The Daily Beast
Jeremy kryt
DEATH ON THE SERPENT RIVER
08.06.16 11:15 PM ET
The Lost Girls of Panama: The Camera, the Jungle, and the Bones
… “Back in early April of 2014, when Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22,disappeared near the top of the Divide, there was no sign here at all.
For weeks there was no sign of the women either. Investigators know they started the hike in good weather, at mid-morning, and should have summited by about 1:00 p.m. That would have given them plenty of time to return to Boquete before nightfall, but for some reason they never made it back to town.” …..
Part 1 of this series pointed to the botched/questionable investigation. Blame for the lost girls= the Panamanian authorities.
Part 2 of the series raised a slew of questions pointing to criminal activity and cover-up. The individual in question, as clearly indicated in the title and conclusion= the part-time guide/rancher who was “the last man to see the girls alive.”
Part 3 takes a rambling, speculative look at the pictures on the camera and the conditions of the jungle, and consults a best-selling fiction writer, who never saw the evidence, what she thought about the bones. Conclusion= the jungle is to blame; they were lost and perished.
So a zig-zagging investigative report that came straight back to the “official” conclusion, and one accepted apparently by many in Boquete- What was the point of writing it?? A well-known American newspaper doing a big story, bringing in several American as well as Panamanian presumed experts, most supporting the theory that the girls were lost and there was no foul play. Yet the questions they are raising are profound and multiple.
The ending conclusion made in this third part that the girls were lost is based nearly solely on the pictures taken in the dark and what “possibly” could have happened. This conclusion is faulty based on the fact that:
There is no evidence that the pictures were even taken by the girls.
1. There is no picture of the girls, lost and in the dark.
2. The time/date stamp on this camera can be changed. According to Wikipedia entry for this model, “the timestamp is only as accurate as the clock in the camera, and it may be completely wrong.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Canon_PowerShot_SX270_HS.JPG Therefore, someone who got their camera could have stood in the same spot and clicked the camera repeatedly, and even changed the date and time while doing so.
3. None of the pictures are clear, so the writer had to draw in and explain in great detail what we are supposed to think about them.
4. Pictures taken over and over in the same spot in the dark were stated to perhaps be (Lisanne) “trying to use the camera to tell us something she thinks is important,” but it is anyone’s guess what that might be.
5. The picture “possibly” showing a wounded Kris is not shown or verified by anyone as Kris, nor where she is. Yet it is used as the sole evidence for another far-reaching theory of how Lisanne may have left her there.
6. Articles placed around the rocks and identified as “possibly” signals for rescuers could also be entirely consistent with a cover-up of a crime. Anyone could have put them there.
Then the article presents the thoughts by email of Dr. Reichs, “world-famous forensic anthropologist and best-selling author,” who offers these theories:
- A “flap of Lisanne’s skin that survived intact” can be explained by rainforest “micro-environments.”
- Concerning the fragmentation of the remains, she says, “Further damage from animal scavenging can be very diverse due to multiple transport modes: avian, fish, turtle, crab, small and large carnivores, etcetera.” (Though there is no noted damage to the remains from animal scavenging.)
- And her most “powerful point”- “Why would any criminal or criminals ‘leave cash, a passport, and electronics in the back pack?’” (That is a no-brainer, because again, it would be consistent with the cover-up to a crime.)
Other Ning posters have spoken very well to questions about the conditions of the trail and how the girls could have ended up at the cable bridge, which was still part of the trail. And further, no one saw them there over the span of several days? None of this is in keeping with them getting lost, or that they even would have attempted to go this far. It is a stretch to think they did. Yet this entire article engages in wild and far-flung speculation, to arrive back at the official conclusion.
Major unanswered questions remain, that fit a “crime and cover-up” more than “lost in the jungle”:
- The backpack and bag of bones brought in by the Ngobe, and no one even knows they were ever at the river.
- The condition of the backpack and the contents (they sure don’t appear they were ever at the river).
