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GameChanger [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:43
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always ladies and gentlemen the leader of the ban the van movement
00:01:50
he is the captain if I see you creeping you better believe I'll be repoing repo in your van that is it's good to be seen
00:01:59
and it's good to to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week oh yeah we are drinking
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Brew free or Dye blood orange IPA by 21st Amendment Brewery garage grade trumpets please five out of five bottle
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caps this is a fantastic beer it's got some good weight to it and about a half a glass will warm you up nicely the
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blood orange is up fr and it cuts through the bitterness of the IPA perfectly and this week's beer was
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brought to us by first up we have Jonathan in Ottawa Canada and a big shout out to Heather in Pendle
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Pennsylvania and a really big thank you to Michael Alex and family up in Ontario
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Canada and a big shout out to Nicole in Omaha Nebraska and a huge thank you to Stella in Midlothian Virginia who
00:02:54
says who says we are like The Boondock Saints of the airwaves and last but not least we we have Jenny from Chicago
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Jenny from the block from old chicag all right Captain thanks to everybody for going to tr Crim garage.com and clicking
00:03:10
on the beer donations and you're running out of time to ban the van go to True Crime garage.com click on the store Page
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order your band van shirt they're going fast some of the sizes probably are already sold out all right that's enough
00:03:26
of the business everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some
00:03:30
true crime whatever happened should never have happened at all two smart and hardworking young women had a goal a
00:03:51
dream to travel over the ocean to another country and volunteer their time and efforts helping some of that
00:03:59
country's youth but as soon as they arrived so far from their home things were not as planned instead of teaching
00:04:09
they were left with too much time on their hands so they were free to roam a foreign town in the surrounding
00:04:19
areas plans aside they decided to embark on a little Adventure spending a day dedicated to a
00:04:28
long touristy hike into the jungle but something out there happened something unexpected in life we often choose our
00:04:42
own Adventures but after we set out we are not always in control what happened to the two women
00:04:51
who set out for a hike in the jungle what can we learn from the phone calls they made and what can we make of
00:05:00
the mysterious photographs they left behind welcome to another episode of True Crime
00:05:08
garage this is the Strange Case of the Dutch hikers and missing photo [Music] 509
00:05:34
Chris Kramer's age 21 she's a blue-eyed redhead with an outgoing personality and a strong sense
00:05:42
of fun Chris enjoyed acting and planned to attend graduate school for art history in the fall of
00:05:49
2014 Chris met her flatmate Leanne FR age 22 a 6ot tall athlete when the two worked in a cafe in the city of am for
00:06:00
in their native country of the Netherlands Leanne played volleyball in college and was into more extreme sports
00:06:08
like skydiving Alpine skiing and mountaineering lezanne majored in applied psychology and enjoyed
00:06:15
Photography in early 2014 the two were on break from their studies and enrolled in a program providing volunteer social
00:06:23
workers for children in Panama the two saved their money for 6 months to pay for the trip both took a crash course in
00:06:31
Spanish it is not believed that either of them had ever traveled to Panama before on this trip they spent 2 weeks
00:06:39
traveling the country before heading to the town where the school where they were to work is located so Chris and
00:06:45
Leanne arrive in the town of Boke but the two had a rude awakening due to some kind of mixup the program
00:06:54
was not to commence for another week according to Chris's diary the assistant director of the school was not very nice
00:07:02
about the situation she wrote that he or she was rude and unfriendly the women found themselves
00:07:09
with a week of downtime on their hands although they arrived before they were expected it does seem that the living
00:07:16
accommodations for the women were ready they were directed to a room in the home
00:07:21
of a local family near the campus of the school the women decided to make the most of their situation and explore the
00:07:28
local offering so the flying garage ship goes to the country of Panama in Central America for
00:07:35
this case Panama is basically a narrow strip of land between the countries of Costa Rica and
00:07:42
Colombia the country is so narrow that the Panama Canal was constructed directly across the country to provide a
00:07:48
Waterway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans Panama features beautiful
00:07:53
beaches but the majority of the country is extremely mountainous and heavily forested the town of Boke is a small
00:08:00
town of about 19,000 people and it's about 40 M from the Costa Rican border Boke is 3,900 ft above sea level and has
00:08:11
a tropical climate with heavy rainy Seasons that start in April and average temperatures of mid 80s during the day
00:08:19
to mid-60s at night the area is subject to sudden tropical downpours at any time
00:08:26
bate is populated by a large number of expat Europeans and North Americans who live
00:08:32
there as well as the native panamanians the town is a popular spot for tourists with its friendly European
00:08:40
feel temperate climate wildlife and bird viewing and multiple businesses catering
00:08:46
to turistas on the edge of town is a trail head at the beginning of a 4 km jungle
00:08:53
path leading to the Continental Divide this is a hydrological divide that separates the watersheds that drain into
00:09:01
the Pacific Ocean from those that drain into the Atlantic or Caribbean an invisible line running along the higher
00:09:09
points of the continents that often attract sightseeing interest from adventurers and excursionists the Boke
00:09:16
area also has an active volcano baru and a national park surrounding it according
00:09:22
to Media covering this case Panama is one of the safest countries in Latin America although as we will see it
00:09:30
certainly has its share of violent crime we have quite a bit of information on this case that we normally would not
00:09:37
have access to this thanks to the Daily Beast news site The Daily Beast managed to obtain secretly leaked copies of the
00:09:46
