Morbid - The Missing Panama Tourists Mini Morbid

Episode Date: March 16, 2019

For Alaina's Mini Morbid, we will take a look at the baffling case of Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. After embarking on a philanthropic journey to Central America from the Netherlands, both young women went missing in the Panama jungle in 2014. When scant remains of the missing women were found some time later, along with cell phones that called for help several times and a camera with spooky photos, the case took a turn from confusing to scary. What happened to Kris and Lisanne out there? Sources: https://www.elitereaders.com/photos-tourists-mysteriously-disappeared/ https://allthatsinteresting.com/kris-kremers-lisanne-froon https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-lost-girls-of-panama-the-full-story Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey weirdos, I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is a mini morbid. Whoa. Mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini, mini morbid. Mini morbid, mini morbid, mini morbid. You guys love that song, and so do we. Mini, mini, mini, mini, morbid.

We got a couple of people ask, and I didn't even tell you this until right now. Oh, tell me. If we could make that available as a ringtone. Is that a Patreon? And I was like, yeah, how do we do that? I don't know, but I'm going to figure it out and I'm going to make it available to the Patrions because they asked. Imagine if people used it as an alarm sound.

That'd be amazing. And the human population woke up to my voice. I just want to put it out there, Ash. You wrote a hit. Thanks. You wrote, composed, and produced a hit song. I would like to thank the Academy for considering me. It's very impressive, you know.

But I'm the next. Mary J. Blige. You are. I don't know why she's the first person that popped into my head. Wow, that was like, well, does she sing, don't go chasing waterfalls? No, that's TLC. I'm going to go ahead and cut that up. We are going to, I just want to quickly start off on kind of a giant bummer note. Oh, I know. But I think it's important to say. Today, while we record, we all woke up to the news that there was a pretty horrific, terrorist attack in New Zealand in Christchurch. We love New Zealand. I love New Zealand. Some of our greatest listeners. I think I want to say like 49 people are dead. Yeah, I read and the last thing that I

read. So we just wanted to quickly put out there that New Zealand, we love you. Yes, our thoughts are with you. The world knows this isn't you. This is one really, really, really bad apple. We all have them. Trust me. We're in the United States so we know all about it. We really are. And we're really sorry. And we wanted to show support for you guys and show support for the Muslim community in New Zealand. So, absolutely. So yeah. So we just wanted to put that out there. It was important. But we'll move on from it. And I think the first thing we're going to do is thank a few

Patreon donors. Because again, we're working our way through and we decided to do five an episode now so that we don't bog you guys down with too many names all at once. But we'll get to And like they said, it's more exciting to hear your name. It's more fun. And it's going to last forever. So it's fun. Forever. So I will start this off. We have four members of the window latching coven coming your way. Whoa. First one is Kenzie Rouser. Kenzie Rouser. You are... You're a rousing to our senses. Yes. It's a rousing. You know what? It's a rousing Kenzie that you donated to our Patreon. So thank you. I'm uncomfortable. But we love you. The next one coming up here. The next Patronus is Eleanor Painter. Eleanor Painter. You could paint me a Patreon picture any day. You've painted your way right into our hearts. Yeah, you did. Thank you, Eleanor. Thanks. The next one is Ashley Prophet. Ashley. My name is Ashley. As a fellow Ashley, I would like you, or I would like to thank you for

giving us profit. Thank you, Ashley, Prophet. Thank you so much, Ashley. You're welcome. No one calls me, Ashley, though. That was jarring. Our next Patronus is Taylor Jeffs. Taylor Jeffs. I hope that you're not like Warren Jeffs. I was just thinking that too. I immediately went there in my brain.

But if you are, thanks for donating and keep a big, radius of distance from us. Thanks, Taylor. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Taylor. I know you're not like Warren Jeffs. I know that, but with the last name, this is a true crime podcast. It's the first place we go. So, uh, the last patroness that we're going to thank today is Taya Edwards, who upgraded to a jagged little bitch. Taya. Tayah. Teya. Welcome.

Girl. We love you, Teia. Yeah, we do. I also love your name. That's a cool-ass name. I've also a great name. We've had a lot of great names. Guys, we fucking love you and your names, and I'm so humbled by your donations and your help.

