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[Music] thank you welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always ladies and gentlemen the leader of the band the band movement
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he is the captain if I see a creep in you better believe I'll be repoing repo in your van that is it's good to be seen
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and it's good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music]
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this week oh yeah we are drinking Brew Free or Die blood orange IPA by 21st Amendment Brewery garage grade trumpets
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please five out of five bottle caps this is a fantastic beer it's got some good weight to it and about a half a
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glass will warm you up nicely the blood orange is up front and it cuts through the bitterness of the IPA perfectly and
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this week's beer was brought to us by first up we have Jonathan in Ottawa Canada and a big shout out to Heather
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and Pendle Pennsylvania and a really big thank you to Michael Alex and family up
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in Ontario Canada and a big shout out to Nicole in Omaha Nebraska and a huge thank you to Stella and Midlothian
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Virginia who says who says we are like The Boondock Saints of the airwaves and last but not least
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we have Jenny from Chicago Jenny from the block from Old Chicago all right Captain
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thanks to everybody for going to True Crime garage.com and clicking on the beer donation and you're running out of
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time to ban the van go to True Crime garage.com click on the storage page order your band the van shirt they're
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going fast some of the sizes probably are already sold out all right that's enough of the business everybody gather
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime foreign should never have happened at all too
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smart and hard-working young women had a goal a dream to travel over the ocean to
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another country and volunteer their time and efforts helping some of that country's youth
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but as soon as they arrived so far from their home things were not as planned instead of teaching they were left with
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too much time on their hands so they were free to roam a foreign town and the surrounding areas
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plans aside they decided to embark on a little Adventure spending a day dedicated to a long
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touristy hike into the jungle but something out there happened something unexpected
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in life we often choose our own Adventures but after we set out we are not always in control
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what happened to the two women who set out for a hike in the jungle what can we learn from the phone calls
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they made and what can we make of the mysterious photographs they left behind welcome to another episode of True Crime
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garage this is the Strange Case of the Dutch hikers and missing photo 509 [Music]
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[Music] Chris Kramer's age 21 she's a blue-eyed redhead with an outgoing personality and a strong sense
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of fun Chris enjoyed acting and planned to attend graduate school for art history in the fall of 2014.
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Chris met her flatmate lizanne froon age 22 a six foot tall athlete when the two
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worked in a cafe in the city of amsford in their native country of the Netherlands
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lizanne played volleyball in college and was into more extreme sports like skydiving Alpine skiing and
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Mountaineering lisanne majored in applied psychology and enjoyed photography in early 2014 the two were on break from
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their studies and enrolled in a program providing volunteer social workers for children in Panama the two saved their
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money for six months to pay for the trip both took a crash course in Spanish it is not believed that either of them had
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ever traveled to Panama before on this trip they spent two weeks traveling the country before heading to the town where
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the school where they were to work is located so Chris and lisanne arrive in the town
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of bocate but the two had a rude awakening due to some kind of mix-up the program was not
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to commence for another week according to Chris's diary the assistant director of the school was not very nice about
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the situation she wrote that he or she was rude and unfriendly the women found themselves with a week
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of downtime on their hands although they arrived before they were expected it does seem that the living accommodations
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for the women were ready they were directed to a room in the home of a local family near the campus of the
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school the women decided to make the most of their situation and explore the local offerings
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so the flying garage ship goes to the country of Panama in Central America for this case Panama is basically a narrow
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strip of land between the countries of Costa Rica and Colombia the country is so narrow that the Panama
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Canal was constructed directly across the country to provide a Waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific
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Oceans Panama features beautiful beaches but the majority of the country is extremely
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mountainous and heavily forested the town of bocate is a small town of about 19 000 people and it's about 40 miles
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from the Costa Rican border bokate is 3 900 feet above sea level and has a tropical climate with heavy rainy
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Seasons that start in April and average temperatures of mid 80s during the day to Mid 60s at night the area is subject
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to sudden tropical downpours at any time bocate is populated by a large number of
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expat Europeans and North Americans who live there as well as the native panamanians
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the town is a popular spot for tourists with its friendly European feel temperate climate wildlife and bird
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viewing and multiple businesses catering to teristas on the edge of town is a Trailhead at
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the beginning of a four kilometer jungle path leading to the Continental Divide this is a hydrological divide that
