Photo 509 /// Part 1 /// 256 | Forensic Files

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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always ladies and gentlemen the leader of the ban the van movement
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true crime whatever happened should never have happened at all two smart and hardworking young women had a goal a
dream to travel over the ocean to another country and volunteer their time and efforts helping some of that
country's youth but as soon as they arrived so far from their home things were not as planned instead of teaching
they were left with too much time on their hands so they were free to roam a foreign town in the surrounding
areas plans aside they decided to embark on a little Adventure spending a day dedicated to a
long touristy hike into the jungle but something out there happened something unexpected in life we often choose our
own Adventures but after we set out we are not always in control what happened to the two women
who set out for a hike in the jungle what can we learn from the phone calls they made and what can we make of
the mysterious photographs they left behind welcome to another episode of True Crime
garage this is the Strange Case of the Dutch hikers and missing photo [Music] 509
Chris Kramer's age 21 she's a blue-eyed redhead with an outgoing personality and a strong sense
of fun Chris enjoyed acting and planned to attend graduate school for art history in the fall of
2014 Chris met her flatmate Leanne FR age 22 a 6ot tall athlete when the two worked in a cafe in the city of am for
in their native country of the Netherlands Leanne played volleyball in college and was into more extreme sports
like skydiving Alpine skiing and mountaineering lezanne majored in applied psychology and enjoyed
Photography in early 2014 the two were on break from their studies and enrolled in a program providing volunteer social
workers for children in Panama the two saved their money for 6 months to pay for the trip both took a crash course in
Spanish it is not believed that either of them had ever traveled to Panama before on this trip they spent 2 weeks
traveling the country before heading to the town where the school where they were to work is located so Chris and
Leanne arrive in the town of Boke but the two had a rude awakening due to some kind of mixup the program
was not to commence for another week according to Chris's diary the assistant director of the school was not very nice
about the situation she wrote that he or she was rude and unfriendly the women found themselves
with a week of downtime on their hands although they arrived before they were expected it does seem that the living
accommodations for the women were ready they were directed to a room in the home
of a local family near the campus of the school the women decided to make the most of their situation and explore the
local offering so the flying garage ship goes to the country of Panama in Central America for
this case Panama is basically a narrow strip of land between the countries of Costa Rica and
Colombia the country is so narrow that the Panama Canal was constructed directly across the country to provide a
Waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans Panama features beautiful
beaches but the majority of the country is extremely mountainous and heavily forested the town of Boke is a small
town of about 19,000 people and it's about 40 M from the Costa Rican border Boke is 3,900 ft above sea level and has
a tropical climate with heavy rainy Seasons that start in April and average temperatures of mid 80s during the day
to mid-60s at night the area is subject to sudden tropical downpours at any time
bate is populated by a large number of expat Europeans and North Americans who live
there as well as the native panamanians the town is a popular spot for tourists with its friendly European
feel temperate climate wildlife and bird viewing and multiple businesses catering
to turistas on the edge of town is a trail head at the beginning of a 4 km jungle
path leading to the Continental Divide this is a hydrological divide that separates the watersheds that drain into
the Pacific Ocean from those that drain into the Atlantic or Caribbean an invisible line running along the higher
points of the continents that often attract sightseeing interest from adventurers and excursionists the Boke
area also has an active volcano baru and a national park surrounding it according
to Media covering this case Panama is one of the safest countries in Latin America although as we will see it
certainly has its share of violent crime we have quite a bit of information on this case that we normally would not
have access to this thanks to the Daily Beast news site The Daily Beast managed to obtain secretly leaked copies of the
official case files used by investigators those archives contained data recovered from the electronic
devices the women had with them this includes a camera and two phones we also have have some DNA analysis Chris
Kramer's diary and and much more now the day in question Captain is Tuesday April
1st 2014 and it's a typical hot sunny day that's right and there are some there's some confusion about what Chris
and Leanne did that day we now know from witness's accounts including a taxi driver who drove them to the trail head
that Chris and Leanne started off their hike around 10:00 a.m. the trail is described as a muds slick root choked
foot path called the pianista or piano player because it climbs in a series of ladderlike steps reminiscent of a
keyboard This is up from the tourist town of Boke to the Continental Divide does this have a hiker's rating do we
know I don't know what the Hiers rating is well sometimes Trails will have ratings as like how how difficult they
are so at the viewing spot at the top of the penis Trail uh where the Continental
divid is located is called the miror and it's about a 3-hour trek from the trail
head it's worth noting that on a clear Day from the miror hikers can see all the way back to back down to
bukete so once reaching the miror Chris and Leanne likely were able to see the town that they came from in the distance
right so most tourists go up to the mirror door snap a few selfies then they come straight back down the same path
back into town the tricky thing here though Captain is we know that Chris and Leanne
actually had lined up a guide for this same hike and a tour of a strawberry farm but this was scheduled for the
following day okay for whatever reason they decide to change their plans you know they booked a guide for the trip
which especially if you're in a different country foreign country always book a guide for these excursions you
don't really know what you're getting into until you're you're out there but right but they booked a guide and but
