May 20, 2025 • 17 mins
On April 1, 2014, two young Dutch friends, Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon, tragically disappeared while on vacation in Panama. What began as a day hike turned into a heartbreaking mystery when their remains were discovered weeks later. While the prevailing theory suggests a tragic accident led to their deaths, there are several unexplained and unsettling details. Among these are eerie photographs taken after their disappearance which cannot be explained.
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LINKS!
https://koudekaas.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-disappearance-of-kris-kremers-and_11.html
https://www.threads.com/@thescaryfact/post/DCB3CsJtnpP/on-april-8-90-photos-were-taken-between-1-and-4-am-deep-in-the-jungle-on-froons-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_of_Kris_Kremers_and_Lisanne_Froon
https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/15rlrrb/kris_kremer_and_lisanne_froon_there_is_no_mystery/
https://www.ladbible.com/news/world-news/kris-kremers-lisanne-froon-vanished-clues-225178-20241103
https://allthatsinteresting.com/kris-kremers-lisanne-froon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Warning this episode contains detailsthat some listeners
may find disturbing.
In April of 2014, Dutch
friends Lisanne Freund and Chris Kramers,both in their early 20s,
embarked on an adventure of a lifetime,a trip to Panama.
Their itinerary was packedand included Spanish classes, exploration
(00:23):
and volunteering in the mountainous regionnear the Baru volcano.
On April 1st, they set out for a dayhike along the Alpine East,
a trail in the cloud forest.
Tragically,Chris and Lisanne never returned.
While some remains were eventuallydiscovered,
the circumstancessurrounding their disappearance remain
largely unknown, giving riseto numerous questions and speculation.
(00:48):
A particularly strange element of the caseinvolves
hunting photographs taken from friendscamera on the night they vanished.
Photographs that once you see them,you won't soon forget.
This is a study of strange.
(01:18):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Michael May.
Now, while I try to cover storiesthat are less
and just just less wellknown study of strange.
Every now and then, I do cover a storythat is more popular,
that is covered a lot,and this is one of those.
But it's an intriguing case.
There are a lot of strange elements,and there's also a lot of misconceptions
(01:40):
that I try to clear up at the end.
Chris Kramers and Lisanne Freundwere two friends from the Netherlands,
and they embarked on
what was supposed to be a lifechanging adventure in Panama in 2014.
Chris was outgoing and creativeand reserved and organized.
Initially,they were going to go to Costa Rica.
That was the that was the goal.
(02:00):
But after months of planning,
they settled on Panamawhere they arrived on March 15th.
They were not planning to be likeyour normal lazy tourist.
Like I would be drinking on the beachand eating a lot of food.
They were going to be busy.
They were planning to volunteer.
They took a Spanish language classand they wanted to explore local cultures.
(02:21):
On the first part of their trip.
They made their way to the town of Bocasdel Toro, which is where they took Spanish
language classes for a number of weeks,and they enjoyed the tropical scenery.
On March 29th, 2014,
Chris and Lisanne traveledto the highland town of Paquette De Luca.
It is amazingly picturesque
and the primary industry is agriculture,where some of the world's
(02:44):
finest coffee is grown,and it's here that they arrange
to stay with a local familyand were set to begin a volunteer program
helping children at a local daycarefor about a month.
Both were very excited.
Part of this tripwas a graduation gift to Lisanne,
and though both women were different,they were trusted
(03:06):
friends and they seemed to have traveledwell as a team.
And I say that because we have a journalthat was found.
So we know a lot about the day to dayactivity and what was going on.
On April 1st, 2014, just daysafter arriving in Bogota, the pair
decided to hike The Pianist a trail,a popular route used by a lot of tourists.
(03:27):
It winds up through the lush cloud forestand is about 4 to 5km.
One way it leads to a Continental Dividelookout point, but beyond that summit,
the terrainbecomes remote and challenging.
They left their host family homemid-morning.
The plan was to return latethat afternoon.
