she bends backward with what seems to be one arm crossed behind her back. Are her hands tied there or does she just goof around? It is in fact the latter, with her hand shielding her eye, but it is a peculiar pose, now that we know what happened soon after this photo was taken. Her facial mimicking seems at times relaxed, at other times strained in these last photos. These are the last photos for a long time, because for a whole week afterwards no more photos were seemingly made with the digital camera. Until April 8th, when around 100 strange nighttime photos were shot between 01:29 AM and 04:10 AM, showing mostly darkness and vague natural surroundings. They are mysterious and a bit ominous. Some people compare them to the Blair Witch Project, in terms of their spookiness. There are many missing person cases, but it is not often that we have such photos available.. More on those night photos in the next sub-chapter. But now it gets more eerie; there is one missing file, a photo (or a video), originally sitting just between the daytime photos and the mysterious and ominous nighttime photos made a week later. The camera automatically numbers the photos taken, and #509 is missing. Technically it could also be a video file, but we'll assume for now that it was a photo, as no videos were made with this digital camera after March 28th. Dutch specialist teams have tried everything to get that one deleted photo back, which normally is not a big problem when an image is manually deleted. Hackers and IT specialists have special software that can retrieve such photos, because pressing 'delete' does not usually mean the whole file is actually erased. Yet despite a professional team within the national prosecution working on it, they could not find the missing photo on the camera. The forensic specialists wére able to restore 45 other (much older) deleted photos on the SD card of the girls' camera however. But not file 509. It was gone without a trace. In this TV program, in which the Dutch investigators from the Public Prosecution tell about their findings, the following is literally said by them about the missing file #509, which can be seen as potentially the bridge and missing link between the normal day photos and the ominous and strange night photos. Photo 509 could give us a clue [as to what happened], but exactly that photo is missing in the sequence. That is exactly the photo in between the photos taken at the Pianista summit, and the photos that were taken in the dark. Yes.. and it is a real shame and really unfortunate that we have not been able to retrieve anything from this photo. We do not know when this photo was taken; whether on April 1st or at another moment in time [before April 8th]. And why it was deleted. We do not know that either.

This is what the NFI literally wrote about the missing file #509. Thanks to Hardinghaus & Nenner for publishing this. "This last known daytime photo is perhaps followed by the biggest point of contention in the entire case: the deleted photo 509. The NFI expert agrees: "I noticed that one file was missing from the above series of photos: IMG_0509.JPG. I saw that this was a conspicuous fact because the previous photo IMG_0508.JPG (...) was dated April 1, 2014, at 1:54 p.m. and the following photo IMG_0510.JPG had the date April 8, 2014, and time 1:29 a.m. I also noticed that IMG_0510.JPG was followed by a series of 100 photo files with dark, nocturnal images that were difficult to locate. I was asked by the investigation team to further look into this to see if there were any traces of the missing file on the disk." Using the Encase program, I searched the evidence files on the disk extensively for traces of the missing file. I assumed that the file had probably been deleted manually at an unknown time after April 1, 2014, at 1:54 p.m. However, I could not find any trace of this missing file in the FAT32 file system of the data carrier. I then used the data recovery program Photorec, version 6.14, from CGSecurity to search the free storage space (unallocated clusters) of the data carrier for remnants of photo files that could still be recovered from this storage space. This program usually achieves very good results. [...] The results of the Photorec program provided no trace of the missing image IMG_0509.JPG.[97]" The forensic scientist performs a series of further analyses and recognizes that the file sectors of 508 fit seamlessly with the following photo 510. If 509 had been taken and then manually deleted, this would normally have been noticed by a gap in the file system. None of the photos previously deleted on the camera, which could be recovered using forensic software, caused such an error in the file system. Ultimately, the expert is at the end of his forensic: and draws a dry conclusion: "It was not possible for me to determine the exact time the file was deleted nor the circumstances of the deletion.[98]" - The fact that the NFI expert admits that his findings indicate the 509 file was deleted is already very important. Determining when exactly it was deleted was also important, as it would indicate that either 3rd party deleted this photo or Panama authorities did so. But alas, we do not know this.

See the news program where Dutch police reveal the content
of the found backpack below, I made English subtitles to go with it. 

MISSING #509
This type of camera (Canon powershot) is used by many and they are not known for skipping a number by accident themselves when shooting photos. In fact, Canon specialists say that it is as good as impossible for this digital camera to skip a number by accident. They rule out a camera malfunction. This theory can most likely be dismissed right away. Investigators found 470 photos on the memory card of the Canon camera (of which 135 (including missing file #509) were taken on April 1st or after April 1st) and 7 videos (of which the last one was taken on March 28th). But they also retrieved 64 photos and 4 videos which were created and deleted before March 28th of 2014 (and before their Panama holiday). In other words: even photos and videos which had been manually deleted by the girls, could be (partially) brought back. And Lisanne had up until that point not removed any photos of their Panama holiday. Why would she have done something like that in an emergency with #509? The camera had a 16 GB memory card also with plenty of memory space still. So all previous photos could be viewed or retrieved... With exception of file 509. As for Kris and Lisanne purposely deleting #509 (for some unknown reason): The producers of the TV series Lost in the Wild recreated this with the same camera and showed that photo 509 could not have been deleted before snapping the next photo (so #510, eight hole days after the last daytime photo). Because if that had been the case, this next photo would not have been numbered #510, as happened, but #509, which number had become free again.

According to specialists, the most obvious thing that happened is that someone connected the camera to a computer and erased the photo that way; if that happens, it is irretrievable. In the case of 'our' missing file 509, there was not a trace of it to be found anymore on the memory card and what's more; Dutch forensic specialists of the NFI already determined early on in the investigation that the file sectors of photo 510 matched photo 508 seamlessly. There was no gap between the two photos, such as you would normally see if #509 had been manually removed from the camera/card. Seamlessly means zero (micro)space, so with a difference of zero between the successive OCLs. The Dutch forensic institute concluded that this can only be achieved with the use of a computer; when the entire file with all its sectors is removed with the help of a computer. - Other people have suggested over time that perhaps the girls themselves manually deleted this specific photo, and the subsequent nearly hundred photos they shot somehow have overwritten the deleted file permanently. But the specialists I heard and read from - including the Dutch forensic and technical team investigating this case - seem not to support this. Investigators also confirmed that the camera had a memory card that still had plenty of space. A TV maker found that a new photo takes the old photo's numbering (#509) when this 'photo X' gets deleted right after it was taken. And if that were the case here, investigators would not have found an empty file number 509 on the memory card. Whereas here, aside from the photo file's name, nothing else was retrieved of file 509. Besides, there would also have been parts of the manually removed original photo 509 been retrievable then and photos 508 and 510 wouldn't have seamlessly matched in that case. Ultimately, there is different and even conflicting information to be found online about what exactly happens with this specific camera when you delete a photo (like #509) before or after taking subsequent photos. I read that it may even be possible that different Canon Powershot SX270HS cameras could function differently in this respect, depending on production variables, as this camera's software can act and look different depending on the year and country of purchase. I do not know if that is true, but perhaps it can explain the different (and at times contradicting) test results people claim to have gotten when testing this photo deleting thing. But there is also some consensus: even when a manually deleted photo is overwritten by new photos, there can normally be at least a fraction of the deleted photo retrieved. It may be as little as 50% or 20% even, because when you delete something on a memory card, you only erase the part of the index which states on which sector that particular photo is stored. Only after formatting the memory card in depth, all sectors are erased. To find absolutely no remains of it on the camera/photo card is something else entirely.

So the main theory from specialized investigators is that someone else deliberately or accidentally deleted it for some reason, and with the help of a computer. But... the girls did not have access to a computer in this tropical highland forest. More details about this will follow, further down this blog post. Some people suggest that the girls ran into the wrong crowd, and may have taken a photo of someone who did not want to be identified. Or perhaps the missing photo showed a location and as such the evidence that Kris and Lisanne had decided to return to the start of the trail after all (and that they therefore didn't walk further into the 'jungle' and did not 'get lost'). It is of course also possible that the Panamanian authorities took photo #509 off the camera themselves when they first investigated it, either by accident or because something incriminating was on it. Something they wanted to hide from the world. And that they never updated the Dutch investigators of this fact. Others suggest that Kris and Lisanne themselves may just have removed an unsuccessful selfie (after April 8th) and somehow it ended up completely erased. But if so, why would they? Out of all the holiday photos they made in the weeks prior, investigators found that not a single photo had been deleted by the girls. Aside from the fact that manual deleting would not have erased the file permanently; when in a state of panic or at least restlessness, would they really have bothered to delete a photo simply because they didn't like the way they looked in it or because it wasn't sharp, to name  some  possible  motives? Or for any other reason?

People have suggested online that one of the girls may have deleted this one photo to make more space for the 90-something dark nighttime flash photos. But the memory card had plenty of memory space and besides, why then only delete that one photo #509, sitting in between so many normal daytime hike photos? To create more space for those mostly black and repetitive night photos which followed? That theory makes little sense. Also, keep in mind that in all the photos that were retrieved from the digital camera's memory card, the girls only used the standard photo settings. They never even zoomed in for their photos, or changed the default settings. So considering that all they did was aim the camera and press the photo button, is it really that logical that now suddenly they would start deleting one single photo, while out in the wild, pressing different buttons for it? How big are the chances of them going to and selecting a particular file, then deleting it with the trash bin using a different click wheel, while already preoccupied with getting back to Boquete? Close to (or after) the time they started to call emergency services? In other words; when they had more pressing issues on their mind than how they looked in a selfie? -  Either way; it bugs investigators, because at this point in time the girls had perhaps already started their attempts of calling emergency services. So the position of this missing photo in between the normal daytime photos of April 1st on the one hand, and the mysterious night photos of April 8th on the other hand, means that #509 could be vital to understanding what happened that late afternoon of April 1st. 

As I wrote: they didn't remove any of their other holiday photos either. None of the ones taken in Bocas del Toro for two weeks, while one can argue that in some of those photos from the previous weeks one of the girls may have considered her photo more or less charming. Matt revealed that one of the never published Mirador smartphone photos (#495) shows Kris with her eyes closed and with one hand brushing her hair. He reasoned that this would be one of the 'failed' photos you would normally want to remove, IF you were in the habit of removing photos at all. "If the photograph was deleted in the camera, that image would most likely still be on the memory card," wrote Keith Rosenthal also, a U.S. court certified forensic photographer. Would the women have deleted this crucial picture themselves while out on the trail? "Probably not", wrote Rosenthal to The daily Beast by email. "I do believe deleting an image is inconsistent with the general way the camera was used during the vacation-type photographs," added Rosenthal, who reviewed all the images found on the camera. "There were a number of poorly made photographs that were not deleted so it seems unusual that a photograph would be deleted because they didn’t like the picture." It is mysterious. This missing photo could possibly be a missing link and give more insights into what happened to Kris and Lisanne. But we will probably never know what photo #509 looked like. Someone named Stokkmann made an impressive write-up of the statistical and scientific chances of photo 509 having disappeared due to a camera glitch. Here you can read how he estimates the chance of this happening below 1%.  

**Update: The Travel Channel made a great episode of Lost in the Wild on the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne, and presenters JJ and Kinga showed in a simple manner that if Kris and Lisanne had removed photo 509 manually, at any time before the first nighttime photo was made, we would have never even known that it had been deleted because the next photo (aka; the first nighttime photo) would have automatically received photo number 509. You can check it out for yourself here. So the fact that an empty file 509 exists, tells us that it wasn't simply overwritten.. Update April 2021: Matt revealed new case file information about image 509, you can read about it here or in my summary in blog post 4 here.

The nighttime photos

are still unexplained. And this is when things get really eerie. I have been haunted for some time by these photos and their possible implications. They were found on the digital camera of Kris and Lisanne. They were taken on April 8th, so at least a week after the girls got lost and a week after their last known photo was taken (in fact: there are seven days, twelve hours, and 25 minutes between the last day photo 508 and the first night photo 510). It is not possible to explain why no photos were taken over this period, apart from the deleted photo.. The night photo series consists of a total of 100 photos, taken between 01:29 and 04:10 AM. As their name already suggests, they were all taken in the dead of night and were saved on the SD card with the numbers 510 to 609. So most of the 100 nighttime pictures were taken within less than a three hour timespan. Meaning on average one picture was taken every two minutes, for the duration of 161 minutes. Although in reality, there were often multiple photos taken in clusters within a two minute timespan. For years we have not seen all of these nearly hundred night photos. The families have only released a few of them. They and the investigators said that the remaining night photos show mostly nothing, or 'nothing but darkness'. Newspaper La Estrella for instance, who had access to the photo card, wrote: "Just 3 of the 90* [100] pictures taken on 8th April and retrieved from the memory card by the Dutch Forensic Medicine Institute show clear images. In the other photos, nothing can be clearly identified." But by now we know that this is not entirely correct. But then the majority of the night photos were leaked in November of 2019 by an anonymous source and published by Juan. The photos show flash-lit jungle plantations and rocks. There are a couple of photos which show very clear subjects, and there are a lot of photos which show the same natural surroundings and environment with the same characteristic rocks and trees again and again, from a slightly changing perspective. Some suggest even  the  darkness of  a  ravine, although  that  may be  nothing more  than  a  suggestion. You can view most of them chronologically here. Notice how the majority of these night photos have been edited by case officials, particularly in terms of brightening, rotating and contrast alterations. Unfortunately this was done to the photo originals by prosecutor Pittí's team, and there are no copies of the unedited photo originals. (More about this down this post of mine). 

