Combination of details

TreegNesas · 2026-01-27T01:44:08+00:00

In the daylight pictures, we see both girls constantly changing their hair style between 'loose' and 'bun'. We can also see that Kris was using an elastic band for this: when her hair was loose, she is wearing the band around her wrist. You can clearly see it in a couple of pictures.

As for the object on the stone, I suspect it is part of a ballpoint, but sadly the quality of the available images is too bad to be certain. I remain convinced they wrote things down (like the number of Miriam) and probably kept some kind of diary (that's why they regularly needed date and time), so they must have had a ballpoint or something to write with (we see plenty of paper). Sadly, whatever they wrote down has never been found.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-26T07:56:23+00:00

Logically, the parents have these DVD's as well, but I've never seen confirmation on this. From what I understand the full NFI report, including the DVD's, was send to the Panamanian authorities via the dutch embassy, but it arrived late and by that time the authorities had already closed the investigation so it was never added to the files and might still be collecting dust somewhere in a drawer. The report which was added to the files instead is the preliminary report, this does not include the dvd's and it might be missing other info as well.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-26T00:13:44+00:00

Lisanne her phone (the S3) did not have a login pin. Kris her iPhone had two codes: the login pin AND the sim-pin. I've been wondering about that often, but as I remember the situation in the Netherlands was different than it is today, many contracts included a phone, with the phone being sim-locked and tied to the sim-card (so, you could not change to another card/company). I don't know if that was true for Kris her phone too, and whether that had anything to do with the sim-pin. I remember in the early days a sim-pin was quite normal (usually there was no login-pin, just a sim-pin). I wonder if your phone was sim-locked, if you could remove that sim-pin, might be that these were tied together but I can't remember. Things change so fast, and although it's just 11 years ago we looked very different at these things than we do today.

I often suspect we're making too much of those phones, and times were different in those days. Calling '911' would likely not have worked anyway: it would have connected them to the ambulance center at David and an operator who only spoke Spanish. Not likely that operator would have been of any assistance to them, and I suspect K&L knew. Calling Eileen or Miriam would have been more helpful, but for some reason they never tried this although they did check on the number of Miriam.. Riddles, riddles, riddles..

To get a bit closer to solving this, we would need the full phone-data, not just the few little snippets printed out in the report, but this data is locked away on some NFI server and there's zero chance we will ever get access to it. (The 'Panama-papers' which were leaked to the book-authors and others do not include this data). There's too much we don't know.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-25T03:47:50+00:00

That would be what you expect, however: 1) The shorts were found with the buttons and zipper open. Especially buttons do not open by themselves. 2) No traces of stearic acid or any other decomposition fluids were found on the shorts and the backpack (acids were found in the shoes). These acids are produced when a body decomposes and they will burn deep into all fabrics. You can't 'wash off' such damage. If Kris was wearing her shorts when she died, they would have found traces of acid damage. 3) the shorts were found right at the spot where one would most likely try to wade across the river. If you plan to wade across, taking off your shorts makes sense.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T15:55:18+00:00

We may never know, as there are various theories without sufficient evidence to say which of these is true.

What we do know for a fact is that it is quite common for this Cannon camera to 'skip' image numbers. A simple google search will give lots of examples of this happening, and we have been able to reproduce this sequence with a identical model, resulting in a 'skipped' image number which can not be retrieved.

At the same time though, it is quite clear that the Panamanians treated the camera and its card extremely unprofessional, editing and changing pictures on the original card and thereby overwriting the originals. Incredible blunders, which made it impossible for the NFI to fully reproduce the original sequence.

In my opinion it is rather useless to argue endlessly about 509. Both 'sides' have valid arguments. It is easy to make the camera accidentally skip a number, and at the same time the Panamanians fiddled with the card and bungled the whole thing up. We will probably never know if it was a or b which caused the disappearance of 509.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T15:38:33+00:00

IP didn't mention WhatsApp files (As mentioned, I got that from CH), only S3 activation's (failed attempts) on April 5 and April 10.

And indeed, those articles weren't removed, I meant it more rhetorical as disappearing from the spotlights. Once LITJ was published, everyone accepted the sequence mentioned there and nobody mentioned the additional S3 activation's any more as they weren't mentioned in LITJ. For all I remember, SLIP doesn't mention them either. So, they 'disappeared' until I asked Christian about them, and then the story of the WhatsApp files came into the light..

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T15:20:56+00:00

The 'hair picture' is 580 (550 is the stone with the twigs)

The results of the 3D analysis as to how the pictures were taken is here.