official case files used by investigators those archives contained data recovered from the electronic
00:09:53
devices the women had with them this includes a camera and two phones we also have have some DNA analysis Chris
00:10:01
Kramer's diary and and much more now the day in question Captain is Tuesday April
00:10:07
1st 2014 and it's a typical hot sunny day that's right and there are some there's some confusion about what Chris
00:10:15
and Leanne did that day we now know from witness's accounts including a taxi driver who drove them to the trail head
00:10:24
that Chris and Leanne started off their hike around 10:00 a.m. the trail is described as a muds slick root choked
00:10:31
foot path called the pianista or piano player because it climbs in a series of ladderlike steps reminiscent of a
00:10:39
keyboard This is up from the tourist town of Boke to the Continental Divide does this have a hiker's rating do we
00:10:46
know I don't know what the Hiers rating is well sometimes Trails will have ratings as like how how difficult they
00:10:52
are so at the viewing spot at the top of the penis Trail uh where the Continental
00:10:58
divid is located is called the miror and it's about a 3-hour trek from the trail
00:11:03
head it's worth noting that on a clear Day from the miror hikers can see all the way back to back down to
00:11:11
bukete so once reaching the miror Chris and Leanne likely were able to see the town that they came from in the distance
00:11:19
right so most tourists go up to the mirror door snap a few selfies then they come straight back down the same path
00:11:27
back into town the tricky thing here though Captain is we know that Chris and Leanne
00:11:34
actually had lined up a guide for this same hike and a tour of a strawberry farm but this was scheduled for the
00:11:42
following day okay for whatever reason they decide to change their plans you know they booked a guide for the trip
00:11:49
which especially if you're in a different country foreign country always book a guide for these excursions you
00:11:56
don't really know what you're getting into until you're you're out there but right but they booked a guide and but
00:12:02
that's for the following day yeah so they decided to go without the guide on this exact same hike right it is
00:12:09
mentioned that the panista trail is not considered to be very dangerous and given their age I mean
00:12:16
they're 21 22 years old they're they're young uh one's an athlete right and it's
00:12:22
likely that the healthy strong and adventurous young women felt they were up to the challenging marked Trail
00:12:28
height to the top we do know from computer searches that Chris and Leanne researched the trail prior to starting
00:12:35
off and we know that the two were what they were wearing that day so both were wearing shorts and tank tops hiking
00:12:42
boots and they had one small backpack between them is it common for people to go to the trail and get a guide there
00:12:51
that's a good question and I think you could actually do the way that I've heard this described is that you could
00:12:56
do both um you could book a a guide in advance or show up now the problem with showing up and booking a guide there
00:13:05
you're kind of at their Mercy if they're actually there or not right or how much
00:13:09
they want to charge it's like the people that go to the gym and they haven't scheduled anything with a personal
00:13:14
trainer and they're hoping to see one just kind of loafing around looking for work now I guess from the trail head to
00:13:21
the top it's about 2 and 1 half to 3 hours to make that track we need to discuss Leanne's camera
00:13:29
okay because this is going to be extremely important to this case this is a Canon Powers shot sx270 this features
00:13:38
a zoom lens in a built-in flash we won't go through the photos in detail just yet
00:13:43
because it would it would just get confusing at this point but we know the women made Fairly good time to the
00:13:50
Mirador they took selfies at the top like most people do and the two in these pictures are smiling they appear to be
00:13:57
enjoying themselves right you know this you can see they're in the sunshine with
00:14:01
the breathtaking view in the background they're goofing around right so these selfies were taken around midday so they
00:14:08
left bate around 11 I'm sorry 10:00 a.m. so it makes sense that it would be around 100 p.m. that they reached the
00:14:17
summit this time was determined based on the position of the sun in these photos
00:14:22
from the top to be clear the panista trail is not a loop okay it's the same pathway up and then the same pathway
00:14:32
back down right so logic would dictate that after the two women reach the Crest at the Divide they would then proceed
00:14:39
back down the trail likely planning to return to town before Darkness fell right but based on the pictures later
00:14:46
we're going to see instead of heading back down the trail that they went up they're actually going to cross over
00:14:54
heading in the opposite direction yeah so they're they're going away from the town of of
00:14:59
bate and this is curious for several reasons because we don't know if this happened on accident or if this was
00:15:07
deliberate right you know they could have been out there and said hey this is fun we're we're having a good time let's
00:15:13
uh let's continue on but so far in these pictures we only have the two individuals yes and the other thing
00:15:21
that's tricky about this move too is when we say could it have been accidental that they're heading away
00:15:29
from where they wanted to go that's tricky because we know that the girls studied the trail before going out on
00:15:36
the hike right and it's you know so I'm not I'm not going to pretend that I'm a extremely experienced hiker but I've
00:15:44
been on Hikes before and some of them are a loop you know you just kind of keep going and and you end up back where
00:15:51
you started at some point right but this one is not that situation it's straight
00:15:56
up straight back they get to their point and they continued on for some reason either accidental or deliberately yeah
00:16:03
and you wonder how many people were on that trail that day because if if we don't have other
00:16:09
individuals in the pictures it makes it seem especially on a Tuesday mhm makes it seem like maybe there wasn't so many
00:16:15
people out and it it's possible you get to the end point and then you go wait do
00:16:20
we just head back down or do we just keep going this way and it Loops back around but if there was a bunch of
00:16:26
people on the trail you'd think they could just follow them yeah and it could have been an accident
00:16:31
if they didn't know the trail or you know I don't know why they wouldn't have seen that in advance but there are no
00:16:37
markers at the top telling people to go back down the way that they came MH so you know if you're you're sitting there
00:16:46
listening and you're wondering well how do you guys know that they're going away
