When Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon boarded a plane from Amsterdam on March 15, 2014, they carried dreams of adventure and purpose. The two Dutch women—aged 21 and 22—had spent months planning their Central American journey. They saved money working together at a small café, envisioning themselves as volunteers, teachers, and explorers. Lisanne had just graduated with a degree in applied psychology, while Kris was finalizing her studies in cultural education with a passion for art. What lay ahead seemed destined to be transformative.
By late March, the friends found themselves in Boquete, a picturesque mountain town in Panama’s Chiriquí province, nestled at nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. The cloud-covered peaks surrounding the town offered both natural beauty and an undeniable sense of isolation. They were scheduled to spend several weeks volunteering with local children, teaching arts and crafts, and immersing themselves in Spanish language and culture. For a few days before their volunteer work began, they had time to explore the area’s scenic trails.
The Perfect Day Gone Wrong
April 1, 2014, dawned clear and inviting. Around 11:00 in the morning, Kris and Lisanne set off on what locals promoted as an easy tourist route: the El Pianista trail. Dressed casually in shorts and tank tops, they carried minimal gear—just a small backpack containing their phones, a camera, some water, and sunglasses. They planned to reach the Mirador viewpoint high in the mountains and return before darkness fell. Their host family expected them home for dinner.
The trail was well-known among visitors. With a manageable 5-to-6-hour duration and steady elevation gain, it wasn’t considered particularly dangerous. The women were young, healthy, and excited. They brought along the family’s dog, which seemed like a pleasant addition to their adventure.
What happened next remains one of Panama’s most perplexing modern mysteries.
The First Signs of Trouble
By evening, the women hadn’t returned. The dog came back alone, triggering immediate concern. The host family waited anxiously through the night, hoping for a phone call or some word. None came. By April 2, it became clear something had gone catastrophically wrong. Despite the women’s assurances that they’d return before dark, there was no sign of them.
The first days of the search proved frustrating. Local authorities moved slowly, and confusion characterized the initial response. Precious time slipped away as the Panamanian rainy season began its relentless assault on the region. By April 6, when the women’s families finally arrived from the Netherlands with Dutch police and detectives, the weather had transformed the landscape into a muddy, treacherous terrain. Search teams scoured the jungle for ten days but found nothing—no clothing, no equipment, no bodies.
Weeks stretched into months with no discovery. The case seemed destined to join the long list of missing persons cases that remain eternally unsolved. Then, nearly ten weeks after their disappearance, a local woman made a discovery that would transform the entire investigation.
The Backpack and the Phones
On June 14, 2014, a resident of Alto Romero village discovered a blue backpack near the Culebra River—miles away from the El Pianista trail where the women had last been seen. The location raised immediate questions: how did the backpack travel so far from the trail? Why hadn’t it been found during the earlier searches?
The backpack’s contents proved even more disturbing. Inside were personal items—sunglasses, $88 in cash, Lisanne’s passport and insurance cards, two bras, and crucially, both women’s cell phones and Lisanne’s Canon PowerShot camera. Remarkably, the phones still had power and showed signs of recent use.
Analysis of the phones revealed a chilling timeline. In the hours following their disappearance, someone had desperately attempted to call for help. The call logs showed 77 separate attempts to reach emergency numbers—112 (the international emergency number) and 911. The calls came in rapid succession over several days, peaking on April 1st within hours of the women’s initial disappearance. Despite these frantic efforts, the dense jungle canopy blocked nearly every attempt. One call briefly connected but lasted only two seconds before disconnecting.
The phones remained active until April 11, when they were finally powered off permanently. During those ten days, the devices had been turned on and off repeatedly, as if someone was searching for a signal, desperate to reach the outside world.
The Haunting Night Photos
But the camera’s contents would prove far more unsettling than the call logs.
On April 8, between 7:00 PM and 10:00 PM—seven days after their disappearance—someone had taken approximately 90 flash photographs deep in the jungle. The images appeared to have been captured in near-complete darkness, creating a surreal and disturbing visual record.
Most of the photos showed only blackness—the harsh glare of a camera flash against the night sky and surrounding vegetation. But certain images contained details that sparked intense speculation and debate worldwide. Some photos appeared to show deliberate arrangements: a twig with red plastic bags or pieces of fabric tied to it, tissue paper spread on the ground, and what looked like a mirror or reflective object placed on a rock. One particularly haunting image captured what appeared to be the back of Kris Kremers’ blonde head in the darkness.