that's for the following day yeah so they decided to go without the guide on this exact same hike right it is
mentioned that the panista trail is not considered to be very dangerous and given their age I mean
they're 21 22 years old they're they're young uh one's an athlete right and it's
likely that the healthy strong and adventurous young women felt they were up to the challenging marked Trail
height to the top we do know from computer searches that Chris and Leanne researched the trail prior to starting
off and we know that the two were what they were wearing that day so both were wearing shorts and tank tops hiking
boots and they had one small backpack between them is it common for people to go to the trail and get a guide there
that's a good question and I think you could actually do the way that I've heard this described is that you could
do both um you could book a a guide in advance or show up now the problem with showing up and booking a guide there
you're kind of at their Mercy if they're actually there or not right or how much
they want to charge it's like the people that go to the gym and they haven't scheduled anything with a personal
trainer and they're hoping to see one just kind of loafing around looking for work now I guess from the trail head to
the top it's about 2 and 1 half to 3 hours to make that track we need to discuss Leanne's camera
okay because this is going to be extremely important to this case this is a Canon Powers shot sx270 this features
a zoom lens in a built-in flash we won't go through the photos in detail just yet
because it would it would just get confusing at this point but we know the women made Fairly good time to the
Mirador they took selfies at the top like most people do and the two in these pictures are smiling they appear to be
enjoying themselves right you know this you can see they're in the sunshine with
the breathtaking view in the background they're goofing around right so these selfies were taken around midday so they
left bate around 11 I'm sorry 10:00 a.m. so it makes sense that it would be around 100 p.m. that they reached the
summit this time was determined based on the position of the sun in these photos
from the top to be clear the panista trail is not a loop okay it's the same pathway up and then the same pathway
back down right so logic would dictate that after the two women reach the Crest at the Divide they would then proceed
back down the trail likely planning to return to town before Darkness fell right but based on the pictures later
we're going to see instead of heading back down the trail that they went up they're actually going to cross over
heading in the opposite direction yeah so they're they're going away from the town of of
bate and this is curious for several reasons because we don't know if this happened on accident or if this was
deliberate right you know they could have been out there and said hey this is fun we're we're having a good time let's
uh let's continue on but so far in these pictures we only have the two individuals yes and the other thing
that's tricky about this move too is when we say could it have been accidental that they're heading away
from where they wanted to go that's tricky because we know that the girls studied the trail before going out on
the hike right and it's you know so I'm not I'm not going to pretend that I'm a extremely experienced hiker but I've
been on Hikes before and some of them are a loop you know you just kind of keep going and and you end up back where
you started at some point right but this one is not that situation it's straight
up straight back they get to their point and they continued on for some reason either accidental or deliberately yeah
and you wonder how many people were on that trail that day because if if we don't have other
individuals in the pictures it makes it seem especially on a Tuesday mhm makes it seem like maybe there wasn't so many
people out and it it's possible you get to the end point and then you go wait do
we just head back down or do we just keep going this way and it Loops back around but if there was a bunch of
people on the trail you'd think they could just follow them yeah and it could have been an accident
if they didn't know the trail or you know I don't know why they wouldn't have seen that in advance but there are no
markers at the top telling people to go back down the way that they came MH so you know if you're you're sitting there
listening and you're wondering well how do you guys know that they're going away
from the direction that they likely intended to go well that's not our words that's from the investigators later
investigators would view photos that were taken on their camera and they would say hey because of the foliage and
because of the geographical features visible in these photos this is not on that same Trail this is on the other
side of the divide and more specifically they would state that this appears to be
about an hour's walk from the top yeah it's just so strange to me that they're going to continue on a trail and not
head back well so these photos at this time they show that the women were making their way downhill into a more
heavily forested and wild mountainous region this is called the Bokus deloro uh or mouths of the bull this network of
trails is not maintained by Rangers and not used by guides affiliated with the national park in fact these treacherous
overgrown and unmarked Trails aren't intended to be used by tourists but are used almost exclusively by indigenous
peoples living deep within the forest and mountain range particularly the noi tribe
these Trails can get dangerously Steep and overgrown yet we know that this is the way that the women uh went uh and
again was this purely an accident given that there were no markers to tell people to go back down the way they came
in or was this deliberate you know just curiosity or wanting to continue their already fun adventure right or are they
being led this way yes so there are reports that a local dog accompanied the women on their hike this Husky mixed
name blue lived at the home where Chris and Leanne were staying blue returned without the women but no one thought
much of it until the next day Wednesday April 2nd the host at their home laid out
breakfast for the girls and she left for work but then the women failed to keep their appointment with the guide that
they had hired so looking for the women the guide checked their accommodations and noted that it didn't appear that
they had slept there the night before and he could tell that they also did not show up for breakfast that morning he
notified the teachers at the school and he and a teacher went to the police station they actually went twice once at
7:30 p.m. and then again at 9:30 p.m. reporting the two women missing the problem was of course since they didn't
really know anyone you know Chris and Leanne they didn't know anyone they didn't tell anyone where they were going