00:16:50
from the direction that they likely intended to go well that's not our words that's from the investigators later
00:16:56
investigators would view photos that were taken on their camera and they would say hey because of the foliage and
00:17:03
because of the geographical features visible in these photos this is not on that same Trail this is on the other
00:17:11
side of the divide and more specifically they would state that this appears to be
00:17:16
about an hour's walk from the top yeah it's just so strange to me that they're going to continue on a trail and not
00:17:23
head back well so these photos at this time they show that the women were making their way downhill into a more
00:17:30
heavily forested and wild mountainous region this is called the Bokus deloro uh or mouths of the bull this network of
00:17:38
trails is not maintained by Rangers and not used by guides affiliated with the national park in fact these treacherous
00:17:45
overgrown and unmarked Trails aren't intended to be used by tourists but are used almost exclusively by indigenous
00:17:52
peoples living deep within the forest and mountain range particularly the noi tribe
00:17:59
these Trails can get dangerously Steep and overgrown yet we know that this is the way that the women uh went uh and
00:18:07
again was this purely an accident given that there were no markers to tell people to go back down the way they came
00:18:13
in or was this deliberate you know just curiosity or wanting to continue their already fun adventure right or are they
00:18:21
being led this way yes so there are reports that a local dog accompanied the women on their hike this Husky mixed
00:18:30
name blue lived at the home where Chris and Leanne were staying blue returned without the women but no one thought
00:18:38
much of it until the next day Wednesday April 2nd the host at their home laid out
00:18:45
breakfast for the girls and she left for work but then the women failed to keep their appointment with the guide that
00:18:52
they had hired so looking for the women the guide checked their accommodations and noted that it didn't appear that
00:18:59
they had slept there the night before and he could tell that they also did not show up for breakfast that morning he
00:19:05
notified the teachers at the school and he and a teacher went to the police station they actually went twice once at
00:19:12
7:30 p.m. and then again at 9:30 p.m. reporting the two women missing the problem was of course since they didn't
00:19:20
really know anyone you know Chris and Leanne they didn't know anyone they didn't tell anyone where they were going
00:19:27
there were dozens of popular trails in the area so the fire department and private search parties made up of local
00:19:34
guides and volunteers they hunted for the women in the area around the Buu volcano since the volcano is the most
00:19:43
popular hiking attraction in the region but having no idea where or even exactly
00:19:49
when the girls went off Searchers had an almost impossible task of trying to track their movements now Rumors in town
00:19:58
indicated that the women actually returned from hiking so we have rumors of eyewitnesses possibly seeing them
00:20:05
return from their hike but we have no evidence of this as far as the photos go correct and actually this was rumors
00:20:13
that were only going on the day that they went missing or the day after they these were rumors that
00:20:19
were quickly uh disregarded to be not true and so as a result of these rumors and official
00:20:28
search didn't take place for several days for the two women this would be 5 days after the women set off on their
00:20:36
hike Panama's national service for civil protection came in and took over the search for Chris and Leanne the agency
00:20:44
was initially reluctant to get involved the belief Captain was that the women likely left town to go party
00:20:52
somewhere when oh yeah that's yeah so they go hiking on a trail and they they decide deci to not head back they set
00:21:01
they decide to go on a more of a difficult Trail just keep going further and further into the Wilderness and then
00:21:08
they decide to go somewhere to party not that exact Theory but um somewhat okay so more likely their
00:21:18
theory is that they made it back from the TR they came back to town and then went off they took off went off and
00:21:22
decided hey let's go party instead of volunteer our time at this uh this but no eyewitnesses that say they drove them
00:21:31
anywhere well keep in mind they actually have nothing to do during this whole time so they don't really have any other
00:21:38
than a place to stay they don't really have anything to be accounted for right but what I'm saying is you would think
00:21:45
that there would be at least a taxi crab driver that said oh I picked up two women from the trails and drove them
00:21:52
somewhere well that's that's what's leading to the confusion you have you have these rumors of they return to town
00:22:00
of people that said hey I saw the two women so on and so forth so it will take 5 days after the women set off on their
00:22:08
hike for an actual search to get involved so this starts on April 6 when they started the official
00:22:17
search the national service for civil protection they actually called off the small private searches that were going
00:22:24
on beforehand this is typical big government agency moving in and saying hey we're going to take care of this
00:22:30
we're going to handle this ourselves right so this is actually in my opinion uh quite a shame because it's not making
00:22:38
use of local guides uh the you know the searches failed to utilize the expertise
00:22:44
of those who knew the area and terrain the best now what it did offer however is
00:22:51
they flooded the jungle with hundreds of Searchers right scouring the area for any sign of the two missing women now
00:22:59
after 10 days of searching using dogs helicopters and ground teams this failed to turn up anything
00:23:07
any leads at all they they ended the searches after 10 days so needless to say Chris and Leanne's parents they were
00:23:15
frantic the women both checked in with their parents daily using the what's app but both their communication stopped on
00:23:23
that day on April 1st mm the funes and the Kramers quickly mobilized to establish a reward which quickly grew to
00:23:31
$330,000 they flooded Panama with a missing in Panama poster featuring both girls both sets of parents flew to
00:23:40
bukete in early April to look for their daughters and a Dutch Search Group arrived to scour the trails joined by
00:23:49
Red Cross volunteers and early May a specially trained Dutch search team arrived and brought in 10 rescue and
00:23:56
cadaver dogs but efforts were hampered by heavy rains and Relentless heat and after nine days the team went home
00:24:04
empty-handed as did the parents Dutch investigators looking into the situation declared that it was very unlikely that
00:24:11
Chris and Leanne simply disappeared from one of the trails since no trace of them