(03:48):
Photos recovered later showthat Chris and Lisanne were smiling
and having a good time at the summit
around the early afternoon,indicating that they were on schedule.
But after that,something went terribly wrong.
At 4:39
p.m., we have the first sign of distress.
There was a desperate call to 1 to 2.
(04:10):
The international emergency number.
12 minutes later,there was another emergency call
from Lisbon's phoneto 911, the local emergency number.
Neither call was able to connecton top of that.
People didn't actually knowthat Lisanne and Chris went on this hike.
Some witnesses saw themhaving lunch in town before the hike,
(04:31):
but apparently even the host familydidn't know what their plan was.
So that nightwhen they didn't return home, the host
family, they were concerned,but no formal alert was raised.
I mean, these are two young women.
They're having fun.
They're on vacation.
Maybe they met friends and went out late.
But both women had arrangedto text their families every day.
(04:52):
And April 1st, those texts stopped.
April 2nd.
Chris and Lisanne had scheduled a meetingwith a local guide
for a private tourof the surrounding area.
This man, his name is Feliciano Gonzalezand he showed up to meet them.
But Lisanne and Chris were not there.
And this is when word started to spreadthat something might have gone wrong,
(05:16):
that these two womenare likely in need of help.
So residents, tour guidesand more started an informal search.
If you've come across this story before,you know that their phones
were working for a while,not getting signal,
but they had battery power,and we know that both women attempted
several calls to emergency servicesafter that first night before 4 a.m.
(05:39):
on April 4th.
Listen, Samsung Galaxy battery diedfrom that point forward.
Only Chris's iPhone four remained usable,but strangely,
it was never again used to actually dial
emergency numbers after April 2nd.
Instead, the iPhone was powered onintermittently during the following days,
(06:01):
and investigators later noted that betweenApril 5th and April 11th,
the iPhone was turned on multiple times,but the Pin code
was either not enteredor was entered incorrectly.
This can mean a few things.
Likely it was being turned on periodicallyto preserve battery power
and check signal.
And it could also meanthat something happened to Chris.
(06:25):
She could have diedor been incapacitated in some way.
And Lisanne had Chris's phone,but not the passcode to actually use it.
But for the people searching andthe rest of the world, there was silence.
For weeks,search teams scoured the dense jungle
with helicopters, dogs, trackers,but there was no trace of the women.
(06:49):
Families traveled in from Europe to help.
The Dutch government sent additionalresources, but nothing was found.
It seemed that Chris and Lisannehad vanished into thin air
until June 14th.
So almost two months later,when a local woman
from an indigenous community foundlesbians backpack near a riverbank miles
(07:13):
from the trail,the contents were surprisingly intact.
It included sunglasses, cash bras,both their phones
and, crucially,a digital camera on that camera.
Haunting images emerged.
Happy, wonderful picturesfrom the first part of their trip.
(07:35):
Having food on vacation.
Meeting new friends.
And then the day of the hike.
Cheerful selfies from that trail,
followed by a chilling series of 90
photographstaken deep in the pitch black jungle.
What were these pictures trying to show?
(07:55):
Why were they taken?
These are some of the biggest questionsabout this mystery.
Soon after the backpack was found,shorts were found on a rock,
and then soon scattered human remains
surfaced along the same river system.
DNA confirmed the worst.
(08:15):
Chris and Lisanne had perished.
The authorities formally ruledthe deaths an accident, theorizing
the women became disoriented, lostand injured, unable to escape the jungle.
But what really happenedout there in the jungle?
There are so many theories that all range
from some form of a tragic accidentto foul play.
(08:38):
And why foul play?
Because there are some strange anomalies.
A lot of the more outlandish theoriescome down to the photos.
These night photos, as they came to becalled, are eerie and puzzling.
Most of them are
shots of indistinct darknesswith the flash turned on.
(08:58):
It's very difficultto describe these in an audio format.
I'll provide links to them.
You can easily find them online,but I keep using the word haunting
and that isbecause they are very haunting.
One image shows a row of rocks on a ledge
with a sort of plastic bagsor candy wrappers on top.