there were dozens of popular trails in the area so the fire department and private search parties made up of local
guides and volunteers they hunted for the women in the area around the Buu volcano since the volcano is the most
popular hiking attraction in the region but having no idea where or even exactly
when the girls went off Searchers had an almost impossible task of trying to track their movements now Rumors in town
indicated that the women actually returned from hiking so we have rumors of eyewitnesses possibly seeing them
return from their hike but we have no evidence of this as far as the photos go correct and actually this was rumors
that were only going on the day that they went missing or the day after they these were rumors that
were quickly uh disregarded to be not true and so as a result of these rumors and official
search didn't take place for several days for the two women this would be 5 days after the women set off on their
hike Panama's national service for civil protection came in and took over the search for Chris and Leanne the agency
was initially reluctant to get involved the belief Captain was that the women likely left town to go party
somewhere when oh yeah that's yeah so they go hiking on a trail and they they decide deci to not head back they set
they decide to go on a more of a difficult Trail just keep going further and further into the Wilderness and then
they decide to go somewhere to party not that exact Theory but um somewhat okay so more likely their
theory is that they made it back from the TR they came back to town and then went off they took off went off and
decided hey let's go party instead of volunteer our time at this uh this but no eyewitnesses that say they drove them
anywhere well keep in mind they actually have nothing to do during this whole time so they don't really have any other
than a place to stay they don't really have anything to be accounted for right but what I'm saying is you would think
that there would be at least a taxi crab driver that said oh I picked up two women from the trails and drove them
somewhere well that's that's what's leading to the confusion you have you have these rumors of they return to town
of people that said hey I saw the two women so on and so forth so it will take 5 days after the women set off on their
hike for an actual search to get involved so this starts on April 6 when they started the official
search the national service for civil protection they actually called off the small private searches that were going
on beforehand this is typical big government agency moving in and saying hey we're going to take care of this
we're going to handle this ourselves right so this is actually in my opinion uh quite a shame because it's not making
use of local guides uh the you know the searches failed to utilize the expertise
of those who knew the area and terrain the best now what it did offer however is
they flooded the jungle with hundreds of Searchers right scouring the area for any sign of the two missing women now
after 10 days of searching using dogs helicopters and ground teams this failed to turn up anything
any leads at all they they ended the searches after 10 days so needless to say Chris and Leanne's parents they were
frantic the women both checked in with their parents daily using the what's app but both their communication stopped on
that day on April 1st mm the funes and the Kramers quickly mobilized to establish a reward which quickly grew to
$330,000 they flooded Panama with a missing in Panama poster featuring both girls both sets of parents flew to
bukete in early April to look for their daughters and a Dutch Search Group arrived to scour the trails joined by
Red Cross volunteers and early May a specially trained Dutch search team arrived and brought in 10 rescue and
cadaver dogs but efforts were hampered by heavy rains and Relentless heat and after nine days the team went home
empty-handed as did the parents Dutch investigators looking into the situation declared that it was very unlikely that
Chris and Leanne simply disappeared from one of the trails since no trace of them
was located investigators came under Fire for what many Saw as a botched search critics and authorities should
have utilized satellite thermal Imaging the blame game was in full force and it's not clear whether authorities did
anything wrong or if the Searchers and the searches were just off their [Music] mark this show is sponsored by better
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cheers to you Captain all right we're going to get into some weird stuff now Captain because in June of 2014 this is
roughly about 2 months after the two women disappeared a Noby tribe woman walked into the bate police station with
Leanne's turquoise backpack the woman claimed to have found the pack while she was tending to her rice Patty about 12
hours by foot on the other side of the Continental Divide on the banks of the powerful River locals called the
calbra so the pack was wedged into a mess of flossom on the bank the noi woman said she was really sure that that
it was not there the day before okay now local authorities who took control of the backpack made no fingerprint records
in the case so when examiners from the Dutch forensic Institute later they discovered 30 unidentified fingerprints
on the contents of the backpack but there was no way to figure out who these fingerprints belong to right it seems
likely though that members of the tribe probably went through the backpack before they turned it over to the police
you know curious about what could be inside my understanding is that the woman that turned it in she had actually
heard of the case and thought that it could be evidence regarding the two missing women the interesting thing to
me though is we're talking two months later in the jungle we're talking about its found on the banks of this powerful
calbra river right and it doesn't look that distraught to me right it it seems to be I would and I know we're just
looking at pictures but I would argue it almost seems to be like pristine condition right well cared for almost
like it hadn't been in the jungle that entire time at all and the there's contents in the backpack do you want to
go through that real quick yeah and we should point out before we get into what was in the backpack or found in the
backpack that these items were not considered to be water damaged and neither was the backpack right so here's
what was found in the backpack and there are some photos um that are still available online of the contents of the
backpack the list that I found that seems to be the most accurate states that there were two pairs of sunglasses
two cell phones Leanne's camera which was inside its padded case Leanne's passport $83 in cash and I want to be