The first photo, #542, of this series that we initially knew of because it was shared with the public, shows a nightly landscape with rocks and bushes. This photo has number 542. It was taken at 01:38 AM. The person who took this photo seems to look down from the top of a rock into bushes and darkness.. Investigators used different brightness settings on it and enhanced this photo, and some people thought for quite some time that it shows the contours of a body, down below. Jeremy Kryt for instance wrote: "The images made looking straight down could show a body lying prone at the bottom of the river canyon—and the leaked case files we received show that previous examiners had also flagged that image as a piece of key evidence in the case. But the image really is too dark to be definitive." And a wilderness survival expert called Carl Weil told Jeremy Kryt that he believes a possibly fatal injury to Kris might be the reason the strange night-pictures were made in the first place—perhaps 'because the heavy rain visible in the photos was threatening to sweep her friend’s body away downstream'. Weil: “The photos look to be made to mark the place where she left her friend, in case [Lisanne] had to find her way back there again, or in case someone else found the camera.” - But since all the night photos have been leaked recently, it has become clear to me that this supposed body contour of Kris is in fact just the reflection of the flash on a plant leaf:

*A second photo, #550, shows red plastic attached to small sticks placed on a rock and with what looks to be two chewing gum or candy wrappers next to them, but which later turned out to be pieces of printed paper. This photo has number 550 and was taken at 01:39 AM. Some people suggested they may have waved with these red plastic thingies to sign a helicopter flying over. Although this certainly wouldn't have taken place in the dark of night of April 8th, as it is a verified fact by now that during the search period, helicopters did not fly in that mountainous and cloudy terrain at night. I have no idea what the function of the scraps of paper and the red plastic could have been. They seem too small to be seen from the sky by helicopter people, but perhaps they were intended to be some sign of life from Kris and Lisanne; some sort of marker of where they were. However, local weather reports indicated that it was raining a bit that night so I don't see how these things could have been stayed in place for a long time.. Some people on forums think this twig/plastic thing looks like a device to catch water with, or that could have functioned as a grave marking. Others believe that this photo was taken by a 3rd party. And Ad wrote to me that "there was a thread about crimes with eerie/gruesome photos and this case was mentioned. Someone described the twig with parts of the bag as kind of a squatter for bugs, mosquitos or flies. I asked where he got that from and he answered that someone with Latin American roots pointed that out back when these photos were released (in another thread). That’s how indigenous people there made them sometimes. Imo it’s unlikely that Lisanne (or Kris) knew about that. A hint [perhaps] that another person was present at the place where the night time photos were taken."

*The third, #580, and most alarming sight, is a picture of the back of Kris’ head. This 3rd published photo has number 580 and was taken at 01:49 AM (despite the time on the Polaroid saying differently). This polaroid photo is a screenshot from a TV episode. It shows you how the Dutch audiences first got to see this photo. It was in fact the media who released it, not the family or the investigators... Dutch TV program "Een Vandaag" showed it in December of 2014, supposedly without the families' agreement (but they received it from Dutch investigators, so these photos are legit). So it was released a long time after the other handful of nighttime photos were made public. Only parts of a screenshot of this photo were released, showing red hair. Another photo was strategically placed over the right top of it, covering Kris' temple, which according to journalist Jeremy Kryt is showing blood (something which he confirms again in an interview with this Dutch newspaper).. Jeremy Kryt has written that he had anonymously received the full dossier of the case. But unfortunately he never printed the evidence of this head wound with blood. Now that many of the original night photos have been leaked by an anonymous source, it looks like this photo #580 does not show blood after all. You can see this for yourself a bit further down this section, or here. There is no clear blood or wound visible. Although I do not know what is exactly visible under the hair and if there is perhaps blood visible faintly there. But I'm inclined to say that no, there is no head wound visible. When you compare this original back of the head/hair photo with the polaroid one from Een Vandaag, they match and overlap in detail. In the full hair photo we can also see that Kris' hair looks fairly clean; no fresh blood is seeping anywhere and no clotted blood can be seen in her hair. There is also no blood visible in any of the other photos; not on the rocks or the plants that were pictured. Kris' hair also looks dry. Many night photos show what looks to be water drops falling down from the dark sky, but Kris must have been sheltered somewhere because it doesn't look wet. One problem we have is that this photo looks to have been scaled down, cropped and manipulated. It is unclear by whom exactly and - if true - what was cut out of the photo during resizing.

*The 4th photo, #594, was first shown by Lisanne's brother Martijn as a background image in a talk show, when he discussed the case on Dutch TV. This fourth photo shows the edge of what seems to be a rock or plateau, perhaps a cliff, and rain drops reflecting in the flash. But it may also be reflecting dust particles in the air, or another form of backscatter. After all, the camera lens seems clear of any water drops and the rocks don't look wet either. For comparison, see the photos which ImperfectPlan recreated on location of an actually wet rock, and you will notice the way in which the flash and light show the rock as very clearly wet. This is not the case in the night photos on Kris and Lisanne's camera. You don't see that same reflective wetness on the rocks, nor on the boulder and neither on the red plastic. Not to speak of Kris' hair, which also does not look wet whatsoever. Which is a bit odd, considering these photos consistently seem to show water/rain drops in the sky, which do light up in the flash.

*The 5th photo, #576. finally was the 5th night photo published. It surfaced years later, in 2016. It is a photo where the flash lights up pieces of paper scattered around, a mirror of sorts and a strap. They are all placed on a rock. It was Jeremy Kryt from the Daily Beast who first printed this photo in one of his online articles about this case. Kryt wrote that 'toilet paper' was used to form some sort of SOS sign. It was one of the main selling features of Kryts highly acclaimed publications about this disappearance. See all the photos taken by Kris and Lisanne in chronological order by the way in this blog post of mine or in this youtube video.

A few pressing questions can be posed about these freakish night shots:

*Who took these photos? 

*Why were they made and where? 

*Why were so many photos dark and of the same location?

*And what did the girls do out there, 8 days after having disappeared, if it were actually them who took those photos?

No fully satisfactory explanation has ever been given for these pictures, although there are many suggestions made. For instance, that Lisanne was trying to capture proof of Kris' body and its location in the middle of the night (debunked):

-The camera had an automatic shutter so we know there was no lens cap to get in the way or able to explain the dark shots.

-It was raining that night which may have impacted the clarity and quality of the photos. The weather forecast predicted rain and there appear to be water drops in the background of these photos, but for some reason the rock itself doesn't look wet, and the paper in separate photos neither. Perhaps they were in a cave? (Although speaking against the cave theory is that there is sediment/soil on the rock. The visible vegetation is therefore probably not overhanging, but standing upright). Or perhaps it was not rain in the air, but water mist from a nearby waterfall, or even dust particles.

-The only way the camera would flash, is by making a photo. But if you press the ON switch of the camera, the LCD screen is lit.. so they could use it in theory to navigate a bit in the dark, without using the flash.. Court certified photo analyst Eric Johnson also confirmed that if you try to focus this Canon camera in the dark, a little green light comes on. If you press the shutter just short enough, the flash light will come on before a picture is actually taken. 

-Power-Pixie purchased the exact same camera type and confirms that in a dark(er) surrounding, the auto focus green light will stay on as long as you have your finger depressed half way on the photo taking button. So that way you can use it as a torch, in theory, as the green light shines rather bright in the dark. Power-Pixie could see up to 30 feet in the dark with it. Perhaps that explains the flurry of mostly random looking night photos? They were not the goal, but the byproduct of using the green light to see around them? When you scroll to an archive photo, the screen will also stay lit for some time, after which you need to press the picture button again to reactivate the screen. (Juan said that he tested this with the Canon SX270 HS digital camera that he possesses, the exact same model that the girls had, and it does work like that). Perhaps that can explain the ongoing picture-taking during those three nightly hours; perhaps a lot of those photos were taken unwantedly by pressing the button too hard; to prevent the LCD screen from turning black again, accidentally. That is also something I can see easily happening when under stress and a high level of anxiety.

-But why all in the same location? But then the question arises why all these photos have all been taken in the same location. Even picturing the same v-shaped tree over and over again. These photos were not taken while on the go. And why would they only do this on night 8, and not during the entire week before? 

-Some people have speculated the girls used the camera flash to see better, but others familiar with walking trails at night debunk that and say that the flash causes momentary blindness and prevents one’s eyes from becoming accustomed to the dark. So if anything, using a camera flash will make you see less, not more. But we also have to take into account that the photographer could simply have looked at the camera screen, with the flash enabling to see more of the direct surroundings and not so much causing 'momentary blindness'. 

-It is also possible that someone flashed the camera to attract attention. Attention from search operations. But helicopters for a fact did not fly in the depth of night (too dangerous in mountainous forest terrain in the dark and too costly also) and overall they have flown out only a handful of times during the daytime. There is also no evidence whatsoever that search teams were active in the middle of the night. And the search operations were reported on in detail, so if they were out there after midnight, the media, politicians and the ambitious case prosecutor would have reported on this. The only reference to such nightly searches comes from Dutch correspondent Marc Bessems, who published on April 9th 2014 that he had spoken to one of the police commandos involved, "who have been searching deep into the area for days "They haven't found anything yet, and they have really done their best. For example, jungle specialists stay in the area at night who shout loudly and try to find the women with light signals." But Hardinghaus and Nenner possess copies of all the case files and wrote: "Rumors on internet forums repeatedly claim that rescue helicopters were on the way that night. We have not found any information about this in the available search reports. Nor did we find any information about search teams who spent the night in the forest and searched for Kris and Lisanne using light and sound signals." With only one foreign reporter mentioning night searches, but absolutely zero evidence of this in any of the files and search reports, both the suggestion of helicopters flying at night as well as search teams active in the dark of night can for now be entirely considered unverified. There is no evidence for this at all. Maybe the girls may also have attempted to draw the attention of local people living in nearby farms or houses with the flash though. But the light of the flash did not reach far in the dark night, as we can see in the night photos, so why continue with it for nearly three hours? And why wouldn't they have screamed? Voice reaches much further in the dead of night. It would certainly have alarmed local dogs for instance. 

-Did the girls hear strange sounds in the vicinity and used the flash to see in the dark? If there is an animal out there, you can see its eyes 'glowing' in the beam of your flashlight. But if they truly used the camera to scare off animals, then it would be a bit strange that they kept doing that for so long; for nearly three consecutive hours. And then you'd also expect that some animal would be visible in at least one of their pictures. Which it was not.
 

-Or perhaps they were just trying to get away from something at night. The new published night shots seem to contradict this however; the photos were all taken at the same location and do not show them being on the run. Besides; why would they be on the run in the dark of night? In dangerous slippery terrain, possibly even in the rain? That would have been very dangerous, when you think about the possibility of injuring yourself. And if they were chased by someone that night, then why would they want to attract attention to themselves and their location in the dark jungle by flashing their camera for so many hours? It would have led attackers straight to them.

-Another possibility may be that the girls were hallucinating. Going against this is the sharp and precise manner in which that camera was used. Hardly any photos were blurry or had strange compositions.

-We know for a fact that the flash was used in these photos, because some of them were shared by media channels TVN-2 and Nexpanama, and on these photos' EXIF data, there are fields found (in MakerNotes) stating: FlashBits: E-TTL, Built-in. FlashGuideNumber: 5.96875. Telling you for a fact that the flash was used.

-The head shot of Kris may have perhaps been a selfie of her, trying to see an injury at the back of her head (a theoretical injury which we also have no further evidence of). But if that were the case, why weren't more photos made of Kris - or of Lisanne for that matter? Hundred night photos, and only one of Kris. Or perhaps the back of her head was photographed simply by accident. But that would be peculiar as well. Why take so many similar photos of the sky, trees and rocks around you, but as good as none of yourselves?

-The camera itself measured - and recorded - an average temperature of 24 degrees while these night photos were taken. Which coincides with the average recorded temperature that night. But after almost three hours of regular use of the camera, its temperature would be expected to rise over time.  -  Nothing makes real sense here and we do not have the full picture. Did the girls even take those photos themselves, I sometimes wonder? We have no proof that they did: no selfies were made.... We see nothing that identifies the person who made the photos: not a foot, a leg or an arm of the photographer has ever been captured on photo. *Imperfect Plan published on September 26th 2022 a more detailed list of exact camera temperatures at the time when the night pictures were taken: the EXIF Temperature (meta)data. When photo #510 was taken, the inside of the camera measured a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius and afterwards it steadily rose to 33 degrees Celsius by the time photo #609 was taken.

