Chrissy Kremers (left) and Lisana Furlong
In 2014, two Dutch female tourists, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, went trekking in Panama and were never seen again. A few months later, police found their bleached bones and disturbing photos.
On April 1, 2014, Chris and Lisanna left their host family's home to take their dogs for a walk in the scenic forests surrounding Baru Volcano National Park in Bokete, Chiriqui Province, Panama.
Chrissy and Lisana are students from Amersfoort, the Netherlands, who spent 6 months planning their trip to Panama, which was supposed to be a half-vacation and half-service trip. They plan to spend some time on foot and also volunteer for local children, teaching arts and crafts, as well as Spanish.
Lisana (left) and Chris waiting at the airport
The two girls have been trekking through the Panamanian jungle for the past two weeks as part of a backpacking trip, and they plan to volunteer at a local school with host family members for the next four weeks. However, after waving goodbye to their families at 11 a.m. on April 1, they never showed up again.
Before they disappeared, the two girls published a post on Facebook (the American social platform "Facebook") discussing their plans to visit the local village. They also wrote that they had brunch with two fellow Dutchmen before starting the hike.
Lisanna (top) and Chris hiking in Panama
On the night of April 1, the host family noticed that something was wrong, and the two girls' dogs returned safe and sound, but they did not return. The host family searched the area around their home, found nothing, and decided to wait until the next morning to call the police.
On April 2, Chris and Lisana missed an appointment with a local guide who was supposed to take them on a private walking tour to Boquete, prompting the host family to notify police of the couple's disappearance. The next morning, local residents conducted an aerial search of the forest, as well as villages and sparsely wooded areas.
A bounty finding for two missing girls
As of 6 April, the whereabouts of the two girls were still unknown. Fearing the worst, Chris and Lisana's family flew to Panama with Dutch detectives, who searched the forest for 10 days with local police and a canine team.
Days passed, weeks passed, 10 weeks passed, and there was still no trace of Chris and Lisanna.
When police slowed their search, a local woman delivered a blue backpack that she claimed had found in a rice field on the riverbank. Inside the backpack were two pairs of sunglasses, $83 in cash, Lisana's passport, a mineral water bottle and two bras. On top of that, it also contained Lisanna's camera and the phones of the two girls.
Find the belongings of the two missing girls
Police immediately investigated the camera and cell phone and found disturbing clues.
After the two girls disappeared, the phones have been in use for nearly 10 days. In just 4 days, there were 77 different police attempts, through the emergency number 112 in the Netherlands and 911 in Panama. Through the call records, the police were able to outline the approximate time when the two girls disappeared in the forest.
A few hours after Chris and Lisana began calling 112, they received their first two emergency calls. Due to the poor signal due to the dense jungle, two attempts to answer were unsuccessful.
In fact, only one of the 77 calls made contact, but the signal was interrupted after two seconds.
Police also found that on April 6, someone had repeatedly tried to unlock Chris's phone with the wrong password, but without success. After that, the phone never received the correct password again. By April 11, both phones were turned off.
Search and rescue teams search for two missing girls
Although the call history of the phone is disturbing, it is nothing compared to the photo record on the camera.
The first photo on camera was taken on the morning of April 1, when the two girls were about to set off for a hike. The photos show Chris and Lisana on a trail near the Continental Divide, and police have not raised any suspicions about them until then.
However, the second set of photos was worrisome, taken late at night between 1 and 4 a.m. on April 8, in which the belongings of the two girls were scattered on rocks, plastic bags and candy wrappers, strangely piled with a pile of dirt, a mirror and, most worryingly, bleeding from the temple location of Chris's head.
After investigating the area where the backpack was found, police found Chris's clothes, neatly folded by the river. Two months later, a bone in the pelvic area and a foot, still wearing boots, were found in the same area.
Left: Lisana has feet in her boots. Right: Lisanna's pelvis
Soon after, bones were found in both girls. Lisana's bones look like they're naturally decaying because there are still pieces of meat attached to the bones. Chris's bones were pale and looked like they had been bleached.
Police questioned locals, guides and other hikers in the area at the time, but apart from photos and call records, there was no evidence of what happened, or even enough to determine their deaths.
To this day, the disappearance and death of Chris and Lisana remains a harrowing mystery.