clear about the cash statement the the dollar amount that's by most uh early reports okay so you will find reports
out there that will state a different dollar amount other early reports state that a key was found in the backpack as
well but later reports do not mention this key now keep in mind a key is awfully small the pictures that I found
online I couldn't see I couldn't visibly see a key uh and there were two bras in
the backpack in an empty bottle of water or a half empty bottle of water depending on which report you read well
now if you look at this the Brawl on the lower half of the picture right here right okay so do you notice that in one
of the pictures of the girls doesn't it look like that's the brawl she is wearing the day of the hike
right okay and I'm I'm trying to look for another picture to see okay do you want to get into the brawl the the bras
now sure the the reason why I ask if you want to do that now that was something that is is often
discussed online and the the thing that you point out there is interesting because the
braws that were found in the backpack you know they they were likely wearing both of these the day that they went out
on their hike right and it's obvious that one of them that was found was being wor by Leanne that day so you know
there has been a lot of speculation as to why they would take them off why that they would would place them in the
backpack it's likely that it's just as something as simple as they got hot right and they plac them in the backpack
I think to me though what what's interesting about the contents of the backpack is you know we're left
wondering what happened to these women right does finding this backpack offer any clues well we're going to get into
the cell phones and the camera event but before we do that just the finding of the backpack itself it doesn't appear
to me obviously that they were that something terrible took place because they were robbed or intended to be
robbed you know and I say that because I think all of the items found inside this
backpack to me would be items that an intended robber would want to take from these two women right then it makes you
wonder do did they put down the book bag somewhere and why were they leaving that
behind for maybe somebody to find or did they put it down cuz they were going to
go swimming what what's going on with this book bag or did they pass away and it
was simply left behind right but again if you think there's something tragic that happened it doesn't look like this
book bag went through anything any tragic scene you know what I mean like so this backpack's found two months
later and I think one of the more interesting theories that I found online regarding the brawl or the braws was
that they could have been removed to possibly filter water I would have never have thought of that on my own but I
found that that very interesting right the more important thing though here Captain I believe would be the location
where the backpack was found because this is a long way from the Mirador where the we know the girls were alive
and well according to the early pictures so to get to where the backpack was found the women would have crossed
treacherous terrain navigating overgrown Pathways and Crossing three steep Deep River
Gorges they have these things out there called monkey Bridges so it's known that
had they passed these three River Gorges they would have used these monkey Bridges okay so they would have had to
have walked for hours and hours deeper and deeper into the jungle if they were the ones that brought the backpack to
where it was later found but then again keep in mind we also have the tribal woman who's
saying I'm convinced that backpack wasn't there the day before I found it today and I'm bringing it to you to the
police today and Reporting this as being found along the banks of the calibra is
it possible that a animal would pick up this book bag and move it I think it would be possible possible the the
problem I have with that theory is the condition of the backpack itself and the I think what's most likely is that
possibly the river carried the backpack to this location because it was found amongst debris that would have been
thought to have been carried by the river well and again we might just be way off on our assessment of the damage
to this book book bag right because we're only seeing pi but the thing that's tricky about the
river taking it there too I I would expect a certain amount of damage to the backpack in that situation as well but
to be clear the only statement that we have that this backpack was found where it's
reported to have been found is by the woman that turned it into the police department into the police
station other than her word we have nothing else to go on it could have actually been found or located any
anywhere for all we know now by the end of June they did find some remains and then eventually using DNA testing this
showed that these remains did belong to Chris and Leanne within two months native Searchers retrieved a total of 33
skeletal fragments and one larger piece of well-preserved skin all were linked to the missing
women using DNA testing this sounds like a lot of bones but this was not skulls and intact feur lying around 28 of the
recovered bones were small metatarsals from Leanne's left foot which was found still in its tied hiking boot and sock
behind a tree near the river when the foot was removed from the boot a Dutch medical examiner determined that the
bones were broken the largest bones found were a part of Leanne's left femur bone and left tibia and Chris's partial
pelvis bone one of Chris's rib bones the uh number 10 Rib was also found no larger bones were ever located and the
bones that were found uh they were found out in the open with the exception of Leanne's boot all right so when you find
these bones they're they're all broken we don't have a bone that's not broken pretty much they're they're fragments
The Only Exception may be the the rib bone and what else have they found as far as evidence well eventually they
would find one of Chris's blue boots uh this is found empty now initial reports were that the the noi tribe also found
Chris's cut off denim shorts there seems to be no agreement as to where and how these shorts were found the noi says
that they were buttoned and zipped and folded and placed on a rock next to the river high above the waterline yeah one
guide involved in the search denies this saying that Searchers found the shorts clearly washed up in the river he's
still in the river right trapped in some floating debris the problem with the with the natives and the volunteers
finding the bones and these personal items of course is that we don't know for sure where they were actually found
only a general area because they're located and then them brought to the attention of others right but it is