Another showswhat looks to be a twig with parts
of a red plastic bag tied onto it.
(09:22):
Another is the back of a person'shead, believed to be Chris's,
with whatsome interpret as blood in the hair.
Another photo appearsto be a part of a backpack strap
and a mirror or reflectiveobject spread out on a rock.
And the meaning of these photosremains contested and debated,
(09:42):
but many people believe they were takenby the women in desperation
during the night, possiblyto use the flash as a light source, maybe
even a signal, or even just to documenttheir surroundings or injuries.
In the pitch dark jungle.
Though I'll contest.
I don't knowif it was to take pictures of injuries,
because you don't see really anythingclear enough to be that.
(10:09):
But what these
images do strongly suggest and explainis that at least
one of the women was alivetrying to use the camera for help.
The camera also revealed another mystery.
One photo from the sequence was missing.
Photo number 509, which came
right after their last daytime photo
(10:29):
and right before the night series started,
this photo had been deleted,but according to tech experts,
deleting a photo on that model off camera
leaves a recoverable ghost image.
But investigators could never recover it,implying
that it may have been deletedvia a computer at some point.
(10:49):
Or at least that's the conspiracy.
So now that you have the the bulk
of the important details of this case,let me clear up some misconceptions.
These are not in order by any means.
First, Chris and Lisannewere not experienced adventurers.
Some accounts paint them to bevery experienced, and they worked to.
(11:13):
People have reported and discussedthe remains that were found, claiming that
these bones were dispersed unnaturally,meaning someone or something scattered.
The remains on purpose.
However, investigatorsand other experts say that they were
naturally dispersed by the river currentsand the wildlife.
(11:33):
It all fits into that.
Third, the
photo of the the back ofwhat is likely Chris's head.
The photo that looks like it has bloodhas been highly altered.
Maybe not in a malicious fashion.
It's people trying to get more datafrom the photos so they change.
You know, the contrast in theand the color and and all of those things.
(11:55):
Trying to see more in the photo.
And when you do that enough,it made part of the head look like
there could have been blood.
But if you see the actual photo,there's no blood on that head.
That's the way I interpret all the imagesI've seen.
Anyway, if you disagree,please let me know.
Next, the shorts that were found,many reports came out
saying that the shorts were found
(12:17):
neatly folded on a rock,as if they were deliberately put there.
This has actually been debunked solidlyby the people that found the shorts.
The investigatorsat first arrived at the scene,
and even photographsthat were taken when they were found next.
Some of the sans bones had bits of skinon it, where, in contrast,
(12:38):
Chris Kramer's bones specifically,such as the fragment of her pelvis
and some leg bones, were completely bareand appeared bleached.
This has led to speculationthat chemicals like lime
or other deliberate actionsmight have been involved.
However, forensic analysts have statedthat the tropical environment bones
exposed to the elements
(12:58):
can be naturally bleached by sunand weather in a matter of days.
Next is the famous deleted photo,
which leadsto a lot of conspiratorial debate
that this photo was deleteddeliberately after the fact,
maybe by the governmentto cover up something.
(13:21):
But just because the camerashould keep some data behind
after deletion,it doesn't mean you can recover the image.
Especially because she kept taking photos.
If she had stopped,we would have had a better chance.
But the data from that deleted photocould have been overwritten
by the new pictures being taken.
Suffice to say, it's no guaranteeyou can recover that image,
(13:41):
so I don't think it means someonepurposefully deleted it after the fact.
Yet in spite of everythingI'm talking about,
there are a lot of eerie,unanswered questions.
Why the desperate nighttime photos?
Understanding the sequence of eventswith all the strange phone activity,
and yes, even the hunting missing imagethat I don't put a lot of stock into,
(14:02):
but others do.
This has led a few to consider foul play,and that includes a lawyer that worked
for the Kramer family who arguedthat these anomalies point to a crime.
However, investigators,including the Panamanian prosecutor
and the Dutch forensic specialistGuy named doctor Frank van
der Goot, concluded that this wasalmost certainly an accident.