Just everything. I love you guys. The reason we're able to do this is because of you. So we love you so much. And we're going to be doing a listener stories episode. two coming up very shortly because we've been getting a lot of really cool listener stories. We're reading all of them just so you know even if we haven't responded yet. We will be responding just to make sure people don't mind us sharing them.

Yeah. So keep an eye out for that if you've sent one in or if you have one. That's just been brewing under the surface. Now's the time. Send it to us. We're going to do our first listener story coming up. So yeah, that's about all the business. So let's just jump right into this, huh?

Yeah, what's your mini morbid about? So today, I'm going to be talking about the missing girls in Panama. Oh, snizzity, snapity. I'm talking about 21-year-old Chris Kremmers and 22-year-old Lisa and Fruin. Oh, my God. Now, this story is bonkers, bananas, cuckoonut man. I'm going to be able to sleep tonight by myself? It's unsolved, although if you talk to authorities over there, it's solved.

but a lot of people are like, mm-mm, mm-mm, doesn't make sense. There's a lot of twists and turns here. Oh, we love a loopy road. We're just going to start this right off. Let's go. Both of them, Chris Kremmers and Lee Sanfroon are hikers, and they were tourists from the Netherlands. Wait a second, I know this case.

Crazy case, right? Oh, I'm afraid of this case. It is a scary case. You suck. I know. They both went missing in early 2014 while taking a hike in Panama. scattered and scant remains were eventually found, but how they died in the circumstances surrounding their disappearance

is still hotly contested today. Oh, damn it, I'm so freaked out. So Lisa and Froon was born to Peter and Dinny Froon on September 24th, 1991 in Amzer Fort in the Netherlands. Those who knew her described her as brave. She'd like take risks. She would go like skydiving. That's dope.

Super athletic, especially in volleyball. She was like a huge volleyball star. And she was highly intelligent. She was also, like, had a very athletic physique. She was six feet tall. Oh, wow. And she loved photography. After graduating from college with a degree in applied sciences and psychology,

she moved in with her friend Chris Kremers, who she worked at some cafe with as they worked together. Oh, okay. Chris Kremers was born August 9, 1992, to Hans and Roli in Amzer Fort in the Netherlands as well. She was described as very outgoing. She was an actress at one point. She had strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes.

She had two brothers, one older, one younger. In college at Utrecht University, she studied cultural social education and focused on art education. Wow. So both of them were like super smart. I was going to say. Super athletic. From everything I read, it looks like Lee San was like the more risk taker of the two. Chris would go along with things, but she was a little more cautious when it came to this stuff.

So to celebrate Lee San's recent graduation in the spring of 2014, the two of them planned like an epic trip to Panama. They were going to volunteer as social workers. Because not only were they super smart, super athletic, super brave, they were also super philanthropic. I love that word. I know, I do too. The trip would focus on doing some philanthropic work with the locals while there.

And they also wanted to like learn Spanish in a real world setting. Right. So I don't know if, I'm assuming they knew some Spanish and they just kind of wanted to use it in the real world to kind of get better at it. They both saved for six straight months for the trip, and they planned to stay in Panama for six weeks. On March 15th, 2014, they departed from Amsterdam and landed in Panama.

For the first two weeks, they just toured Panama, because when they first arrived, the administrators from the program they were volunteering for weren't ready to receive them yet. So when they got there, they were like, what do we do? So they just hung out and, like, you know, toured Panama, did touristy things. I don't know if you guys can hear that. My neighbor's dog is like losing a shit.

It's going cry, cry. After the two weeks, they then arrived in Bocquet on the 29th. This was the beginning of the one month of volunteering they were going to do with children. Okay. At this point, they were staying with a host family there, and they were planning to stay with this family for about four weeks. Okay. April 1st, 2014, this is when the story really begins. At around 11 a.m. Chris and Lysand set out on a hike.

Never a good plan. Just don't hike everybody. Fuck that. If we learn anything from Diet Love Pass, don't do it. Just don't. Now, you need a tour guide to hike as a tourist in Panama. Because it's super intense. Like, the jungles are nuts.