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separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those that drain
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into the Atlantic or Caribbean an invisible line running along the higher points of the continents that often
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attract sightseeing interest from adventures and excursionists the bokate area also has an active volcano baru and
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a national park surrounding it according to Media covering this case Panama is one of the safest countries in Latin
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America although as we will see it certainly has its share of violent crime we have quite a bit of information on
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this case that we normally would not have access to this thanks to the Daily Beast news site the daily beasts managed
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to obtain secretly leaked copies of the official case files used by investigators
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those archives contained data recovered from the electronic devices the women had with them this includes a camera and
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two phones we also have some DNA analysis Kris Kramer's diary and and much more now the day in question
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Captain is Tuesday April 1st 2014. and it's a typical hot sunny day that's right and there are some there's some
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confusion about what Chris and lizanne did that day we now know from Witnesses accounts including a taxi driver who
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drove them to the trailhead that Chris and lizanne started off their hike around 10 a.m the trail is described as
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a mud slick root choked footpath called the pianista or piano player because it climbs in a series of ladder-like steps
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reminiscent of a keyboard This is up from the tourist town of bocate to the Continental Divide does this have a
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hikers rating do we know I don't know well sometimes Trails will have ratings as like how how
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difficult they are so at the viewing at the top of the penis uh Trail uh where the Continental Divide is located
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is called the Mirador and it's about a three hour Trek from the trailhead it's worth noting that on a clear Day from
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the mirror door hikers can see all the way back to back down to book a day so once reaching the Mirador Chris and
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lizanne likely were able to see the town that they came from in the distance right so most tourists go up to the
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mirror door snap a few selfies then they come straight back down the same path back into town
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the tricky thing here though Captain is we know that Chris and lizanne actually had lined up a guide for this same hike
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and a tour of a strawberry farm but this was scheduled for the following day okay for whatever reason they decide to
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change their plans you know they booked a guide for the trip which especially if you're in a different
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country a foreign country always book a guide for these excursions you don't really know what you're
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getting into until you're out there right right but they booked a guide and but that's for the following day yeah so
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they decided to go without the guide on this exact same hike right it is mentioned that the pianista trail is not
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considered to be very dangerous and given their age I mean they're 21 22 years old they're they're young one's an
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athlete right and it's likely that the healthy strong and adventurous young women felt they were up to the
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challenging marked trail hike to the top we do know from computer searches that Chris and lisanne researched the trail
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prior to starting off and we know that the two were what they were wearing that day so both were wearing shorts and tank
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tops hiking boots and they had one small backpack between them is it common for people to go to the trail and get a
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guide there that's a good question and I think you could actually do the way that
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I've heard this described is that you could do both you could book a guide in advance or show up now the problem with
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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
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they want to charge it's like the people that go to the gym and they haven't scheduled anything with a personal
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trainer and they're hoping to see one just kind of loafing around looking for work now I guess from the trail head to
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the top it's about two and a half to three hours to make that Trek we need to discuss lisanne's camera okay because
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this is going to be extremely important to this case this is a Canon PowerShot SX 270. this features a zoom lens and a
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built-in flash we won't go through the photos in detail just yet because it would it would just get confusing at
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this point but we know the women made Fairly good time to the mirror door they took selfies at the top like most people
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do and the two in these pictures are smiling they appear to be enjoying themselves right you know this you can
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see they're in the sunshine with the breathtaking view in the background but goofing around right so these selfies
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were taken around midday so they left bocate around 11 I'm sorry 10 a.m so it makes sense that it would be around 1pm
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that they reached the summit this time was determined based on the position of the sun in these photos from
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the top to be clear the pianista trail is not a loop okay it's the same pathway up and then the same pathway back down
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right so logic would dictate that after the two women reached the Crest at the Divide they would then proceed back down
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the trail likely planning to return to town before Darkness fell right but based on the pictures later we're gonna
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see instead of heading back down the trail that they went up they're actually going to cross over
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heading in the opposite direction yeah so they're they're going away from the town of bucatay and this is curious for
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several reasons because we don't know if this happened on accident or if this was
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deliberate right you know they could have been out there and said hey this is fun we're having a good time let's uh
