Hello everyone, and welcome back to A Voice for the Missing. My name is Grace. If you would like to submit a case for me, please go to avoiceforthemissing.net and click the Case Submissions link. This week's episode is on the deaths of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. The two girls were Dutch students who disappeared on 1 April 2014 while hiking the El Pianista trail in Panama. After an extensive search, portions of their bodies began to be found a few months later. Their cause of death could not be determined definitively, but Dutch officers working with forensic and search-rescue investigators initially thought it likely the students had accidentally fallen from a cliff after becoming lost.
However, foul play could not be entirely ruled out and is considered by some people much more likely due to other remains being found. The circumstances and aftermath surrounding their disappearance have resulted in much speculation about their final days. Panamanian authorities came under fire for allegedly mishandling the disappearance and aftermath. Further investigation into the case in 2017 raised questions about the initial examination and a possible link to murders in the area. Although many theories have been presented about what happened to Kremers and Froon, no official cause of death has been ruled. Kris Kremers (21) and Lisanne Froon (22) grew up in Amersfoort, Utrecht, in the Netherlands. Kremers was an open, creative, and responsible individual, while Froon was aspiring, optimistic, intelligent, and a passionate volleyball player. Kremers had just completed her cultural and social education studies, specializing in art education at the University of Utrecht; Froon had graduated with a degree in applied psychology[9] from Deventer. A few weeks before leaving for Panama, Froon had moved in with Kremers in a dorm room in Amersfoort, and they worked together at the café/restaurant called 'In den Kleinen Hap.'
They both saved up money for six months. They planned to go to Panama together on a memorable six-week vacation, hoping to learn Spanish and do something significant for the locals, particularly volunteering with children. The trip was also supposed to be a reward to Froon for graduating. Kremers and Froon arrived in Panama on 15 March 2014. They toured the country for two weeks before coming to Boquete, Chiriquí, on 29 March to live with a local family for a month while volunteering with children. On 1 April, around 11:00, they went hiking near the Baru volcano's dark forests on the El Pianista trail, not far from Boquete. Some sources say they took a dog that belonged to the owners of the 'Il Pianista' restaurant, but this has not been confirmed. The women wrote on Facebook that they intended to walk around Boquete, and it was reported that they had been seen having brunch with two young Dutch men before embarking on the trail. Some sources claim the restaurant owners became alarmed when their dog returned home that night without Kremers and Froon. Froon's parents stopped receiving text messages, which both women had been sending to their families daily.
On the morning of 2 April, the women missed an appointment with a local guide. On 6 April, their parents arrived in Panama along with police, dog units, and detectives from the Netherlands to conduct a full-scale search of the forests for ten days. The parents offered a US$30,000 reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of Kremers and Froon. Ten weeks later, on 14 June, a local woman turned in Froon's blue backpack, which she reported finding by a riverbank near her village of Alto Romero in the Bocas del Toro Province. The pack contained two pairs of sunglasses, US$83 in cash, Froon's passport, a water bottle, Froon's camera, two bras, and the women's phones – in good condition. The women's phones showed that around six hours after the beginning of their hike, someone dialed 112, which is the international emergency number in use in The Netherlands, and 9-1-1, which is the emergency number in Panama. The first distress call attempt was made by Kremers' iPhone 4 at 16:39 (4:39 pm), and shortly after that, another attempt was made from Froon's Samsung Galaxy S III at 16:51 (4:51 pm), but none of the calls got through due to lack of reception in the area.
None of the subsequent call attempts ever managed to go through, either. On 4 April, Froon's battery became exhausted after 05:00, and the phone was never used again. Kremers' iPhone would not make any more calls either but was intermittently turned on to search for a reception. Between 5 and 11 April, the iPhone was turned on multiple times but never entered the correct PIN code again (either no PIN or a wrong PIN code was entered). On 11 April, the phone was turned on at 10:51h (10:51 am) and was turned off for the last time at 11:56h (11:56 am). The discovery of the backpack led to new searches along the Culubre River. Kremers' denim shorts were found atop a rock on the opposite bank of the tributary, a few kilometers away from where Froon's backpack had been discovered. A rumor claimed that the shorts were found zipped and neatly folded, but pictures of the shorts, published in 2021, disproved this information. Two months later, a pelvis and a boot with a foot inside were found closer to where the backpack was discovered. Soon, at least 33 scattered bones were found along the same river bank.
I don't know if they fell off a cliff accidentally or if someone lured them somewhere to murder them, but whatever happened, the case is still unsolved. The two families deserve to know what exactly happened to their loved ones and to get justice by putting whoever did this to the two friends behind bars. As I'm writing this, I'm realizing more and more that this wasn't an accident because it's not humanly possible for a foot to completely sever from the body if someone fell off a cliff. If you have any information regarding the murders of Kris Kremers and Lisanne, please get in touch with the Boquete Panama police department at: +507 728-1914. Until next week, God bless and be kind to one another.