The Mysterious Disappearance & Death of Two Dutch Hiker Girls

[Doc Safari]

Makes some sense. There is one problem. If Lisanne died that night, why was the phone accessed (no pin) days later, but no day time photos taken?

True, when I say Lisanne suffered a fatal fall "shortly thereafter", I'm not saying it happened within minutes of Kris's fall. It might very well have happened in the daytime.

[WillBrink]

Here's what I think happened. The first photo in the sequence is the one of the twig with the plastic bags on it. I don't know why that was taken at night unless the two were starving, thirsty, and not thinking clearly. They were doing their best to conserve energy by moving around at night instead of the daytime in the hot, steamy jungle.

I think shortly after that, in the pitch black darkness, Lisanne heard Kris scream because Kris had fallen over the edge of a precipice. Lisanne began frantically snapping photos to use the camera's flash to try to locate where her friend was. The next photo in sequence is the one looking over the precipice where there may be the faint image of a "body" in the upper right hand portion of the photo. I think that's when Lisanne had found Kris at the bottom of a ravine. The next photo in sequence is the bloody head shot of Kris. Lisanne had crawled down the precipice to where Kris's body was, and snapped the photo to document her friend's death. I think somewhere in the darkness Lisanne probably suffered a fatal fall shortly afterword. The two bodies laid there until the torrential rains flooded the area and carried the bodies off. If both bodies had multiple broken bones, as they decomposed they probably would have disarticulated faster than a body that was decomposing without broken bones. Who knows how long the remains were in the river before animals carried off what was left. I do believe the skulls should have been found, though.

Anyway, that's my theory.

One aspect that needs to be made very clear, is, that's not a jungle, not even a little. It's at higher elevation, and gets quite cool at night, and depending on time of year, quite dry. Rainy season will leave it hot and humid at times, but not deep jungle level hot, and may be 50s or lower at night. Anyone who refers to that as jungle, does not chit about the area. It does have plenty of steep places however people can fall into if not careful, and unlike the US, they often don't have signes, fences, ropes, etc to prevent it if one is not paying attention. They may simply have run off a bad spot in the dark. In fact, they may have gotten rained on, temps dropped and perhaps they were slightly hypothermic.

The legit jungle is the Darien Gap, at the Panama/Colombia borders, and if you like interesting dangerous places, The Gap is that place and listed one of the most dangerous jungles in the world:

https://www.outsideonline.com/209880...ake-darien-gap

It should be noted, since hostilities with the FARK have seemingly ended, should less dangerous, but there's still plenty in there of two legged varmints and non, that going in there without armed support, guide, etc, is a very bad idea. People go on the The Gap, and don't always come out. Big problem at The Gap right now, is human trafficing and an M4C member was there working on that some time ago as a fed. He sent me some cool pics and said my book was pretty spot on to what it was like.

The Gap is the focus of part II of my novella thriller series, and the only place in the series I have not been:

https://www.amazon.com/VACATION-GONE...dp/B011JDNOZE/

Finally, I may be going to The Gap with a Panamanian doc who goes semi regularly to give medical care to the Guna (Kuna) Indians, as he has the contacts, Panamanian security detail etc.

[Kyohte]

True, when I say Lisanne suffered a fatal fall "shortly thereafter", I'm not saying it happened within minutes of Kris's fall. It might very well have happened in the daytime.

Still, why no daytime pictures? If they were moving at night, there would be more “moving” pictures from the flash. So in your theory, Lisanne likely moved out of the “camp” site at night. That doesn’t jive with the lack of further navigation pictures. If she didn’t move out at night, she had time to take the body photos the next day.

After re-examining everything, I am not sure Lisanne took the night pictures. This makes more sense considering a picture was deleted from the camera, and likely by a computer. It raises more questions than answers but it does answer the “why no final selfie?” and “why no photos between day 1 and day 7 night?” And “why no photos after day 7 night?”. Still, if not Lisanne, then who? And why?

[Doc Safari]

Still, why no daytime pictures? If they were moving at night, there would be more “moving” pictures from the flash. So in your theory, Lisanne likely moved out of the “camp” site at night. That doesn’t jive with the lack of further navigation pictures. If she didn’t move out at night, she had time to take the body photos the next day.