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let's continue on but so far in these pictures we only have the two individuals yes and the other thing
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that's tricky about this move too is when we say could it have been accidental that they're heading away
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from where they wanted to go that's tricky because we know that the girls studied the trail before going out
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on the hike right and it's you know so I'm not I'm not going to pretend that I'm uh extremely experienced hiker but
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I've been on Hikes before and some of them are a loop you know you just kind of keep going and you end up back where
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you started at some point right but this one is not that situation it's straight
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up straight back they get to their point and they continued on for some reason either accidental or deliberately yeah
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you wonder how many people were on that trail that day because if we don't have other individuals in
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the pictures it makes it seem especially on a Tuesday makes it seem like maybe there wasn't so many people out and it
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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
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way and it Loops back around but if there's a bunch of people on the trail you'd think they could just follow them
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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
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seen that in advance but there are no markers at the top telling people to go back down the way that they came
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so you know if you're you're sitting there listening and you're wondering well how
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do you guys know that they're going away from the direction that they likely intended to go well that's not our words
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that's from the investigators later investigators would view photos that were taken on their camera and they
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would say hey because of the foliage and because of the geographical features visible in these photos
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this is not on that same Trail this is on the other side of the divide and more specifically they would state that this
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appears to be about an hour's walk from the top yes it's so strange to me that they're going to continue on a trail and
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not head back well so these photos at this time they show that the women were making their way downhill into a more
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heavily forested and wild mountainous region this is called the Bocas del Toro or mouths of the bull this network of
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trails is not maintained by Rangers and not used by guides affiliated with the national park in fact these treacherous
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overgrown and unmarked Trails aren't intended to be used by tourists but are used almost exclusively by indigenous
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peoples living deep within the forest and mountain range particularly the Nobi tribe
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these Trails can get dangerously Steep and overgrown yet we know that this is the way that the women went
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and again was this purely an accident given that there were no markers to tell people to go back down the way they came
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in or was this deliberate you know just curiosity or wanting to continue their already fun adventure right or are they
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being led this way yes so there are reports that a local dog accompanied the women on their hike this
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Husky mixed name blue lived at the home where Chris and lizanne were staying blue returned without the women but no
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one thought much of it until the next day Wednesday April 2nd the host at their home laid out
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breakfast for the girls and she left for work but then the women failed to keep their appointment with the guide that
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they had hired so looking for the women the guide checked their accommodations and noted
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that it didn't appear that they had slept there the night before and he could tell that they also did not show
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up for breakfast that morning he notified the teachers at the school and he and a teacher went to the police
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station they actually went twice once at 7 30 pm and then again at 9 30 PM reporting the two women missing
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the problem was of course since they didn't really know anyone you know Chris and lizanne they didn't know anyone they
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didn't tell anyone where they were going there were dozens of popular trails in the area so the fire department and
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private search parties made up of local guides and volunteers they hunted for the women in the area around the buru
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volcano since the volcano is the most popular hiking attraction in the region but having no idea where or even exactly
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when the girls went off Searchers had an almost impossible task of trying to track their movements
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now Rumors in town indicated that the women actually returned from hiking so we have rumors of eyewitnesses possibly
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seeing them return from their hike but we have no evidence of this as far as the photos go correct and actually this
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was rumors that were only going on the day that they went missing or the day after they these were rumors that
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were quickly uh disregarded to be not true and so as a result of these rumors and
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official search didn't take place for several days for the two women this would be five days after the women
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set off on their hike Panama's national service for civil protection came in and
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took over the search for Chris and lizanne the agency was initially reluctant to get involved
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the belief Captain was that the women likely left town to go party somewhere oh yeah that's yeah so they go hiking on
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a trail and they they decide to not head back they said they decide to go on more of a
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difficult Trail just keep going further and further into the Wilderness and then
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they decide to go somewhere to party not that exact Theory but um somewhat okay so more likely their
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theory is that they made it back from the dream they came back to town and then went off took off went off and
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decided hey let's go party instead of volunteer our time at this uh at this spot but no eyewitnesses