00:24:16
was located investigators came under Fire for what many Saw as a botched search critics and authorities should
00:24:25
have utilized satellite thermal Imaging the blame game was in full force and it's not clear whether authorities did
00:24:32
anything wrong or if the Searchers and the searches were just off their [Music] mark this show is sponsored by better
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cheers to you Captain all right we're going to get into some weird stuff now Captain because in June of 2014 this is
00:27:01
roughly about 2 months after the two women disappeared a Noby tribe woman walked into the bate police station with
00:27:09
Leanne's turquoise backpack the woman claimed to have found the pack while she was tending to her rice Patty about 12
00:27:17
hours by foot on the other side of the Continental Divide on the banks of the powerful River locals called the
00:27:25
calbra so the pack was wedged into a mess of flossom on the bank the noi woman said she was really sure that that
00:27:34
it was not there the day before okay now local authorities who took control of the backpack made no fingerprint records
00:27:42
in the case so when examiners from the Dutch forensic Institute later they discovered 30 unidentified fingerprints
00:27:50
on the contents of the backpack but there was no way to figure out who these fingerprints belong to right it seems
00:27:59
likely though that members of the tribe probably went through the backpack before they turned it over to the police
00:28:06
you know curious about what could be inside my understanding is that the woman that turned it in she had actually
00:28:13
heard of the case and thought that it could be evidence regarding the two missing women the interesting thing to
00:28:22
me though is we're talking two months later in the jungle we're talking about its found on the banks of this powerful
00:28:30
calbra river right and it doesn't look that distraught to me right it it seems to be I would and I know we're just
00:28:40
looking at pictures but I would argue it almost seems to be like pristine condition right well cared for almost
00:28:46
like it hadn't been in the jungle that entire time at all and the there's contents in the backpack do you want to
00:28:52
go through that real quick yeah and we should point out before we get into what was in the backpack or found in the
00:28:58
backpack that these items were not considered to be water damaged and neither was the backpack right so here's
00:29:04
what was found in the backpack and there are some photos um that are still available online of the contents of the
00:29:12
backpack the list that I found that seems to be the most accurate states that there were two pairs of sunglasses
00:29:18
two cell phones Leanne's camera which was inside its padded case Leanne's passport $83 in cash and I want to be
00:29:30
clear about the cash statement the the dollar amount that's by most uh early reports okay so you will find reports
00:29:37
out there that will state a different dollar amount other early reports state that a key was found in the backpack as
00:29:44
well but later reports do not mention this key now keep in mind a key is awfully small the pictures that I found
00:29:50
online I couldn't see I couldn't visibly see a key uh and there were two bras in
00:29:57
the backpack in an empty bottle of water or a half empty bottle of water depending on which report you read well
00:30:03
now if you look at this the Brawl on the lower half of the picture right here right okay so do you notice that in one
00:30:13
of the pictures of the girls doesn't it look like that's the brawl she is wearing the day of the hike
00:30:22
right okay and I'm I'm trying to look for another picture to see okay do you want to get into the brawl the the bras
00:30:29
now sure the the reason why I ask if you want to do that now that was something that is is often
00:30:36
discussed online and the the thing that you point out there is interesting because the
00:30:43
braws that were found in the backpack you know they they were likely wearing both of these the day that they went out
00:30:49
on their hike right and it's obvious that one of them that was found was being wor by Leanne that day so you know
00:30:58
there has been a lot of speculation as to why they would take them off why that they would would place them in the
00:31:04
backpack it's likely that it's just as something as simple as they got hot right and they plac them in the backpack
00:31:11
I think to me though what what's interesting about the contents of the backpack is you know we're left
00:31:18
wondering what happened to these women right does finding this backpack offer any clues well we're going to get into
00:31:25
the cell phones and the camera event but before we do that just the finding of the backpack itself it doesn't appear
00:31:33
to me obviously that they were that something terrible took place because they were robbed or intended to be
00:31:42
robbed you know and I say that because I think all of the items found inside this
00:31:47
backpack to me would be items that an intended robber would want to take from these two women right then it makes you
00:31:56
wonder do did they put down the book bag somewhere and why were they leaving that
00:32:02
behind for maybe somebody to find or did they put it down cuz they were going to
00:32:06
go swimming what what's going on with this book bag or did they pass away and it
00:32:11
was simply left behind right but again if you think there's something tragic that happened it doesn't look like this
00:32:18
book bag went through anything any tragic scene you know what I mean like so this backpack's found two months
00:32:25
later and I think one of the more interesting theories that I found online regarding the brawl or the braws was
00:32:34
that they could have been removed to possibly filter water I would have never have thought of that on my own but I
00:32:41
found that that very interesting right the more important thing though here Captain I believe would be the location
00:32:49
where the backpack was found because this is a long way from the Mirador where the we know the girls were alive
00:32:56
and well according to the early pictures so to get to where the backpack was found the women would have crossed
00:33:05
treacherous terrain navigating overgrown Pathways and Crossing three steep Deep River
00:33:12
Gorges they have these things out there called monkey Bridges so it's known that
00:33:18
had they passed these three River Gorges they would have used these monkey Bridges okay so they would have had to
00:33:24
have walked for hours and hours deeper and deeper into the jungle if they were the ones that brought the backpack to
00:33:33
where it was later found but then again keep in mind we also have the tribal woman who's
00:33:40
saying I'm convinced that backpack wasn't there the day before I found it today and I'm bringing it to you to the
00:33:46
police today and Reporting this as being found along the banks of the calibra is
