The night photos are likely a tragic documentation of a desperate final attempt to be seen. They paint a picture of two young women, cold, alone, and huddled in a ravine, using the only tool they had left—a camera flash—to fight against the overwhelming darkness of the Panamanian jungle. While conspiracy theories will always surround this case, the most plausible reading of the photos is a heartbreaking chronicle of survival instincts failing against nature.
The final photograph is different. It is not a blind spray into the dark. It is composed. Framed. The flash illuminates the back of Kris Kremers’s head. Her blonde hair is splayed, matted and tangled, against the dark granite of a boulder. There is a strange, almost peaceful geometry to it: the curve of her skull, the sharp lines of the rock, a constellation of small, reflective debris (perhaps her bra’s underwire, perhaps shards of the broken water bottle found nearby) glinting like mocking stars.
The night photos refer to a series of approximately 90 images found on the digital camera of Lisanne Froon
Then comes image 580.
: A significant point of mystery is the missing image file #509, which was deleted and is unrecoverable, unlike other deleted files on the card.
A popular alternative theory suggests that someone else took the photos.