Oh. Like, nuts. So they really do recommend, like, you have a tour guide. But they didn't go with a tour guide? Well, no, not this time. And this was really dangerous to do. do. And actually one of the last journal entries that Chris wrote in her journal was, quote, Go with the Panamanian flow. This hike took them into the clouded forests that surround the

Baru volcano. That sounds pretty intense. It is very intense. Now these kind of forest, clouded forests, are just straight up like rainforest style. Oh. Like there's flash floods, there's mudslides. Like it can be dangerous because there's a lot of rain that happens. But if you catch it in like the nice part, beautiful. This trail was not far from Bocquet where they were staying and they even took their host's family's dog, Blue, with them. Oh, they did. Yeah, I didn't know that. Blue was a husky kind of dog and apparently they were intending to hike to the Continental Divide, which was like a four-hour hike each way. Okay. And once you get to the Continental Divide, it's like you can look over to these amazing views and all this good stuff, but if you go on the other side, it's just like pandemonium.

Like, it's just like, like, scary. So many jungles and just, just. not trails that you want to take and stuff. Oh, shit. So this trail was, they took as known for the most part and has like three parts to it. The first part is pretty open and has like beautiful scenery and pastures that just like open up around it. So it's like apparently amazing. It's pretty easy to hike at this point.

Okay. Then you enter the straight up jungle. Which I'd be like, I'm leaving now. I'd be like, Anne scene. My Frappuccino's gone. Yeah, done. Vegetation, insects, animals everywhere. Insects by.

Yeah. In like Panama insects. Yeah, it's no good. So that takes about an hour and a half, and then you enter the cloud forest. Okay. Which is supposed to be fucking amazing. The cloud forest is known. It's literally what it sounds like.

Then another 30 minutes into that, you're going up the mountain, and that's when you're above the clouds. Oh, that's so cool. It's supposed to be unreal. I can't imagine. But if you go across the divide, like I said, then you're entering the thick jungles with trails not made for tourists. There's like canyons, ravines, gorges and shit that you just, the only way across most of these things on that side of the continental divide is by these things called monkey bridges. Oh, no. Which are just straight up rope.

And all it is is two rope, like rope on either side of you that you hold and then one rope that you stand on. So you're holding them and then just walking across. Now when they set out on this hike, they only had one bottle of water and no food with them. Interesting. They were planning on going on a shore. on this hike. That's it. Like hiking the four hours up, hiking the four hours back. Girl, I eat every four hours. I do too, but, you know, they didn't pack for like some crazy hike. They back to get up to this thing, see the sites, and come back down. Now, the pair even posted on

social media that they were going to walk around Bocquet before this. And there are confirmed witnesses that say they saw them having brunch with two other Dutchmen before going out on the trail. Okay. So originally when people hear this, they're like, who the fuck of those dudes? Like something's weird. Yeah, I doubt it. But they apparently knew these men. You can never look at the first suspect. Yeah, you can't.

And they had photos with them, like, hanging out at the beach and stuff. Like, they were actually, like, acquaintances. So it wasn't strange. Things took a turn for the really bad, when evening fell. For the really bad. And Blue returned home without Chris or Lissan. Oh, nope. The host family was freaking out.

That's wild that he, like, yeah, he ran back home. Go Blue. Go Blue. The host family started freaking out, and they eventually got in touch with Lisa. San's parents. Okay. Because they were like, we don't know what's going on here. Leesanne's parents immediately became worried when they were not getting any messages back from her.

And they couldn't, she wasn't contacting them. They couldn't contact her. Right. The family had been using the WhatsApp to keep in touch throughout the trip. Yeah, that makes sense. So the next day, the police were finally called. They were called by a tour guide named Feliciano, who was supposed to meet the girls in the morning at about 8 a.m. but when they failed to show up, he became really concerned.

The next day. Yeah. So they were meeting him because they had arranged for him to take them on a hike at like 8 a.m. So why did they go out on their own the day before? I mean, like for a short hike, I get that. But that's not even still. It's like you need guides for this kind of stuff. Even for the one before the indigenous rites.

You should have a guide. It's just like one of those things. You should really have a guide. But maybe they were just like, what I? And it's like you're going on a hike at 8 a.m. the next morning. Like, maybe chill. Yeah.