(14:27):
The Dutch team even attempted to identifythe specific location
where the accident might have occurred,and they showed photos to a local person.
A guide, I believe, who knew the area,and he recognized details in the images,
and he independently pointed out an areaalong a river
that he believed matchedwhere those photos were taken.
(14:47):
This area happened to be the same ravinethat Doctor Vanda Goode's
forensic analyst had highlightedas a possible accident site.
In other words,both the expert team and the local guy
converged on a particular locationbeyond the peonies to summit
as the probable scene of a fall.
According to these people,the descent on the far side of the east,
(15:10):
a trail has multiple steepdrop offs of 30 to 40m
and very treacherous slippery slopes.
If one or both of the womenfell in such a spot, they could have been
badly hurt if not killed outrightand effectively trapped.
The team theorized that perhapswhile trying to find a way back,
(15:30):
one of the women slipped and fellinto this ravine, injuring herself.
The other attempted to help, resultingin both being stuck below
without a way to climb back up,which to me fits some of the pictures
because some of the pictureslook like they're shooting up into the sky
along the side of almost like a cliffface, or very steep slope.
(15:52):
And the riverbeds in that area led exactly
to where the remains were found.
Perhaps what's most unsettlingabout the story of Chris Kramers
and Lisanne Freundisn't what we don't know, but what we do.
Two capable young womenset out on a day hike and never returned.
(16:13):
Swallowed by an indifferentand dangerous wilderness.
Thank you so much for listeningto a study of strange.
That story went by faster than I expected.
Not that that's a bad thing,just surprising.
I'll add a personal little anecdote.
A couple of years ago, when I was workingon another story for the podcast,
I was in New England in the woods,and it was I can't remember what story
(16:35):
I was doing, but I was taking a videoto show how easy it can be to get lost
in the woods, even when you're,like on a trail or right next to a trail.
And it was surprisingly easy.
And I got I was with a bunch of peopleso I could easily find my way back.
But the trail Chris Kramersand Lisanne Freund
were on much more dense, much moreoff the beaten path than I was on.
(16:56):
So it had to be
very difficult to find your wayif you just got slightly disoriented,
if that was even partof what happened to them.
But it is a tragic, tragic story,so be careful out there.
If you are a hiker.
As usual, if you like this contentbest way to support the show?
Make sure you're subscribed.
Check out our websiteat City of strange.com.
(17:16):
Until next time. Thank you and good night.
Warning this episode contains detailsthat some listeners
may find disturbing.
In April of 2014, Dutch
friends Lisanne Freund and Chris Kramers,both in their early 20s,
embarked on an adventure of a lifetime,a trip to Panama.
Their itinerary was packedand included Spanish classes, exploration
(00:23):
and volunteering in the mountainous regionnear the Baru volcano.
On April 1st, they set out for a dayhike along the Alpine East,
a trail in the cloud forest.
Tragically,Chris and Lisanne never returned.
While some remains were eventuallydiscovered,
the circumstancessurrounding their disappearance remain
largely unknown, giving riseto numerous questions and speculation.
(00:48):
A particularly strange element of the caseinvolves
hunting photographs taken from friendscamera on the night they vanished.
Photographs that once you see them,you won't soon forget.
This is a study of strange.
(01:18):
Welcome back to the show.
I'm your host, Michael May.
Now, while I try to cover storiesthat are less
and just just less wellknown study of strange.
Every now and then, I do cover a storythat is more popular,
that is covered a lot,and this is one of those.
But it's an intriguing case.
There are a lot of strange elements,and there's also a lot of misconceptions
(01:40):
that I try to clear up at the end.
Chris Kramers and Lisanne Freundwere two friends from the Netherlands,
and they embarked on
what was supposed to be a lifechanging adventure in Panama in 2014.
Chris was outgoing and creativeand reserved and organized.
Initially,they were going to go to Costa Rica.
That was the that was the goal.
