In April 2014, the world was shaken by the mysterious case of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two girls who vanished while hiking in the dense forests of Panama.
What began as a promising adventure quickly turned into a nightmare, and their story continues to haunt those who hear it.
Dressed in shorts and tank tops
On April 1, 2014, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, both in their 20s and from the Netherlands, set off on a hiking trip near Boquete, Panama.
The Dutch friends are dressed in shorts and tank tops as they leave the village.
The only thing they carry is Lisanne’s small backpack, which holds their cell phones, a camera, and a water bottle.
They plan to be gone for just a few hours.
The goal of their hike is a viewpoint, Mirador, in the mountains.
”We’ll be back before it gets dark,” they tell the woman who rented them the room.
What happened next remains a mystery.
Six months of saving
Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22, had long dreamed of exploring the world.
4o miniKris Kremers was known for her open-mindedness, creativity, and strong sense of responsibility. Lisanne Froon, on the other hand, was an aspiring, optimistic, and intelligent young woman with a deep passion for volleyball.
Kremers had just finished her studies in cultural social education, focusing on art education at the University of Utrecht. Froon had recently graduated with a degree in applied psychology from Deventer.
Just weeks before heading to Panama, Lisanne Froon moved in with Kris Kremers in Amersfoort, where they both worked at a local café. After six months of saving, they planned their trip to Panama as a special holiday — Froon’s graduation gift.
Their goals were to learn Spanish, volunteer with children, and make a meaningful impact on the local community.
Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon arrived in Panama on March 15, 2014. After touring the country for two weeks, they settled in Boquete, Chiriquí, on March 29 to stay with a local family and volunteer with children for a month.
On April 1, around 11:00 AM, they went hiking on the El Pianista trail near the clouded forests surrounding the Baru volcano, just outside Boquete.
With their host family’s dog in tow, they set off to explore the area. But just hours after they waved goodbye to their host family, they were never seen again.
Their disappearance wasn’t immediately obvious. That evening, their host family grew concerned when the dog returned without them.
Found the camera
The family initially waited until morning, but as the hours passed, it became clear something was terribly wrong.
By April 2, the authorities were alerted, and a search began. Locals, police, and even Kremers and Froon’s families, who had flown in from the Netherlands, scoured the area for days.
Weeks passed. Nothing. And then, nearly two months after their disappearance, a breakthrough — of sorts.
A local woman discovered a blue backpack in a rice paddy along the riverbank. Inside it were a few personal items: sunglasses, cash, a water bottle, Lisanne’s passport, and two bras. But it was the discovery of the women’s camera and phones that would change everything.
A chilling truth
The phones revealed a chilling story.
Despite being out of service for most of the time, the devices had attempted to call emergency numbers 77 times in the days following their disappearance.
The first calls came within hours of their hike, but the dense jungle blocked them from going through. The most disturbing part? One of the calls briefly connected — but it lasted only two seconds before cutting off.
Then, on April 6, the phones tried unsuccessfully to unlock Kremers’ phone using the wrong PIN code, indicating someone — perhaps Kremers herself — had tried to regain access to the phone in a desperate attempt to reach help.
The phone never accepted the correct PIN.
The final moments were even more chilling. Both phones died by April 11.
The haunting photos
But the true horror lay within the camera. The photos it contained painted a haunting picture of what might have happened to Kremers and Froon after they disappeared.
The first photos were innocent enough, capturing the women on their hike — their bright smiles and carefree expressions suggested no hint of the terror that would soon unfold.
But it was the photos taken on the night of April 8, between 1 and 4 AM, that sent chills down the spine of anyone who viewed them.
The images were bizarre and unsettling: belongings strewn on rocks, plastic bags and candy wrappers oddly piled up, mounds of dirt arranged in strange patterns, and a disturbing close-up of Kris Kremers’ head.
The two girls do not appear in any of the night photos, except possibly in one. It’s a close-up of blonde hair, likely showing the back of Kris Kremers’ head. Some have interpreted the image as showing blood in the lower right corner.
Around 2 PM on April 1, 2014, Lisanne took the last photos of Kris.
One of the photos has since been interpreted as possibly showing the girls sensing what was to come — or that something had already happened.
Kris is leaning forward, with a pained expression on her face, and appears to have her hands bound behind her back.
The night photos raised many questions.
Why weren’t any pictures taken during the entire week after they went missing, until the night of April 8? What caused the frantic photography session that lasted three hours? Why does no photo show either of the girls’ faces? Why did they leave no message for their loved ones, especially since they must have realized they were likely to die in the jungle?
Human remains
As authorities continued to piece together the mystery, more chilling discoveries were made a few months after the backpack was found.
Kremers’ clothing was discovered neatly folded along the riverbank. Then, two months after that, the most gruesome of all — a pelvic bone and a foot, still inside a boot, were found near the same area.
The remains were grim. Lisanne Froon’s bones appeared to have decomposed naturally, with bits of flesh still clinging to them.
But Kris Kremers’ bones were unnervingly stark white, as if they had been bleached, something which can happen by natural means such as sun exposure.
In total, only about 10% of Froon’s bones and 5% of Kremers’ bones were recovered.
A Panamanian forensic anthropologist later stated that 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.”
But despite extensive investigations, there is still no clear answer to the most haunting question: What happened to Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon?
No eyewitnesses, no suspects, and no definitive cause of death.
The photos, the call logs, and the discovery of their remains raised more questions than answers.
A tragic accident?
To this day, the mystery surrounding the disappearance and deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon remains unsolved. Was it a tragic accident, a case of getting lost in the jungle? Or was there something far more sinister at play?
The exact cause of death for Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon remains uncertain. Dutch authorities, in collaboration with forensic experts and search-and-rescue teams, initially speculated that the two women may have accidentally fallen from a cliff after getting lost in the dense jungle. However, despite extensive investigation, no definitive conclusion could be reached.
Their families in the Netherlands, Panama authorities, and countless others are still left to piece together the haunting fragments of their final moments. We all wonder if we’ll ever truly know what happened to the two young women who set off on an adventure and never returned.