Lost Girls of Panama: Will these missing people ever return?
The disappearance of two Dutch girls, Lisanne Froon & Kris Kremers, is a case of missing people that broke everyone’s heart when it was first revealed in 2014. Kris Kremers & Lisanne Froon were young college students who disappeared on April 1st, 2014, while hiking the El Pianista trail in Panama.
What was meant to be the adventure of a lifetime became the darkest final days of their lives. The investigation & theories of these missing people have been revisited in a new book, Lost In The Jungle by authors Marja West & Jürgen Snoeren. Learn how the authors shed light on the tragic & puzzling disappearance of these two young women.
Two girls missing in the Panamanian jungle
On the first day of April under a bright sky, the two twenty-year-old students went on a hike on a scenic jungle trail in Panama, only to never be seen again. Sadly, as it was clear the girls became lost, the weather also turned turbulent. Many have remarked that under severe weather conditions in such a dense jungle, not even the most veteran trekkers could find their way to safety.
A few months after they went missing, a backpack containing their phones, camera, money, and some clothes washed up on the banks of the Culebra river. What also makes this case so heartbreaking are the final photos taken by the girls left on their camera. Both tragic & haunting, some photos simply showed the wet darkness of the jungle at night.
It can be assumed that these photos were taken when the women were realizing the desperate situation before them. Panamanian authorities hoped it would shed some light on what had happened, maybe even trace back to the girls.
However, after months of extensive searches, Lisanne Froon & Kris Kremers would not be found. It wasn’t until August of that year that pieces of their bones were discovered.
Authors moved by the tragic story
“It was 2016 and I was sitting on my veranda during a thunderstorm, in the pouring rain, at night. I was reading the coverage of the story of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers,” Marja West told The Daily Beast. “The story totally fascinated me, I was thinking, ‘How would you feel as a girl in that situation?’”
She continued, “Deep into the woods, it’s wet, you are hungry, lost. You can’t reach your parents, you’re waiting for help that will not come. When does the hope stop? You are so young, on this beautiful adventure, an exciting holiday. Afterwards you will start your studies, your room, your study, everything is pre-arranged.”
“And then the moment arrives, the pivotal moment you begin to accept that you will die there in the middle of the jungle. I found that so intensely sad. That’s what grabbed me.”
The new book dives into unraveling fact from fiction
The co-author also discussed how there were endless possibilities as to what exactly happened to the missing people. “What triggered us was that based on the same facts, different conclusions could be drawn. The first set of articles conjectured that the girls had met with an accidental death,” West said.
“That’s when we decided to work out what had really happened for ourselves,” the author explained. “We started by looking on the internet, where it was extremely difficult to separate fact from fiction. We saw facts re-appear as if publications were copying one another. You could really move in any direction.”
As they dived into their research, the authors spoke with Dick Steffens, a former Amsterdam detective, who was still examining the case independently. “What he told us blew us away,” West said, explaining that “[Steffens] said: Kris Kremers is possibly still alive.”
Could Kris Kremers be alive?
Former detective Steffens added that he considered the Panamanian investigation was inadequate and needed to be revisited. “He also claimed a certain Stefan W. had come forward, saying Kris Kremers had ended up in the sex trade,” West added. “The man claimed he would be able to free her. Nothing came of it, and the family never heard from Stefan W. again.”
As there is no evidence to back any of those allegations, the theory was tossed. However, after West & Snoeren investigated original police files, forensic reports, autopsy reports, and even obtained the guidance of former Panamanian public prosecutor Betzaïda Pitti, the authors have detailed the timeline of the girls’ final days.
Their book Lost in the Jungle, answers numerous questions concerning the puzzling case. However, West has remarked that not everything has been revealed and a few hours remain unaccounted for.
She said, “From the moment the last photo was taken on April 1st, to the first emergency call that day, around two hours and 45 minutes later, those are hours that we’ve been unable to reconstruct with certainty. The timeline before that is pretty exact, and the time after the first emergency call we’ve been able to reconstruct what must have happened.”
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What do you think happened in this tragic case? Will you be reading Lost in the Jungle? Let us know in the comments other cases of missing people that you’ll never forget.