After re-examining everything, I am not sure Lisanne took the night pictures. This makes more sense considering a picture was deleted from the camera, and likely by a computer. It raises more questions than answers but it does answer the “why no final selfie?” and “why no photos between day 1 and day 7 night?” And “why no photos after day 7 night?”. Still, if not Lisanne, then who? And why?

You've asked questions others have asked, that's for sure. Getting back to the foul play aspect: If you were the perp or perps that killed them, why let the backpack turn up at all?

[Five_Point_Five_Six]

They went on an afternoon hike, went further than they should, were ill prepared, got lost, and met their demise. Cold, scared, lost and alone in a strange country would be a bad way to die.

[Doc Safari]

Some additional insight into the photos.

https://imgur.com/a/S7qm4

This person claims the "body" in the appropriate photo is actually a leaf.


EDITED TO ADD: I can't post one link, because I'm coming up with this theory myself based on surfing a ton of websites and forum comments about this case, but here goes:

1. There is a photo of Kris's head wound.
2. Lisanne's shattered foot was still in her hiking shoe. The breakages are consistent with a fall from a great height according to SME's.
3. Some people are of the opinion that the photos, rather than being shot DOWN a cliff, actually are pointing UP.
4. A lot of the photos are apparently of complete darkness and show nothing of use.

Here's my alternate theory.

Why the picture of the twig with the signalling elements, and the toilet paper apparently spelling out "SOS" or something were taken at night, I do not know.

Perhaps after leaving the "signals", one of them suggests they climb to higher ground to see if they can get a cell phone signal. Why do this at night, who knows? Why neither of them thought of that earlier, I don't know. One theory suggests they believed in the old adage that you should keep following a river downstream.

Since both Kris and Lisanne apparently suffered wounds consistent with impact injuries either at or before their deaths, what if the injuries occurred at the same time? Perhaps both Lisanne and Kris fell off the same cliff at the same time. At first, Lisanne, the less injured one, comes partly to her senses and begins snapping photos to try to illuminate where they are and what's ahead of them, realizing they've just fallen over a cliff in complete darkness and don't know how much real estate they landed on. Lisanne points the camera up to see how far they've fallen and if climbing back out is a possibility. At this point she realizes that Kris is not speaking or moving, and photographs her bloody head. Kris is either already dead or unconscious. Lisanne realizes she herself has one or more broken bones and ceases taking photos...OR...she realizes they are immobilized by their injuries and begins using the flash in the camera and shouting for help from their position, hoping somebody...anybody...will hear her and see the flashes. She too eventually dies from her injuries.

Being on a precipice who knows how high up from the jungle floor, the rains gradually wash their decomposing bodies and the backpack down the cliff face and the bodies break up into pieces. A few pieces make it to the jungle floor, and these are carried away by animals or other means, and these are the pieces that are finally found. The reason no more pieces are found is because they are scattered among various ledges on the very cliff face from where they fell. This also explains why searches turned up nothing. Maybe the searchers weren't searching high enough?

That only leaves the backpack. How did it survive 10 weeks in the elements? Answer: It didn't. One of the indigenous persons found it early on and "kept it." Only after word of the missing girls reached the Indios did that person realize "I'd better get rid of this" and either planted it to be found, or was the one who turned it in. That might explain the dozens of fingerprints found on items in the backpack. The Indios went through it several times to see what was there.

[Doc Safari]

Some info I just found. Sounds plausible, unfortunately the link in the article pulls up some suspicious popups and it never really redirected to the report referred to.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedM...s_kremers_two/

The final report from a team of forensic specialists who have been working on the case is available at: http://www.answersforkris.com/en/

A final search for further remains and to examine what may have happened to the girls took place at the start of this year. Much of the search was hampered by bad weather, particularly the intended use of cadaver dogs, but investigators were able to examine various theories and reach some conclusions about the girls' disappearance.

The investigation agreed that it was virtually impossible for the girls to have got lost and wandered unwittingly from the trail. The investigators also considered it highly unlikely that they had fallen victim to some criminal activity.