I know people that like really love a good hike, though. Yeah, I don't know. That's just a strange little detail that people were like, huh. The police went straight to the host family, and they determined immediately that Chris and Lee Sand had never returned from the hike. Like, they were telling them the truth. Because at first they were like, April 3rd is when the searching began. They utilized aerial searching.

They had locals, including farmers and indigenous tribes, to help with like a decent size search. Uh-huh. April 6th, both of the girls' parents flew into Panama, accompanied by Dutch police as well. Oh, wow. The Dutch police force came with special forces, detectives, and canine units. Shit. For 10 days straight, all of these entities searched but came up with absolutely nothing.

Not a shred of evidence that they were even in that jungle. That's weird. Nothing. 10 days straight. It's a huge jungle, though, yeah? Yeah, but they were going on the... Half they were supposed to be going. They couldn't find any.

And they were using aerial searches. They found nothing. Wow. Their parents released a $30,000 reward for any information about their whereabouts at this point. Oh, that's so sad. It wasn't until 10 weeks later on June 14th that a backpack was brought into the police. The backpack was found by a Nogobi woman. A Nogobi is like the local indigenous tribe.

She had found it near a river bank in Alto Romero in the region of Bocas del Toro. this place was 12 hours by foot from the continental divide. They were hiking to the continental divide. And stopping and then turning around. This place where her backpack was found was 12 hours by foot from the continental divide. Okay, so that's... So they would have had to do that rope bridge. They would have had to walk 12 hours from the continental divide.

Yeah, so clearly they didn't walk that far. It's very far. So the woman who brought it into the police said she knew that bag wasn't there the day before while she was tending to her rice patty near the river bank. Shit. And it's not like it was in the, she said, it didn't look like, you know, it looked like somebody put it there. Right. After a search of the contents, which included $83 in cash, two bras, two pairs of sunglasses, Lee Sands Passport, a water bottle, a Canon Power Shot, XS 270 camera,

Lee Sands, Samsung Galaxy phone, and Chris's iPhone 4, everything was dry as a bone and in great condition. That's weird. It was determined that the bag did belong to. to Lysanne. There's two bras in there? Yeah. Like change. I mean, I think they were like bras or like bikini tops or something. I was like, that's kind of weird. Yeah. It was the phones and the camera that provided the most evidence, but also the most confusion. I hate that. I know what's happening and I already hate it. Once data was collected from the phones, it was discovered that both girls had attempted to call the police several times. Oh, I hate that. Any time that like a camera is found, it gives me the super

heaps. I get so excited when a camera is found. No, I know. Like, as soon as that happens, I'm like, yes. Because you're like, like, literally like, what is happening. But it's so creepy to look at the last hours of somebody's life. Oh, yeah, because, like, through their eyeballs. Like, we'll post a few pictures that are off this camera to the Instagram. And it really is, like, you see them, like, being very carefree on the hike for a lot of it.

And you're just like, oh, God, you don't know. So badly. And you look at it, and it's not like you don't know what's about to happen. It's like, no one knows what happened. Right. Like, not even no one. Oh, stop. I have goosebumps all over me.

So the local. emergency number was 112, and they were calling that, and they were also calling 911, which Panama also uses. Okay. At 4.39 p.m., which was only a couple hours after they had set out on the hike, Chris's phone made the first call to Belize, which was only, it was only a few hours after they had gone on the hike. Yeah. Lysanne made the second call at 4.51 p.m. So only a few minutes later. Right. Unfortunately, there was pretty much no reception whatsoever. On April 3rd, which, is when the searching had begun officially, another call was made to police and lasted one second before the signal cut out. Oh, no.

So while people were searching for them, they were calling the police. Oh, my God, I hate that. On April 5th, Lysanne's battery died, so her phone was done. Chris's phone was switched on several times to search for signal, but no more calls were made. On April 6th, this is a weird thing. On April 6th, several incorrect pin codes were entered into Chris's phone. Yeah. After all these attempts, the phone never had the correct pin code entered ever again. Nope. Literally. Cancel.

So that's when someone started trying to get into the phone and couldn't put in the right pin. Why would you, like, why were you even trying to get into the phone? I don't know. Now, there is, that sounds creepy as hell and it could be creepy as well. But my theory about it is that possibly Chris was incapacitated or dead. And the other person was trying to get into it. And only San was trying to get into her phone to call for help because her battery had died. And maybe she didn't know her pin. Okay.

