The Mysterious Deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon #56 - a podcast by SMP

What happened to Dutch tourists Kris Kremers Lisanne Froon in Panama that led to their deaths on a scenic hike into the mountains? This week on Solvable Mysteries we examine the puzzling case of Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers, two student tourists from Amersfoort, Netherlands who disappeared from a hike on April 1st, 2014, and whose bodies and personal belongings later washed up in a river far from where they were last seen.  Their phones and cameras tell a story of two women in distress and possibly lost in the jungle, yet there are still many outstanding questions about what happened to them in the several days between April 1st and April 8th, and what their fate was.

We discuss the mysterious disappearance and deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, two Dutch tourists who originally went to  Panama as part of a gap year tourist trip to volunteer to teach English locally, only to be turned away at the school that had originally accepted their offer.  In the intervening days Kris and Lisanne explored Panama, interacted with locals, and made friends with other tourists staying in the area.  On April 1st, they embarked on a trip up the Pianista trail towards the Continental Divide with few belongings and little preparation, and subsequently went missing.  Though the government and their families searched for them, there was no sign until a backpack with their belongings was found in a rice paddy by a riverbank in Alta Romero, in Bocas del Toro.  This backpack contained their phones and a digital camera, both which provided compelling but troubling and inconclusive evidence that Kris and Lisanne had run into trouble on their trip and apparently gone for almost 8 days, if not longer, in their attempt to survive whatever ordeal they had entered.  Months later, bones from both of their bodies, without markings, as well as some articles of clothing, turned up in the Culebra river, which confirmed their deaths but did not provide any additional conclusive clues to how they died.

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