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that say they drove them anywhere well keep in mind they actually have nothing to do during this whole time so they
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don't really have any other than a place to stay they don't really have anything
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to be accounted for right but what I'm saying is you would think that there would be at least a
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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
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leading to the confusion you have you have these rumors of they return to town of people that said hey I saw the two
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women so on and so forth so it will take five days after the women set off on their hike for an actual search to get
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involved so this starts on April 6th when they started the official search the national service for civil
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protection they actually called off the small private searches that were going on beforehand this is typical big
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government agency moving in and saying hey we're going to take care of this we're going to handle this ourselves
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right so this is actually in my opinion uh quite a shame because it's not making
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use of local guides uh the so you know the searches failed to utilize the expertise of those who knew the area and
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terrain the best now what it did offer however is they flooded the jungle with hundreds of
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Searchers right scouring the area for any sign of the two missing women now after 10 days of searching using dogs
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helicopters and ground teams this failed to turn up anything any leads at all they they ended the
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searches after 10 days so needless to say Chris and lizanne's parents they were frantic the women both checked in
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with their parents daily using the what's app but both their communication stopped on that day on April 1st the
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ferns and the Kramers quickly mobilized to establish a reward which quickly grew
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to thirty thousand dollars they flooded Panama with a missing and Panama poster featuring both girls
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both sets of parents flew to bukite in early April to look for their daughters and a Dutch Search Group arrived to
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scour the trails joined by Red Cross volunteers in early May a specially trained Dutch
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search team arrived and brought in 10 rescue and cadaver dogs but efforts were hampered by heavy rains and Relentless
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heat and after nine days the team went home empty-handed as did the parents Dutch investigators looking into the
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situation declared that it was very unlikely that Chris and lizanne simply disappeared from one of the trails since
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no trace of them was located investigators came under Fire for what many Saw as a botched search critics and
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authorities should have utilized satellite thermal imaging the blame game was in full force and it's not clear
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whether authorities did anything wrong or if the Searchers and the searches were just off their mark
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foreign [Music] [Music] we're back cheers mates cheers to you captain all right we're gonna get into some
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weird stuff now Captain because in June of 2014 this is roughly about two months
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after the two women disappeared a Nobi tribe woman walked into the bucatay police station with lisanne's
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turquoise backpack the woman claimed to have found the pack while she was tending to her rice paddy
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about 12 hours by foot on the other side of the Continental Divide on the banks of the powerful River locals call the
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calibra so the pack was wedged into a mess of Flotsam on the bank The Nobby woman said
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she was really sure that that it was not there the day before okay now local authorities who took control of the
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backpack made no fingerprint records in the case so when examiners from the Dutch forensic Institute later
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they discovered 30 unidentified fingerprints on the contents of the backpack but there was no way to figure
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out who these fingerprints belong to right it seems likely though that members of
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the tribe probably went through the backpack before they turned it over to the police you know curious about what
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could be inside my understanding is that the woman that turned it in she had actually heard of
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the case and thought that it could be evidence regarding the two missing women the interesting thing to me though is
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we're talking two months later in the jungle we're talking about it's found on the banks of this powerful calibra river
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right and it doesn't look that distraught to me right it it seems to be I would I know we're just looking at
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pictures but I would argue it almost seems to be like pristine condition right well cared for almost like it
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hadn't been in the jungle that entire time at all and there's contents in the backpack do you want to go through that
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real quick yeah and we should point out before we get into what was in the backpack or found in the backpack that
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these items were not considered to be water damaged and neither was the backpack right so here's what was found
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in the backpack and there are some photos that are still available online of the contents of the backpack the list
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that I found that seems to be the most accurate states that there were two pairs of sunglasses two cell phones
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these Zan's camera which was inside its padded case lizanne's passport 83 dollars in cash
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and I want to be clear about the cash statement the the dollar amount that's by most uh early reports okay so you
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will find reports out there that will state a different dollar amount other early reports state that a key was found
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in the backpack as well but later reports do not mention this key now keep in mind a key is awfully small the
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pictures that I found online I couldn't see I couldn't visibly see a key and there were two brawls in the backpack
