Death on the Serpent River: How the Lost Girls of Panama Disappeared
This is the first in a three-part investigation into what may have been a savage crime or a tragic accident. In addition to a trove of documents and photographs revealing hitherto unexamined aspects of the case, The Daily Beast has consulted several top sleuths in fields as varied as wilderness survival and photographic analysis, with the expert opinion as well of forensic anthropologist and best-selling author Kathy Reichs.
BOQUETE, Panama — Welcome to the jungle: specifically, the cloud forests of the Talamanca highlands.
It’s a rainy Saturday in early June, at the height of the wet season here in northern Panama, and we are—quite literally—on the trail of a deadly international mystery.
This mud-slick, root-choked footpath is called the Pianista, or Piano Player, because it climbs—in a series of ladder-like steps reminiscent of a keyboard—up from the tourist town of Boquete to the Continental Divide, at about 6,660 feet.
Bright-tailed quetzals flit through dwarf species of cedar, oak, and wild avocado along the trail. At this elevation the trees are stunted and wind-warped, their twisted limbs draped with moss and epiphytes.
The raining is falling in surprisingly cold gusts by the time our small party reaches the Mirador, the overlook at the top of the Divide, about three hours after leaving the trailhead. On a clear day you can see all the way to Boquete. Today, however, the only thing visible from here is the white sea of mist atop the canopy below.
But the Pianista is known for more than just its pretty birds and haunting vistas.
Back in April 2014, two Dutch tourists—Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22—disappeared after setting out on this same three-mile stretch of trail.
(DJ--Rest of this installment here at The Daily Beast. Typical of many American articles about Panama, it gets the oceans, directions and geographical orientation incorrect, Sloppy, but incidental.
Next Saturday—The Search)
Replies
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/30/the-last-man-to-se...
Sinaproc started on the 4th of April, not on the 6th! That's a big difference of 2 days!
Walter, Just wondering, why did you remove your posts from this thread? Surely this is one of the most important threads to the community of Boquete that we have seen in some time, and all information is important.
Has anyone seen this TV report by Telemetro (July 18th)?
Sure, everyone for a time was led to believe that the girls had likely gotten lost and perished in the jungle, which is entirely plausible. But if the investigative journalist at the Daily Beast and others he interviews and provides documentation from were nearly sure of that, then he would not be providing this investigative report with so many question marks, including:
- “Why had so few remains been found?”
- “Why were there no marks on the bones?”
- “What did the presence of other human remains mean?”
- Why “after the discovery of the identified remains, [did] Panama’s attorney general [call] the case ‘a crime against personal integrity,’ but when forensic examiners reached an impasse, the Panamanian government simply declared the case closed”?
- Why does the lawyer for one of the families believe “the evidence seems to have been manipulated in order to hide something”?
- Why though there were “more than 30 unidentified fingerprints” on the backpack did Panama fail “to record prints from any of the indigenous people involved in the case”?
- How can “the intact conditions of the clothes and wallet,” backpack, and electronics be explained? (and we heard reported that the pack was found hanging on a branch, not “washed up on the riverbank”-- which was it?)
- Why is it that “no forensics examination was ever done at the crime scene”?
- Why as Concerned already posted did “none of the dog teams ever [get] near the scene either—including the Dutch dog teams”?
- Why were the local resident Ngobe the acting ‘forensics’ team, with the bag of bones they brought in not even verified?
Though we can’t imagine the pain of the parents of these girls, a full investigation of whether or not it was in fact a crime would serve to PREVENT other victims and other grief-stricken parents. So we look forward to follow these reports and anything else that comes out to see if any light will be shed on these unanswered questions.
They were told that it was impossible for the girls to have gone beyond the mirador. (!!!!?!) Who ever invented this?
The photo here above of Kris standing by that small creek beyond the mirador, that spot has never been reached or sniffed by the Dutch dogs.
What a shame and what an expensive joke.
Yes Walter. I am a Dutch resident of Boquete and you are fully right.
Uh, Walter, sounds like you should contact the Daily Beast with this information. Maybe they could investigate if there were two other Dutch girls, with similar appearance, who were enrolled in Spanish classes, and planning to do volunteer work, there in Boquete at the exact same time as Kris and Lisanne.
I also find it interesting that I saw the Volcancito Mission Director (who we've posted about before) visited by the local police for advice about the missing Dutch girls (so he told me after they left) the day before the backpack was found. He also announced at Sunday night church early in April that he had gone with his head groundskeeper to help with a search on the Pianista Trail, as a good Christian should do.
So glad this case is being investigated. Gary