Update
In April of 2021, lost and stranded hiker  Rene Compean went missing in the Mount Waterman area in the US state of California and his mobile phone was running out of battery. He did take a photo of himself showing both his own legs to identify himself, as well as a clear shot of the surroundings he was stranded in. His phone ran out of battery but he did manage to send this photo to a friend and after a public quest, one other hiker recognized the area and the man was subsequently rescued. It is not unusual to take a photo of at least your own arms, legs, backpack, anything really, when stranded. But Kris and Lisanne pictured not even a string of hair hanging in front of the camera lens. Not a single picture for over 11 days that showed their surroundings, other than over 90 completely generic dark photos aimed upwards to tree tops and the sky. What we do have however, is Kris' strawberry red hair being pictured; so at least she must have been there that night... Right? That is, unless the photo times and dates were meddled with of course.... I believe that both the photos found on their camera and the phone logs of Kris and Lisanne's phones, make this case stand out from many other disappearance cases. But it is a double edged sword, because you would normally assume that photographic evidence would make everything more clear. In this case however, they add further confusion to the mix. Like: if the girls had fallen off a cliff or down a slope, then why is that not showing up in any of the roughly 100 night photos? No, 'our' photos show the opposite of the above photo from Rene Compean: exactly nothing that either identifies where they are taken, nor who took them, nor why. Why didn't the camera reveal at least one daylight photo that identified where they were, like Rene did? Or in what state they were? It is baffling. And the fact that the location on these night photos has never been identified since 2014, despite all the high tech tools available to do so, tells you just how useless they are at identifying anything. The question is why that is so.

Ok I will drone on some more about this topic, but you can easily skip that and move to the next subtopic now. 

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Regarding the SOS photo being an odd duck

Kryt received it from someone else and the photo has been edited to some degree in photoshop, perhaps to make the image look sharper and with more contrast, as well as reshaping the composition. Strange, who did this? In the gif image on the right I show you both versions of photo #576 and they do seem to be the same photo but with one being altered in photoshop. Photo #576 also surfaced much later in the media than the other (first released) three night photos. Kryt apparently received it from someone in Boquete. Which in itself is already interesting.. It was raining that night according to some online weather programs, yet the paper looks mostly dry (same for Kris' hair).. Wouldn't the paper have been washed away in no time if out in the open? Laurie wrote me the following about this: "I personally think that someone else took those night time pictures. How did they travel with toilet paper without it getting dirty or wet.. and then they don't think to write SOS with it until one of their last days alive? When it rained? All of that seemed staged to me.. to mislead people but I don't know." To which I replied: "Yes good point, when they brought that paper supposedly (not a trace of it found in the backpack btw!), why not use it on the earlier days when it was dry, to leave a trail?" Why use it on day 8, and not on day 1-7? If they truly were lost, why not use the toilet paper early on to make a trail? Place it in tree branches, on the ground, to show themselves and possible search groups where they went? And where did they get that [toilet] paper from? Had they brought it from their room, or perhaps from a wooden shed/cabin in the forest? Why did Pittí and her team not investigate the origin of this paper? I am not even sure to be honest that we are actually seeing bits of toilet paper in this photo, as Kryt believes. It may be scraps of regular paper; scraps of a brochure they had in their bag perhaps. And how do we know Kris or Lisanne put it there? Considering no selfies were made that night and not one photo shows limbs or anything else of the photographer that could serve as identifier, it could in theory have been anyone who put it out there or who took these odd photos. Approximately 100 photos and only one shows this sudden abundance of (toilet-like) paper on the ground? It's nowhere else in any of the photos and no remnants were found in the backpack of the girls or on their belongings. I just don't understand why Kris and Lisanne would hold onto all that material that could have shown potential search teams where they got supposedly lost, only to save it for some night photo - a week later - in the middle of nowhere seemingly and waste it on a rainy night. For a photo. Of which we can't see where it was taken. 

Regarding photo #580

Regarding the third photo of the back of the head of Kris, RocksEm pointed out to me on youtube that perhaps Kryt's statement was poorly translated in that Dutch article, literally quoting Jeremy Kryt to say: "There is also a photo where you can see that Kris has a head wound. Another photo shows how they used pieces of toilet paper to make an SOS-signal on a rock. They also put a mirror with it, to reflect the sun's rays. It were signals for search teams in the air." And in one of his articles about this disappearance case, Kryt literally writes: "If one of them was injured or deceased at that point, it was likely Kris. A single close-up appears to show a wound to the right side of her head in the temple area, and blood matting her distinctive strawberry blonde hair." But in his own series of articles in the Daily Beast, which were updated after the time of that Dutch interview, Kryt is more nuanced: "If Kris is indeed suffering from a gash in the back of her head". If the injury is so clear, why would he be using the word "if" now? RocksEm also justly pointed out that for someone with a head wound, Kris' hair looks remarkably clean and dry; no fresh blood seeping anywhere and no clotted blood in the hair or scabbing of the wound. There is also an absence of any blood on the rocks photographed in the night photos, or on the backpack that was found. No blood stains were either found on their personal items or the jeans shorts. And going by the way the hair falls, she deems it most likely that Kris is either standing or sitting upright in this photo, or even walking at the time of the shot. Would she be able to do that with an injury so bad it hindered their ability to move for days? But mostly I do not understand why Jeremy Kryt is speaking about a visible head wound and blood, also in this Dutch interview, when you can in fact see in the original photo for yourself that there is no clear blood. If there really is blood visible in the photo version which Kryt saw, then why didn't he publish the evidence in his Daily Beast articles? Someone online contacted Kryt and asked to clarify his blood comment and he just sent a thumbs up back :) When I stare too long at the photo, I start to see the outlines of a nose and open mouth underneath the hair at the bottom of the photo... Brrrrr. It may just be my mind's eye which creates that impression. So I'm not sure what is going on here. All we can be certain of is that we are looking at hair which resembles the hair of Kris in terms of its structure and colour. Most people don't seem to see a head wound. Some people think they can see letters under the hair, a watermark of sorts, 'heaven' can be seen by some. Regardless: it is a creepy and ominous image, strangely cut and cropped seemingly, without any idea where the hair is exactly coming from or falling towards, or even where the top of the head is situated within this composition. Who takes such a photo in the first place? As for Kris already being deceased perhaps in this photo; it can't have happened too long ago then, as her overall head shape/neck does not seem bloated and we see no (blow)flies or other local insects on her...

Only three night photos reportedly showed anything

And I can't stop thinking (and rehashing) how matter of fact like the families and the press stated initially that only three of those nighttime photos showed anything. They told it in Dutch talk shows, it was printed in the press.. Then Lisanne's brother showed another nighttime photo as a background photo in a talk show when he discussed the case. It wasn't even further explained (in light of the earlier '3 pics only' statements)... It was just shown as a background photo and eagle eyed forum members screens saved it right away. But there has never been a statement to explain these changing numbers. Not that they have to, by the way. The families don't owe the public anything. But due to their many TV interviews and requests for help, it is hard not to feel involved for a lot of people.. And Martijns decision to show another nighttime photo wouldn't be the last time the audience was surprised. Because Jeremy Kryt published the SOS photo as late as 2016. Not a 'black' nor an unimportant photo, I would say.. The families also never mentioned or described this 'SOS' photo, or confirmed its existence or authenticity in any way. By all accounts that photo is in fact real and part of the series of nighttime photos. And by 2016 it brought the count on five nighttime photos which actually show something. And now Juan has released mostly ALL the nighttime photos. Dozens of them, and hardly any of them show just darkness. These photos do show something, no matter how vague. Trees in darkness, more shots of rain or dust particles falling down, more shots of that cliff-like thing they already pictured. I wonder why the family always insisted that there were only three photos that showed anything? And why was this SOS photo released later by Kryt himself, and Kryt alone? Shouldn't the Dutch forensic institute and prosecution have brought forward this important picture in 2014 already? Before Juan published them all, the families had actually  been  asked to make all the night photos public and they wouldn't, for unknown reasons. Perhaps because they wanted to forget about this horrible ordeal. Maybe they just wanted to keep them private (very understandable). Or considered them useless for whatever reason. I also understand that it must be very difficult to have complete strangers being preoccupied with your deceased daughters' life and death. But after the long public campaign of Finding Kris, some of the public find it hard to let go of this case. Nevertheless we in hindsight do have the highlights here with these five photos that were eventually released by the family and Jeremy Kryt. Hans Kremers in my view wouldn't have disagreed with the family of Lisanne about what happened if there was anything clear cut or incriminating visible in these night photos, we can rest assured about that (or check it out for ourselves). The fact the families for a long time didn't see eye to eye about what they think has happened, tells us that according to them there is nothing clear cut on these night photos. The mysterious picture 509 aside of course.

Taken deep in the jungle

So these photos were apparently taken 'deep in the jungle, and in near-complete darkness' according to the family lawyer. Roughly between 1:30 and 4:10 AM. Some investigators believe that they are all more or less taken near the same spot, close to a ravine of sorts. I think that the now leaked night photos confirm this. Here and here I show how they mostly all depict the exact same surroundings. Perhaps a deep riverbank. Some people believe that these night photos show the photographer looking down at a ravine, but I rather believe that this area is a small fissure/crack or ravine, from which the photographer is looking up. As we see some underside ribbing of the leaves, tree branches, water cut path into the rock wall, as well as that V shaped branch that leads down to the rock in 599 and boulder in 550. Rain drops also seem to fall down on the photographer and lens. But other people see the backdrop of a waterfall or cables in the background, possibly corresponding with those of the famous monkey bridges over the Culebre river (but the lines of this supposed cable bridge can not be seen in the other night photos). Monkey bridges are dodgy and made out of a couple of wires, stretched over a river. The problem with this theory is that the monkey bridge that is most resembling the location of these night photos, lies on the main trail.. and is less than a day's worth of walking away from Boquete. Meaning that if the girls were holed up there on day 8, they couldn't have been desperately lost, as that same trail leads back to the Pianista summit. (Not to mention that this river crossing is frequently used by locals and hikers alike and was searched by Sinaproc). But if you follow it in the other direction, this road actually leads to Alto Romero - a desolate hamlet with just over 50 inhabitants - and to the jungle ranch of the local tour guide F. who they planned the meet the day after they disappeared. It seems a stretch to imagine Kris and Lisanne being 'lost' on that spot next to the river and the cable bridge. Because it is a trail that is widely used and often travelled by people. The search teams or anyone else travelling there could, should, and most definitely WOULD have found them there. So the assumption by some that they had set camp there, literally waiting for days on end to be saved, slowly dying... seems a bit of a stretch. Assuming one of them got injured, then normally the other would have had the option to follow that nearby path back to Boquete in less than a two day's walk. It is hard to believe that two smart girls would wait it out for over a week, together, because one was injured and the other refused to leave her. With the trail that would lead them back to town in sight. Mostly everyone knows that in such a situation, the non-injured one has to find help. In fact, if Lisanne made these photos herself and had she used the trail to go in the other direction, going downhill towards the Indigenous hamlet of Alto Romero, the trail would’ve become progressively easier to navigate according to Jeremy Kryt, who personally went to Boquete to investigate and see the trail with his own eyes and who walked the exact same route. And the first occupied habitation Lisanne would have crossed then is none other than a ramshackle, two-story “ranch house” that locals say is owned by a tour guide F., the same one who was supposedly one of the last to see them and the one to help find many of their remains. And the same place where their backpack was found, many weeks later. In fact: "The last known picture of the girls is well before the paddock and the first river crossing. All findings of their belongings and (few) bones were done between the second river crossing and the location of the backpack, much further up north into the wilderness. If Kris and Lisanne followed the water and managed to do so for various days, they must have crossed the track twice. Why would they start to follow a rocky river instead of the main trail? And why, depending on the point where they got off tracks, would they even do that twice? It does not make sense to follow a river when you are exhausted and ignore a footbridge, and every clear sign of civilization."

The night photo location remains unknown

So I like to re-emphasize that so far, the nighttime photo location has never officially or publicly and without a doubt been identified, nor linked to this 2nd monkey bridge river passing. No photo evidence, undeniably matching the two sites. All those rocks look alike there and not even local guides explicitly identified one location or another while looking at the nighttime photos. Although a couple did point towards the river behind the Pianista Trail. Jeremy Kryt wrote in an early 2016 Daily Beast article that he believed to have identified the night photo location: "After crossing several tributaries that form the headwaters of the Serpent River—and coming more than five grueling, trail-undulating hours from where images #507 and #508 were shot—we stagger down a steep embankment to a spot I recognize right away. This is the bridgehead over the Rio Culebre, featuring a three-cable span, or “monkey” bridge, that stretches across the river about 25 feet above the rapids. This is also the last identifiable site—shot at night as part of a series of more than 90 consecutive images—depicted on the women’s camera." But over time Kryt changed his mind about everything in this case, including the night photo location. It were four local guides including Plinio at the time who convinced him after seeing the night photos that they were taken around the 2nd cable bridge. Now Jeremy Kryt no longer believes their story. Kryt went back to the money bridges in 2022 and interviewed "court certified photo analyst Eric Johnson. He took a look at photo #550 and says that he does not believe there is a cable bridge visible in the photo." "What happens at night in particular, there is something called noise. And that introduces artefacts in an image. Especially if you try to process an image or lighten it up, using a photo editing program So you can see more detail in dark areas. I would not speculate that there is anything in that darker area. The flash on that particular camera is only good for 11 feet maximum. And that's under good conditions. I don't see a monkey bridge there". When asked if he sees what could have been mistaken for a monkey bridge, Johnson answers: "Honestly, I do not. And I sat and stared at this picture for quite a while. Sometimes it's kind of like people looking at the clouds, trying to see what you hope to see". And with the flash on this particular Canon camera only being good for about 11 feet (3,3 meters), the night photos can also not depict the Culebre river itself, which is about 60 feet across (18 meter). There is no way either that the photographer could have shown the Culebra river, while standing on the opposite riverbank. Were Kris and Lisanne even near a monkey bridge at all? In the middle of the night of the 8th day of their disappearance?