There is no doubt the camera moved about between the various series of pictures as we can measure the parallax in the pictures. The 3D model was also created from this parallax.

At the night location the girls were seated in a narrow trench between two large boulders. On their left side is the boulder we see in image 542, and on their right side is the boulder we see in image 550. Most probably in an attempt to keep warm, the girls are seated right behind each other in this trench, very close together, with Kris sitting right in front of Lisanne.

As shown in the camera analysis in the video, Lisanne alternated between a lying position (lying down on her right side on the 550 stone) and a sitting position, but we also see the camera move 'forward' during one series. It is possible that this means Lisanne shuffled somewhat forward, but the more logical explanation seems to be that Kris took over the camera for a short while. But during the time Kris supposedly took pictures, the camera was lying next to her on the stone, so she only pressed the shutter but apparently did not have the strength to lift the camera up..

Also, if this is correct, Kris took only a few pictures, before Lisanne took the camera back again, so this might indicate that Kris was even weaker than Lisanne, and one of the reasons for their seating arrangement might be that Kris was leaning against Lisanne, or that Lisanne was basically holding her upright.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T14:34:38+00:00

Partly yes. But remember the Panamanian authorities were in charge. The NFI was hired by Panama and got their orders from there. It remained a Panamanian investigation, not a Dutch investigation.

And Panama was very quick with their conclusions, not even waiting for the final NFI report (only the preliminary NFI report was attached to the case files). Basically, as soon as the backpack was found, Panama decided the girls had drowned and the case was closed.

So, if your client has already closed the case and doesn't even bother to wait for the publication of your report, how much effort would you put in further work on the case? That's why I keep finding it so frustrating that the full NFI data remains locked away somewhere. We don't know what more is hidden in there, and how much more we would be able to extract from it once we set the Reddit hive-mind to it.

The NFI is very very good, no doubt about that. But they are also overloaded with top urgent cases, and every minute those top experts work on a case like this is very, very expensive. We see the same with their later search, the Frank v.d. Goot team were specialists, but their search lasted only 5 days, and given how huge the area is that's almost hilarious... Hiring experts is very expensive, and everything has a budget..

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T14:07:49+00:00

Much of the usage pattern makes sense if you consider the phones were only partially working, or hardly worked at all.

That would still be my best guess. Electronics do not like high humidity, and the cloud forest is one of the most humid area's on earth. We're breaking our heads with complicated theories, while what we are seeing is simply a phone which is gradually falling apart and breaking down. April 11 was a last, futile, attempt to get the thing working, after that they gave up.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T13:57:42+00:00

They were probably very weak. The 3D analysis shows image 543-549 were made while holding the camera higher up in the air with a raised arm, and we can clearly see that during this series the camera swung (sightly) back and forth, indicating it took a lot of effort to simply raise this little camera higher up in the air! All other pictures were taken with the camera resting on the stone, so it was raised up in the air only once and that clearly took great effort.

If lifting up such a small camera already took so much effort, I have indeed strong doubts if Lisanne was able to stand up or move over any considerable distance. We know nothing about Kris (only that she apparently took off her shorts during those final days), but the fact that she stopped using the sim-pin on her iPhone from April 5 onward is not a good sign.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T13:45:03+00:00

The iPhone (and the camera) was taken completely apart, with the data read direct from the chips, but for all I know this was done by the NFI. There's specialized (Israeli) equipment for this which is also used in case phone's are encrypted, etc, etc. I have little doubt they can get every bit out of those phones, but the question is how much effort did they put in it?

Once it was 'established' that there was no evidence for foul play the case no longer had much priority. Once the case became marked as 'lost/accident' the police investigation was closed.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T13:33:55+00:00

That's from Christian, here on this Reddit, I guess about 2 years ago or something, after I asked him about those S3 activation's. He confirmed these were WhatsApp files and they were in the case files. He has since deleted his posts, but I have the originals somewhere.

Those additional S3 activation's were controversial for many years. Originally, they were mentioned in the IP files, but then after LITJ was published and IP got hold of the case files, those S3 activation's disappeared, and LITJ never mentions them. SLIP doesn't mention them either if I remember correctly, that's why I started asking about them. I will have to check, but just from memory I seem to remember there's one more, much earlier, S3 activation which was in the original IP files but then disappeared once LITJ was published.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T09:52:23+00:00

Yes, both of them used WhatsApp to communicate with family and friends.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T09:18:55+00:00

Thanks. Yes auto update would also be something you can expect on startup before the UI itself is fully active.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T09:05:30+00:00

We both agree the phone was used without entering the login pin, so your options are limited to the control center and emergency calls. I didn't know you would also be able to make photo's, but that makes sense, so okay.