interesting that the back pack remains and the clothes and the shoes were found they they all seem to be have
been found along the river within just a few kilometers of each other well it seems almost as if the book bag was
organized some way and then with these shorts being folded or the claim that they were folded you you start thinking
well were they purposely put down there for a reason but then again we have the other witness saying they were actually
in the river right now all of these these items being found along the river they are all within a few kilometers of
each other it's estimated that about 6 hours worth of walking distance would be between the backpack and the other items
despite the scattered nature of the findings everyone agrees that the general area where the women's last
known resting place was about 2, 2300 ft above sea level in the upper cloud forest near the headwaters of the cbra
this is nowhere near where anyone would expect Chris and Leanne to have gone so let's Circle back nobody would expect
them to keep heading off the trail right so let's Circle back here captain and kind of sum up what we've gone through
here because there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on lot of stuff going on so we have Chris and Leanne there in their
early 20s 2122 they travel to Panama and they're actually in Panama for a little bit of
time uh about 2 weeks before they're supposed to go and volunteer their time at this town of book book right and
again I don't know if there's any importance to this but they're supposed to start teaching a week earlier yeah so
they show up expecting to teach and they're like hey you're here a week early but we have your accommodations
you can sleep here and you can eat here while you wait out this week before you volunteer your time the thing that's
tricky here man is that we know the outcome we don't know everything that happened out there and we're going to
dive into some more things that might point to what could have happened right to the women or or or who came across
them or whatever but the thing here is they had a whole week of nothing to do had this
not occurred maybe none of this would have happened at all we have we have two young women with a week to kill and they
decide to go out on this this hiking trip which as we discussed is not considered
to be that challenging of a hike right the only problem is there seems to be one big problem you hike up to the top
of this Summit you turn around and you come back down it seems to me if you don't turn around and you continue on
the other side we're talking about a much different hike a much more challenging hike and and could this be
as simple as that you get up to the top you have two individuals let's say there's nobody there's no guide you got
two individuals and one's saying uh I think I remember the website said keep going M and the other girl says no no I
think we're just supposed to turn around and then they just go oh you're probably
right and they just keep going and is that the mistake but even even then I think you're looking at a couple hours
of going in the next Direction three hours at some point you're going to be going we went the wrong direction we
need to turn back but even if you go 3 hours in the wrong direction you're only about 6 hours from being home or being
at the starting point and actually you know what's what's difficult with this case is what we just stated about there
was no official quote unquote official search for these two women until about 5 days after it's that they that we know
that they went out on this hike right and the reason for that is simply these rumors and you got to factor in several
other things okay had that guide not shown up the next day and said hey I'm supposed to take these women on a hike
where are they oh I'm going to go to their accommodations well it doesn't look like they slept here oh they set
out breakfast for them this morning they're not here they didn't eat breakfast right so now I'm wondering
where the hell these girls are so he gets in touch with the school they go out and they start looking had he not
come forward who knows how long it would have been until there was some kind of search initiated for these two women and
it's very likely that given that they weren't going to the volcano they weren't searching in the proper area on
that second day that they were gone by the time the official search starts 5 days later the problem I think
we have here Captain is these to they're they're going to be referred to in town
as the slang term would be the Dutch women right we have two Dutch women that went missing well I think that the
problem we have here is they're not from this area if if it's only two days that
they've been missing what pictures are you going to walk around town with going hey have you seen these women have you
seen these women no what you're going to hear from the locals is yeah I saw two Dutch women yesterday yeah I saw two
Dutch women two days ago I gave them a a ride to over here what were their names
oh I don't know right but they're Dutch right so what I'm getting at is that's what's going to be difficult about
initiating this official search and then once the official search happens they find nothing they find
nothing for it's like 25 days of heavy searching right and a lot of people including their parents right including
Dutch Searchers right dogs helicopters everything you can think of was used in this 25-day time period they come up
empty-handed they find nothing and it's not until 2 months later that this backpack is discovered turned into you
from a noi tribe woman that seems to magically disappeared out of nowhere I mean even based on what she states yes
exactly and it wasn't until that backpack has found that the backpack actually inspires additional searches
which ends up finding these remains these fragmented remains of the two women so unfortunately we learn much
later on in this story that Leanne and Chris they're no longer with us not only did they disappear out on the trail
sometime that day we don't know how they died right and we don't know what the hell happened to them over the course of
this time and and and furthermore how long were they alive during the course of them being
missing well it looks like we have some kind of broken foot broken ankle which then leads to the severed foot in the
shoe right and then then we have a rib bone right and th those are the main two points that we
know neither one of these girls are are alive yeah and so I think here one we were going to have to use the bones to
try to figure out what possibly could have happened and that's very likely that we have a broken foot broken ankle
situation with the one but regarding the contents and regarding the backpack itself again I keep coming back to that