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and an empty bottle of water or a half empty bottle of water depending on which report you read well now if you look at
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this the Brawl on the lower half of the picture right here right okay so do you notice that in one
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of the pictures of the girls doesn't look like that's the brawl she is wearing the day of the hike right
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okay I'm trying to look for another picture to see okay so do you want to get into the brawl the the bras now
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sure the the reason why I ask if you want to do that now that was something that is is often
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discussed online and the the thing that you point out there is interesting because
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the brawls that were found in the backpack you know they they were likely wearing both of these the day that they
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went out on their hike right and it's obvious that one of them that was found was being wore by Lee Zan that day
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so you know there has been a lot of speculation as to why they would take them off why that they would place them
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in the backpack it's likely that it's just as something as simple as they got hot right and they place them in the
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backpack I think to me though what what's interesting about the contents of the backpack is you know we're left
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wondering what happened to these women right does finding this backpack offer any clues well we're going to get into
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the cell phones and the camera eventually but before we do that just the finding of the backpack itself
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it doesn't appear to me obviously that they were that something terrible took place because they were
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robbed or intended to be robbed you know and I say that because I think all of the items found inside this backpack to
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me would be items that an intended robber would want to take from these two women right then it makes you wonder
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did they put down the book bag somewhere and why were they leaving that behind for maybe
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somebody to find or did they put it down because they were going to go swimming what's going on with this book bag or
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did they pass away and it was simply left behind right but again if you think there's something tragic that happened
00:29:26
it doesn't look like this book bag went through anything any tragic scene you know I mean like so this backpack's
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found two months later and I think one of the more interesting theories that I found online regarding
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the bra or the bras was that they could have been removed to possibly filter water
00:29:48
I would have never thought of that on my own but I found that that very interesting right the more important
00:29:54
thing though here Captain I believe would be the location where the backpack was found because this is a long way
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from the Mirador where the we know the girls were alive and well according to the early pictures
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so to get to where the backpack was found the women would have crossed treacherous terrain navigating overgrown
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Pathways and Crossing three steep Deep River gorges they have these things out there called
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monkey Bridges so it's known that had they passed these three River Gorges they would have used these monkey
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Bridges okay so they would have had to have walked for hours and hours deeper and deeper
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into the jungle if they were the ones that brought the backpack to where it was later found
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but then again keep in mind we also have the tribal woman who's saying I'm convinced that backpack wasn't there
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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
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the banks of the calibra is it possible that an animal would pick up this book bag and move it I think it would be
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possible the the problem I have with that theory is the condition of the backpack itself and the I think what's
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most likely is that possibly the river carried the backpack to this location because it was found amongst debris that
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would have been thought to have been carried by the river well again we might just be way off on our assessment of the
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damage to this book bag right because we're only seeing pictures but the thing that's tricky about the river
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taking it there too I I would expect a certain amount of damage to the backpack in that situation as well
00:31:47
but to be clear the only statement that we have that this backpack was found where it's
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reported to have been found is by the woman that turned it into the police department and to the police station
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other than her word we have nothing else to go on it could have actually been found or located anywhere for all we
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know now by the end of June they did find some remains and then eventually using
00:32:12
DNA testing this showed that these remains did belong to Chris and lizanne within two months native Searchers
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retrieved a total of 33 skeletal fragments and one larger piece of well-preserved skin
00:32:27
all were linked to the missing women using DNA testing this sounds like a lot of bones but this was not skulls and
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intact femurs lying around right 28 of the recovered bones were small metatarsals from lisanne's left foot
00:32:42
which was found still in its tied hiking boot and sock behind a tree near the river
00:32:50
when the foot was removed from the boot a Dutch medical examiner determined that
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the bones were broken the largest bones found were a part of lisanne's left femur bone and left tibia and Chris's
00:33:03
partial pelvis bone one of Chris's rib bones the number 10 Rib was also found no larger bones were ever located and
00:33:14
the bones that were found they were found out in the open with the exception of lizanne's boot all right so when you
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find these bones they're they're all broken we don't have a bone that's not broken
00:33:27
pretty much they're they're fragments The Only Exception may be the the rib bone and what else have they found as
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far as evidence well eventually they would find one of Chris's blue boots this is found empty now initial reports
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were that the the Nobi tribe also found Chris's cut off denim shorts there seems to be no agreement as to
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where and how these shorts were found the Nobby says that they were buttoned and zipped and folded and placed on a