(02:00):
But after months of planning,
they settled on Panamawhere they arrived on March 15th.
They were not planning to be likeyour normal lazy tourist.
Like I would be drinking on the beachand eating a lot of food.
They were going to be busy.
They were planning to volunteer.
They took a Spanish language classand they wanted to explore local cultures.
(02:21):
On the first part of their trip.
They made their way to the town of Bocasdel Toro, which is where they took Spanish
language classes for a number of weeks,and they enjoyed the tropical scenery.
On March 29th, 2014,
Chris and Lisanne traveledto the highland town of Paquette De Luca.
It is amazingly picturesque
and the primary industry is agriculture,where some of the world's
(02:44):
finest coffee is grown,and it's here that they arrange
to stay with a local familyand were set to begin a volunteer program
helping children at a local daycarefor about a month.
Both were very excited.
Part of this tripwas a graduation gift to Lisanne,
and though both women were different,they were trusted
(03:06):
friends and they seemed to have traveledwell as a team.
And I say that because we have a journalthat was found.
So we know a lot about the day to dayactivity and what was going on.
On April 1st, 2014, just daysafter arriving in Bogota, the pair
decided to hike The Pianist a trail,a popular route used by a lot of tourists.
(03:27):
It winds up through the lush cloud forestand is about 4 to 5km.
One way it leads to a Continental Dividelookout point, but beyond that summit,
the terrainbecomes remote and challenging.
They left their host family homemid-morning.
The plan was to return latethat afternoon.
(03:48):
Photos recovered later showthat Chris and Lisanne were smiling
and having a good time at the summit
around the early afternoon,indicating that they were on schedule.
But after that,something went terribly wrong.
At 4:39
p.m., we have the first sign of distress.
There was a desperate call to 1 to 2.
(04:10):
The international emergency number.
12 minutes later,there was another emergency call
from Lisbon's phoneto 911, the local emergency number.
Neither call was able to connecton top of that.
People didn't actually knowthat Lisanne and Chris went on this hike.
Some witnesses saw themhaving lunch in town before the hike,
(04:31):
but apparently even the host familydidn't know what their plan was.
So that nightwhen they didn't return home, the host
family, they were concerned,but no formal alert was raised.
I mean, these are two young women.
They're having fun.
They're on vacation.
Maybe they met friends and went out late.
But both women had arrangedto text their families every day.
(04:52):
And April 1st, those texts stopped.
April 2nd.
Chris and Lisanne had scheduled a meetingwith a local guide
for a private tourof the surrounding area.
This man, his name is Feliciano Gonzalezand he showed up to meet them.
But Lisanne and Chris were not there.
And this is when word started to spreadthat something might have gone wrong,
(05:16):
that these two womenare likely in need of help.
So residents, tour guidesand more started an informal search.
If you've come across this story before,you know that their phones
were working for a while,not getting signal,
but they had battery power,and we know that both women attempted
several calls to emergency servicesafter that first night before 4 a.m.
(05:39):
on April 4th.
Listen, Samsung Galaxy battery diedfrom that point forward.
Only Chris's iPhone four remained usable,but strangely,
it was never again used to actually dial
emergency numbers after April 2nd.
Instead, the iPhone was powered onintermittently during the following days,
(06:01):
and investigators later noted that betweenApril 5th and April 11th,
the iPhone was turned on multiple times,but the Pin code
was either not enteredor was entered incorrectly.
This can mean a few things.
Likely it was being turned on periodicallyto preserve battery power
and check signal.
And it could also meanthat something happened to Chris.
(06:25):
She could have diedor been incapacitated in some way.
And Lisanne had Chris's phone,but not the passcode to actually use it.
But for the people searching andthe rest of the world, there was silence.
For weeks,search teams scoured the dense jungle
with helicopters, dogs, trackers,but there was no trace of the women.
(06:49):
Families traveled in from Europe to help.
The Dutch government sent additionalresources, but nothing was found.
It seemed that Chris and Lisannehad vanished into thin air
until June 14th.