because it's tricky because we have we have a couple of situations that we can kind of put together in our heads here
right the water bottle does that suggest that that they were two things the early
reports state that it was half full right later reports state that it was an empty water bottle if I'm lost in the
jungle I'm I'm making a point to save that water bottle whether it's full or empty and I'd wonder if that water was
tested that's what I'm getting at yeah because you know is it rain water is it from a river are they drinking from a
river are they filling up that water bottle with water from River water that could in turn make them sick right and
make make their already dire situation more dire yeah so I I don't know if that water was tested my guess would be I
don't have a clue because I don't understand why we have different varying accounts of there was water in the
bottle there was 's no water in the bottle right but it seems like every case we cover there's something I mean
that's very important thing I mean if we knew that that was just bottled water well then you would think that
yeah even though that they didn't find that stuff for months but you would think that if whatever happened to them
happened closer right happened quickly they didn't find themselves in a situation where they were just camped
somewhere going through water and again the other the other thing too is the the valuables that were
found in that backpack indicates that they weren't they didn't come across somebody that was like hey give me all
your stuff and ended up attacking them for their valuables well maybe unless unless the perpetrator then discarded
the backpack he said you you have all this stuff and I need a bag to carry it so you me the book bag you'd think that
individual would take the cash at the very least right but maybe that person put
down that bag for whatever reason and somebody saw it grabbed it and it's gone they they when they came back for the
bag it's gone and then if that if that situation is not what played out then we have a situation too of their sunglasses
cell phones camera passport it's almost like whatever happened to the two women out there that they were at least
rational enough before whatever went down that they were storing their valuables in their backpack for
safekeeping or safe travels well they're taking a lot of pictures but uh but again I I don't see any evidence the
other thing I'm looking for in some of these pictures is most of the time it's one of the
girls taking a picture of the other girl every now and then there's a selfie but
what I'm trying to see is if somebody's making a reaction or or kind of looking at somebody that's off camera that might
not be the one taking the picture right I've been trying to see if I I haven't been able to see anything maybe if you
can see something go to our website and hit us up on the blog yeah so there's there's some issues with these pictures
uh but regarding the the items found like I said estimated 6 hours walking distance between the backpack and the
other items from what I could find Captain it seems like everyone agrees that the the general area is
quite far from where it would be expected that the two women would have gone we do have a a Dutch medical
examiner uh expert who examined the bone fragments and states that they weren't able to determine the the cause of death
of either of the two women now mind you to be clear like we said earlier it's just fragments of most of these bones 33
bones yeah fragments are not that's still a lot they're not able to determine the cause of death for either
of the two women so let's talk about the two phones found in Leanne's backpack right one was Chris's iPhone 4 the other
was lianne's uh Samsung Galaxy S3 The Logical question is obviously if the women had phones on them why on
Earth would they not have called for help or texted someone their coordinat or use the compass app to navigate their
way back to the town right the short answer is this is because there's no cell service in the jungle but with the
phones later being found investigators were able to reconstruct some attempted calls made by
Chris and Leanne what we can see on the call logs is chilling the log from Chris's phone
shows the first call to 112 or 112 which is the equivalent of 911 in the Netherlands came at 439 p.m. on April
1st this is the day that the women hiked the Pista so let's say let's say this is maybe 30 minutes
or an hour after they should have returned safely to town okay um so here's the thing at this time of year in
Panama there's roughly about 12 hours daily of nighttime okay so by 4:39 p.m. it would have likely started to possibly
get a little darker within the forest where we believe the women to be at this time um it seems likely that by this
time the two knew that they should have been able to make their way back to town
by now and realize that they needed help all right so again we could then maybe assumed that they just somebody got it
wrong and they kept going so that now somebody tries to make an attempt to 112 mhm now of course this call does not go
through to anyone MH another call to 112 was attempted on Leanne's Samsung at 4:51 p.m. just 12 minutes later again
this call is unsuccessful we can see from the phone records that at the time these calls
were attempted Chris's iPhone battery was half charged and uh Le Leanne's Samsung battery was
about half charged as well we can only imagine what the first night in the jungle would be like for
these two young women it appears unlikely that the two were equipped with any kind of survival or camping gear or
even extra clothing right now temperatures would drop to the 50s uh at night in the cloud forest at
that elevation with the women in just tank tops you have to wonder is is something like hypothermia a
concern the other tricky thing too is I'd say maybe if it's lower but I mean 50 Dees isn't that that cold well I'm
I'm factoring in the possibility of these popup rainstorms that we talked about that the area true good point you
know frequently has the other thing too which we haven't even got to yet is the strange creatures and animals in the
jungle they have there they have Hower monkeys you know we're in Ohio we don't have any monkeys that uh we're not
supposed to anyway I remember when there was a monkey loose in manura park a couple years ago yeah crazy Marcel was
actually not a monkey at all um that's like three times in my lifetime that there's been a monkey on the loose in
some kind of neighborhood and then turns out there was never a monkey there after
after further investigation oh we looked into it more we we find no monkey business going on so this jungle has
monkeys poisonous snakes insects and you have to imagine you know it's going to be pitch black out there at night these
two must have been genuinely terrified would be my guess well they waited until 658 a.m.