00:34:00
rock next to the river high above the water line yeah one guy involved in the search denies this saying that Searchers
00:34:08
found the shorts clearly washed up in the river he's still in the river right trapped in some floating debris the
00:34:16
problem with the with the natives and the volunteers finding the bones and these personal items of course is that
00:34:23
we don't know for sure where they were actually found only a general area because they're located and then them
00:34:32
brought to the attention of others right but it is interesting that the backpack
00:34:36
remains and the clothes and the shoes were found they all seem to be have been found
00:34:42
along the river within just a few kilometers of each other well it seems almost as if the book bag was organized
00:34:49
some way and then what these shorts being folded or the claim that they were folded you started thinking well
00:34:56
where they purposely put down there for a reason but then again we have the other witness saying they were actually
00:35:02
in the river right now all of these items being found along the river they are all within a few kilometers of each
00:35:10
other it's estimated that about six hours worth of walking distance would be between the backpack and the other items
00:35:18
despite the scattered nature of the findings everyone agrees that the general area where the women's last
00:35:25
known resting place was about two thousand twenty three hundred feet above sea level and the upper cloud forest
00:35:33
near the headwaters of the calibra this is nowhere near where anyone would expect Chris and lizanne to have gone
00:35:42
so let's Circle back how they would expect them to keep heading off the trail right so let's Circle back here captain
00:35:50
and kind of sum up what we've gone through here because there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on a lot of stuff
00:35:56
going on so we have Chris and lizanne there in their early 20s 21 22. they travel to Panama and they're actually in
00:36:04
Panama for a little bit of time uh about two weeks before they're supposed to go
00:36:09
and volunteer their time at this town of bucate right and again I don't know if there's any importance to this but
00:36:18
they're supposed to start teaching a week earlier yeah so they show up expecting to teach and they're like hey
00:36:24
you're here a week early but we have your accommodations you can sleep here and you can eat here while you wait out
00:36:30
this week before you volunteer your time the thing that's tricky here man is that
00:36:36
we know the outcome we don't know everything that happened out there and we're gonna dive into some more things
00:36:42
that might point to what could have happened right to the women or or or who came across them or whatever
00:36:49
but the thing here is they had a whole week of nothing to do had this not occurred maybe none of this
00:36:57
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
00:37:04
hiking trip which as we discussed is not considered to be that challenging of a hike right the only problem is there
00:37:13
seems to be one big problem you hike up to the top of the summit you turn around
00:37:18
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
00:37:26
much different hike a much more challenging hike and could this be as simple as that you get up to the top you
00:37:35
have two individuals let's say there's nobody there's no guide you got two individuals and one saying
00:37:42
ah I think I remember the website said keep going and the other girl says no no I think we're just supposed to turn
00:37:49
around and then they just go oh you're probably right and they just keep going and is that the mistake but even even
00:37:58
then I think you're looking at a couple hours of going in the next Direction three hours at some point
00:38:07
you're going to be going we went the wrong direction we need to turn back but even if you go three hours in the
00:38:14
wrong direction you're only about six hours from being home or being at the starting point
00:38:21
actually you know what's what's difficult with this case is what we just stated about there was
00:38:28
no official quote unquote official search for these two women until about five days after it's believed that they
00:38:36
that we know that they went out on this hike right and the reason for that is simply these rumors and you gotta factor
00:38:43
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
00:38:51
a hike where are they oh I'm gonna go to their accommodations well it doesn't look like they slept
00:38:56
here oh they sent out breakfast for him this morning they're not here they didn't eat breakfast right so now I'm
00:39:02
wondering where the hell these girls are so he gets in touch with the school they
00:39:06
go out and they start looking had he not come forward who knows how long it would have been
00:39:12
until there was some kind of search initiated for these two women and it's very likely that given that
00:39:19
they weren't going to the volcano they weren't searching in the proper area on that second day that they were gone
00:39:28
by the time the official search starts five days later the problem I think we have here Captain is these two they're
00:39:37
they're going to be referred to in town as the slang term would be the Dutch women
00:39:42
right we have two Dutch women that went missing well I think that the problem we have here is
00:39:48
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
00:39:54
around town with going hey have you seen these women have you seen these women no what you're going to hear from the
00:40:01
locals is yeah I saw two Dutch women yesterday yeah I saw two Dutch women two days ago I gave them a ride to over here
00:40:07
what were their names oh I don't know right but they're Dutch right so what I'm getting at is
00:40:14
that's what's going to be difficult about initiating this official search and then once the official search
00:40:21
happens they find nothing they find nothing for it's like 25 days of heavy searching right and a lot of
00:40:28
people including their parents right including Dutch Searchers right dogs helicopters everything you can
00:40:37
think of was used in this 25-day time period they come up empty-handed they find nothing and it's not until two
00:40:44
months later that this backpack is discovered turned into you from a Nobi tribe woman that seems to magically
00:40:51
disappeared out of nowhere I mean even based on what she states yes exactly and it wasn't until that backpack is found
00:41:00
that the backpack actually inspires additional searches which ends up finding these remains these fragmented
00:41:07
remains of the two women so unfortunately we learn much later on in this story that lizanne and Chris
00:41:15
they're no longer with us not only did they disappear out on the trail sometime that day we don't know
00:41:22
how they died right and we don't know what the hell happened to them over the course of this time and and furthermore
00:41:28
how long were they alive during the course of them being missing well it looks like we have some kind of
00:41:34
broken foot broken ankle which then leads to the severed foot and the shoe right and then then we have a rib bone
00:41:43
right and those are the main two points that we know neither one of these girls are are alive
00:41:50
yeah and so I think here one we're going to have to use the bones to try to figure out what possibly could have
00:41:56
happened and that's very likely that we have a broken foot broken ankle situation with the one
00:42:03
but regarding the contents and regarding the backpack itself again I keep coming back to that because
00:42:10
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
00:42:18
water bottle does that suggest that that they were two things the early reports state that
00:42:24
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
00:42:31
a point to save that water bottle whether it's full or empty and I'd wonder if that water was tested that's
00:42:37
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
00:42:44
filling up that water bottle with water from River water that could in turn make
00:42:48
