Camera of Two Missing Girls Found Deep in Panama Jungle Reveals Photos That Can’t Be Explained | HO

It began like a postcard-perfect adventure: two young Dutch women, backpacks slung over their shoulders, setting out to hike one of Panama’s most famous trails. Eleven years later, their disappearance remains one of the most unsettling mysteries of modern travel — not only because of what was found in the jungle, but because of the photographs left behind.

Chris Kramers, 21, and Lisanne Froon, 22, both from Amersfoort, the Netherlands, arrived in the mountain town of Boquete in March 2014. They planned to spend several weeks volunteering at a local school while also exploring the lush highlands of Panama. Friends and family described them as careful, organized travelers who had taken Spanish lessons and prepared for their stay.

On April 1, 2014, under clear skies, the two women set out on the Pianista Trail with minimal gear: a small backpack, a water bottle, fruit, a camera, and their cell phones. Locals remembered seeing them accompanied by a guide dog, named Blue, walking toward the trailhead just outside of town. That evening, Blue returned home alone. Chris and Lisanne did not.

A Search Without Answers

When the women failed to return that night, their host family grew worried. By the next morning, calls to their phones went unanswered. Authorities launched a search immediately. Helicopters scoured the cloud forest. Police and volunteers combed trails. Dogs sniffed through the underbrush. Within days, Dutch search-and-rescue teams arrived to support the effort.

But the Pianista Trail is deceptive. The first section offers wide paths and scenic overlooks, but beyond the summit the landscape plunges into steep ravines and unmarked jungle terrain. Locals warn tourists not to continue past the mirador — the viewpoint — without a guide. Despite extensive efforts, no trace of the young women appeared.

For weeks, the search turned up nothing: no clothing, no phones, not even a shoe. Back in the Netherlands, the case dominated headlines, drawing international attention. Chris’s parents flew to Panama to join the search, distributing flyers and pleading for information. But the trail had gone cold.

A Backpack That Shouldn’t Have Been There

Then, 10 weeks later, in early June, a woman from the Ngäbe-Buglé Indigenous community made a discovery along the Culebra River: a small blue backpack wedged between rocks. She claimed it had not been there the day before.

The backpack was remarkably intact. Inside were cash, sunglasses, a water bottle, two bras, Lisanne’s passport, both women’s phones, and most disturbingly, a Canon PowerShot digital camera. None of the contents showed signs of exposure to weeks of heavy rain. Electronics worked. Paper items were dry and uncurled. Investigators and forensic experts were baffled.

The phones revealed more questions. Call logs showed over 70 attempts to dial emergency services, most to the Dutch equivalent of 911. The first were made just hours after the women began their hike, but due to poor reception, none went through. The last attempt occurred on April 11 — ten days after the women vanished. For investigators, that suggested at least one of them had survived for days in the jungle.

The camera, however, would provide the most haunting evidence.

Photos That Made No Sense

In total, 509 images were retrieved. The earliest showed Chris and Lisanne smiling on the trail, posing beside rivers, enjoying the jungle. The timestamps corresponded with April 1. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Then came silence. For a full week, no photos were taken.

On April 8, in the middle of the night, the camera came back to life. Between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m., more than 90 photos were taken in near-total darkness. Most were black or blurry. Others showed tree trunks, tangled roots, candy wrappers on moss, and crude arrangements of sticks. A few seemed deliberately composed, including one showing reflective plastic and foil placed in angles, as if to catch light.

One of the clearest images was of the back of Chris’s head, her hair matted and streaked with what appeared to be blood.

Experts debated whether the women were using the camera flash to navigate in the dark or to signal for help. But many images didn’t fit that theory: the flash had been aimed upward into the canopy or down at carefully arranged objects.

Even more disturbing, one photo — number 509 — was missing. Investigators determined it had been deliberately deleted. Unlike corrupted data, this deletion was intentional. What it contained has never been revealed.

For forensic analysts, the mystery deepened further when they examined the phones. Lisanne’s phone had been unlocked and used for the first several days, but after April 6, attempts to enter the PIN stopped completely. No one tried again. That suggested either Lisanne was no longer alive — or someone else had control of the phone.

Bones in the Jungle

The backpack reignited the investigation, but the case grew stranger still when human remains were discovered.

First, searchers found a boot containing a human foot, still inside its sock, lodged in the riverbank. DNA confirmed it belonged to Lisanne. In the following weeks, fragments of bone appeared: part of a pelvis identified as Chris’s, and other small pieces scattered miles apart.

The condition of the remains puzzled forensic scientists. Lisanne’s foot showed relatively normal decomposition, with tissue and ligaments intact. Chris’s bone fragments, by contrast, were unnaturally clean — bleached white, stripped of all organic material, almost as if chemically treated. No evidence of fire, cremation, or animal activity was present.

Why two bodies decomposed so differently, under the same climate and conditions, has never been explained.

Accident or Something More?

Panamanian authorities leaned toward an accident: perhaps the women became disoriented, fell into a ravine, or were swept away by rivers swollen from rainfall. But skeptics — including Dutch forensic experts — have long pointed to inconsistencies.

Why was the backpack so clean after weeks in the rainforest? Why was a single photo deleted while others remained? Why did Lisanne stop trying to unlock her phone after April 6? And why were the remains found miles from where the women were last seen, in conditions that didn’t match natural decomposition?

Some investigators suggested the nighttime photos were deliberate signals — possibly attempts to attract attention, or warnings about something in the jungle. Others proposed that the women may not have been alone when the photos were taken.

Online communities seized on these mysteries, comparing the case to the Blair Witch Project and speculating about everything from foul play to cover-ups.

Families Still Searching for Closure

For the families of Chris Kramers and Lisanne Froon, the discovery of bones and belongings brought no real closure. Eleven years later, questions still outweigh answers.

“They were young, smart, careful,” one Dutch investigator remarked. “This wasn’t just two girls lost in the jungle. Something happened out there that we may never fully understand.”

The case remains officially unsolved. The Panamanian jungle, with its clouded trails and steep ravines, keeps its secrets well.

What lingers are the photographs — grainy flashes of darkness, fragments of staged objects, and the single haunting image of a head wound. Photos that don’t explain, but instead deepen the mystery.

And somewhere between the missing frame, the unexplained bones, and the silent jungle, lies the story of what really happened to Chris and Lisanne.