the next morning April 2nd this is when we would see another 112 call from leeanne's
phone at 10:53 a.m. she made another attempt this time trying 911 well there's a as well as 112 yeah and Chris
tries to make an attempt in in between that at 8:14 and again she did the same at 1:6 p.m. so with this last call the
phone log shows that the cell was able to make contact with the GMS Network right but still no PA came in to
emergency lines Chris also tried 112 that day like you said at 8:14 a.m. and strangely uh most likely accidentally
took a screenshot uh with her phone okay at 4:13 p.m. on Thursday April 3rd this the
the next day there was an earthquake in the region some reports have it as being
moderately strong about a six on the scale is it possible that the earthquake caused one or both of them to fall is
one thing you got to wonder about causing a disastrous injury or injuries fall on them yes could they have been
killed by like in a Mudslide yeah or injured in a Mudslide uh or were they already incapacitated
for whatever reason by this point either way by this time Chris and Leanne were likely getting desperate they were no
doubt starving dehydrated possibly ill from drinking tainted river water like we pointed out possibly injured their
phones were also probably on low battery by this point we know from the logs and
this is incredibly smart that the women were were smart enough to turn their phones off between call attempts you
know to preserve likely to preserve the battery life of their phones the last call attempt was made on April
3rd at 9:32 a.m. to 911 from Chris's iPhone after this we only have records of signal checks where the women would
turn or one of the women would turn the phones on to see if there was service but by most reports no further calls
were attempted there were many of these checks in total from both phones on the 4th or 5th of April there is some
discrepancy though and we have lianne's Samsung it finally ran out of battery so
her phone is dead and would record no more information signal checks continue to
occur on Chris's iPhone on April 4th at 10:16 and 142 and April 5th at 1050 and 137 and on April 6 at 10:26 and
137 right do you know do are is that kind of resonating here so we have the fourth the fifth and the six all of
these attempts are occurring within the same hours right in the 10:00 hour and then again in the 1:00 hour right and
that continues for three straight days but but yeah so then you question is it just the phone doing it
automatically or are they doing it that's interesting but then also it says 11 uh down here where it says 11
7777 signal checks is that like somebody putting in something to check a signal that's kind of confusing to me well
here's what I think that means and I I can't say that I know that for certain my my guess is that they're
simply turning on the phone to see if they they have any bars right right that that may do I happen to have service now
then then oh I don't have service so I'm going to power off the phone but this is
also like you don't know how look I don't know how old these phones were too at the time but I have had issues with
well it's it's an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Galaxy S3 right but what I'm saying is is the iPhone 5 out now is this a old
older phone and what I mean by that is that I've had phones that uh the battery is dead quote unquote it's stop phone
shuts off right and like an hour later something and it'll just pop on and then die again and then pop back on and die
again and I've had I've just had these weird things anybody that has had a iPhone uh five or six has experienced
this problem so if their battery goes dead a lot one thing that's crazy here and I don't know what we can surmise
from this but we have the afternoon check phone check on April 5th and then the two phone checks on April 6th
Chris's phone was switched on but no pin was entered so then there's a break in the phone usage until Friday April 11th
when again the phone was switched on with no pin entered this was the last usage of Chris's iPhone which switched
off or died on April 11th at 11:56 a.m. now a few reports say that emergency calls were attempted from the iPhone
many more more times in these few days um no pin needed but that has not been verified yeah very strange stuff with
this these phone records and you have to wonder man what does this all mean you know we we can see from the signal
checks that at least one of the women continue to power on Chris's phone at the same time roughly the same time each
day around 10:37 a.m. and 1:35 to 1:40 each afternoon like to check for a signal this occurred until up until
April 6th right so 5 days right and we can see here's the thing that I wonder about we can see in another photo of the
women before they set off hiking that one of them is wearing a watch so is it possible that whoever it was was relying
on that on the watch for time right maybe even setting an alarm to check a signal at these times every day for
three days but good possibility but why I I I I'm what's lost on me is why is that the choice of time of day yeah
unless they don't have their phones and somebody else is checking right so I mean could
something could something as simple as they thought they heard other people in the area the first day they were lost at
that time that they thought well maybe we'll try our phones for whatever reason right and then they thought well maybe
is this the most busy time of the hiking area and so we'll try when we think there are other people around I I don't