The night photo session lasted approximately three hours, suggesting purposeful activity rather than random accidents. But why would anyone take 90 photographs in complete darkness? Were they attempting to signal for help? Were they documenting evidence of what had happened? Or does the explanation lie elsewhere entirely?
One photo in particular ignited intense online speculation: an image that appeared to show a close-up of Kris’s hair with what some viewers interpreted as blood in the lower right corner. Other interpretations suggest the image might show torn clothing or natural staining. The ambiguity itself became part of the mystery.
Perhaps even more mysteriously, analysis of the camera’s memory card structure revealed a missing photograph—Photo 509. This image does not appear in the file directory, raising questions about whether it was deliberately deleted, corrupted by time, or simply never existed. For years, online communities have theorized about this phantom photo, with some claiming it showed incriminating evidence that was erased.
The Desperate Attempts at Communication
The phone records revealed another disturbing detail. On April 6, several attempts were made to unlock Kremers’ iPhone using an incorrect PIN code. This suggested someone—possibly Kremers herself in a confused or panicked state—was trying to access the phone to make calls or contact family members.
The final entry in the phones’ history came on April 11, when Kremers’ iPhone was turned on one last time at 10:51 AM and powered off at 11:56 AM. After that, the devices remained silent.
The Discovery of Remains
Over the following weeks, a gruesome discovery unfolded along the riverbank. A pelvic bone was found, followed weeks later by a boot containing a foot still inside. Then, scattered across a considerable distance along the Culebra River, 33 bones were discovered. DNA testing confirmed they belonged to both women.
The findings raised immediate forensic puzzles. Only approximately 10% of Lisanne Froon’s remains and merely 5% of Kris Kremers’ bones were recovered. Where were the rest? The river current, scavenging animals, and natural decomposition could explain some loss, but the scarcity of remains was striking.
More troubling were the autopsy findings. Lisanne’s remains showed signs of natural decomposition, with skin still present and containing maggots—consistent with exposure to the jungle environment. However, Kris Kremers’ bones appeared unnaturally bleached and lacked any discernible scratches or marks of any kind, either from natural causes or human intervention. A Panamanian forensic anthropologist made a striking observation: under magnification, the bones showed “no discernible scratches of any kind on the bones, neither of natural nor cultural origin—there are no marks on the bones at all.”
This discrepancy between the two sets of remains deepened the mystery. Had they been exposed to different conditions? Had something—or someone—treated them differently?
Theories and Tensions
The official investigation concluded in March 2015 that both women had perished in a hiking accident, likely falling from one of the treacherous cable bridges that cross ravines along the trail, then being swept away by the powerful river currents during the rainy season. Dutch authorities generally agreed with this assessment, emphasizing the trail’s dangerous terrain.
However, this conclusion left many questions unanswered. Private investigators hired by the grieving families, along with some Panamanian police officers, expressed serious reservations. How did the backpack travel so far downstream? Why were there 90 deliberate night photographs? What caused the curious differences in the remains’ condition? Why were there no signs of trauma on the bones?
The mystery was further complicated by unrelated events. In March 2015—just one year after Kris and Lisanne’s disappearance—Leonardo González, the taxi driver who had driven the women to the El Pianista trail, mysteriously drowned in the Estí River while supposedly waiting for tourists at a local spa. The coincidence sparked rumors, though authorities ruled it an accidental death.
The Case Remains Open
A decade has passed since Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon walked up a mountain trail on a sunny spring day. Despite extensive investigations by Dutch and Panamanian authorities, despite countless hours of analysis by amateur researchers worldwide, despite forensic examinations and environmental reconstructions, no definitive explanation has emerged.
The haunting photographs from their camera continue to circulate online, analyzed pixel by pixel by internet sleuths seeking hidden clues. Communities debate endlessly about the missing Photo 509, the meaning of the arranged objects on rocks, the significance of the three-hour night photo session. Books have been written. Podcasts have launched. Documentaries have premiered.
Yet the fundamental questions remain: Did the women simply get lost on a difficult trail and meet tragic ends in the jungle? Were they injured by falls that left no visible marks on bone? Did they become disoriented in darkness and wander into dangerous territory? Or did foul play—perhaps an encounter with local individuals—play a role in their deaths?
The women’s families have found some peace with the official accident conclusion, but many close to the case harbor lingering doubts. The jungle of Boquete kept its secrets, and those secrets may be buried as deeply as the scattered remains of two young women whose dreams ended beneath a canopy of trees in a land far from home.