But until this day, Kryt does believe that the night photos show that they have been taken on the other side of the Mirador. The flora seen in the night photos, the specific types of ferns and such, point strongly to the night photo location being on the other side of the Mirador. Not on the Boquete side of the mountain. “You can see from the round-bodied ferns, from the dominant algae on the rocks, and from the heavy pattern of leaf fall—that these pictures were made on the other side of the Continental Divide,” says environmental engineer Patricio Ortiz also, who works as a conservation consultant in Boquete. “That kind of vegetation just isn’t found anywhere on the Boquete side”. Another, more specific hint as to the women’s whereabouts comes in the form of well-worn areas in the moss-cover of the rocks in some of the close-ups. Photography expert Rosenthal said the worn spots indicate the area “sees a fairly high volume of foot traffic”—and was therefore "on or close to the trail." Reis also sees evidence of what appears to be a “man-made structure,” visible in the background of at least one of the photos. “You don’t see straight lines like that in nature,” said George Reis, an independent forensic imaging analyst, of the horizontal strands he spies in a light-enhanced version of the picture. According to survivalist Weil, the shape, angle, and placement of the converging lines look suspiciously like the notorious “monkey bridges” used by the indigenous Ngobe to ford local rivers. Jeremy Kryt added: "Hauntingly, the outline of the cable bridge appears center-frame in one of the most carefully composed of the recovered photos. In the foreground of the same image is the makeshift trail marker—with one branch pointing across the cables, and the other angled straight downstream." Kryt: "When I show some of the leaked night photos to the guides around Boquete, they each independently identify the same spot on the map. That site is about three miles from Boquete, on the western bank of a powerful tributary that helps form the headwaters of the Serpent River. From the Continental Divide, where the last tourist photos were made, the spot is straight downhill all the way." Like one commentator on Websleuths wrote: "Don't underestimate the fact that the 2nd and 3rd river crossings are about 100m from permanently inhabited huts/fincas. At least one of these huts is visible from the camino near the 2nd bridge (50m-100m). And near the 2nd bridge there is a small banana plantation". So the chances of them staying unnoticed there, or not approaching these inhabited houses/huts, seems quite slim.

Since 2014 this disappearance case has been in the media. Countless people have passed these monkey bridges and rivers, knowing about the mystery of Kris and Lisanne. Looking for the location of the night photos. And nobody ever published the photo evidence of the night photo location. There should be identifying details (the rock pattern, the V-shaped tree if nobody took it down in the meantime, the specific shapes of the rocks). Nobody has ever discovered this night photo location though and I don't think it therefore can be found along the main trails behind the Mirador... By the way, photo #550 does not show cable bridges in the background: this is debunked by now, after later extensive research. Jeremy Kryt has confirmed this also in a later podcast. Until this day the spot of the night photo remains unknown to the public. Summarizing, there were basically 3 pieces of nonsense sold in the early Daily Beast articles:

1. that there was blood visible on Kris' head in photo #580

2. that the body of Kris was visible in the background of photo #542

3. that there were monkey bridges visible in the background of photo #550]

Were they trying to signal the search troops?

About the search troops. Could the night photos have been taken by Kris and Lisanne to signal help troops? How realistic is this scenario? The Panamanian authorities had already spent over 88.000 dollars on those daytime helicopter searches during the first five days. They did not risk their pilots and material in a nighttime mountain search, as far as I read everywhere. And regarding the search teams by foot; I haven't found factual information about them doing nighttime forest/jungle searches either, with the exception of this French investigation video, in which the presenter states that in the night of 7 to 8th of April a search team on foot did do a nighttime search, using flares for light and sound. However, he based himself as far as I know on this schedule I posted myself on this blog. It is a fan-made schedule in fact, taken from the FOK forum, which includes some details about these supposed night searches that are not verified unfortunately. I could find no independent source for this info and combed through all the local Panamanian newspaper articles and interviews of the time, as well as Lee Zeltzers extensive blog and comments... If by any chance SINAPROC searchers wére out during that night, then I'd love to find official verification of this... But there is none.  That is why I have since adjusted the schedule to have it match the actual verified case facts.  Same for the rumour that helicopters were flying around at night. This is 100% incorrect. Even Pittí said as much. Helicopters were used very sparingly during the searches and only during daytime and under favourable weather conditions. They were considered expensive by Pittí and were most definitely never flying after sunrise, which is too dangerous in the mountainous region anyway. Helicopter crashes have happened - on the Mirador even - due to poor sight. So the night photos were not made during an attempt to flag an overflying helicopter, and neither to flash official search troops. Also interesting is that we can see in the night photos that the light of the camera flash never pierced deep into the night's sky. In a dense jungle the light of the flash gets blocked pretty much right away by plants. Screams would have carried much further. If there truly were people close by, why have Kris and Lisanne never been saved? But perhaps they heard cattle and hoped that there would be a house nearby. Where there is a farm with cattle, there usually are also dogs, so screaming would have alarmed much sooner than faint light flashes, perhaps.. But why would inhabitants be up between 01:30 - 04:00 AM? Screaming would have have reached further into the woods than the digital camera flash, that much is certain. Or even playing a video on your digital camera with the sound on loudest would have probably reached than that short flash sequences. Although a proper jungle at night can be noisy.. The fact that flash photos were taken for nearly three long hours on end also makes me doubt this theory about wanting to attract attention. The saddest part of this theory is that in the night-photos we are able to see for ourselves, there wasn't much scattering of the light visible at all; it seems that it just disappeared straight up. The dark frames themselves show no significant reflections. How heartbreaking would it be if this is what they actually tried to achieve with those hours of flash photo taking, and it all failed... Gruesome.

What do others think of these night photos?

So, it is not sure what actually happened. What do other people think of these photos? Some people see the round light of a torch in the background, or even a person's face with a cap on.. which I don't see myself to be honest. It's also very possible that by day 8, whomever took these photos was already hallucinating, and seeing things that weren't there. Although Jeremy Kryt is not buying that scenario, and says that the photos he was given show steady photos, taken systematically as if to clearly document the location the photographer was in. So: not taken by an unsteady or shaky hand, and not taken randomly he believes, but deliberately focusing on things. Kryt also wrote down the opinion of another specialist: “The camera is not being moved more than a few meters from shot to shot,” said Reis, who also dismisses speculation that the women were attempting to use the camera’s flash as a light source. Reis is likewise skeptical about the camera’s flash having been triggered to signal potential rescuers, “the images are made under close [foliage] cover,” where searchers would have been unlikely to see them. If the flash were intended to attract a search party in the area, they “would likely have tried to move out into the open”. Some of the images are “sharp and clear” in a way that Reis says could mark them as “deliberately intended to show a specific image.” If they had been taken at random, he says, it’s “unlikely they would be so crisp.” When reviewed chronologically, by timestamp, the “night pictures” turn out to reveal a strange but definite pattern—with most of the images being carefully grouped by content." Jeremy Kryt described the location of the night photos as: "A dozen or more long-range (quasi-dark) images show a rock outcropping, tree formations, and even individually identifiable plants. Then the shooter’s position changes, and we see one or more close-up, well-lit images. Afterward, the camera moves slightly and the pattern is repeated, with the exact same unique landscape features shot again from a different angle, followed by more close-up shots". Wilderness expert Weil also finds the often-repeated imagery significant. “She might be trying to use the camera to tell us something she thinks is important,” he says. “Something that went down that night, and she wanted to record it for her loved ones or whoever else*.” Independent Criminalist Dick Steffens, who worked on behalf of the families on this case, has said that he believes the photos were made in a “deep, dark place….One explanation for the dark pictures could be that women have been locked up and using the flash on the camera tried to attract attention.”“When you put all the facts in perspective, it is certain this case is not a disappearance.”

Documenting their surroundings

Last thing on this topic: with these photos shot at nighttime, it also makes little sense that they were supposedly made to simply document their location. If that was the sole incentive, then why not take those photos at dawn when light would make the pictures a lot more clear? By the time the last photo was taken, shortly after 04:00 AM, it would only take little more than 2 hours before the sun came up. It would have been much easier to take photos at the break of dawn, instead of wasting 86 out of 100 photos on dark scenery. And about the notion that they could have been up in order to move at night: unless they were actively chased by something or someone, I find it hard to believe that the girls would voluntarily and without a pressing reason decide to cross a river and wonky cable bridges in the dead of night. Here you can see how difficult these monkey bridges are to pass in daylight even. Tourists who walked the same trail described them as follows with a flair for drama: "But then there were the river crossings - Mom, close your eyes. When I first saw the “bridge” - a cable no wider than a thick rope for the feet, and one for each hand - I thought surely we didn’t have to cross there. Wrong. The cables weren’t very tight, so they wobbled and swayed. Some of the connections seemed as sturdy as a Lego bridge built by a 5-year-old. But there was no other option.

We crossed three rivers on these cable death-bridges. I inched across, terrified each time. On the first death-bridge I was so scared my shaking legs made the cables wobble. F. made fun of me for hours — and didn’t mention until later that a local had recently died on a crossing."

Aside from the fact that mostly everyone passes these 'dangerous' cable bridges in one piece and without any problems, it seems an unnecessary gamble to pass them in the rain, in the dark of night.... Especially considering the sun would be up around 6:30 again. As we can see in some of these photos, it is frighteningly pitch black dark in the jungle at night when there is no moon (visible), as the trees closes off light, and there is also no light pollution from nearby cities. And on April 1st of 2014 (so the first night of their disappearance, not on the night of these night photos), there was a rare 'New Moon' situation and there was no moon visible at all, making the forest even more dark... 

Number five

And then there is the suggestion that the number 5 may have been written next to the red plastic bag wrappers on the sticks. The zoomed in photo details on the right here will show you what I mean. Is this a natural occurring stain or marking on the rock, and nothing more than that? Or did the girls, or someone else, perhaps write it down there? Some say it was written there with charcoal. If this is a purposely written 5, what could it mean? Or is it the letter S? Did someone try to write SOS? I think it looks more like a 5 than an S actually. The number 5 may (very far-fetched idea this!) refer to a local gang: La banda ‘Los ND5', or ‘Los niños de la quinta'. At the time that gang was still active in the region. Did they leave their mark here somehow? Were they involved in any of this? Or is the entire set up, including the plastic bags on the sticks, a ritual from other people? A fake trail, trying to make it look like the girls made it and got lost? I sometimes wonder if local criminals could be behind it. Word is that there were five local young men originally questioned over this disappearance case and that one of them did not accidentally drown four days into the disappearance of Kris and Lisanne, but was killed because he was involved somehow. Another was killed in a hit and run. (More about this in part 2). Perhaps this local 'gang' of five left a 5 scribbled behind, referring to their number? It's all speculation however.

But if this was not a natural stain (making the rock in theory more easy to find), then the notion that these intelligent girls could have created it themselves in a desperate bid to communicate something is a bit illogical in my view. If they really wanted to communicate something important, then all they had to do was to leave a straight forward video recording on their digital camera. They could have explained perfectly well in Dutch and English what they were trying to portray with their markers and number 5 or S in that case. And if they were trying to make an SOS sign, then why do it in the middle of the pitch dark night? On a night when it was seemingly raining? Unless they were fleeing from something or someone, why not do all this during the daytime, when it would be actually visible? Wouldn't these markings be wiped away by the rain anyway by the time the sun came up? If they wanted to catch the attention of a possible helicopter (which make quite a lot of noise when flying over), then why wouldn't they just stand in one of the many open fields there, waving the colourful garments they wore? Instead of hidden under the foliage of trees?  Or stand in the middle of the river on a rock to catch the helicopters attention? Instead of scribbling difficult to see SOS signs and miniature tiny plastic stick wrappers in between the many rocks, in the dark of night? Unless the sole purpose of these markings and objects was to photograph them right away. As 'evidence' of something. I seriously wonder if it were possibly others who later set up these things, to make it appear as if the girls had been stuck there. Out of all the muddy explanations, that one - to me - makes perhaps the most sense right now. - First photo was photoshopped by gijoe50000 here. 

Check out this close-up by the way. Kurt notified me: "I've seen the photos many times, BUT there's something I noticed when you showed the red bags tied to the twigs: just above the piece of paper, to the left, does that look like a cigarette butt?" Note here that neither Kris nor Lisanne were smokers. Neither was a package of cigarettes found in their backpack or belongings. It looks more like a natural stain than a cigarette to me, also.. Also, 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 (discovered by Dutch forum member 'Geruisloos'), as well as a paper with logo from a local car rental company, Thrifty (in David).