know the the reasoning behind it but there seems to be some reasoning behind it because they continue to follow that
same behavior that pattern of behavior for three days like I said or it's a possibility that the phone is doing some
kind of random check around that time so the other thing too is we have Chris's phone that's turned on for several days
but then no pen is entered so this makes it seem likely that someone other than Chris may have been using the phone yeah
but could be could have been using an app as far as like a flashlight app or something well that that could be a
possibility I wonder if the phone would log that in yeah I would think that it would but but
also you would think that there would be some pictures on these phones and I couldn't find really much mention of
that well but what I'm saying here is though we seem to have a decent log of information about what the phone was
doing or or what people were doing with the phone and if it would log that information as to what utilities or what
app were attempted to be used during these times I think we would have that information so without that thought that
you're using it to attempt to use utilities or uh some some app you have to wonder what
possibilities are left if it's not Chris using that phone because there's no pin
entered did Chris was she injured and finally became unconscious or or passed away and then left only Leanne with the
with both phones and she didn't know Chris's pen and was still attempting to use it
or you know could you have a combination of both do you have a situation where where Chris might
be injured and unable to remember how to use her phone or unable to remember her
pin due to the stress that she's occurred in in the days that she's been missing yeah or did some piece of
do something to him and he's just staring at their phone and it doesn't know how to use it doesn't know really
what to do with it my thought though is what we're seeing early on is the use of
the pen and we're seeing that the the women or one of them is at least smart enough to power off the phones to
preserve the battery life of both of the phones and so what I'm wondering is if at some point did somebody go hey I'm
going to preserve this battery life even further because I know on the iPhone I'm
not familiar with Samsung but I know on the iPhone you can make an emergency call without even putting in the pen so
therefore you're you're saving yourself some steps possibly saving yourself as much batter Bly life as you possibly can
right and so I wonder if they just decided on a shortcut after a while the scariest thing to me though is
regardless of of how that's being operated or why it's being operated in that manner we have the situation where
the phone is being powered on a signal is being checked for emergency calls are being attempted up until April 6th well
then what what happened did did one or both of the girls have they expired by the end of April 6th because the phone
is not used then for five more days I don't if they are lost or injured and they are conscious even just one of them
the behavior the pattern of behavior is them constantly trying the phones or using the phones in an attempt to get
rescue rescue efforts to themselves then why for 5 days did no one use the phone I'm wondering did someone else
turn the phone on on April 11th yeah possibly or again it's just some kind of glitch like they check the phone
multiple times try to turn it on and it was just not turning on and then for whatever reason phone turned on on the
11th any chance you think that it could have uh occurred or took on water damage
and then dried out very possible for some reason 5 days later and then it was operable
again thank you guys so much for listening thank you for telling a friend we'll see you in the garage tomorrow
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Part 1 of 2

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2014, Panama - Whatever happened, should never have happened. Two smart, hardworking women traveled to another country. Looking for adventure they decided to take a long touristy hike out into the jungle from which they never returned. There have been many horrifying theories as to what may have taken place out there. This week we explore the very scary evidence left behind as we try to figure out what happened to Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon. Beer of the Week - Brew Free or Die (Blood Orange IPA) Garage Grade - 5 out of 5

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Brief Summary

Dutch hikers Chris and Leanne vanished in Panama during a hike; their remains were later found, raising questions about their fate.

Key points

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The Strange Case of the Dutch Hikers. Two young women set out for a hike in Panama, but things take a dark turn.
Missing Women Search Begins. After two women fail to return from a hike, a search operation is launched.
Search Efforts for Missing Women. After 10 days of searching, authorities ended the search for Chris and Leanne without any leads.
Discovery of the Backpack. A local woman found Leanne's backpack two months after the disappearance, raising questions about its condition.
Remains Identified. DNA testing confirmed that skeletal remains belonged to Chris and Leanne, found within two months of their disappearance.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is the Strange Case of the Dutch hikers.

Introduction to the specific case being discussed

5:08WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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