The last photos horrified investigators: the mysterious disappearance of two tourists in Panama

Panama has always been considered a paradise corner for tourists, who flocked to this country by the thousands to admire its sights. And no one was troubled by the fact that this state is located on the border with Colombia and that gangs of hardened criminals hide in its impassable jungle. Even though the country’s capital – Panama City was teeming with thieves, swindlers, and other criminal elements.

The journey of Lisanne and Kris

Two young women – the Dutch tourists Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers – came to this exotic country in March 2014. They were eager to study Spanish at one of the schools and to do a bit of volunteer work. Kris was preparing herself for the profession of art historian, while Lisanne dreamed of becoming a psychologist.

On March 29, 2014, the women settled in the mountain town of Boquete. The first impression of the local beauty, which they had known only by hearsay, filled the young Dutchwomen with indescribable delight. Three days passed for them as if in a fairy tale. The women enjoyed life, like the other tourists. To preserve everything they had seen as a memory, Kris and Lisanne took many photographs.

On Monday, March 31, the women set off for the language school. And there they learned that classes would resume in a week. This news did not upset them in the least. On the contrary, the young Dutchwomen were unbelievably delighted! Now nothing prevented them from exploring the town’s picturesque surroundings and walking the tourist trails. The women were consumed by an entirely understandable curiosity, and they booked two excursions for the coming Wednesday. First, they very much wanted to visit a strawberry farm at the foot of the famous Panamanian volcano Barú. And the next day to climb closer to it, to experience new sensations.

The disappearance

When the women did not arrive at the appointed time, the experienced guide Feliciano González suspected something was wrong. He did not hesitate to go to the little house where the Dutch tourists were staying. There the guide learned that the women had not returned home the day before. Without delay, González turned to the police.

The local guardians of order, reluctantly and without much effort, began the search for the missing Dutch tourists. Gradually a picture of the disappearance of Kris  Kremers and Lisanne Froon began to take shape.

In the course of the investigation it emerged that the young Dutchwomen had set off on an independent trek along the El Pianista trail, which the locals considered calm and not dangerous. The last people to see the young Dutchwomen were a taxi driver who had taken them to the start of the trail. And the owner of a café. He gave the women his dog for reliable company. An hour later the dog returned. But of the women there was not a trace…

The search

Two months of searching for the women would end in vain. Even a team of dog handlers, who flew in from the Netherlands to help the local police, would not find a single trace of the missing tourists. They would search the trail up and down. And they would come to the sad conclusion that this laid-out path was not nearly as safe as had been written about it in the advertising brochures. The women’s parents, crushed by grief, would give their consent to ending the search.

A terrible find

In June 2014, when the story of the women’s disappearance seemed as if it would remain an eternal mystery, a local resident would come across a terrible find in the Culebra River. It was Lisanne Froon’s backpack. The contents of Lisanne Froon’s backpack, neatly gathered and packed, shocked not only the police. On Kris Kremers’s camera, a strange 133 photographs were discovered.            

The investigators leading this puzzling case would compare the photographs found with frames from the well-known found-footage film «The Blair Witch Project». Only this time everything happening to the Dutch tourists was in horrifying reality. And the last shots, taken with a smartphone in the nighttime jungle, vividly proved that they were in a deadly trap. The women seemed to be filming the night forest chaotically – ravines, trees; one of the frames even captured Kris’s hair. The tourists seemed to be trying to catch someone in the frame or to light their way. The women’s recovered phones showed that they had repeatedly tried to call the police.

The El Pianista trail became a cursed place for each of them. And to make their way out of the impassable jungle, full of dangers, they would not have the strength.

And a little later the remains of the women’s bodies would be found… There was a controversial opinion that Kris  and Lisanne had become the victims of criminals who had settled in the jungle. Some sought the cause of the women’s death in the mystical. Supposedly the disturbed evil spirits of the rainforests had decided to punish the lost tourists.

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