- The condition of the remains, and lack there-of.
- The forensic reports, and lack there-of.
- The lack of interviews as evidence from multiple eyewitnesses, including: guides (the one named in part 2 and Walter’s), hostel/school staff, people who sighted them near the trail (and don’t forget Blue), the Ngobe man and woman who reportedly found and brought in the bag of bones, and others.
- The reason for this whole article which leads us in spite of all these unanswered questions to believe, “this is a story with no real villain.”
Therefore, we do not even know that Kris and Lisanne died on the Serpent River.
Boquete, the authorities of Panama, local resident expats, the school/hostel who received them, are all responsible to take care of guests who come as tourists, or to do volunteer work. If there was a failure, then it is the responsibility of those in the community to submit the facts of what is known for the safety and decency of the community. Further, if this is a crime, the perpetrator went too far this time, and the international community will find out what happened. He/they left too many clues.
Replies
Money and expensive electronics left in a knapsack? .... not very ominous
Kris' pants were supposedly found on the eastbank. She therefore supposedly had crossed the river already (from Boquete to bocas).
Or: lisanne managed to cross the bridge in the direction of Boquete, coming from bocas. So presumably on their way back from where?
Very interesting points. Either scenario is illogical and unbelievable, to take your shorts off and leave them “zipped and folded and set on a rock high above the water line” perhaps “placed at the crossing as a marker” as per The Daily Beast. These are apparently the same shorts that were later found to have “no evidence of blood or DNA” per the lawyer quoted in the La Estrella article “Los Huesos Presentan Rastros de Fósforo.” Even top Boquete Ninger Walter blogging from Montreal concluded in what was to be his “final post” that the shorts could have been “placed to draw attention to the fact that there was an accident.” It is not a fact that there was an accident. What is a fact is that this article from The Daily Beast is the latest chapter in the continual manipulation of the evidence and story of the missing girls.
The night photos (taken AFTER midnight) are close-up images.
One (or more?) shows a close-up of what is supposed to be Kris' hair. That would indicate that Kris and Lisanne were next to each other at that moment on one side of the river. Presumably the side where the items were placed?
The items and the paper seem to be DRY, indicating that they had just been placed.
In other words: Kris removes her pants and places them on a rock and then crosses the bridge.
Remains the crucial question: why in the middle of the night instead of waiting till dawn? And why try to attract the attention by placing items if you are sneaking around in the dark? Because of the fall?
And seeing the place where the items were placed (if correct), then couldn't they have just climbed out of there?
And, being an official crossing, wouldn't anyone show up eventually?
I don't believe that these 2 young women would have created so many questions for their loved ones without leaving behind some kind of concrete message in their mother language.
These are all key questions. So, this series of images all taken at night; none are clear; supposed markers placed in odd unintelligent way; though the girls were likely weak and possibly injured, one or both had the strength to cross the bridge and place the shorts high on a rock; no one saw them over a week span on a main trail at an official crossing; and…no note/message/picture left to loved ones in their native language. That this could have actually happened as presented by the articles defies the imagination. It appears to be a total and complete illogical, botched attempted cover up of foul play, no matter what levels of status were solicited for help.
It is very sad, and I'm glad you've decided to stay out of the discussion, as people with misinformation (and info obtained primarily from heresay posts on Ning) can cloud such a serious subject. I hope more info comes to light to give some true closure to the family and friends. Enjoyed meeting and speaking to Lisanne's family - they deserve some more information and definitive closure.
True. The zig-zagging conclusions of The Daily Beast on this story and the final angle of “lost in the jungle” is yet another huge mystery in all this. For any police investigator, this is in your face, a crime. One thing we can say for Walter’s posts about the guide in question, he might have saved him from getting thrown under the bus, as that seems to be where Part 2 of the article was heading. Clearly a crime of this nature would have had to involve more than one person, and someone who could/would plan out psychopathic twisted trails of evidence, much like a crime novel.
That criminologist from Montréal failed to point this out.
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