And then there is another strange photo

Someone sent me a photo which was published on April 5th 2014 by a(nother) local guide in Panama, guide P. So during the first searches for Kris and Lisanne. It was posted publicly on both his facebook and instagram account and stayed there for the past five years. No editing of the date is visible, so we can be assured it was really published (and taken?) on that date. He went out to help looking for the girls during those days and posted a string of other pictures, also of the Pianista summit (Mirador), picturing the same landscape scenes as Kris and Lisanne had done with their camera on April 1st. But this photo is a peculiar one.. I really wonder what it is we are looking at. It was posted in between a series of pictures showing the same Pianista route that the girls took, also of the specific quebrada they passed right after the summit, when moving on the other side of the mountain. (At a time when nobody except guide F. seemed to have suspected yet that they hiked this specific trail before disappearing). This photo shows what looks like a rock near a small waterfall, surrounded by green jungle forest, and the rock seems to be partially red and next to a river, in the region where the girls are thought to have gone missing. Some people see a red rock in it, others see a human body and a skull and a left arm in it? Of course, that can't be so, or else the guide would have reported it, or the police would have seen these public photos at the very least and gone after it. And on April 8th, so three days later, the back of Kris' head was photographed (if we can believe the time settings of their digital camera). So this photo can't depict her body/skull. But it is a strange photo: it is a bit of a Rorschach test almost; one person sees this in it and the other that. What do you see in this? A red rock? A specific sun pattern? The profile of a skull (hollow eyes, nose, left side of the mouth, chin, then a left arm visible)? Blood on rock? Natural pigmentation of the rock? I know rationally that it has to be a red stain on a rock, lit up by the sunlight. Either natural rock pigmentation, or perhaps blood. Although, after April 5th Kris' phone pin code was never entered correctly again... Making it also theoretically possible that she did die at that date and that the April 8th nighttime photo of her hair was taken after she died, or that its EXIF data was meddled with. But it is still a peculiar picture, taken during a frightening time with the girls missing in the jungle forest. Check this outline of the same photo if you also struggle to see anything other than a rock. Oh and someone sees a snake in this close-up (and some others made it into a cat.. Alas, it's just a piece of rock most likely, with the sunlight creating images on the pigmented rock). 

Comparison photo of (seemingly) the same location, both pictures 

are of another date, taken and posted by the same guide. 

The Bones 

It was time for police to go out and explore the area where the backpack was found and search there again. With the help of six Ngobe people, the local guide F. then found bone remains and two different shoes along the river Rio Culebra, shortly before June 19th, 2014. A jeans shorts was also found by a local guide called Laureano and local guide called 'Angel', aka: Angel Palacios. It was initially said to have been found on top of a rock on the opposite bank of this River of the Serpent, at least 8 walking hours away from Boquete and several kilometers away from where Froon's backpack had been discovered. But the guides themselves later claimed they found it floating in the river. It has now most recently been revealed through case file photos, that the jeans was in fact found stuck on a tree branch in/above the river. This is frustrating, having these different versions of events out there, one from the officials and one from the local tour guides who found the jeans. Because such simple changes to the details of a story can make a lot of difference when it comes to finding out what actually happened. I will write more on this jeans short specifically further down this blog post. In this difficult terrain, Dutch police estimated the distance between the jeans short and the backpack to be no less than 14 hours of walking distance. All the bones were found by indigenous people hired for the search. Except for the last finds of Lisanne's leg. This was found by an indigenous man by chance.

THEN ON TO THE BONES

Then on to the bone remnants, which were found several walking hours away again as well, further up north. Lisanne’s partial remains were found scattered and in the vicinity of those of her best friend, both upstream and downstream from Alto Romero. The backpack was also found upstream from the Mirador. On June 19th, officer of Justice Betzaida Pittí confirmed that - indeed - human remains had been found in the search for Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. One of the shoes contained human bones: a foot, still protected by its boot. The laces were still laced tightly and it also had a sock inside it, containing the foot which still had skin and tissue on it. This brown shoe with foot was also found by guide F. and local helpers "behind and almost under a tree", in the vicinity of Alto Romero and away from the river... An extraordinary achievement, although one of the local men later said that it also was the smell of decomposition that helped them locate it. Forensics stated that the breaking line of the bone of the foot was surprisingly clean and that no blood was found on it. Also no signs of cutting, hacking, gunshots or teeth or claw markings were detected, not even when looked for under the microscope. The case files describe a complete absence of any trauma or fractures to the bones caused by external influences. So again: no signs of cutting, of animal teeth or claw indications or any other environmental influences. No river rock indentations were found on the bones either therefore. According to the coroner Dr. Moreno, who did the autopsy on these bones which turned out to be from Lisanne, there were no microscopic signs of animal predation or "of taphonomic processes (the tracks left by animals and human actions)". Also "No [signs of] trauma caused by sharp objects, sharp objects, sharps and fire projectile." No evidence of bone trauma, with the additional coroner's remark that the most important bones, such as the skull, the thorax bones or pelvic girdle, were not found and "would possibly establish the cause of death of the victims." 

PASSED AWAY
On June 20th 2014, the girls' families made a public statement, telling the public that they had strong reasons to believe that the girls had passed away. Up until then, they had always sounded hopeful that their daughters would eventually be found alive. The bones that were discovered had been investigated and forensic and DNA-specialists now positively linked a total of five fragmented remains to Kris and Lisanne; the foot bones were Lisanne’s and the broken in half pelvic bone belonged to Kris. So part of a pelvis, that was broken in half. Reportedly it was discovered stuck between two rocks in the river. In this local newspaper article it is stated that the pelvic bone was found together with a wallet ('la cartera'). I never heard or read anything more about this wallet claim, however, so it may have been false. The left pelvic bone also had some decomposed skin tissue on it still, but investigators found no signs of "fracture, signs of illness or particular stress" on it. They did find some minor traces of rodents or predators on the pelvic bone. It had a marked white coloration. Indicating to the scientist that the bone had been exposed to the sun for long periods of time, or had been lying in an environment with "strongly alkaline chemical elements". Independent scientists have since spoken out about their skepticism that in the clouded forest environment near Boquete there could have been enough sun exposure on the ground to achieve this type of bone bleaching within four months time (something which did not happen to Lisanne's bones). Eventually a rib bone from Kris was also found on August 2nd of 2014; her right no. 10 rib. The rib bone was found bare, without tissue or fat remnants on it. In the autopsy report it is described as being "dry, tissue- and fat-free." Forensic scientist B. noted about this rib bone from Kris, that it is striking that not only the bone itself, but also the interior of the bone is damaged. Like the pelvic bone, this rib bone of Kris is white in colour and looks 'sunbleached'. Indicating to the scientist that the rib bone had also (like Kris' pelvic bone) been exposed to the sun for long periods of time, or had been lying in an environment with "strongly alkaline chemical elements". Important to say here is that these are documented signs of bone bleaching. An original police report leaked to The Daily Beast during this investigation explicitly refers to the crime as homicide by now, although the investigation is ongoing. The rib bone was found together with bone remnants from animals, an infant and an old woman. However, the other bone fragments were identified as belonging to approximately three other persons. To my knowledge there has never been further data provided about the identity of these other people by the authorities, although I read here and there that they were from deceased Indigenous people from the area. Apparently local natives sometimes have accidents on the treacherous terrain and the wonky monkey bridges. And not everyone declares this to police, which sounds like an accepted thing in this native area. 

ONLY A FEW BONES FOUND

Over time, at least 33 widely scattered bones were discovered along the same river bank, of which most fragments came from Lisanne's foot. They were discovered near a river stream, quite a few kilometers away from the monkey bridges where some investigators think the nighttime photos may have been taken. However, the remains were found mostly all on land. On one side of the mountain the water flows to the Pacific Ocean, on the other side of the mountain the water flows to the Caribbean Sea. This shoe with foot was found upstream. In this Dutch tv program Dutch forensic officers are interviewed and it is stated that a bone from the upper leg of Lisanne was also found. This happened on August 29th of 2014. The officers first received a positive DNA match before revealing this info on Dutch TV. Here you can view the program with English subtitles I made. This Panamanian news article confirms that Lisanne's tibia and femur bone had been found, together with a ball of skin. (You can also call it a mass of skin). That means that from Lisanne's left leg in fact the 3 main bones have ultimately been found: the foot, the femur (upper leg) bone and tibia (lower leg/ shin) bone. The bone remnants that were retrieved were found scattered around, sometimes kilometers apart from one another, but all following the course of the river. However, for some bones the police never discovered where exactly they were found by volunteers. They were asked by Pittí to do the searching for her and her team, but failed to have a representative on site to precisely document the locations, or take soil samples for instance... 

BALL OF SKIN
The mass of skin was found by indigenous man and fisher Basilio A. due to its "foul smell", according to Luis. Whether the skin tissue belongs to Lisanne, will remain one of several great controversial mysteries of this case. Because bizarrely, the complete autopsy report for Lisanne's upper and lower leg bones is not included in the court files. There is no explanation provided for this. The case files only contain the report on the discovery of the bones and skin and the photos of them. This is shocking. We do not even know if the autopsy took place at all. All we have to go on is an article from reliable journalist Adelita Coriat, who published on October 20, 2014 in La Estrella about the autopsy of Lisanne's remains which she witnessed firsthand. She was with the anonymous pathologist who claims to have carried out the autopsy in the IMELCF's biomolecular analysis laboratory in the first week of September 2014. Pittí has since tried to discredit Coriat and her article, and accused her and the pathologist of lying when they identified the mass of skin as human and coming from Lisanne's shin bone. But ever since, Betzaida Pittí has set up a media campaign to ridicule this professional finding. Pittí likes the public to believe it was cow's skin. She offered absolutely zero evidence for this: no expert statements, not even a photo. This coming from the woman who did not even order for soil samples to have been taken at the location where these remains were found... But the pathologist did rule that the rolled up ball-shaped piece of tissue (skin) belonged to Lisanne. Strangely enough, the forensic pathologist found that the skin was still in an early state of decomposition when it was discovered at the end of August, so five months after the girls went missing, with maggots still present... That is pretty sensational information. It appeared in stark contrast with Kris' bleached looking and clean bones. The forensic pathologist thinks also that the piece of skin was manipulated by someone and was stored in a dark cool place. Which makes you wonder who did so and how anyone could have found it. Betzaida Pittí did not offer the pathologist and his team the necessary details about who found it and where. The forensic pathologist also criticizes the fact that the obligatory documentation of the chain of custody that was necessary for the autopsy, was not attached to the discovery. Not provided by Pittí, I should say. 

It was this same anonymous (name known but withheld) pathologist who also found that the state of decomposition of Lisanne's dry remains was in large contrast with the condition in which Kris's bleached bones were discovered. Spurring on the dilemma of how the bones of both women could have both supposedly floated in the river for days, being deposited in the same region but decomposing at completely different rates. One set of bones without damage and dry to the core, the other heavily decomposed and bleached. An autopsy report from September 19th, 2014 states about the pelvic and rib bones from Kris that they were “without tissue or fat, with deterioration not only of the compact bone, but also of the cancellous bone." But on the skin that the pathologist in charge attributed to Lisanne's thigh, he found insect bites and larvae, which, according to him, should not have been found five months after Lisanne's presumed date of death. Everything indicated to him that the body had been kept in a damp place, in the shade, and at low temperatures. I further elaborate on Coriat's article a few paragraphs further down this blog post. 

“It is important to indicate that the N / W (north and west) is not marked, and therefore the precise location of the bone remains is unknown, making it impossible to locate them on a geographic map.” Autopsy Report – September 19, 2014

FORENSIC AUTOPSIES

No cause of death could be determined in the end. But investigators only had a couple of bones to work with, all from below the waist. Mostly all of the skeletons are still missing. It sometimes only takes one of the bones of a body to show clear impact and violence and to change the entire cause-and-effect narrative. As mentioned already: strangely enough the complete autopsy of Lisanne's left leg is not included in the case files. There is only a report about how those bones were discovered. No explanation given for the absence of Lisanne's autopsy report and to my knowledge NOBODY has seen it. It has not been leaked, like so many details have already over time. It makes you wonder why this is? It is extremely unusual, given that the autopsy report of Kris' remains is included in the case files. It is only thanks to journalist Adelita Coriat that we know that the autopsy did take place, in the first week of September 2014. And that Lisanne's bones were described by the pathologist as in a good condition and in a dry state of preservation. Not bleached coloured or badly decomposed, like Kris' bones. The pathologist found out that even the bone marrow in the femur and tibia bone from Lisanne proved to be dry and was not decomposed. The bone marrow was intact and unaltered. It had therefore not been laying in water, or been floating in a river. Of Lisanne's left foot, investigators found 28 bones eventually (seven tarsal bones, five metatarsal bones and 14 toe bones). They complained that the packaging does not indicate where the various bones are found exactly, which negatively influences her research. IMELCF expert T. matched the foot bones found in the Wildebeast shoe to Lisanne and wrote: "The human foot has areas covered with skin, it has five complete toes, the first of which has a nail, the other nails are detached and are inside the sock. The nail remnants have pink enamel, on the front of the foot there are remnants of skin, muscle and oily material on the sole and heel; the heel bones talus and calcaneus are complete and without fractures or trauma. The tarsal, metatarsal, and toe bones are dissected and exposed without evidence of bone trauma." 

