Kris Kremers

Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon were Dutch students who disappeared on April 1, 2014, while hiking in Panama. After an extensive search, portions of their bodies were found a few months later. Their cause of death could not be determined definitively, but Dutch authorities working with forensic and search-rescue investigators thought it likely the students had accidentally fallen from a cliff after becoming lost. The circumstances and aftermath of their disappearance have resulted in much speculation about the cause of death. Foul play could not be entirely ruled out and Panamanian officials came under fire for allegedly mishandling the disappearance and aftermath. Further investigation into the case in 2017 raised questions about the investigation, as well as a possible link to other murders in the area.

Kremers and Froon arrived in Panama for a six-week vacation on March 15, 2014. They toured Panama for two weeks before arriving in Boquete on March 29 to live with a local family for a month while volunteering with children. On April 1, they went hiking with their hosts' dog around 11:00 near the clouded forests that surrounded the Baru volcano, possibly the trail of Pianista, not far from Boquete. They 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.

Ten weeks later, a local woman turned in Froon's blue backpack, which she said she had found in a rice paddy by a riverbank near her village of Alto Romero, in the Bocas del Toro region. She said she was sure it had not been there the day before. The backpack 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 – all packed, dry, and in good condition. The women's phones showed that some hours after the start of their hike, someone had dialed 112 (the international emergency number) and 911 (the emergency number in Panama).

13:56 – attempt 4 (112 & 911) with short-time connection to GSM

05:56 – switch on; battery empty; no further activity

11:56 – switched off after 1:05 h; no further activity

The discovery of the backpack led to new searches along the Culebra. Kremers' jean shorts, zipped and neatly folded, were found atop a rock on the opposite bank of the tributary a few kilometers away from where Froon's backpack had been discovered (although later witnesses would claim the jeans were not neatly folded but found in the river itself). Two months later, closer to where the backpack was discovered, a pelvis and a boot with a foot inside were found. Soon at least 33 widely scattered bones were discovered along the same river bank. DNA testing confirmed they belonged to Froon and Kremers. Froon's bones still had some skin attached to them, but Kremers' bones appeared to have been bleached. A Panamanian forensic anthropologist later claimed that under magnification "there are no discernible scratches of any kind on the bones, neither of natural nor cultural origin – there are no marks on the bones at all."