So almost two months later,when a local woman
from an indigenous community foundlesbians backpack near a riverbank miles
(07:13):
from the trail,the contents were surprisingly intact.
It included sunglasses, cash bras,both their phones
and, crucially,a digital camera on that camera.
Haunting images emerged.
Happy, wonderful picturesfrom the first part of their trip.
(07:35):
Having food on vacation.
Meeting new friends.
And then the day of the hike.
Cheerful selfies from that trail,
followed by a chilling series of 90
photographstaken deep in the pitch black jungle.
What were these pictures trying to show?
(07:55):
Why were they taken?
These are some of the biggest questionsabout this mystery.
Soon after the backpack was found,shorts were found on a rock,
and then soon scattered human remains
surfaced along the same river system.
DNA confirmed the worst.
(08:15):
Chris and Lisanne had perished.
The authorities formally ruledthe deaths an accident, theorizing
the women became disoriented, lostand injured, unable to escape the jungle.
But what really happenedout there in the jungle?
There are so many theories that all range
from some form of a tragic accidentto foul play.
(08:38):
And why foul play?
Because there are some strange anomalies.
A lot of the more outlandish theoriescome down to the photos.
These night photos, as they came to becalled, are eerie and puzzling.
Most of them are
shots of indistinct darknesswith the flash turned on.
(08:58):
It's very difficultto describe these in an audio format.
I'll provide links to them.
You can easily find them online,but I keep using the word haunting
and that isbecause they are very haunting.
One image shows a row of rocks on a ledge
with a sort of plastic bagsor candy wrappers on top.
Another showswhat looks to be a twig with parts
of a red plastic bag tied onto it.
(09:22):
Another is the back of a person'shead, believed to be Chris's,
with whatsome interpret as blood in the hair.
Another photo appearsto be a part of a backpack strap
and a mirror or reflectiveobject spread out on a rock.
And the meaning of these photosremains contested and debated,
(09:42):
but many people believe they were takenby the women in desperation
during the night, possiblyto use the flash as a light source, maybe
even a signal, or even just to documenttheir surroundings or injuries.
In the pitch dark jungle.
Though I'll contest.
I don't knowif it was to take pictures of injuries,
because you don't see really anythingclear enough to be that.
(10:09):
But what these
images do strongly suggest and explainis that at least
one of the women was alivetrying to use the camera for help.
The camera also revealed another mystery.
One photo from the sequence was missing.
Photo number 509, which came
right after their last daytime photo
(10:29):
and right before the night series started,
this photo had been deleted,but according to tech experts,
deleting a photo on that model off camera
leaves a recoverable ghost image.
But investigators could never recover it,implying
that it may have been deletedvia a computer at some point.
(10:49):
Or at least that's the conspiracy.
So now that you have the the bulk
of the important details of this case,let me clear up some misconceptions.
These are not in order by any means.
First, Chris and Lisannewere not experienced adventurers.
Some accounts paint them to bevery experienced, and they worked to.
(11:13):
People have reported and discussedthe remains that were found, claiming that
these bones were dispersed unnaturally,meaning someone or something scattered.
The remains on purpose.
However, investigatorsand other experts say that they were
naturally dispersed by the river currentsand the wildlife.
(11:33):
It all fits into that.
Third, the
photo of the the back ofwhat is likely Chris's head.
The photo that looks like it has bloodhas been highly altered.
Maybe not in a malicious fashion.
It's people trying to get more datafrom the photos so they change.
You know, the contrast in theand the color and and all of those things.
(11:55):
Trying to see more in the photo.
And when you do that enough,it made part of the head look like
there could have been blood.
But if you see the actual photo,there's no blood on that head.
That's the way I interpret all the imagesI've seen.
Anyway, if you disagree,please let me know.
Next, the shorts that were found,many reports came out
saying that the shorts were found
(12:17):
neatly folded on a rock,as if they were deliberately put there.
This has actually been debunked solidlyby the people that found the shorts.
The investigatorsat first arrived at the scene,
and even photographsthat were taken when they were found next.