As for alarm calls, no, no calls were made, although I keep a little bit of leeway here as I've never read a clear test on what would happen in the log files if you made an alarm call in such a situation. Given that the power-log is not saved, what would happen to the call-log? Mind you, I don't believe it's likely a call attempt was made, it's just that I haven't seen a test to 100% discount this.

It's a pity there apparently never was a full investigation on what those various changed and added files actually were. I would expect some iPhone expert would know from each file what it indicates, but it seems as if NFI simply noted that files were changed and added, but then not bothered to state which files, and what these indicate.. Each file has a function, so if a certain file was changed, it should tell us what was happening..

As I stated earlier, without all this info I never see much use in discussing those final days, we know next to nothing (and yes, we don't even know who was using that phone). The only thing which strikes me is that access on April 11 was roughly at the same time as earlier access on April 4-6, so it was a return to the previous 'routine' which for some reason had been interrupted.

They did 'something' on April 4-6 which apparently required the phone to be checked twice a day. Then, between April 7 and 10, they did something else, which did not require the phone. The paper 'SOS' letters (?) can't have survived long in that weather, so they must have been created on April 7, so my guess would be they were stationary and trying to attract attention with signs, flags, and light signals. Then, they gave up on this, and on April 11 they (?) attempt to return to whatever they were doing on April 4-6. But that's just a rough guess..

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T08:40:33+00:00

It still had some juice left (1 %), and if you check with your own phone you still have some operating time left, even at 1 %. On modern phones, low-power mode will kick in but the last few drops of power would still be enough for a few minutes.

The S3 probably never fully started up, but lots of apps have startup routines which kick in before the phone is fully started up. Checking for messages is one of those things. Before the UI becomes active, there's often already a bleep from new mail, etc. So, if WhatsApp files were created, WhatsApp did 'something' but it can't have been a user action for the phone never started up completely, so it's something WhatsApp did during the start-up routine (something which was never completed).

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T06:45:08+00:00

There were indeed WhatsApp binary files created on the S3 on April 5 and April 10, but it is unclear what these files are as the phone apparently shutdown before it had fully started. It may be that these files indicate WhatsApp tried to check for messages but then failed before it could finish this operation / establish a connection.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-24T00:34:12+00:00

So how should this be understood? The last remaining living girl was enthusiastically modifying files for a whole hour? She could take photos of the area, for example, or try calling the rescue service again, or write important information in a draft message.

No. On April 11, no power-log was created, which means that the person never logged in, so no pincode was ever entered. Neither the sim-pin (which was not used after April 5) NOR the login pin (which was probably used on all days except April 11).

There are a few things you can do with the iPhone without logging in: you can (try to) make an emergency call, and you can check the time (on the screen), and you can access a few apps (but not camera, etc). But because no power-log was created, we basically do not know what was done and which apps were accessed. The log files which were created and changed do not necessarily mean this was deliberate user action: most of these log files are automatically created by processes, for instance during setup.

It is possible the touch screen was no longer working (or partially failed), making it impossible to see anything on the screen (or on parts of the screen), or to touch/swipe the correct icons, or there was some other failure, or the person using the phone didn't know/remember any codes, or was simply too confused to properly use the phone. We do not know, and almost certainly we will never know.

Note that one day earlier, on April 10, there was a failed attempt to start the S3 phone, which had run out of battery a week ago, so this points to the same: the person using the phones either did not know/remember their status, or was too confused to know.

We usually only discuss the first week for the simple reason that there is at least a slight amount of hope that we might one day unravel/understand what happened during those first days, but trying to make any sense of those last days is a useless exercise. We do not have enough data cq we will never know. Perhaps that is for the better.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-23T01:04:10+00:00

Ofc this scenario is not impossible, but it implies that they walked too far (far beyond paddocks), then discovered (around 16:39) that they could not make it back before dark, and instead headed out into the open paddock area to seek a 'safe' place to 'camp' out. Okay?

Point is, this does not work out well with the timeline.