them sick right and make make their already dire situation more dire so I I don't know if that water was
00:42:57
tested my guess would be I don't have a clue because I don't understand why we have different varying accounts of there
00:43:03
was water in the bottle there was no water in the bottle right but it seems like every case we cover there's
00:43:08
something I mean that's very important thing I mean if we knew that that was just bottled water
00:43:15
well then you'd think that yeah even though that they didn't find that stuff for months but you would think that if
00:43:23
whatever happened to them happened quickly right it happened quickly they didn't find themselves in a situation
00:43:30
where they were just camped somewhere going through water and again the other the other thing too
00:43:37
is the the valuables that were found in that backpack indicates that they weren't they didn't come across somebody
00:43:44
that was like hey give me all your stuff and ended up attacking them for their valuables well maybe
00:43:52
unless unless the perpetrator then discarded the backpack he said you you have all this stuff and I need a bag to
00:43:59
carry it so give me the book bag you'd think that individual would take the cash at the very least
00:44:07
right but maybe that person put down that bag for whatever reason and somebody saw it
00:44:14
grabbed it and it's gone they when they came back for the bag it's gone and then
00:44:18
if that if that situation is not what played out then we have a situation too of their sunglasses cell phones camera
00:44:26
passport it's almost like whatever happened to the two women out there that they were at least rational
00:44:34
enough before whatever went down that they were storing their valuables in their backpack for safe keeping or safe
00:44:42
travels well they're taking a lot of pictures but uh but again I I don't see any
00:44:49
evidence the other thing I'm looking for in some of these pictures is most of the time it's one of the girls
00:44:56
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
00:45:03
making a reaction or kind of looking at somebody that's off camera that might not be the one taking the
00:45:11
picture right I've been trying to see if I ca I haven't been able to see anything
00:45:16
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
00:45:24
these pictures uh but regarding the the items found like I said estimated six hours walking distance between the
00:45:33
backpack and the other items from what I could find Captain it seems like everyone agrees
00:45:39
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
00:45:46
Dutch medical examiner expert who examined the bone fragments and states that they weren't able to
00:45:55
determine the the cause of death of either of the two women now mind you to be clear like we said earlier it's
00:46:02
just fragments of most of these bones 33 bones yeah fragments or not that's still
00:46:07
a lot they're not able to determine the cause of death for either of the two women
00:46:13
so let's talk about the two phones found in lisanne's backpack right one was Chris's iPhone 4 the other was lisanne's
00:46:22
uh Samsung Galaxy S3 The Logical question is obviously if the women had phones on them why on Earth
00:46:31
would they not have called for help or texted someone their coordinates or use the compass app to navigate their way
00:46:37
back to the town right the short answer is this is because there's no cell service in the jungle
00:46:45
but with the phones later being found investigators were able to reconstruct some attempted calls made by Chris and
00:46:54
lizanne what we can see on the call logs is chilling the log from Chris's phone shows the
00:47:02
first call to 112 or 112 which is the equivalent of 9-1-1 in the Netherlands came at 4 39 pm on April 1st this is the
00:47:16
day that the women hiked the penesta so let's say let's say this is maybe 30 minutes or an
00:47:25
hour after they should have returned safely to town okay um so here's the thing at this time of
00:47:35
year in Panama there's roughly about 12 hours daily of night time okay so by 4 39 PM it would have likely started to
00:47:46
possibly get a little darker within the forest where we believe the women to be at this time
00:47:53
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
00:48:00
and realize that they needed help all right so again we could then maybe assume that they just
00:48:06
somebody got it wrong and they kept going so that now somebody tries to make an attempt to one one two now of course
00:48:15
this call does not go through to anyone another call to 112 was attempted on lisanne's Samsung at 4 51 PM just 12
00:48:25
minutes later again this call is unsuccessful we can see from the phone records that
00:48:32
at the time these calls were attempted Chris's iPhone battery was half charged and uh lizanne's Samsung battery was
00:48:41
about half charged as well we can only imagine what the first night in the jungle would be like for these
00:48:49
two young women it appears unlikely that the two were equipped with any kind of survival or camping gear or even extra
00:48:57
clothing right now temperatures would drop to the 50s uh at night in the cloud forest at that elevation with the women
00:49:07
in just tank tops you have to wonder is is something like hypothermia a concern the other tricky thing too is we I'd say
00:49:16
maybe if it's lower but I mean 50 degrees isn't that that cold well I'm I'm factoring in the possibility of
00:49:24
these pop-up rainstorms that we talked about that the area true good point you know frequently has
00:49:31
the other thing too which we haven't even got to yet is the strange creatures and animals in the jungle they have
00:49:38
there they have howler monkeys you know we're in Ohio we don't have any monkeys that uh we're not supposed to
00:49:46
anyway I remember when there was a monkey loosened Minerva Park a couple years ago yeah crazy Marcel there's
00:49:53
actually not a monkey at all that's like three times in my lifetime that there's
00:49:57
been a monkey on the loose in some kind of neighborhood and then turns out there
00:50:02
was never after after further investigation oh we looked into it more we we find no monkey
00:50:09
business going on so this jungle has monkeys poisonous snakes insects and you have to imagine you know
00:50:17
it's going to be pitch black out there at night these two must have been genuinely terrified would be my guess
00:50:25
well they waited until 6 58 a.m the next morning April 2nd this is when we would
00:50:32
see another 112 call from lisanne's phone at 10 53 a.m she made another attempt this time trying 9-1-1 well there's a as
00:50:44
well as one one two yeah and Chris tries to make a temp in in between that at 8 14. and again
00:50:50
she did the same at 1 56 p.m so with this last call the phone log shows that the cell was able to make contact with
00:51:01
the GMS Network right but still no call came in to emergency lines Chris also tried 112 that day like you
00:51:11
said at 8 14 a.m and strangely uh most likely accidentally took a screenshot uh with her phone okay at 4 13 pm on
00:51:24
Thursday April 3rd this the the next day there was an earthquake in the region some reports have it as being moderately
00:51:32
strong about a six on the scale is it possible that the earthquake caused one or both of them to fall is
00:51:41
one thing you got to wonder about causing a disastrous injury or injuries fall on them yes could they have been
00:51:49
killed by like in a Mudslide yeah or injured in a Mudslide uh or were they already incapacitated for whatever
00:51:58
reason by this play either way by this time Chris and lisanne were likely getting desperate
00:52:04
they were no doubt starving dehydrated possibly ill from drinking tainted river water like we pointed out possibly
00:52:12
injured their phones were also probably on low battery by this point we know from the logs and this is incredibly
00:52:21
smart that the women were were smart enough to turn their phones off between call
00:52:28
attempts you know to preserve likely to preserve the battery life of their phones
00:52:34
the last call attempt was made on April 3rd at 9 32 a.m to 9-1-1 from Chris's iPhone after this we only have records