Some of the sans bones had bits of skinon it, where, in contrast,
(12:38):
Chris Kramer's bones specifically,such as the fragment of her pelvis
and some leg bones, were completely bareand appeared bleached.
This has led to speculationthat chemicals like lime
or other deliberate actionsmight have been involved.
However, forensic analysts have statedthat the tropical environment bones
exposed to the elements
(12:58):
can be naturally bleached by sunand weather in a matter of days.
Next is the famous deleted photo,
which leadsto a lot of conspiratorial debate
that this photo was deleteddeliberately after the fact,
maybe by the governmentto cover up something.
(13:21):
But just because the camerashould keep some data behind
after deletion,it doesn't mean you can recover the image.
Especially because she kept taking photos.
If she had stopped,we would have had a better chance.
But the data from that deleted photocould have been overwritten
by the new pictures being taken.
Suffice to say, it's no guaranteeyou can recover that image,
(13:41):
so I don't think it means someonepurposefully deleted it after the fact.
Yet in spite of everythingI'm talking about,
there are a lot of eerie,unanswered questions.
Why the desperate nighttime photos?
Understanding the sequence of eventswith all the strange phone activity,
and yes, even the hunting missing imagethat I don't put a lot of stock into,
(14:02):
but others do.
This has led a few to consider foul play,and that includes a lawyer that worked
for the Kramer family who arguedthat these anomalies point to a crime.
However, investigators,including the Panamanian prosecutor
and the Dutch forensic specialistGuy named doctor Frank van
der Goot, concluded that this wasalmost certainly an accident.
(14:27):
The Dutch team even attempted to identifythe specific location
where the accident might have occurred,and they showed photos to a local person.
A guide, I believe, who knew the area,and he recognized details in the images,
and he independently pointed out an areaalong a river
that he believed matchedwhere those photos were taken.
(14:47):
This area happened to be the same ravinethat Doctor Vanda Goode's
forensic analyst had highlightedas a possible accident site.
In other words,both the expert team and the local guy
converged on a particular locationbeyond the peonies to summit
as the probable scene of a fall.
According to these people,the descent on the far side of the east,
(15:10):
a trail has multiple steepdrop offs of 30 to 40m
and very treacherous slippery slopes.
If one or both of the womenfell in such a spot, they could have been
badly hurt if not killed outrightand effectively trapped.
The team theorized that perhapswhile trying to find a way back,
(15:30):
one of the women slipped and fellinto this ravine, injuring herself.
The other attempted to help, resultingin both being stuck below
without a way to climb back up,which to me fits some of the pictures
because some of the pictureslook like they're shooting up into the sky
along the side of almost like a cliffface, or very steep slope.
(15:52):
And the riverbeds in that area led exactly
to where the remains were found.
Perhaps what's most unsettlingabout the story of Chris Kramers
and Lisanne Freundisn't what we don't know, but what we do.
Two capable young womenset out on a day hike and never returned.
(16:13):
Swallowed by an indifferentand dangerous wilderness.
Thank you so much for listeningto a study of strange.
That story went by faster than I expected.
Not that that's a bad thing,just surprising.
I'll add a personal little anecdote.
A couple of years ago, when I was workingon another story for the podcast,
I was in New England in the woods,and it was I can't remember what story
(16:35):
I was doing, but I was taking a videoto show how easy it can be to get lost
in the woods, even when you're,like on a trail or right next to a trail.
And it was surprisingly easy.
And I got I was with a bunch of peopleso I could easily find my way back.
But the trail Chris Kramersand Lisanne Freund
were on much more dense, much moreoff the beaten path than I was on.
(16:56):
So it had to be
very difficult to find your wayif you just got slightly disoriented,
if that was even partof what happened to them.
But it is a tragic, tragic story,so be careful out there.
If you are a hiker.
As usual, if you like this contentbest way to support the show?
Make sure you're subscribed.
Check out our websiteat City of strange.com.
(17:16):
Until next time. Thank you and good night.
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