A particular part of the trail was identified separately by several investigators as a potential spot where someone could fall down to one of the tributaries of the Culebra river (the river in which the recovered remains, clothing and backpack were found at various sites). The point where a faller would have landed was independently identified by a local very familiar with the area as the location where the night time pictures were taken.

Someone slipping from the trail at that point would fall up to forty meters and end up in an area surrounded by waterfalls and steep cliffs they wouldn't be able to climb back up from, had they survived the fall to be able to do so. Such a massive fall is apparently also consistent with the state of those of the girls' remains that have been recovered.

The precise details of what happened to Kris and Lisanne will probably never be known, but Kris's parents have expressed their relief at understanding what is likely to have happened to their daughter.

It's incredibly sad to realise that these young women almost certainly died within yards of the trail they disappeared from, and that one or both must have survived for several days before finally passing. It seems there are important lessons to be learned from their deaths.

My take: That short write-up seems to explain a lot as far as why more remains were not found.

And from one of the comments on the same page:

Just wandered into the websleuths thread and found this post:

"Use of their Canon SX270 camera

The recent Telegraaf article (Saturday October 4th) based on the Dutch Forensic Institute (NFI) report concerning the contents of their backback quotes "involved sources" thus:

The final seventy of the 133 sequential photos "appear to have been taken from a deep, dark location, almost certainly after sunset and presumably featuring a large amount of overhanging vegetation." The photos were taken "on April 8th during the night, presumably to draw attention."

That matches the already documented period of night photography between 01:00 and 04:00 on Tuesday 8th. This happens to be the first night out for a rescue team, said to have used light and sound signals. These are not described in detail, but a rescue party would normally use a Very pistol to send up a series of white parachute flares to indicate their own position.

It seems plausible that the women saw the light signals. How could they answer them? Apparently they didn't have the standard orange plastic whistle hikers usually carry. Wonderful piece of kit - costs little, weighs grams, makes a hell of a lot of noise. But tropical mountain woodland won't carry any sound very far, even in the almost windless conditions prevailing that night. And they did have a light source; their camera's flash.

But they couldn't aim that flash directly at the rescue team. Too many trees in the way. They were somewhere near a narrow river, with tall woodland on both sides. But they could see a patch of sky. Did it make sense to flash roughly vertically upwards? The reliable source of historical hourly weather data (links below) skips these particular hours, but highish humidity and partial cloud cover are on the cards. Perhaps they fired the flash a couple of times and saw some Tyndall scattering - like you would see a searchlight beam in damp or dusty conditions. In any case, they had nothing to lose and would certainly fail if they didn't try.

So they tried for hours. But the fingernail-sized flash of their pocket camera was too weak, or there wasn't much scattering and all the light just disappeared straight up. The dark frames themselves show no significant reflections. This is perhaps the most heartbreaking part of their ordeal."

My take: This suggests they were using the camera's flash to try to signal the searchers and had no luck instead of Lisanne using it to find her injured friend in the dark.

[flenna]

They went on an afternoon hike, went further than they should, were ill prepared, got lost, and met their demise. Cold, scared, lost and alone in a strange country would be a bad way to die.

The most likely scenario. Strange things happen in the great outdoors- people get lost, panic, do strange things once the panic sets in. Being in a foreign country without the S&R resources of the U.S. just compounded the tragedy. IMHO.

[tb-av]

Anyway, that's my theory.

Sounds reasonable but consider a couple other things. Many hikers are first time hikers but most are not first time hikers outside their country. So let's assume some experience. Almost all hikers will have a headlamp. No if girl one ventures off to use the bathroom and falls off a cliff her lamp would go out for sure. There are also caves in Jamaica and I assume Panama so she could have fallen in a hole or off a cliff. The second girl would not likely waste her phone when her headlamp was for that use. Not having watched it it does sound like an accident followed by a failed rescue. Especially since many hikers have limited skills and that was a new environment.

[Business_Casual]

I was assuming that the majority of the no pin activity was from when the phone was found by 3rd parties, but the time line isn’t a good fit for all of that.