FRACTURES OR NO FRACTURES

Adding to the bewilderment about some aspects of this forensic investigation, is that the Panamese came to a different conclusion than the Dutch pathologists when it came to the topic of bone fractures or not. According to Panama's IMELCF autopsy report from June 19th, these fractures were not found then. Wilfredo P. wrote explicitly about the examination of Lisanne's foot: "The tarsal, metatarsal and phalanx bones were dissected and exposed, and no bone trauma was found." However, on September 24th of 2014 the bone remnants of Lisanne Froon were flown to her parents in the Netherlands, on her birthday. And the Froon family right away passed the bones onto the NFI for a second opinion. Interestingly enough, they discover that Lisanne's foot had three metatarsal fractures. What is going on here? The foot from Lisanne showed to them that it was 'broken in three places' (multiple fractures of the metatarsals, the long bones that connect the ankle to the toes), 'consistent with a fall from great height', some investigators stated. Opportunistically, Pittí used this surprise NFI finding to back up her own Accident end verdict (despite the investigation up until then having been a homicide one). When she publicly declared the case closed, she claimed that Kris and Lisanne had died because the river system had "dragged them to death" after they fell off a monkey bridge. She referred to this NFI 'evidence' of the broken metatarsal to back up her Accident theory. How could the NFI have detected three metatarsal fractures after the IMELCF expert earlier found no fractures? 

Backing up Pittí's fall claim was another Dutch figure, forensic specialist Frank van de Goot (hired by the Panamanian Prosecutors in this case). Here he explains in a video that he believes the girls fell to their deaths. When talking about the NFI discovered foot fractures, he then added: "But not exclusively limited to a fall". He estimated that the specific bone injuries from Lisanne's foot could only with 50% certainty be linked to a fall, leaving 50% of other possible causes. Remember here that though the fractures were later detected in the NFI, they said nothing about whether they were caused by a fall, nor did they establish a time for the occurance of these fractures. Someone using the name 'Unwelcomed' also confirmed this in writing to me: "The Panamanian authorities state that the broken metatarsal bones in Lisanne's foot "prove" a fall, but this type of foot injury isn't a falling injury at all: you only get this type of injury from blunt force impact to the top of the foot. So when it got hit by a weapon for instance, or a rock fell on the top of her foot... Falling injuries are nearly exclusively resulting in damage to the tibia or heel of your foot. And if they had fallen into the water from great height, they would have also broken half the bones in their bodies from the impact. But there were no injuries to the rib bone or the leg bones." In fact, there may not even have been fracture injuries to Lisanne's foot.. How can two specialists come to such different conclusions, one wonders?

"The Panamanian authorities state that the broken metatarsal bones in Lisanne's foot "prove" a fall, but this type of foot injury isn't a falling injury at all: you only get this type of injury from blunt force impact to the top of the foot."

Authors Hardinghaus and Nenner inspected the case files in detail and write that when the IMELCF expert writes that the tarsal, metatarsal, and toe bones were dissected and exposed "without evidence of bone trauma", there really cannot be any later conclusion of 'broken bones' for Lisanne. It were dissected bones because they were found detached from any body. And it were exposed bones because they had no more supporting tissue attached to them, or that is how I interpret it. But there was absolutely no mention of three metatarsal fractures. What is going on here? Which specialist is right and which one is wrong? Or did the fractures occur áfter the IMELCF did their forensic investigation? And why did Betzaida Pittí and her Dutch biographers claim Lisanne suffered from broken bones in her foot without referring to the conflicting findings? Because it would support an accidental fall scenario? I think that it even may have been Dr Frank van de Goot himself who at a later date discovered those 'fractures', or at the very least called them that in a direct manner.

PERIOSTITIS

The periosteum of Lisanne's foot did show signs of inflammation (officially called periostitis), something scientists linked to strenuous use or overexertion of the foot. Frank van de Goot explained that this type of injury can for instance be caused by very strenuous long distance walking, and is also seen with marathon walkers who haven't trained long enough. It makes walking very painful. Like prosecutor Pittí, he pushed for a Lost scenario explanation with this statement and has continued to do so since (with wildly speculative and unfounded claims about a specific hill spot they would have fallen from). However, periostitis can also be a chronic condition and in Lisanne's case we have not seen any investigation into whether she suffered from a pre-existing condition or not. Her family have spoken of a preexisting volleyball injury that was severe enough to require her to stop playing the sport she loved so much. Periostitis can in principle be the result of impact type exercise, and over time it can also flare up or calm down again. Her specific injury has never been further defined and it did not prevent her for instance from working in a restaurant as a waitress; I don't believe that Lisanne was so seriously injured from her sports that it interfered with her everyday life. Her family and friends also never mentioned such a thing in the documentary Break Free about her life and neither did Lisanne herself in her holiday diary. So the inflammation may perhaps have developed from strenuous walking before her death, or may theoretically have been the result of a preexisting injury. But, periostitis can also be a result of an impact to the bone. Impact stress from a fall or similar. 

Also coming straight from the autopsy report of the bones: Kris' bones all had a white discoloration, indicating that that they were either "exposed to the sun for a long time or that the burial site corresponded to an area of ​​very basic chemical elements, affecting the phosphates and calcium carbonates from each of the bone components, causing the whitish coloration." 

Unlike Lisanne's foot bones, Kris' bones were bare and bleached looking. Authorities later claim that the pelvic bone had in fact been placed in boiling water for several hours by a forensic team, to remove its soft tissue, enabling them to see if the bone showed signs of violence. If true (and not more bullshit from Pittí who tries to manipulate the narrative), this may perhaps explain the clean overall look of the bone (although it is not known if it was photographed before or after this procedure), but not necessarily the 'bleached' colour. The September autopsy report stated in this regard: "In turn, all of them had a white coloration that tells us about two facts: that they were exposed to the sun for a long time or that the burial site corresponded to the terrain of very basic chemical elements, affecting the phosphates and calcium carbonates of each one of the bony elements, causing whitish coloration." Kris' two bones contained phosphates, which are also sometimes linked to chemical bleaching procedures. Newspaper La Estrelle de Panamá reported: "The forensic report prepared by the doctors and anthropologists of the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences (IMELF) of Chiriquí record traces of phosphorus, without having determined whether the substance was in the environment or came from human action." It reports also that lawyer Arrocha, working for the Kremers family, complained: "Within the file, he pointed out, the protocol says that Kris's remains were subjected to a phosphate chemical process, but it has not been determined whether this process is the work of nature or man-made, Arrocha said." It was also stated in black and white in a copy of Kris Kremers’ autopsy report that was leaked to aforementioned The Daily Beast. Lisanne's autopsy report was not published, and Betzaida Pitti did not even include it in the case files... Incredible.  

BONE LOCATIONS

The places where the rib, pelvic and foot bones were roughly found, indicate that Kris and Lisanne must have passed at least two rivers to get in this region. The specialists said from the start that it remained to be seen if the remnants could prove a cause of death, because the temperature in which they had remained, as well as the general humidity, the composition of the ground, the rate of decomposition and whether or not they were found in water, would all play a role here. In the end no cause of death could be determined. There were not enough bones discovered and the ones that were found did not reveal a cause of death. Of course, the evidence and the 'crime scene' were contaminated at that point, with volunteers, the police and locals all walking uncoordinated through it and police not sealing off the places where remnants had been found. Local men like guide F. and others were even offered money to keep looking for more remains; the kind of work that is more often left to specialists and forensic teams.

PHOSPHORUS
Soil samples taken by Dutch investigators from the spot where the bones from Kris were found, showed that this phosphorus was not present in the soil naturally. There are no other known natural sources of phosphorus in the area. So where did it come from? Did it develop naturally on the bone remnants of Kris? Phosphorus is also used there by farmers as fertilizer. The Panamanian investigators however officially suggested the phosphates came perhaps from "stomach acids of large animals", who may have "swallowed the bones and then expulsed them again". Which seems a ludicrous suggestion, I think; a pelvic bone and a rib bone are large, and cannot be swallowed whole and pooped or barfed out whole by an animal. So how did this phosphorus found on Kris' bones get there, if it didn't exist in the local soil? And why did it get only on her bones? While those from Lisanne were found in the same area? The full autopsy results have never been released to the public by Panamanian authorities (and Lisanne's autopsy report was left out of the case files altogether,,,), so we are left with excellent criminal journalists like Adelita Coriat and Jeremy Kryt who were tipped off and given versions of the reports by key players. And another interesting little detail here; the sunglasses which Kris wears in this photo seem brown in colour, whereas they look more purple'ish when pictured together with the bags content.. Were these sunglasses bleached too perhaps? Just like Kris' bones and her shoe, which turned from brown into blue? Or  is it just the effect from the sun and the elements. The sunglasses were found inside the backpack though. The woman leading the investigations, Betzaida Pittí, believes that the bleached look of the bones from Kris is the result of them having been sunbleached. It is unclear why the bones of Lisanne, found nearby (all the bones were spread out in clusters together) showed no such bleaching however. Besides, Kris' bone does not really look like a typically sun-bleached bone (photo source). The different state of decomposition was also not further explained by prosecutor Pitti. She also claimed, despite testing proving her wrong, that the local soil does contain phosphorus. 

SHOES WERE NOT FORENSICALLY TESTED
Some of the forensic investigation of the remains is said to have left something to be desired. It is only based on photo comparisons that the Wildebeast shoe is attributed to Lisanne. No DNA testing is done for instance. Kris' shoe was for also never forensically tested. Local newspaper La Estrella de Panama reported: "According to medical examiners consulted by this journal, the remains should have been subjected to a fluid detection analysis. The Prosecution seems to have skipped these steps. Betzaida Pittí, prosecutor in charge of this case, also obviated to run DNA tests to the shoe." This is a real shame, as the presumed shoe from Kris changed colour quite dramatically and went from brown (in the photos) to blue. We would have all loved to find out why this was and whether or not the local soil in which that shoe was found played a role perhaps. Or chemicals.. It is not even clear if that blue shoe is from Kris, as no DNA testing was done to confirm this. Investigators also found soil and plant materials in both shoes. It would have been interesting to see those remnants inspected as well, in order to positively link them perhaps to a specific place or time. But none of this was done. Stearic acid was also found on both shoes, but may have been part of the natural decomposition process of the tissue that was at some point inside these shoes. You can read more about the shoes further down THIS blog post of mine. 

Ok I will drone on some more about this topic, but you can easily skip that and move to the next subtopic now. 

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DIFFERENT DECOMPOSITION RATES
It's a mysterious element to the case: how come in the wet, high cloud forest and within 79 days, the foot bones found of Lisanne showed a slow decomposition process and even had some skin attached still, whereas Kris' pelvic bone looked entirely bleached? The contrast between Froon's bones still having intact skin on them, but Kremers' bones being clean and without any body tissue remnants or even body fat, seems a stark one. I mean, for a foot to be found intact to such an extent two and a half months after the girls disappeared, while out in the animal-infested and humid open air jungle is peculiar. First to decompose should normally be the soft tissues, including the skin. (In 1999 a Dutch woman perished for instance in a similar stretch of jungle 80 kilometers away in nearby Costa Rica, and her body was found severely decomposed after only about 3 weeks out there). Whereas Kris' bones looked like they had been decomposing for 2 years instead of just over 2 months. new case file information revealed that her pelvic bone was apparently found in the water, stuck on a rock. If this information is correct then maybe the water was to blame for the advanced state of her bone decomposition. Although her rib bone looked equally bleached, while it was found on land. Chris wrote about decomposition rates: "There are 5 stages of decomposition. In order: Fresh, Bloat, Active Decomposition, Advanced Decomposition and Skeletal Decay. Kris’s remains reached the fourth stage: advanced decomposition. This is because no flesh was present on the bones. Bizarrely, Lisanne’s remains were only between the first and the second stage. In fact, there were still insect larvae on her remains." The girls died supposedly together, at around the same time more or less and in the same area.

There's no consensus about this baffling detail. Some people claim that the 'jungle' can do this to bones quickly, especially in the rainy season (which it was by the time the bones were found) and with scavengers around, while others say that it is abnormal and that even the body of a missing hiker in the same region, found two years after his death (so having gone through two actual sunny summer periods, unlike the bones of the girls), still looked pretty intact and showed definitely no bleached bones. Scavengers also didn't seem involved here, going by the absence of microscopic markings of teeth or claws on the bones of Lisanne in particular. And the other bones found in the search for Kris and Lisanne - which are said to have been from Indigenous people - were much older and had been in the forest much much longer than those ten or so weeks in the girls' case, and not even these bones looked bleached. In fact, some specialists said that in the cloud forest, temperatures were cool at that time of year, or cool enough to not show this late stage of decomposition so soon after death. The victims’ highest-placed remains were found at about 2,300 feet above sea level, near the headwaters of the Serpent. The spot is in the upper cloud forest, as opposed to lowland jungle, as was previously thought. At that elevation temperatures are cool, average decomposition rates relatively slow, and large carnivores are uncommon here. This local Panamanian news article states that temperatures were "between 12 and 14 degrees Celsius" (not sure that is correct, perhaps at night). And then there are the unexplained phosphate traces. The lawyer of the Kremers family, Enrique Arrocha, confirmed that no phosphorus/phosphates were found in the ground. He specifically said that their bones were not found in volcanic soil and that it did not contain this phosphate element. A Panamanian forensic anthropologist later claimed to the Daily Beast that after inspecting the bones carefully under the microscope:

"There are no discernible scratches of any kind on the bones, neither of natural nor cultural origin— there are no marks on the bones at all" 

Regarding the absence of signs of violence: as I wrote above already, these were only a couple of bones and we are missing mostly all of the skeletons still; it only takes one of its bones to show clear impact and violence to change the entire story here. The bones which most often show signs of deadly violence are the skull, bones from the upper torso as well as the arms and hands (defensive wounds) and none of these bones were ever found.  -  It seemed clear by now that the girls were deceased, but how did their bones get dislodged and spread out over the area? Some people suggest that animals must have torn up the bodies and dragged bones around (several forensics say no, and for some reason these wild animals then also left a whole foot behind), others say that the bodies ended up in the river and were torn apart in the water. In fact, these two options were named later by Panamanian officials as the prevailing theory of what happened to them (together with a fall from great height).. The IMELCF forensic anthropologist stated: “There’s no evidence that animals scavenged the Holandesas”, directly contradicting the Accident scenario from Panama’s Public Ministry, the main government center for investigations and prosecution. "No claw marks, he says. No bite marks from the fangs of animals. No marks that would indicate they had been broken up on river rocks either. Even under magnification, there are no discernible scratches of any kind on the bones, neither of natural nor cultural origin; there are no marks on the bones at all" - something you would certainly expect to see if the bodies had bounced over rocks and swept through wild rivers. The same goes for the backpack and its delicate content by the way. 