00:33:52
it possible that a animal would pick up this book bag and move it I think it would be possible possible the the
00:33:58
problem I have with that theory is the condition of the backpack itself and the I think what's most likely is that
00:34:07
possibly the river carried the backpack to this location because it was found amongst debris that would have been
00:34:15
thought to have been carried by the river well and again we might just be way off on our assessment of the damage
00:34:23
to this book book bag right because we're only seeing pi but the thing that's tricky about the
00:34:30
river taking it there too I I would expect a certain amount of damage to the backpack in that situation as well but
00:34:38
to be clear the only statement that we have that this backpack was found where it's
00:34:44
reported to have been found is by the woman that turned it into the police department into the police
00:34:51
station other than her word we have nothing else to go on it could have actually been found or located any
00:34:56
anywhere for all we know now by the end of June they did find some remains and then eventually using DNA testing this
00:35:04
showed that these remains did belong to Chris and Leanne within two months native Searchers retrieved a total of 33
00:35:12
skeletal fragments and one larger piece of well-preserved skin all were linked to the missing
00:35:19
women using DNA testing this sounds like a lot of bones but this was not skulls and intact feur lying around 28 of the
00:35:29
recovered bones were small metatarsals from Leanne's left foot which was found still in its tied hiking boot and sock
00:35:38
behind a tree near the river when the foot was removed from the boot a Dutch medical examiner determined that the
00:35:46
bones were broken the largest bones found were a part of Leanne's left femur bone and left tibia and Chris's partial
00:35:55
pelvis bone one of Chris's rib bones the uh number 10 Rib was also found no larger bones were ever located and the
00:36:05
bones that were found uh they were found out in the open with the exception of Leanne's boot all right so when you find
00:36:13
these bones they're they're all broken we don't have a bone that's not broken pretty much they're they're fragments
00:36:21
The Only Exception may be the the rib bone and what else have they found as far as evidence well eventually they
00:36:27
would find one of Chris's blue boots uh this is found empty now initial reports were that the the noi tribe also found
00:36:37
Chris's cut off denim shorts there seems to be no agreement as to where and how these shorts were found the noi says
00:36:46
that they were buttoned and zipped and folded and placed on a rock next to the river high above the waterline yeah one
00:36:55
guide involved in the search denies this saying that Searchers found the shorts clearly washed up in the river he's
00:37:03
still in the river right trapped in some floating debris the problem with the with the natives and the volunteers
00:37:10
finding the bones and these personal items of course is that we don't know for sure where they were actually found
00:37:17
only a general area because they're located and then them brought to the attention of others right but it is
00:37:25
interesting that the back pack remains and the clothes and the shoes were found they they all seem to be have
00:37:33
been found along the river within just a few kilometers of each other well it seems almost as if the book bag was
00:37:39
organized some way and then with these shorts being folded or the claim that they were folded you you start thinking
00:37:46
well were they purposely put down there for a reason but then again we have the other witness saying they were actually
00:37:53
in the river right now all of these these items being found along the river they are all within a few kilometers of
00:38:01
each other it's estimated that about 6 hours worth of walking distance would be between the backpack and the other items
00:38:09
despite the scattered nature of the findings everyone agrees that the general area where the women's last
00:38:16
known resting place was about 2, 2300 ft above sea level in the upper cloud forest near the headwaters of the cbra
00:38:27
this is nowhere near where anyone would expect Chris and Leanne to have gone so let's Circle back nobody would expect
00:38:35
them to keep heading off the trail right so let's Circle back here captain and kind of sum up what we've gone through
00:38:43
here because there's a lot of a lot of stuff going on lot of stuff going on so we have Chris and Leanne there in their
00:38:50
early 20s 2122 they travel to Panama and they're actually in Panama for a little bit of
00:38:57
time uh about 2 weeks before they're supposed to go and volunteer their time at this town of book book right and
00:39:05
again I don't know if there's any importance to this but they're supposed to start teaching a week earlier yeah so
00:39:12
they show up expecting to teach and they're like hey you're here a week early but we have your accommodations
00:39:18
you can sleep here and you can eat here while you wait out this week before you volunteer your time the thing that's
00:39:25
tricky here man is that we know the outcome we don't know everything that happened out there and we're going to
00:39:32
dive into some more things that might point to what could have happened right to the women or or or who came across
00:39:38
them or whatever but the thing here is they had a whole week of nothing to do had this
00:39:46
not occurred maybe none of this would have happened at all we have we have two young women with a week to kill and they
00:39:53
decide to go out on this this hiking trip which as we discussed is not considered
00:39:59
to be that challenging of a hike right the only problem is there seems to be one big problem you hike up to the top
00:40:07
of this Summit you turn around and you come back down it seems to me if you don't turn around and you continue on
00:40:14
the other side we're talking about a much different hike a much more challenging hike and and could this be
00:40:23
as simple as that you get up to the top you have two individuals let's say there's nobody there's no guide you got
00:40:31
two individuals and one's saying uh I think I remember the website said keep going M and the other girl says no no I
00:40:39
think we're just supposed to turn around and then they just go oh you're probably
00:40:43
right and they just keep going and is that the mistake but even even then I think you're looking at a couple hours
00:40:54
of going in the next Direction three hours at some point you're going to be going we went the wrong direction we
00:41:01
need to turn back but even if you go 3 hours in the wrong direction you're only about 6 hours from being home or being
00:41:10
at the starting point and actually you know what's what's difficult with this case is what we just stated about there
00:41:19
was no official quote unquote official search for these two women until about 5 days after it's that they that we know
