Kris Kremers: The disappearance and presumed death of two young ladies in Panama are shrouded in mystery. Local authorities are at a loss to explain the mysterious disappearance of a photo file from their SD card. The Dutch couple Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon visited Panama in 2014.
The pair, aged 21 and 22, took a hike through Boquete’s picturesque woodlands near the Baru Volcano on April 1. According to The Sun, neither was ever heard from again. A search party was dispatched on April 2 after the alarm was raised, but they showed up empty-handed until ten weeks later when a local woman turned in Froon’s blue rucksack.
The bag’s contents included her camera, two pairs of sunglasses, $83 in cash, Froon’s passport, a water bottle, two bras, and the phones of both ladies. The phones revealed that a call was made to 112 and then 911 a few hours after the hikers set out. There was never a strong enough signal to carry any calls through.
Subsequent investigation found that Froon’s phone ran out of juice on April 4, while Kremer’s iPhone was activated many times between April 5 and April 11, but the wrong PIN was entered each time.
La Estrella de Panama reported that two months after the discovery of the backpack, a pelvic bone and foot were found in the exact location, both still within a boot. Shortly thereafter, skeletal remains that appeared to be those of the two women who had gone missing were discovered.
Froon’s bones looked like they had typically decayed, but Kremers’ bones were a stark white as if they had been breached. This raised suspicions that foul play was involved in both of their deaths.
Photographic Clues
Froon’s Canon Powershot SX270 HS was loaded with pictures, many of which were taken in the hours and days before the girls vanished. Two young women took typical vacation pictures.
Photographs taken of them in the jungle on April 1 show that everything is well. After that, there were no pictures until April 8, when 90 eerie photos were taken in the middle of the jungle at night with a flash, and the time stamps ranged from 1:00 AM to 4:00 AM.
Most of the photos taken on April 8 are either of blackness or the jungle floor. Still, two of them are particularly disturbing: one shows the girls’ possessions scattered on a boulder, and the other appears to indicate a bloodstain on the back of Kremers’ head.
As is standard practice for digital cameras, the point-and-shoot camera assigns increasing numbers to its files. If Dutch authorities discovered the Canon Powershot, one file was noticeably absent: IMG 0509. It’s remarkable since that trouble-free moment was captured in picture 508 for the last time. Image 510, on the other hand, was arrested on April 8th, deep in the jungle’s nighttime.
The Missing File
The Canon Powershot SX270 HS offers two ways to track your photo count. Continual operation and automatic reset. Deleting image 509 before capturing image 510 would force the camera to revert to using image 509 if the “Auto Reset” setting was in effect.
On the other hand, if the “Continuous” mode was selected, the following picture would still be 510, even if 509 was erased. The camera’s default mode is Continuous, but this information is not readily available to the public.
The disappearance of IMG 0509, which may be a key piece of evidence, raises more questions than it answers. While a camera malfunction is possible, it seems improbable that this occurred. It’s more likely that the photo was erased.
Even if a photo is accidentally erased from a camera, it may be recovered. Investigators from the Netherlands tried to get their hands on the file but were unsuccessful, suggesting the camera was connected to a computer and the video was removed.
The Panamanian government has been held responsible for the disappearance and accused of a lackluster search effort in the days following the disappearance. There is speculation that they may have witnessed something they didn’t want the general public to know about.
Another possibility is that someone in the bush with a laptop who may or may not be responsible for the girls’ murders removed the file for some reason while leaving the others on the card untouched.
An Accident?
The sad deaths of Kris Kremers and Froon have never been explained, and the identities of the two bodies found have not been determined with any degree of certainty. Lost in the Jungle, by Dutch authors Marja West and Jürgen Snoeren, asserts that the riddle has been solved.
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After thoroughly examining the evidence and investigating Panama, the two determined that the girls’ deaths were accidental. It was shocking, but we knew it had to be an accident. The authors tell The Daily Beast, “It took us a long time to get there.” The frequent flash floods in the region, as hypothesized by Snoeren and West, would make strategic placement of things impractical.
Based on what I’ve seen in the police report, it has to be… there was a specific timing to it that could only have been brought on by the flash floods that are usual for the area and time of year. There is still no explanation for the enigma.
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