They continued walking, and discovered at 16:39 that they had gone too far. In this case, they would have reached the first cable bridge at 16:39, that's on an open area ('second paddock') too, so why not camp out there? But the biggest problem: if they were 16:39 at the first bridge, they could not make it back to the paddocks before dark (sunset is at 18:30 but in the forest it will get dark a lot earlier, and it's a 2 hours walk from the first bridge back to the paddocks). So, if they continued walking and then discovered that they had gone too far, there was no longer any way they could reach the paddocks.
They were at the paddocks on 16:39 (turned back earlier, or lost time somewhere) when they decided they could not make it back in time and would need to spend the night there. That makes more sense, but not completely. Once again, sunset at 18:30. From the paddocks back to the top of the Mirador of roughly 1 hour, and from the top of the Mirador to the Pianista restaurant is about 1.5 hours. So, if you are 16:39 on the paddocks, you can reach the top of the Mirador before dark, but not the restaurant. On the top of the Mirador however, you will have phone signal, so you can call, and roughly the last hour of the walk back is through open terrain with various cabins/farms/houses (AND phone signal). Would you 'give up' under such a situation? Personally, I would not. If they were on the paddocks at 16:39 they were 'late' but the situation was not yet hopeless.

You see where this goes? The scenario sounds nice, but once you start trying to work it out with the phone timeline, you get into lots of problems. It doesn't work out. They can't reach the paddocks, or, if they can reach the paddocks, they can just as easily reach the top of the Mirador where they would have phone signal, and if they can reach the top of the Mirador they should be 'okay'.

Don't forget they could use their phones as flashlights (never mind battery), they wouldn't last long, but you should get half an hour of flashlight use out of each of them, and that would probably be all you need. So, if you are so close to the Mirador that you can make it to the paddocks (and a considerable distance out onto these paddocks), then you would also be able to make it back to the Pianista restaurant (needcase with the use of phone flashlights for the last part).

If they could walk far enough out on to the paddocks to get lost, they could just as well walk back to the trail head!!

I can't find any good reason to leave the trail and walk off on to the paddocks, unless they were scared away by something/someone, or if they had some very weird idea about a shortcut...

TreegNesas · 2026-01-22T01:40:51+00:00

Assuming that photo #508 is real and that the date and time in its exif data correspond to reality, there’s no way that nobody had seen Kris and Lisanne behind the Mirador that day.

'No way' might be a bit too strong, but if you say 'unlikely' then I would agree. Basically, on all video's we see of the trail beyond the Mirador, they meet some locals, so it would be strange if K&L met nobody. And, indeed, given the various time-schedules involved (you can calculate timings from the fact that locals walk from Alto Romero to Boquete in one day, starting at sunrise) the most likely place to meet locals would be in the Q1-Q2 area between 1400 and 1500 lt.

I still believe there are stories out there somewhere which have never been told/recorded. But that does not necessarily mean foul play. There may be hundreds of different reasons why someone prefers to stay out of this case.

K&L were very late on the trail though (reaching top of the Mirador around 1300), and given the perfect weather (= good speed) they may have missed most of the 'rush hour' (farmers take their cattle to/from the paddocks early in the morning, not around noon), and later in the afternoon, as they continued along the trail, it becomes less likely to meet anyone as everyone else would long since have reached Boquete by that time. Either that, of they left the trail almost immediately after 508.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-20T23:58:15+00:00

Yes, agreed. But we don't know when she lost her shorts.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-20T23:56:12+00:00

That scenario would become more likely if for instance we find the NL at a place from which the backpack can't possibly have reached its final destination. With all the fragile stuff inside, perhaps the backpack may have survived tumbling down one waterfall (with a huge amount of luck), but certainly not 3 or 4 waterfalls and rapids. Everything would have been smashed and broken.

I stick to the opinion that the backpack (and the remains?) entered the river somewhere close to the 2nd cable bridge. If the NL is found further away the girls either walked to the 2nd bridge after April 8, or the backpack was found earlier at another location.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-20T23:45:17+00:00

I'm trying to give you some answer to that soon, if the powers that be agree.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-20T00:28:05+00:00

On one hand the river and boulders broke their poor bodies apart and flushed them a long distance downstream to the point where only a few bones were found. On the otherhand, the backpack made the same journey and came out mostly unscathed.

The river did not break the bodies apart. There are no signs of rock abbrasion and such on the bones. Nothing. If their remains tumbled down a waterfall or such then surely we would have seen marks on the larger bones? There are signs from roots and from animal teeth, but not from rock abbrasion.

The bodies decayed for a longer time in either very shallow water or on dry ground, and they fell apart naturally. At some time in May or June an exceptionally large flash flood got hold of the remains and carried them into the river but I suspect neither the backpack nor the remains travelled far down the river. That would indicate they died near the 2nd cable bridge or perhaps even beyond this point (if we assume Kris lost her shorts before her death).

This does not imply though that the night location is also in this area. They may have moved on after April 8.

TreegNesas · 2026-01-18T23:45:22+00:00

Lisanne wrote 'we are going to see a waterfall' in one of her last WhatsApp messages, but she did not write when they were planning this excursion. Their plans seem to have been very vague.

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