00:41:28
that they went out on this hike right and the reason for that is simply these rumors and you got to factor in several
00:41:34
other things okay had that guide not shown up the next day and said hey I'm supposed to take these women on a hike
00:41:42
where are they oh I'm going to go to their accommodations well it doesn't look like they slept here oh they set
00:41:47
out breakfast for them this morning they're not here they didn't eat breakfast right so now I'm wondering
00:41:53
where the hell these girls are so he gets in touch with the school they go out and they start looking had he not
00:41:59
come forward who knows how long it would have been until there was some kind of search initiated for these two women and
00:42:08
it's very likely that given that they weren't going to the volcano they weren't searching in the proper area on
00:42:15
that second day that they were gone by the time the official search starts 5 days later the problem I think
00:42:23
we have here Captain is these to they're they're going to be referred to in town
00:42:30
as the slang term would be the Dutch women right we have two Dutch women that went missing well I think that the
00:42:38
problem we have here is they're not from this area if if it's only two days that
00:42:42
they've been missing what pictures are you going to walk around town with going hey have you seen these women have you
00:42:48
seen these women no what you're going to hear from the locals is yeah I saw two Dutch women yesterday yeah I saw two
00:42:55
Dutch women two days ago I gave them a a ride to over here what were their names
00:42:59
oh I don't know right but they're Dutch right so what I'm getting at is that's what's going to be difficult about
00:43:07
initiating this official search and then once the official search happens they find nothing they find
00:43:14
nothing for it's like 25 days of heavy searching right and a lot of people including their parents right including
00:43:22
Dutch Searchers right dogs helicopters everything you can think of was used in this 25-day time period they come up
00:43:32
empty-handed they find nothing and it's not until 2 months later that this backpack is discovered turned into you
00:43:39
from a noi tribe woman that seems to magically disappeared out of nowhere I mean even based on what she states yes
00:43:47
exactly and it wasn't until that backpack has found that the backpack actually inspires additional searches
00:43:54
which ends up finding these remains these fragmented remains of the two women so unfortunately we learn much
00:44:02
later on in this story that Leanne and Chris they're no longer with us not only did they disappear out on the trail
00:44:11
sometime that day we don't know how they died right and we don't know what the hell happened to them over the course of
00:44:17
this time and and and furthermore how long were they alive during the course of them being
00:44:23
missing well it looks like we have some kind of broken foot broken ankle which then leads to the severed foot in the
00:44:30
shoe right and then then we have a rib bone right and th those are the main two points that we
00:44:38
know neither one of these girls are are alive yeah and so I think here one we were going to have to use the bones to
00:44:46
try to figure out what possibly could have happened and that's very likely that we have a broken foot broken ankle
00:44:51
situation with the one but regarding the contents and regarding the backpack itself again I keep coming back to that
00:45:01
because it's tricky because we have we have a couple of situations that we can kind of put together in our heads here
00:45:08
right the water bottle does that suggest that that they were two things the early
00:45:14
reports state that it was half full right later reports state that it was an empty water bottle if I'm lost in the
00:45:21
jungle I'm I'm making a point to save that water bottle whether it's full or empty and I'd wonder if that water was
00:45:27
tested that's what I'm getting at yeah because you know is it rain water is it from a river are they drinking from a
00:45:34
river are they filling up that water bottle with water from River water that could in turn make them sick right and
00:45:40
make make their already dire situation more dire yeah so I I don't know if that water was tested my guess would be I
00:45:50
don't have a clue because I don't understand why we have different varying accounts of there was water in the
00:45:55
bottle there was 's no water in the bottle right but it seems like every case we cover there's something I mean
00:46:00
that's very important thing I mean if we knew that that was just bottled water well then you would think that
00:46:08
yeah even though that they didn't find that stuff for months but you would think that if whatever happened to them
00:46:15
happened closer right happened quickly they didn't find themselves in a situation where they were just camped
00:46:22
somewhere going through water and again the other the other thing too is the the valuables that were
00:46:31
found in that backpack indicates that they weren't they didn't come across somebody that was like hey give me all
00:46:36
your stuff and ended up attacking them for their valuables well maybe unless unless the perpetrator then discarded
00:46:46
the backpack he said you you have all this stuff and I need a bag to carry it so you me the book bag you'd think that
00:46:54
individual would take the cash at the very least right but maybe that person put
00:47:00
down that bag for whatever reason and somebody saw it grabbed it and it's gone they they when they came back for the
00:47:07
bag it's gone and then if that if that situation is not what played out then we have a situation too of their sunglasses
00:47:15
cell phones camera passport it's almost like whatever happened to the two women out there that they were at least
00:47:24
rational enough before whatever went down that they were storing their valuables in their backpack for
00:47:32
safekeeping or safe travels well they're taking a lot of pictures but uh but again I I don't see any evidence the
00:47:40
other thing I'm looking for in some of these pictures is most of the time it's one of the
00:47:47
girls taking a picture of the other girl every now and then there's a selfie but
00:47:51
what I'm trying to see is if somebody's making a reaction or or kind of looking at somebody that's off camera that might
00:48:00
not be the one taking the picture right I've been trying to see if I I haven't been able to see anything maybe if you
00:48:07
can see something go to our website and hit us up on the blog yeah so there's there's some issues with these pictures
00:48:17
uh but regarding the the items found like I said estimated 6 hours walking distance between the backpack and the
00:48:24
other items from what I could find Captain it seems like everyone agrees that the the general area is
00:48:32
quite far from where it would be expected that the two women would have gone we do have a a Dutch medical