00:52:44
of signal checks where the women would turn or one of the women would turn the phones on to see if
00:52:52
there was service but by most reports no further calls were attempted there were many of these checks in total
00:53:00
from both phones on the fourth or 5th of April there is some discrepancy though and we have lisanne's Samsung it finally
00:53:09
ran out of battery so her phone is dead and would record no more information signal checks continue to occur on
00:53:17
Chris's iPhone on April 4th at 10 16 and 142 and April 5th at 10 50 and 137 and on April 6 at 10 26 and 137 right do you
00:53:33
know do you is that kind of resonating here so we have the fourth the fifth and the
00:53:38
sixth all of these attempts are occurring within the same hours right in the 10 o'clock hour and then again in
00:53:45
the one o'clock hour right and that continues for three straight days but but yeah so then you question is it
00:53:52
just the phone doing it automatically or are they doing it that's interesting but then also it says
00:54:01
11 down here where it says 11 7 7 7 signal checks is that like somebody putting in something to check a signal
00:54:14
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
00:54:21
my my guess is that they're simply turning on the phone to see if the they have any bars right right that may do I
00:54:29
happen to have service now right but oh I don't have service so I'm gonna power off the phone but this is
00:54:35
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
00:54:42
issues well it's an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Galaxy S3 right by what I'm saying is is the iPhone 5 out now is
00:54:51
this an old older phone and what I mean by that is that I've had phones that uh the battery is dead
00:54:58
quote-unquote it's stop phone shuts off right and like an hour later or something it'll just pop up on and then
00:55:06
die again and then pop back on and die again and I've had I've just had these weird
00:55:12
things anybody that has had an iPhone uh five or six has experienced this problem
00:55:19
so if their battery goes dead a lot one thing that's crazy here and I don't know
00:55:24
what we can surmise from this but we have the afternoon check phone check on April 5th and then the two phone checks
00:55:33
on April 6. Chris's phone was switched on but no pin was entered so then there's a break in the phone usage until
00:55:42
Friday April 11th when again the phone was switched on with no pin entered this was the last usage of Chris's iPhone
00:55:51
which switched off or died on April 11th at 11 56 a.m now a few reports say that
00:55:59
emergency calls were attempted from the iPhone many more times in these few days
00:56:06
no pin needed but that has not been verified yeah very strange stuff with this these phone records and you have to
00:56:14
wonder man what does this all mean you know we we can see from the signal checks that at least one of the women
00:56:21
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 140
00:56:32
each afternoon likely to check for a signal this occurred until up until April 6th right so
00:56:40
five days right and we can see here's the thing that I wonder about we can see in another photo of the women before
00:56:48
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
00:56:57
the watch for time right maybe even setting an alarm to check a signal at these times every day for three days but
00:57:07
yeah good possibility but why I I I I'm what's lost on me is why is that the choice of time of day
00:57:15
yeah unless they don't have their phones in somebody else's checking right so I mean could something
00:57:24
could something as simple as they thought they heard other people in the area the first day they were lost at
00:57:32
that time that they thought well maybe we'll try our phones for whatever reason right and then they thought well maybe
00:57:39
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
00:57:46
know the the reasoning behind it but there seems to be some reasoning behind it because they continue to follow that
00:57:54
same behavior that pattern of behavior for three days like I said or it's a possibility that the phone is doing some
00:58:02
kind of random check around that time so the other thing too is we have Chris's phone that's turned on
00:58:11
for several days but then no pin is entered so this makes it seem likely that someone other than Chris may have
00:58:19
been using the phone yeah but could be it could have been using an app as far as like a flashlight app or something
00:58:27
well that that could be a possibility I wonder if the phone would log that information
00:58:35
yeah I would think that it would but but also you would think that there would be some pictures on these phones
00:58:44
and I couldn't find really much mention of that well but what I'm saying here is
00:58:51
that we seem to have a decent log of information about what the phone was doing or or what people were doing with
00:58:58
the phone and if it would log that information as to what utilities or what apps were attempted to be used during
00:59:06
these times I think we would have that information so without that thought that you're
00:59:12
using it to attempt to use utilities or some some app you have to wonder what possibilities
00:59:21
are left if it's not Chris using that phone because there's no pin entered did Chris was she injured and finally became
00:59:29
unconscious or passed away and then left only lisanne with the with both phones and she didn't know Chris's pen and was
00:59:38
still attempting to use it or you know could you have a combination of both do you have a situation where where
00:59:45
Chris might be injured and unable to remember how to use her phone or unable to remember her
00:59:52
pin due to the stress that she's occurred in the in the days that she's been missing yeah or did some piece of
00:59:59
[ __ ] do something to him and he's just staring at their phone and it doesn't know how to use it
01:00:04
doesn't know really what to do with it my thought though is what we're seeing early on is the use of the pin and we're
01:00:13
seeing that the the women or one of them is at least smart enough to power off the phones to preserve the battery life
01:00:23
of both of the phones and so what I'm wondering is if at some point did somebody go
01:00:28
hey I'm going to preserve this battery life even further because I know on the iPhone I'm not familiar with Samsung but
01:00:35
I know on the iPhone you can make an emergency call without even putting in the PIN
01:00:40
so therefore you're you're saving yourself some steps possibly saving yourself is much better battery life as
01:00:47
you possibly can right and so I wonder if they just decided on a shortcut after a while the scariest thing to me though
01:00:54
is regardless of of how that's being operated or why it's being operated in that manner we have the situation where
01:01:03
the phone is being powered on a signal is being checked for emergency calls are being attempted up until April 6th well
01:01:11
then what what happened did did one or both of the girls have they expired by the
01:01:18
end of April 6th because the phone is not used then for five more days right I don't if they are lost or injured and
01:01:27
they are conscious even just one of them the behavior the pattern of behavior is
01:01:33
them constantly trying the phones or using the phones in an attempt to get rescue rescue efforts to themselves
01:01:41
then why for five days did no one use the phone I'm wondering did someone else turn the
01:01:48
phone on on April 11th yeah possibly or again it's just some kind of glitch like
01:01:55
they checked the phone multiple times try to turn it on and it was just not turning
01:02:00
on and then for whatever reason the phone turned on on the 11th any chance you think that it could have
01:02:08
occurred or took on water damage and then dried out very powerful for some reason five days later and then it was
01:02:15
operable again [Music] thank you guys so much for listening thank you for telling a friend we'll see
01:02:27
you in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't let it [Music]