About This Episode
On April 1, 2014, Dutch students Kris Kremers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22, set out for a hike along the El Pianista trail near Boquete in the clouded forests surrounding Baru volcano. Neither woman returned. Now, a decade later, the "Lost in Panama" podcast is breathing new life into one of the internet's most haunting unsolved mysteries.
Kremers and Froon had arrived in Panama just two weeks earlier as volunteers working with children. They were staying with a local host family in Boquete, a small mountain town in Chiriquí Province. On April 2, when they missed an appointment with a local guide, alarm bells rang. The disappearance triggered a massive search operation: parents flew to Panama with police, dog units, and Dutch detectives, who scoured the forests for ten days. A US$30,000 reward was offered for information.
The case took a macabre turn on June 14, 2014—ten weeks after the women vanished—when a local woman discovered Froon's blue backpack by a riverbank near Alto Romero village in Bocas del Toro Province. The backpack's contents were strikingly intact: two pairs of sunglasses, US$88 in cash, Froon's insurance card, a water bottle, her Canon Powershot SX270 digital camera, and both women's cell phones. All personal belongings remained at the host family house untouched.
What emerged from the recovered phones and camera was haunting: call logs, power-on records, timestamps, and a series of nighttime jungle photographs that formed what investigators describe as a "digital timeline" raising more questions than answers. Yet despite these artifacts, the case remained unresolved—an "unsolvable puzzle" of conflicting evidence, rumors, and speculation that captivated true crime audiences worldwide.
Enter Mariana Atencio and Jeremy Kryt, journalists hosting the "Lost in Panama" podcast, produced by PodcastOne. Beginning in 2023 and continuing with weekly updates through 2024, the investigative series retraces the women's final steps and uncovers what the team describes as "explosive new evidence" gathered from on-the-ground witnesses. Kryt first detailed the case for English-language audiences back in 2016, but the podcast represents a sustained effort to push for reopening the investigation and achieving justice.
The investigation interviews Miriam, the local host family member, and other witnesses who may hold keys to understanding what happened in those dense Panamanian forests. The podcast's approach—combining archival investigation with fresh fieldwork—has resonated with international audiences hungry for resolution in a case that has resisted easy answers.
What distinguishes this podcast from previous coverage is its methodical pursuit of new leads a full decade after the disappearance. While authorities have recovered remains and traced digital footprints, the official verdict remains elusive. The podcast team's commitment to interviewing fresh witnesses and examining previously overlooked evidence signals that the case, though cold, is far from forgotten.
For international audiences, the "Lost in Panama" case represents a collision of modern vulnerability and jungle mystery: two young European tourists, a volunteer mission, a hiking trail, and a trail of digital artifacts left behind. As the podcast continues to air, it may yet provide answers to the questions that have haunted this case for over a decade.
Sources
https://podnews.net/podcast/ia640
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lost-in-panama/id1650171879
https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/lost-in-panama-4940554
https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/1096bf69-8a20-4b97-9075-a4776eff4f52/lost-in-panama