Always know your friend's pin. I know. See, I don't know a lot of mine. And now I'm like, damn, I've got to know everybody's pin. So, yeah, so it might have been that or somebody else could be trying to get into the phone. Right. Over three days between April 7th and April 10th, 77 emergency call attempts were made from Chris's iPhone. Wow.

On April 11th, the iPhone was switched on at 1051. a.m. And just over an hour later, it turned off for good. Because it died? I don't know what just turned off. Oh. So the phones had very spooky and very confusing evidence, but the camera was spooky on a whole other level. I know. Lysanne's cannon camera showed that the pair had wandered into the trail by the continental divide and possibly became lost. April 8th was when things obviously turned for the worst. Oh, thank you. This was one week after they were officially declared missing. And at this time, 90 flash photographs were taken on the camera between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Now that's bananas. This would average out to be one photograph taken every

two minutes. Wow. A lot of photos were completely dark. And some people think that this was because there was a search party wandering around there that very night looking for them. And they were trying to signal them with the flash. Another theory is that they were trying to light their way with the flash. Right. Because it was, I mean, it was just a pretty absolutely pitch black. Oh my God, that's so fucked. And a third theory is that there were wild

animals that they were trying to scare off with the flash. Okay, yeah. All of those things make sense. Or something, like trying to. All of these are scary. Can you imagine having to fucking try to ward off a jaguar? While you're lost and possibly hurt.

Oh, my God. And it was raining. Oh, my God. Yeah. A couple of the photos, however, show them near a river and, like, a ravine. A few other photos were all, and confusing. They show a small twig with like wrappers and like a plastic bag stuck to it on top of a rock.

And another photo showed toilet paper and a mirror on another rock. Hate that. Then the photos got scary. One photo showed Chris with blood on her temple. Hate it. And so it was obvious. Now people are like, that's either a photo of her, you know, she obviously got hurt. But people are like, is she dead in that photo?

Or you can't tell. Like you don't know. Because I think you only see like this, you don't even see her. face. I think you can just tell it's hurt because of her hair. Okay. So that's weird. Yeah. A theory about the photos is that there was a method to this madness, though, because there was like a sequence in all the photos that they would take like a close up, then a bunch, you know, up, and then a bunch to the side and then just start the sequence over. And so some experts think there may have been like a message or some reason they did that. Okay. Like, because it's like

a pattern. Sure. Nobody's been able to figure it up. though. There is one photo that is thought to be a body down in the gorge. Oh. The theory is that Lee San was taking a photo of Chris. Oh my God. Possibly. Or somebody was. That's so horrible. And I've seen the photo and it's like hard to tell. Uh-huh. Because it's so dark, but you can see something that is like body-like down there. But it's very hard to tell. I don't want to look at it. It's very hard to tell. Well, even if you saw it, I don't even know if you would see a body. I'm so creeped out right now. No, during the course of the investigation, they did discover too that there was one missing photo in the series of photos taken. Like, deleted? It's among the photos taken during the day,

on the first day. The numbers of the photos go from 0507, 0508, and then 0 510. So they deleted one of them? Well, number 510 was taken a week later on April 8th at 1.30 in the morning. Okay. So that missing one, we have no, it happened in the interim between those daytime photos the first day and April 8th at 1.30 in the morning. That's like a week later. Right. And the thing about this is obviously it's deleted. Yeah. One, they wouldn't delete a photo. There's plenty of, there's 90 photos. Ridiculous photos on there that mean nothing and they didn't delete any of them. And two, they would not be sitting there worrying about deleting photos. And then also, even if they did delete a photo, they could, Like, you know, investigators and experts can get that photo back off that memory card.

So they tried to. It was nowhere on that memory card. What does that mean? I have no idea. But people are like that it had to have been deleted from, like, remotely or something, from a computer maybe. What? Or something else.

They were like, it doesn't make sense that they can't bring that photo back off that memory card. That's really weird. And it's very convenient that it's not like one of the random photos during the day or one of the random photos during the night. It's in the interim between the two. The day and the night. Where we don't know what the fuck happened. I'm scared.

