The Aftershow - Episodes 1 & 2

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Hey, everyone. Hola, mi gente, as I like to say in Spanish. Thank you for checking out the first two episodes of Lost in Panama. I'm Mariana Atencio. And I'm Jeremy Kreit. And this is Lost in Panama, the after show. where we discuss, analyze, and dissect in further detail a bunch of our findings uncovered in the episodes and what really happened behind the scenes. What really happened, Jeremy? Well...

There was an amazing investigation on the ground in Fair Darien, and I was very grateful to have you. Lending your unique talents and also cultural perspective to this. I thought we really did a good job in having a very Spanish-fluent Latino crew. than myself being the lone gringo. I really appreciated that, everything that you brought to this investigation. And thank you for giving me that phone call. That was life-changing for me.

brought me back into the field and doing the kind of journalism that I believe in, but also to hopefully bring justice to these women and their families. So let me ask you, and we'll get into our... And to our team on the ground a little bit. But it's fascinating to me that this is not your first time.

on the field in Boquete, going up the pianista and all the fascinating stuff that our listeners heard in episodes one and two. So what brought you back? Why did you want to go to Panama again to reinvestigate this case? That's a great question. We had a detective contact, well, contacted me, and he had been working the case for eight years, originally hired by the Kramers family.

His name is Martin Ferrara. We met him at the end of episode two. And he had a trove of new evidence that he'd compiled over the years. And his conclusion was that... the women had met with foul play he was uh quite adamant about that and and presented some of the evidence to me uh through email and you know sending links to videos and and audio recordings but he he wanted

me to come back physically and work with him. And then he would, in return, give access to this trove of material. So that was really the genesis of going back a third time. And why were you so adamant to go back on April 1st, the anniversary of the girl's disappearance? And that, of course, set...

our whole team into running mode. Everybody was coming in from different places to be in Panama by the date. Well, part of it is just that the rainy season starts in mid-April. So if you got there... too late it would be very difficult to do the work that we needed to do but also being there at the same time of year that they went missing allowed us to really put the magnifying glass on the

panamanian authorities version of events that the women were dragged to death in a river uh at that time of year the the water levels are fairly low as we saw uh it would be you know hard to imagine them being Carried off in a torrent based on, you know, the evidence of water levels in the Rio Culebra at that time of year. And it's why you do journalism, right? In that if we say that on April 1st.

This is what the Rio Culebra looked like. This is what the weather was like. We're saying it because we're there at the exact same time. You know, in Spanish, we have a phrase. Which means, if I tell you that the donkey's black, it's because I'm holding its hairs in my hand. So, the idea of being there... Just the exact same moment that things happened eight years later was amazing journalistically, but it also had an eeriness to it. You know, how did you feel?

We're tracing Chris in the sand steps eight years later again. Well, respectful of the deceased. And I certainly don't want to imply by citing Detective Ferrara or the water levels that. we have concluded anything. And I think that's, to go back to your earlier question. That's why we're making a podcast about it. Right. This case is intriguing and haunting and...

Not just to go back on a certain date, but to go back at all. I was eager for the chance because there are just so many questions and no easy solutions. In retracing their steps, I think that there's a certain poetry to the exact date and seeing what they would have seen in the same weather. Even Martina, whom we met at the trailhead, washing clothes.

early that morning exactly as she was eight years before you know that's uh that's almost cinematic you know you if you saw it in the screenplay or read it in a novel you might not believe it but that was in fact the case what about you How did you feel retracing those steps? Well, for me, it had a lot of personal implications. As listeners heard, I myself was also assaulted on a trail.

at age 23 in Caracas, Venezuela, in the Avila Mountains, where I'm from, where I grew up. So that's what personally drew me to this case because... I know what it's like to be a woman in that situation in that part of the world. But also there was a certain physicality that was required. And I remember that was one of your first questions when you called me to see if...

I'd be willing to take the story on because we're literally having to go up the pianista. We're having to go to this river where they potentially... died or were last seen. And I also prepared for it. And I take a lot of pride. in the fact that my body can do that and take me around the world to do this work that I really love. But I want to take our listeners to that first night, even before we retrace our steps, when we met in Panama City, where you were like...