During the 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. 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. 

Nevertheless, the most heard official position is that the women were “dragged to death” in the Culebre river, after an unexplained simultaneous hiking accident. Even without any microscopic evidence for this or without local animals in that part of Panama being likely to tear a body apart like that. Something which would have left tear and blood marks on the clothes and backpack for instance (they were not found in reality). The IMELCF forensic anthropologist pulled up a detailed topographical computer map when talking with Jeremy Kryt, with the precise locations of the remains sites marked onscreen by color-coded circles. "The Holandesas bodies should not have broken up like that; not in just seven or eight weeks", he says, echoing other forensics Kryt had interviewed. "And we should have found more of their bones." Under the circumstances, “this kind of extreme fragmentation is very strange,” says that same member of Panama’s Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Science, IMELCF. 

UPSTREAM DOWNSTREAM

Why were the remains of the girls said to have been found partially upstream of their bag instead of downstream? [First map on the left is the latest updated version, March '21] The victims’ highest-placed remains were found at about 2,300 feet above sea level, near the headwaters of the Serpent river. This local criminal investigator underlines: "Betzaida Pittí, prosecutor in this case, charged with its investigation, supports the drowning theory, despite the fact that at the start of April the Culubre river was not strong enough to carry a body." In this local news article, Betzaida Pittí's conclusions are also repeated; the girls were dragged to their deaths by the river, and no further evidence was provided. Adding to this mystery is that some of the bone remnants were found only several kilometers from the dry river rocks and cable bridge where some investigators think the nighttime photos were taken. But others say that it is highly unlikely that two young adult human bodies are going to be broken up this badly after only such a short stretch of distance in a not very fast flowing river... Besides; we can assume that if they fell into the river and died, or ended up in the river dead, then one cannot keep up that this river was strong enough to tear their bodies apart YET also allowed the lycra backpack to remain mostly unharmed and its often delicate content for the most part undamaged and functioning (not even the sunglasses or the digital camera had sustained a scratch). Which is exactly what investigators claimed that most likely happened. The “Serpent” river is windy, relatively slow flowing, scattered with rocks and fairly shallow. Especially outside of the raining season. During early April, when the girls disappeared, it had been dry for a long time and the river was slow moving. I saw this video of the local river, but this is clearly shot in the heavy rain season, whereas in the first week of April the river was flowing even more slowly than usual for this time of year due to a drought, with less water content. Betzaida Pitti's (bare and not further explained in detail) conclusion that the girls were dragged to their deaths by the river is therefore not a satisfying explanation for the broken up and scattered state of the bodies, and neither for the absence of most of the rest of the skeletons. 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." See for yourself just how small, winding and rock-littered this small river is. Fairly impossible that it dragged entire bodies away, never to be seen again.

INJURIES?
Also: the metatarsal bones of Lisanne's foot were broken in three places according to Pittí, making it hard to imagine that she has walked many miles with this type of injury. She also had periostitis; inflammation of her foot. It is unclear why exactly Lisanne's foot bone was broken off at her ankle the way it did; no signs of teeth, tools or damage; no blood even. But something must have broken off her foot. Panamanian police attributed it to 'natural decomposition processes'. There is something called disarticulation of soft tissue: "Disappearance of soft tissue and the disarticulation of human remains from aqueous environments. Disappearance of body parts followed the general sequence: bones of the hands and wrists, bones of the feet and ankles, and the mandible and cranium. The lower legs, forearms, and upper arms are the next units to separate from the body." [..] "As parts drop away from a floating carcass in large or current-driven bodies of water, they are often separated from the major body unit. This complicates recovery." But do bodies really decompose so thoroughly so quickly? Within 2 to 2,5 months, in a cloud forest of which some specialists have said that temperatures were cool at that time of year, or cool enough to not show this late stage of decomposition, 10- or so weeks after death. And even if they did; how come there was still skin on the foot, which was said to be in the first stages of decomposing? There were maggots found too on Lisanne's nearly intact skin, coming from the shin bone. How can Lisanne's ankle/foot bone decompose to  the point  of  the joint being destroyed, while the skin and soft tissue on top is still mostly untouched by decomposition? The director of the Colorado Wilderness Medicine School, Carl Weil, who is also a former Cadaver Lab Supervisor, researched the case and stated that most drowning victims or those who fall in rapids, are usually found in one piece downstream. Some don't even make it that far and get stuck between rocks or bushes etc along the water, sometimes staying there in one piece until more than a year later (!). It is also near impossible for  this to  happen in  less than two months, which is the amount of  time it took to find Kris and Lisanne's remains if we accept that they were alive for at least 11 days after disappearing (the day of the last handling of the iPhone). He also commented on Kris' bones being found completely bare and stated:

"After 2 months the bone should not be bare, but still covered with significant amounts of flesh unless of course there was human intervention." 

Which..... could possibly point to foul play in this case. I also read that perhaps the boot protected the foot bones while the rest of the body and leg were decomposing rapidly, and that this may have somehow allowed the foot bone to break off at the ankle naturally. I don't know if this is a sound scientific explanation to be honest. And it still wouldn't explain the finding of a mass of skin in an early stage of decomposition, 5 months later.. 

How did Kris' pelvic bone break in two?
No information has been released by investigators about the nature of the breaking line of the pelvic bone, and what could have possibly caused that type of injury. We do not know if the pelvis came apart like this after she was deceased or before. I haven't read anything about this really in the covering of this case. For a young healthy person's pelvic bone to break when she is alive however, it normally almost needs to be smashed in a fall from a great height or in a serious car crash. Or have endured something equally drastic and violent. It would have made walking impossible for her. In fact, one would probably not survive such a serious fracture in the pelvis for very long. I am not sure how long one can exactly live with a broken pelvis, but it is a life-threatening injury as such, when bad enough. It can cause massive bleeding and damage of surrounding organs. This site says: "Most pelvic fractures happen during high-speed accidents (such as car or motorcycle crashes) or falls from great heights." Interestingly, it lists one of its main symptoms in patients to be "Bleeding from the vagina, urethra or rectum". If that were the case, and Kris endured this injury while still alive, wouldn't we have seen blood remnants on her jeans shorts? But they weren't even found under the microscope.. And this site states: "When the strong pelvic ligaments that hold the pelvis bones together tear, it is called an open-book pelvis injury. This type of fracture is dangerous because large arteries pass near these ligaments and if they are torn as well, massive blood loss can result." Massive blood loss.. Here, it seems that Kris' pelvic injury may come closest to what they call a "vertical shear injury": "The high energy shearing force that causes this kind of injury causes major disruption to the pelvic ring, the SI joints, ligaments and blood vessels. This may leads to major pelvic injury instability and severe internal bleeding". So if Kris had this injury while she was still alive, she may not have survived it for very long.. I reckon that it is very well possible that her pelvis broke in half after she was already deceased. (Whereas with Lisanne's foot, it is theoretically possible that a 3rd party crushed her foot on purpose to prevent her from fleeing, for instance. A foot broken like this would not have likely caused massive blood loss and broken feet are rarely life-threatening. And when your foot is this badly injured, you tend to leave it alone and let the shoe act as a cast of sorts). Making it also doubtful, all in all, that she hurt herself already like this early on during the disappearance, considering how far away from the Pianista trail their few remains were found. But the only place where there are ravines deep enough to cause such an injury realistically by accident, is around the summit of the Pianista Trail. Another mysterious element.. as those slopes were inspected, often with investigators scaling down on ropes and sniffer dogs also combed through the terrain of the Pianista Trail, without any result. Search troops and local guides scoured through the Pianista area also very early on already. The girls were not down the slopes of the Pianista Trail. Police solely gave the "explanation" of Kris and Lisanne having been dragged by wild animals or the river and this doesn't seem to properly match. And regarding the vague animal theory from Betzaida Pitti: the type of wild animals seen in Panama (jaguar, puma etc) don't gnaw on bones. Although they can drag their food into trees to eat it there. But they would have left clear teeth and claw markings on the bones and belongings. There are also no large indigenous animals in the region where the girls' remains were found that would crush large bones. No crocodiles or other alpha predators.

Eventually Kris' rib bone was also found on August 2nd of 2014. Just like her partial pelvic bone, it was white, bleached looking and turned out to contain levels of phosphates, something police have never further explained. And which makes one think more of Lime or other corrosive man-handled treatment. Lime is a white powder that helps to speed up the dissolving of bodies, especially of the weak parts such as tissue, muscles and tendons, without leaving as much as a trace on them. After some time it also dissolves the bones, and it masks the odour of decomposition. It also prevents blood trails. Several forensic specialists have stated that the use of lime could explain the absence of any blood and markings on the few bones found in the case of the missing Dutch girls. Lime can make bones appear bleached and it can also erase any evidence of violence on the bones. It may also explain the absence of the rest of the girls' skeletons, as lime can pretty much destroy entire bodies. But Humberto Mas, director of IMELF, stated that calcium oxide can have the same effect on bodies; dissolving the ligaments and muscles and such, allowing body parts such as an entire foot to become dislodged from the body without as much as a trace of how this happened. This can be achieved within days, and may perhaps explain why on Lisanne's single foot in the boot, no signs of cutting or other marks were found. Lime however is widely used in Panama by farmers, for instance when burying dead animals or to balance soil acidity levels, allowing plant roots to absorb phosphorus more efficiently. (Update: it may not be lime but in fact lye which was used here. Further down this blog post I explain more about these two substances). The bone remains of Kris and Lisanne weren't found too far away from Alto Romero, which lies at an elevation of approximately 800 meters. If we are supposed to believe that the girls died at different times, and one died in a river fall while the other moved on; how did their (very few) remains end up in the same location? In addition, for two bones from different parts of the body from two different people to have been found, practically all on land and only some distance from each other, makes it unlikely that both girls died in the river. It also makes it unlikely that one of the two died days before the other, was left behind in a gorge or a ravine while the other moved on, yet mysteriously bone remnants from both women ended up near each other, 14 walking hours up north from the cable bridges at the river? I think they either died together, further up north, or their bones were scattered there by someone else on purpose.

 

Alto Romero:

And there is more: in late August of 2014, more of Lisanne's remains were found; a rolled up piece of skin

In this article, as well as this article, published on October 20th, 2014, and translated from Spanish to English by me and partially since removed from the server (but no worries, I managed to save screenshots of the original article in time, before it was pulled offline suddenly after 5 years), you can read about a piece of rolled up skin being examined by a forensic examiner. I have published the full articles in my part 2 blog post on this case; here I will just summarize the most important findings. Interestingly and bafflingly, this rather important finding was as good as ignored in the mainstream media and in the Dutch press.. 

What this article from good local journalist Adelita Coriat details, is how a forensic specialist examined a piece of skin - as it turned out later belonging to Lisanne; "a soft, elongated piece of tissue that barely shows signs of decomposition" and that was found at the end of August, in the vicinity of a tibia and femur bone of Lisanne Froon. Both those two bone fragments and the rolled up piece of skin were found several months after Lisanne's foot was found in June. The article does not reveal who brought the skin in (but multiple sources said it was the tour guide again). The Laboratory of DNA Biomolecular Analysis, located in the City of Saber, positively identified it as Lisanne's skin. Adelita Coriat was present herself during the forensic examination of this rolled up piece of skin, and wrote in detail about it.  -   Summarized: previously, this same coroner had already analyzed other pieces of bone evidence, which were found by inhabitants of Alto Romero, on the banks of the Culubre River, in the province of Bocas del Toro, "a site located twelve hours by foot from El Pianista". The scientist now received an envelope, containing a rolled up mass of skin. In the same envelope were the femur - a long bone - placed and a shorter bone, similar to a tibia; all also from Lisanne. All three were found on August 29th, 2014. This package was sent by the Office of the Attorney of David, and contained a brief note, whose instructions are summarized in one line: 'These remains were found on the banks of the Culubre River, and are sent for analysis'. The note had the signature of Betzaida Pitti. Instantly the forensic scientist and the journalist establish that the document lacks "a detailed description of the chain of custody, information required in cases of controlled processes that seek to preserve the evidence". The data should have included where exactly the evidence was located and found, fixation, collection, packing and transfer at the scene. But none of all this info was provided by Betzaida Pitti. Coriat also wondered out loud how those who found and collected the bones could have even found this small, ball sized piece of skin? How could they even know that the ball covered with dirt was part of the evidence? Adelita Coriat also highlighted in her article that both (family lawyer) Enrique Arrocha, as well as Octavio Calderón, one of the criminologists consulted by La Estrella de Panamá, maintain that Kris and Lisanne were murdered. 