00:48:38
examiner uh expert who examined the bone fragments and states that they weren't able to determine the the cause of death
00:48:48
of either of the two women now mind you to be clear like we said earlier it's just fragments of most of these bones 33
00:48:56
bones yeah fragments are not that's still a lot they're not able to determine the cause of death for either
00:49:02
of the two women so let's talk about the two phones found in Leanne's backpack right one was Chris's iPhone 4 the other
00:49:12
was lianne's uh Samsung Galaxy S3 The Logical question is obviously if the women had phones on them why on
00:49:22
Earth would they not have called for help or texted someone their coordinat or use the compass app to navigate their
00:49:28
way back to the town right the short answer is this is because there's no cell service in the jungle but with the
00:49:36
phones later being found investigators were able to reconstruct some attempted calls made by
00:49:44
Chris and Leanne what we can see on the call logs is chilling the log from Chris's phone
00:49:52
shows the first call to 112 or 112 which is the equivalent of 911 in the Netherlands came at 439 p.m. on April
00:50:05
1st this is the day that the women hiked the Pista so let's say let's say this is maybe 30 minutes
00:50:15
or an hour after they should have returned safely to town okay um so here's the thing at this time of year in
00:50:26
Panama there's roughly about 12 hours daily of nighttime okay so by 4:39 p.m. it would have likely started to possibly
00:50:38
get a little darker within the forest where we believe the women to be at this time um it seems likely that by this
00:50:45
time the two knew that they should have been able to make their way back to town
00:50:50
by now and realize that they needed help all right so again we could then maybe assumed that they just somebody got it
00:50:58
wrong and they kept going so that now somebody tries to make an attempt to 112 mhm now of course this call does not go
00:51:06
through to anyone MH another call to 112 was attempted on Leanne's Samsung at 4:51 p.m. just 12 minutes later again
00:51:18
this call is unsuccessful we can see from the phone records that at the time these calls
00:51:24
were attempted Chris's iPhone battery was half charged and uh Le Leanne's Samsung battery was
00:51:32
about half charged as well we can only imagine what the first night in the jungle would be like for
00:51:39
these two young women it appears unlikely that the two were equipped with any kind of survival or camping gear or
00:51:47
even extra clothing right now temperatures would drop to the 50s uh at night in the cloud forest at
00:51:55
that elevation with the women in just tank tops you have to wonder is is something like hypothermia a
00:52:04
concern the other tricky thing too is I'd say maybe if it's lower but I mean 50 Dees isn't that that cold well I'm
00:52:12
I'm factoring in the possibility of these popup rainstorms that we talked about that the area true good point you
00:52:20
know frequently has the other thing too which we haven't even got to yet is the strange creatures and animals in the
00:52:28
jungle they have there they have Hower monkeys you know we're in Ohio we don't have any monkeys that uh we're not
00:52:36
supposed to anyway I remember when there was a monkey loose in manura park a couple years ago yeah crazy Marcel was
00:52:43
actually not a monkey at all um that's like three times in my lifetime that there's been a monkey on the loose in
00:52:50
some kind of neighborhood and then turns out there was never a monkey there after
00:52:55
after further investigation oh we looked into it more we we find no monkey business going on so this jungle has
00:53:02
monkeys poisonous snakes insects and you have to imagine you know it's going to be pitch black out there at night these
00:53:11
two must have been genuinely terrified would be my guess well they waited until 658 a.m.
00:53:20
the next morning April 2nd this is when we would see another 112 call from leeanne's
00:53:26
phone at 10:53 a.m. she made another attempt this time trying 911 well there's a as well as 112 yeah and Chris
00:53:36
tries to make an attempt in in between that at 8:14 and again she did the same at 1:6 p.m. so with this last call the
00:53:47
phone log shows that the cell was able to make contact with the GMS Network right but still no PA came in to
00:53:57
emergency lines Chris also tried 112 that day like you said at 8:14 a.m. and strangely uh most likely accidentally
00:54:09
took a screenshot uh with her phone okay at 4:13 p.m. on Thursday April 3rd this the
00:54:17
the next day there was an earthquake in the region some reports have it as being
00:54:23
moderately strong about a six on the scale is it possible that the earthquake caused one or both of them to fall is
00:54:32
one thing you got to wonder about causing a disastrous injury or injuries fall on them yes could they have been
00:54:40
killed by like in a Mudslide yeah or injured in a Mudslide uh or were they already incapacitated
00:54:49
for whatever reason by this point either way by this time Chris and Leanne were likely getting desperate they were no
00:54:57
doubt starving dehydrated possibly ill from drinking tainted river water like we pointed out possibly injured their
00:55:04
phones were also probably on low battery by this point we know from the logs and
00:55:11
this is incredibly smart that the women were were smart enough to turn their phones off between call attempts you
00:55:20
know to preserve likely to preserve the battery life of their phones the last call attempt was made on April
00:55:28
3rd at 9:32 a.m. to 911 from Chris's iPhone after this we only have records of signal checks where the women would
00:55:38
turn or one of the women would turn the phones on to see if there was service but by most reports no further calls
00:55:47
were attempted there were many of these checks in total from both phones on the 4th or 5th of April there is some
00:55:56
discrepancy though and we have lianne's Samsung it finally ran out of battery so
00:56:02
her phone is dead and would record no more information signal checks continue to
00:56:07
occur on Chris's iPhone on April 4th at 10:16 and 142 and April 5th at 1050 and 137 and on April 6 at 10:26 and
00:56:22
137 right do you know do are is that kind of resonating here so we have the fourth the fifth and the six all of
00:56:30
these attempts are occurring within the same hours right in the 10:00 hour and then again in the 1:00 hour right and
00:56:37
that continues for three straight days but but yeah so then you question is it just the phone doing it
00:56:45
automatically or are they doing it that's interesting but then also it says 11 uh down here where it says 11
00:56:58
7777 signal checks is that like somebody putting in something to check a signal that's kind of confusing to me well
00:57:07
here's what I think that means and I I can't say that I know that for certain my my guess is that they're