It's just weird. So another search was immediately conducted after they got that backpack. Yeah. And it was along, they searched where the backpack was found. When they got there, neatly folded on a rock with the zipper still up was Chris's shorts. Okay. folded neatly on a rock. Okay.

Not washed up on the side of the shore. Right. Folded on a rock with the zipper up. Yeah. They were found by two other Nagobi women, and two months after this, close to where the backpack was found, a boot was discovered. I know. With a fucking foot inside of it. I knew that.

The foot had a sock on it, and the bones were discovered to be fractured. Oh. I believe this was Lees-Sand's foot. that was found. Oh my goodness. Near this gruesome discovery, a pelvic bone was also found behind a tree. Dutch authorities were able to confirm that these remains belong to both Chris and Lysan. The pelvic bone was Chris's.

Okay. Along the river, more than 33 bones were then found. 28 of them were from Lysan's foot. Oh, my God. Lysan's bones still had skin attached. But the pelvic bone that was determined to belong to Chris had been bleached. Okay. That's fucking weird.

Yeah. Now, these were found by indigenous people. Right. One Panama search team was called to search, but the weather became too gnarly and it was called off after like three days. So they left it to the indigenous tribes to kind of go about finding things. The special prosecutor made it legal for this to happen so they could take part in the search. Okay. These bones were found in a place that was really isolated and was a full day's trip away from where they began their hike.

And why would the pelvic bone be blue? Well, it's bizarre. The whole thing is, the whole thing is bizarre because one, where the fuck are the rest of the bones? Right. Like, why we just have foot bones and a pelvic bone? That's weird. And 33 were found, but like, why were Chris's bones bleached? And why were there some skin attached to Lysand's, like, why in the elements for that long would there be that skin attached? Right. So this can't be explained. Now, the bones being bleached cannot be explained away by the sun. or the elements. I was going to ask that and then I didn't know if it was a stupid question. Well, because other bones were found older than hers and were not bleached. Were they in the same amount of sunlight? Yeah.

Okay. And neither were Lees Sands who were in the same area as her. I just scared me. Like, LeSand's bones were in the same area as Chris's. And obviously were near each other and hers were not bleached at all. And no animal scavenging marks were found on the bones either. Which makes no fucking sense whatsoever. And it was determined that the bleaching occurred probably by a phosphorus lime concoction.

This led some experts to think this may have been connected to like, you know, possibly like a cartel or something scary because they're known to, you know, usually really advanced criminals are known to use Lyme to hasten decomp. My heart is beating really fast. So police pretty quickly came to the theory that they had become lost from the trail. One of them, likely Chris, based on the photo, got injured. Eventually, the other one either became injured or just couldn't survive. Because they literally had no food. And one of them or both of them slowly just died of dehydration, starvation, exposure, or whatever injury they received. They refused to release the autopsies, which were obviously limited anyways.

The families were pissed that they immediately treated this as an accident and not a criminal investigation. Yeah, because they were like, no. They were pissed that the guide was next. investigated because he was the first person to see them in the search. Like he was with them with the indigenous people and they found the bones. Oh. And he participated in all the searches, this guy that was supposed to be their guide. That's weird.

Did he have any contact with them previously? Yeah, because they set up the hike with him. Right. He was someone who actually found some of the belongings as well. So the families hired a local lawyer to help, and what they found was that this guide had had some serious allegations of harassment against him, and that he had been known to hang out with local female tourists that were using the guide service against protocol, like outside of being a guide. Oh, I didn't know that. Super unprofessional dude. The lawyer really focused on this and the remains being bleached, but the forensics was ignored by the other side.

That's rude. Now, and that would have been it. But I found a crazy article, it's actually like a series of articles from The Daily Beast who did like an intense investigation into this. They even went to Panama. Holy shit. And so they saw too that the official version of events according to Panama's public ministry, which is the office of the state's attorney, is that Chris Kremmers and Lisa and Frun

were, quote, dragged to death in the serpent river. and their bodies subsequently dismembered by scavengers. That's what they're claiming happened. Okay. But none of their bones had any markings. Well, this whole thing has been publicly questioned by criminologists, journalists, and even Panamanian forensics teams who did the autopsies. They all questioned this.