UNCOVERING THE SKIN

The laboratory where the tests were analyzed belongs to the Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences of Panama (IMELCF), the only site in the country of Panama that performs this type of analysis. The coroner was surprised by the state of the rolled up ball of skin (due to translation choices you can also define it as a mass of skin, or whatever similar word you want to give it, but this skin was found separate from the bones). When he unfolded the elongated piece of skin from Lisanne, about thirty centimeters in length, he also took several samples before starting the procedure. He noticed that the skin tissue was not uniform (the widest part measured between eight to fifteen centimeters wide, while other sides only reached three centimeters). Exams confirmed that the skin came from the shinbone, the tibia. As Coriat wrote it: it was "covered by the first agents of decomposition and dust-witness of the dark corner where the rest of the body probably still lies". And she claimed that this piece of skin was "today part of the set of evidence of a possible homicide". Because the date of finding was known - August 29th 2014 - it would allow the coroner to establish with more certainty the moment of death, or the conditions in which the body remained afterwards, Adelita Coriat wrote. The skin had black circular spots on approximately one fifth of its surface, the largest of which measures seven millimeters in diameter. The coroner also found other red spots on the skin; products of muscle hemoglobin. In some parts of the skin there were holes, between eight and ten on the whole surface; signs of the presence of other types of insects. And here the first scientific problem arose: "If we start from the assumption that the girls died during the first week of April, today, five months after the event, the larvae should not be present*. They have a whitish appearance and measure approximately one and a half centimeters. They do not reach a dozen. They are the first devourers of the corpse. This indicates to the coroner that the body remains, or remained, in a moist space, under shade, at low temperatures."  -  So, the forensic pathologist stated that he has the impression that the found piece of skin had been buried somewhere dark and cool. For instance underground. And he asked himself how this initially ball-like piece of skin could have been recognized by the people who found it as being human tissue/skin. The skin had not yet decomposed (and therefore was not emitting odour). Which in itself is also strange, as the first thing that should normally start to decompose, are the soft tissues including the skin. But larvae were present, indicating this tissue hadn't started decomposing too long ago, which in combination with the date of the discovery of this tissue, paints a worrying picture. As Power-Pixie summarized it: 'Larvae don't lie. They just like to eat.'

CONSERVED BONES

When the coroner examined the tibia bone, he realized that it did not have bony alterations. When he cut the bone to the marrow, he detected that the inside of the bone was dry, well preserved and without traces of putrefaction. The bone marrow in the femur and tibia was not decomposed, intact and unaltered. Something very similar was seen with the femur bone; the marrow was almost intact.

BACK TO THE SKIN

Evidence may have been manipulated, concluded the forensic specialist. When the decomposition process begins, the skin tends to fray, but not embolize with dirt, said a forensic anthropologist, consulted by newspaper La Estrella de Panama, who preferred to not have his name published. At the discretion of the scientist, the state of conservation of the evidence (the rolled up piece of skin, the femur and tibia bone) can be a sign that: 

"they [these bodily remains] were kept in a cold, shady and humid place". According to the anthropologist specialist, the state in which this piece of skin was found, "does not seem to be part of the natural process of decomposition". The rounded shape, he said, could have been acquired by staying in a bag, hidden deposit or in a kind of container. The piece of skin seemed to have been manipulated, he said. "It seems that it had been stored in a clogged environment. Buried in the earth, the decomposition of soft tissues must have and should have been faster. 

The bone endures in the ground, but Panama's tropical climate accelerates decomposition", he added. With regard to the black spots that are seen in a fifth part of the piece of skin, the scientist explained that it can be the product of colonies of fungi or bacteria that settle on the skin. The holes, he explained, could be made by non-stationary predators or, perhaps, microorganisms, he specified. The presence of larvae is important because it helps determine the postmortem interval, from the moment that death occurred until the corpse was found. Since this discovery, on August 29, no new evidence has been collected or collected."

So, to summarize 

Froon's bones still had some skin attached to them, but Kremer's bones were clean from any body tissue remnants and they also appeared to have been bleached. A piece of skin from Lisanne's leg was found five months after the girls disappeared, and it was for about 4/5th intact and in an early stage of decomposition. Which makes a contrast with the clean bones from Kris, which were already found in June 2014. Also, the piece of skin that was found was manipulated by someone, the forensic specialists thinks. Perhaps a 3rd party stored Lisanne's few bones and soft tissue somewhere else, cool and protected, and then placed them in the jungle forest much later. Or is it possible that Lisanne's bones and skin somehow naturally ended up in a spot which naturally preserved them? Such as... I don't know, maybe cool water? Could the river water have been so cold as to preserve the skin and marrow to that extent for up to 5 months? This seems no option, as the water would have washed away Lisanne's skin tissue and bone remnants a long time ago, as well as changed the look of the molecules of the skin, which was not witnessed or reported on by the coroner. And what's more: the dry bone marrow found by the examiner also points away from water and towards a dry and cool storage place of the bones. Maybe underground, or in a fridge. Unfortunately no specific location given of where the skin was found, nor for the majority of the bones.

**********

Update: 
Pittí now believes that the skin belonged to a cow. "The analysis of the piece of skin is swift; it belongs to a mammal, possibly a cow." This is baffling, considering that the professional coroner inspected it in detail with other people present and determined that it was human skin, belonging to Lisanne's shin bone. I am extremely weary about this cow story; surely no coroner mistakes a barely decomposed piece of cow's skin for that of a human, I'd hope. And as Power-Pixie wrote me in this respect: 'What were the notes on what was done to distinguish this being bovine skin? "Possibly a cow" is not good enough.' Indeed, where are the professional notes on this? Or any other actual evidence? Is that the best they can do, when explaining this important 'correction', when non-professionals with an agenda are in effect sweeping the detailed professional work of the coroner himself off the table? A certified and experienced professional in his field. Or should we just believe (unreliable) Pittí because she says so?  Power-Pixie also wrote: "In light of his background, I reiterate that Dr. Calderon would know the basic differences between human skin and bovine skin. I do, because I studied human biology for my A-Levels where we had to do basic lab comparisons between human, bovine, porcine (pig) and mice to understand their differences and similarities where applicable for pre-med. Does anyone honestly think Dr. Calderon would, after analyzing the piece of skin carefully under the microscope under all the conditions he typically does for forensics examination, NOT be able to see the most rudimentary of all differences? Bovine skin is far thicker than human skin. Bovine skin has far more follicle count vs human skin. How come Pittí did not draw on these two facts alone? Disagreeing or dismissing his opinion is not the same as dismissing the entire professional examination." Thank you. Makes me also wonder why Lisanne's autopsy reports were never shared or published in any shape or form. Unlike those of Kris...  And it is clear that by August/September the authorities were looking at closing down this case, not pouring oxygen into it and thereby reigniting it.

Mysteriously, the original La Estrella article was removed from the internet over time, and its text was edited at an undisclosed date (but at least some years after the original article was published), and republished, changing the vital information that the skin belonged to Lisanne, DNA wise, and came from her shin. Now the new article suddenly states it was animal skin. No further information to explain this, no sharing of evidence to support it. I am wondering if this is related to Pittí's public attacks on critical journalist Adelita Coriat? The thought comes to mind that Pittí is trying to make Adelita Coriat look like a bad/lying journalist, through her public comments about her and now this edited article. Pittí has been snappy about this journalist and her critical coverage in the media from the start. When asked about her experiences as a prosecutor in this disappearance case, Pittí came across as whiny, overly sentimental in terms of what the press and journalists like Adelita Coriat 'did to her' when they wrote critical pieces. Everything she said was aimed at showing just how much energy she dedicated to climbing up that Pianista trail. How she crawled on hands and feet and almost fainted. How unfair she has been treated, also by the 'jealous' superior who fired her from the job in early 2015. Never an example of something that makes you think: wow she was a professional prosecutor in this case after all. Most transparent to me were her attempts of painting Adelita Coriat (a journalist who has done a fine job) as an unfit journalist. I think that the prosecutor has tried to character assassinate Coriat, and I don't exclude the possibility that these claims about the cow's skin were made to make Coriat look a fool. And also the coroner, who told her and Kryt that he believes the girls were murdered. Meanwhile Pittí provided no evidence of this supposed cow's skin and no further explanation as to how the coroner himself could have gotten it so wrong. I think there may have been some cow's skin found, but it perhaps wasn't the skin that was linked to Lisanne and that was thoroughly tested by the coroner and Coriat. In the official documents multiple pieces of skin are mentioned. Some skin was described to have been initially still attached to Lisanne's shinbone for instance. How can that have been cow's skin? And there was also skin found during all those searches that was lying next to bones, or a fair distance from them. Is Pittí highlighting this other piece of skin, in an attempt to make people forget about the skin taken from Lisanne's shinbone? I don't know, but this is more vague and messy reporting, in any case. I can also understand that no prosecutor would want such damning evidence about intact shinbone skin, found 5 months after the girls went missing, out there. Not decomposed in the way it should have been. Both Coriat and the coroner received personal threats by the way... Makes you wonder from whom. It is unclear at this point if all of that skin belonged to 'cows', or if only one piece has been singled out (or even replaced?) to make Coriat and the coroner look bad.**  BTW: With the mass of skin, Betzaida Pittí also didn't provide the necessary information to the coroner of where it had been found exactly. You can read more critical observations about Betzaida Pitti's investigation in this post of mine. 

Extra: More on this cow's skin

One prominent Dutch websleuth who has vast and detailed knowledge of this case, RapaNui, has also shed doubts about this supposed cow's skin claim. For which prosecutor Pittí (who is no scientist and worked/messed with the original SD card on June 17th already) showed no evidence to support this sudden 'cow skin' claim. Rapa believes that this cow skin statement was never proven and in fact conveniently used to make her critics look like fools. This sleuth RapaN, recalls that Coriat wás in fact present during the autopsy during the first week of September. The bones and skin were found on August 29th of 2014. She states that the coroner identified the piece of skin to have belonged to the femur leg of Lisanne. Two months later, at the end of November, Adelita Coriat then interviewed Betzaida Pittí and asked her about this patch of skin. This is when Pittí dropped the word 'cow'. In Coriats article from October 20th (which you could just read in the above paragraph) she described being present during the autopsy of Lisanne's bones and skin. She also described how the coroner identified the skin as belonging to Lisanne. Now in the interview with Pitti in November 2014, Coriat asked Pittí questions about this patch of skin, to which Pittí answered that she "did not dare to say" that the skin was from Lisanne, but rather that of a cow. That she was "not sure" that the skin belonged to Lisanne. She also did not know if the bones found belonged to a cow or not [no they didn't, according to DNA results they belonged to Lisanne].

What she díd know however, was to tell Coriat that Kris and Lisanne's mobile phones were pinged and located in Bocas del Torro on March 30-31st... Which turned out to be... nonsense. Pittí could also not specify in late November of 2014 who exactly found and transported these bones and skin; that had not been properly registered. Adelita Coriat then asked Pittí if she saw the piece of skin with her own eyes? Pittí did not directly answer that question, but repeated that it was animal skin. But what she also said then, was that it was found on August 15th. Was she talking about another piece of skin altogether? Because the mass of skin linked to and found together with Lisanne's femur and tibia bone were found on August 29th. That is almost two weeks later. I am sorry readers for banging on about this skin detail, but this is exactly the sort of misinformation and fog the Panamanian prosecution has been trying to create. Pittí did not have her facts correct, she did not witness the autopsy (unlike Coriat), she is no scientist herself, unlike the coroner who came to a very different conclusion. She had no idea really if the skin and bones were or weren't from a cow (it strongly looks like she was wrong in thinking the shin and upper leg bone from Lisanne belonged to a cow as well). She provides no forensic evidence, as usual. This all sounds and looks very unprofessional and unscientific. I personally believe that Pitti is corrupt and vengeful and purposely planted this cow's skin story. Or there may have been multiple pieces of skin discovered over time, and she conveniently talked about one piece (belonging to an animal) in order to make the finding of human skin go away. This actual piece of human skin, attributed to Lisanne by the coroner, was no doubt a very worrying thing to find for Pitti as a prosecutor. Especially considering the state in which it was found ánd at the TIME when it was found. She has created confusion and doubt about its authenticity now with a mystifying story, which the coroner and Adelita Coriat contradict. Nobody seems to hold Pitti accountable for her odd statements though. Same for her comment that Kris and Lisanne's mobile phones were pinged and located in Bocas del Torro on March 30-31.. This is simply not true. Pitti is not a trustworthy player in this investigation, unfortunately. If hard evidence surfaces and proves her entirely right, I will consider accepting her versions of events, but only then. 

You can read further about the attempts of the Kremers family to retrace their daughters' footsteps HERE

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