00:57:14
simply turning on the phone to see if they they have any bars right right that that may do I happen to have service now
00:57:22
then then oh I don't have service so I'm going to power off the phone but this is
00:57:26
also like you don't know how look I don't know how old these phones were too at the time but I have had issues with
00:57:34
well it's it's an iPhone 4 and a Samsung Galaxy S3 right but what I'm saying is is the iPhone 5 out now is this a old
00:57:42
older phone and what I mean by that is that I've had phones that uh the battery is dead quote unquote it's stop phone
00:57:52
shuts off right and like an hour later something and it'll just pop on and then die again and then pop back on and die
00:58:00
again and I've had I've just had these weird things anybody that has had a iPhone uh five or six has experienced
00:58:08
this problem so if their battery goes dead a lot one thing that's crazy here and I don't know what we can surmise
00:58:16
from this but we have the afternoon check phone check on April 5th and then the two phone checks on April 6th
00:58:25
Chris's phone was switched on but no pin was entered so then there's a break in the phone usage until Friday April 11th
00:58:35
when again the phone was switched on with no pin entered this was the last usage of Chris's iPhone which switched
00:58:43
off or died on April 11th at 11:56 a.m. now a few reports say that emergency calls were attempted from the iPhone
00:58:54
many more more times in these few days um no pin needed but that has not been verified yeah very strange stuff with
00:59:02
this these phone records and you have to wonder man what does this all mean you know we we can see from the signal
00:59:09
checks that at least one of the women continue to power on Chris's phone at the same time roughly the same time each
00:59:17
day around 10:37 a.m. and 1:35 to 1:40 each afternoon like to check for a signal this occurred until up until
00:59:28
April 6th right so 5 days right and we can see here's the thing that I wonder about we can see in another photo of the
00:59:38
women before they set off hiking that one of them is wearing a watch so is it possible that whoever it was was relying
00:59:47
on that on the watch for time right maybe even setting an alarm to check a signal at these times every day for
00:59:57
three days but good possibility but why I I I I'm what's lost on me is why is that the choice of time of day yeah
01:00:07
unless they don't have their phones and somebody else is checking right so I mean could
01:00:14
something could something as simple as they thought they heard other people in the area the first day they were lost at
01:00:23
that time that they thought well maybe we'll try our phones for whatever reason right and then they thought well maybe
01:00:30
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
01:00:37
know the the reasoning behind it but there seems to be some reasoning behind it because they continue to follow that
01:00:44
same behavior that pattern of behavior for three days like I said or it's a possibility that the phone is doing some
01:00:52
kind of random check around that time so the other thing too is we have Chris's phone that's turned on for several days
01:01:03
but then no pen is entered so this makes it seem likely that someone other than Chris may have been using the phone yeah
01:01:12
but could be could have been using an app as far as like a flashlight app or something well that that could be a
01:01:21
possibility I wonder if the phone would log that in yeah I would think that it would but but
01:01:30
also you would think that there would be some pictures on these phones and I couldn't find really much mention of
01:01:39
that well but what I'm saying here is though we seem to have a decent log of information about what the phone was
01:01:46
doing or or what people were doing with the phone and if it would log that information as to what utilities or what
01:01:54
app were attempted to be used during these times I think we would have that information so without that thought that
01:02:03
you're using it to attempt to use utilities or uh some some app you have to wonder what
01:02:11
possibilities are left if it's not Chris using that phone because there's no pin
01:02:16
entered did Chris was she injured and finally became unconscious or or passed away and then left only Leanne with the
01:02:24
with both phones and she didn't know Chris's pen and was still attempting to use it
01:02:31
or you know could you have a combination of both do you have a situation where where Chris might
01:02:37
be injured and unable to remember how to use her phone or unable to remember her
01:02:43
pin due to the stress that she's occurred in in the days that she's been missing yeah or did some piece of
01:02:50
do something to him and he's just staring at their phone and it doesn't know how to use it doesn't know really
01:02:56
what to do with it my thought though is what we're seeing early on is the use of
01:03:02
the pen and we're seeing that the the women or one of them is at least smart enough to power off the phones to
01:03:11
preserve the battery life of both of the phones and so what I'm wondering is if at some point did somebody go hey I'm
01:03:20
going to preserve this battery life even further because I know on the iPhone I'm
01:03:24
not familiar with Samsung but I know on the iPhone you can make an emergency call without even putting in the pen so
01:03:31
therefore you're you're saving yourself some steps possibly saving yourself as much batter Bly life as you possibly can
01:03:39
right and so I wonder if they just decided on a shortcut after a while the scariest thing to me though is
01:03:45
regardless of of how that's being operated or why it's being operated in that manner we have the situation where
01:03:53
the phone is being powered on a signal is being checked for emergency calls are being attempted up until April 6th well
01:04:03
then what what happened did did one or both of the girls have they expired by the end of April 6th because the phone
01:04:12
is not used then for five more days I don't if they are lost or injured and they are conscious even just one of them
01:04:21
the behavior the pattern of behavior is them constantly trying the phones or using the phones in an attempt to get
01:04:29
rescue rescue efforts to themselves then why for 5 days did no one use the phone I'm wondering did someone else
01:04:39
turn the phone on on April 11th yeah possibly or again it's just some kind of glitch like they check the phone
01:04:48
multiple times try to turn it on and it was just not turning on and then for whatever reason phone turned on on the
01:04:56
11th any chance you think that it could have uh occurred or took on water damage
01:05:01
and then dried out very possible for some reason 5 days later and then it was operable
01:05:13
again thank you guys so much for listening thank you for telling a friend we'll see you in the garage tomorrow
01:05:20
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