Yeah, that's weird. Even the forensics, like, the people who did the autopsies are like, eh, no. This is like very diet, love palsy. It really is. There was also no. chain of custody that was established for any of the stuff they found. So nobody knows whose fucking hands it went into at any point. Oh, that's fucked up.

No fingerprints were ever recorded. And there were fingerprints on the backpack. And probably the phones. Yeah. And literally, like, just all the forensic stuff, this was a very botched investigation. Also, there's like the whole thing. No one thought, like, so you're saying that they were dragged in a river. So they would have gone in with all their belongings.

Right. This backpack was found. dry. Perfectly dry. And it's like, and how did her pants end up folded neatly? Right. Like, no one's questioning that. And this is even more bonkers. A copy of the tricky state judicial report, which is the original police report about this incident, was leaked. And the Daily Beast reported that based on an 18-month investigation by police detectives and prosecutors, they clearly concluded that the Kremers-Froom case was a homicide.

in a crime against personal integrity. Oh, shit. The original police report for this case marks it as a homicide, not an accident. How do you just change your mind about that? They can change the cause of death. No, I know that, but like, from a homicide to like, oops. Well, I can tell you exactly why. They want people coming to Panama for tourism.

Oh, shit. If they're sitting there being like, oh, yeah, people getting murdered in the woods, they're not going to lose tourists. Wow. That's fucked. And so this whole thing. the fact that it was marked as a homicide initially, and then they're like, no, no, it's an accident.

They just fell. It's like, ah, that's, that's 100% a cover-up. That's spooky. And they also said, the district attorney said that they could reopen this case at any time if evidence was presented, like contradicting the accident theory. Now, there's also a similar case to this in the way that makes people be like, huh, it's like draws comparisons and people like, maybe this isn't. So I'm going to give you a very brief overview of this case just so you can see.

It involved a 23-year-old named Catherine Johanit. She was an American tourist, and she traveled to the same area of Panama as Chris and Lysan. One day, she decided to take a trail to Red Frog Beach. She didn't return to her hostel that night, and authorities were immediately called. After a short search, her body was found the following Sunday. Gosh. The autopsy said that she had suffered blunt force trauma to the back of her head and had been strangled with her own beach wrap. Oh, my God.

Then she was dragged to a few hundred meters from the trail and left in heavy brush. Obviously, that was a homicide. Yeah. They couldn't even. Like, how do you fucking argue that? And a lot of people point out that the three women even bear a certain physical resemblance. Oh, shit. They're all tall, fair-skinned and slender.

Like, they all kind of resemble each other. Oh, wow. And so people were thinking, like, is there like a serial killer? That's operating in the area? Yeah. And in the Panamanian press, they've like asked this. Like, that's actually been a thing. Now, including Lysanne and Chris, there have been at least 25 unsolved murders and

disappearances in this part of Panama since 2009. Victims include visitors from the U.S., the U.K., Italy, and the Netherlands, and locals. And the majority of them are women and children. And children? Yeah. Oh. And people suggest that the number of disappeared could be way higher because right.

Right. He's found anybody. All of these things, all these incidents have happened in the neighboring shriky and bocass sectors of the country. And it's basically between the Talamanca Cordillera and the Caribbean coast. Okay. In most of these cases, no bodies have been found. So when nobody's found, there's not going to be a huge investigation because you don't have a body.

Right. So there's that. And people, of course, are going to call back to the fact that Lee San's backpack was found with the phones and cameras in it and not stolen to say, and they're going to look at that and say, well, it can't be foul play. All their electronics were left in their backpack. And if somebody was trying to get into her phone, why didn't they just take it with them? But when people talk to them, when, in fact, in this article I read in The Daily Beast, they talked to forensic consultant Carl Weil.

He said if it's not robbery as a motive, but just somebody who wants to assault, rape, murder someone, it's really common for someone to just leave all the shit there. Yeah, that happens all the time. Yeah, it's like, sure, some of them take a trophy, but that's a certain type of killer. And it's like, well, and who's to say they didn't? They had other shit with them, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, it would make sense because it was this huge search, huge investigation happening. Whoever did it, whoever possibly did it, probably didn't want to have any of the shit on them.

