I fervently believe his energy is constantly around me. My dad passed away a few years ago, we were extremely close. Upon getting to our remote bungalow in the mountains, I found a notepad from my father’s Indiana high school behind a counter. For starters, the assignment fell on my birthday. The closer I got to this story, the more I encountered signs connecting me to these women. ¿Qué pasó con ellas? I couldn’t turn away. In it were the women’s cell phones, their bras, $87 in cash, and a Canon Powershot camera containing dozens of horrific photos taken at night and dated a week after their disappearance. Then Lisanne’s backpack was turned in by locals. Two months later, a few scattered human remains turned up: Kris’s bifurcated pelvis, and Lisanne’s left foot – severed at the ankle – found inside a hiking boot.
Both families pleaded for their whereabouts. As the rainy season started, Dutch and Panamanian search teams combed the area to no avail. On April 1st, 2014, they went up a trail called “El Pianista” (The Pianist) and didn’t come back down. Kris and Lisanne had gone to the small town of Boquete, in the Talamanca Highlands of Panama, to learn Spanish and volunteer with young children. Did it sound reasonable to just fly down to Central America and traipse around the jungle in a place where people might be covering up the deaths of these poor women? Still, there were so many elements about this mystery I couldn’t resist. Many people – including my agent – told me not to take the job, and understandably so. Here was a great chance to find myself by getting back to the work I loved the most, seeking the truth and long-delayed justice for these women and their families. We keep trauma hidden away – lest it becomes too much to bear – but suddenly a stranger on the other end of the phone can unknowingly bring it forth in an instant, like a ton of bricks hitting you over the head on some idle Tuesday. But I have never forgotten the pain and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness it caused me.
More than 13 years ago, when I was nearly the same age as the Dutch women and a college student, I was hiking by myself in the Ávila mountains above my hometown of Caracas, Venezuela, and I was attacked by a man on a trail.įortunately, in my case, I did manage to survive the attack physically unharmed. Kryt didn’t know, but I had experienced something similar. Every molecule of my body felt on high alert: I felt their trauma.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Kryt pointed to new evidence suggesting foul play: Kris and Lisanne may have been intercepted and assaulted on the hike. There were elements about what supposedly happened to the women that didn’t add up. Know-your-value 5 ways to defy cultural barriers with MSNBC’s Mariana Atencio
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