With them, right. So they just put it in the backpack and dumped it in the woods again. Because that woman said it wasn't there before. So they could have had it. And they just put it all back and put it back. And who knows if they had it and deleted that photo. It's just really cringing that the woman said it wasn't there before. Yeah.

And that one photo missing, maybe it was an incriminating. photo and they got rid of it before they left it in the woods again. Yeah. So, hate that. Hate that so much. And again, the backpack was just nylon, like a nylon inexpensive hiking backpack. Stayed perfect condition. And the same conditions that kept this backpack perfectly fine. Bleached a bone. Totally dry. And kept all the electronics in it perfectly safe, which makes no sense. Yeah. Weeks in a river. And you're telling me those electronics aren't waterlogged. No. Yeah. And the same. And the same. And the same. And the same. same conditions, like legitimately reduced Lysanne and Chris's entire bodies and skeletons

to, like, rubble. That doesn't make any sense. A nylon backpack withheld through that and their bodies couldn't. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. And then one last interesting thing is the indigenous Nogh people actually still speak of this case. And they have a song that they sing that's called Someone Did Evil to Them on the Trail. Bye. Nope. I just got full body chills.

Yes. And they say that they still talk about the fact that there is a killer that tried to hide their bones in the forest. I'm so fucking spooked. And obviously these are like, you know, like legends now and all that, but they talk about it. I don't like that. So I don't have like a concrete theory on what I think happened. I mean, it's hard. There's not a lot to go on. Can I look at the accident theory and say absolutely that could have happened? Yeah. But there's a lot of loose ends to that too.

Yeah. And then I can look at the fact that there's, you know, the theory that there's someone else involved here. And yeah, it makes sense. I feel like it points more toward that. But there's also loose ends in that too. So it's like, because you can also explain away like, you know, you can say again that the pin being entered wrong was Lissan just trying to call

for help on her phone and didn't have her pin. You can, you can sit there and say, you know, Chris, got really hurt, which is obvious in one of the photos. She got hurt in the head. And, I mean, maybe she didn't last. Maybe she died, you know, within a day or something like that. And then Lysand had to go out on her own. Right.

She's not going to last that long by herself. She doesn't have any food. She barely has water. But also, why would they have made a 12-hour journey if they didn't have food or water? Well, that's, it's just so many weird things that you're just like, you think you can explain most of it. And then something like that comes and you're like, huh? That doesn't make sense.

And then the bleached bones. What the fuck is that? That doesn't make sense. And it's like, I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense. I hate that you did this to me. So there's still no answers.

But, I mean, that leaked police report that says it's a homicide is really all I need to really hone in on the fact that this was, this was not an accident. But we'd love to hear what you guys think about it. I don't like this one. And I'll be posting some photos for you guys to see so you can examine all the craziness. And yeah, that is the mystery of the missing Panama girls. Thanks so much. I mean, don't hike. You don't have to tell me that.

Obviously, it's not their fault by any stretch of the imagination. But, like, just, you know, just don't do it. Just don't hike. It's not worth it, guys. We've covered, like, three hiking cases. We have, and it's not worth it. None of them have been worth it. No.

I mean, that cloud of forest sounds rad, but, like, not that rad. Super cool, but, like, you can Google pictures. And while you're on the treadmill at, a climbing pace. There you go. You're welcome. Smart. I like it.

So that was Lane is Mini Morbid. And we're going to hopefully be recording another Patreon bonus episode very shortly. And I'll be letting you guys know what next week's full-length morbid episode will be. Yeah, yeah. And other than that, I think in the meantime, you can follow us on Instagram at Morbid Podcast. You can send us a Gmail. Morbid Podcast. at gmail.com.

Tweet us. A morbid podcast. Join the Facebook group. Morbid colon a true crime podcast. Please go check out our awesome website designed by my lovely co-host app. Yeah. Morbidpodcast.com. We hope you keep listening.

But before you do that, did I miss something? If you feel so inclined, join our Patreon. Oh, duh. I forgot to beg you guys for money. You did. You did. Shit. Shit.

Patreon.com slash morbid podcast. In the meantime, we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you travel to Panama and decide to take a 12-hour journey into the indigenous forest and get eaten by a jaguar except not because it was totally a homicide and I'm scared now, bye. Oh, don't do it. No. Bye.