We need to do some self-defense training. And I'm like, what? I mean, I knew I was going to have to go up a trail, but why did you want to put our team through that? It was actually suggested by... one of our producers uh julian who knew we would be going into potentially hazardous situations and thought we should do a little bit of prep work like that, you know, just in case. I had been threatened working on the case before in previous trips to Boquete and, you know, the town.

just doesn't want to talk about this, either because it's potentially damaging for tourism or real estate value, but it's just a very... cloistered community and this this is like something that yes uh even the local law enforcement uh not the dij but like the local beat cops are very corrupt and uh

And so it just seemed to make sense that we would do a little basic self-defense training before we went in. And I was impressed by your... willingness to go along with that and uh by my willingness to punch you in the face you punched well so guys this is the first time i meet jeremy where he's like put some gloves on and let's just go at it and i'm like okay This is what we're doing. And we actually ended up needing it later. Dot, dot, dot. Won't give it away. But.

There were some security concerns going into this. So we flew into Panama City. That's where the team met. This was a band of brothers, you know, our little squad. And we want to give a shout out to Luis, our director, who hails from Mexico, extremely talented. And Richard, our sound man, who's Peruvian and Mexican from Los Angeles, also just amazing. And Julian, of course, who has been supervising everything and the team at CAST.

After we landed in Panama City, we had to fly to this city, David. And from there, we drove to... And the drive to Boquete was challenging. Getting our equipment there was challenging. Jeremy, because I don't know if you remember that. So we flew and our equipment was driven there just because of the sheer amount of it. And remember that it was stuck in a...

In a protest? I do remember. So we were there on the anniversary of the girls' disappearance. We didn't know if we actually were going to have any equipment to be able to work with once we arrived. Yes, there was a... blockade and and our fixers actually had to go and physically carry everything from the truck which was blocked by the indigenous protest and put it in their cars, walking hundreds of meters through the protesters.

Those fixtures were tremendous. We should definitely give credit to them. And I think this is important to bring up the fact that there was this indigenous protest going on before entering Boquete because... You guys will remember in when we start getting into Feliciano in episode two and his power and just the weight that he carries in this indigenous.

the community of Alto Romero, that indigenous protest, for somebody who had never been there like myself, it gave me an indication as to the tensions. that are prevalent in Boquete Society between the indigenous majority and the non-native Latinos that own most of the businesses. Yes, it is. quite tense and understandably so that the indigenous have been largely disenfranchised and their land stolen and

And then evidently when they are asked about this case, there's obviously going to be trepidation and there's going to be fear in opening up about it. Even the ones that were helping us. Yes, you're right. are much at odds with both the local tourism and expat industries and and also the uh the mestizo or latino culture i want to go back though and and say that In answer to your question, sorry for the delayed response, but about going back another time, I think a lot about...

the Kramers and Frone families and what they must be going through or have gone through and wanting some kind of closure. They have been very reticent in talking to both our team and anyone about this case. There's even a pair of Dutch authors who came out with a book earlier this year. The families refused to be interviewed or anything like that. But nevertheless, they must want some kind of definitive answer to what happened. And I can only imagine how much agony they must have gone through.

So those poor people, if we could give them some kind of peace or knowledge of what really transpired, that would seem to be a noble reason for all of this that we've done. Absolutely.

So what was your initial impression when we landed Mariana, when we went up into the hills outside of Boquete and hiked the pianista? What was your take on that? When you get to Boquete, it's... It's like little Switzerland. You know, it's nestled in the mountains and it's so beautiful, so serene. But you get a sense with the case of Chris in the Sand that it's the town's dirty little secret.

Everybody knows about it. Everybody has their own conclusions as to what happened to Chris in the sand. And yet when you ask people about it, they're so fearful. to open up about it. I mean, most of our conversations we had to have with people in the back of cars, in parking garages, in hushed tones. Maybe, you know, someone will have a couple of drinks at a bar and...

and start talking about it. And it's kind of like this rumor mill that continues to exist about the women and whether they died in an accident and whether they were murdered. Yes, I agree. And I think that the reason that they're afraid is that at least in the town's psyche, the women were murdered and other people.

connected to the case have also been murdered. So there's an actual fear of life and limb that if you talk about this, you too may wind up dead. Now, whether or not that's true, that's why we're doing a podcast. But you're so right. You're so right. I can't describe to everybody who's listening just the fear, the fear in people and talking about this. It is. You're absolutely right. It is a fear of my mate to die. And then there's a lesser fear, I think, where you could just be damaging.

your own industry, right? I remember this woman who was one of the detective's sources, one of the last people to have seen Kristen Lisanne and Detective Ferrara brought me to interview her. She wanted nothing to do with it. She and her husband both just like fled rather than talk to us. And, you know, the one thing she would say, like through her fence as she was running away was, you know.

Nobody who has anything to do with tourism wants to talk about this. We helped when it happened, but we are done helping. That's what she said. And just listen to what you said. A person running away on the other side of a fence. I've covered trials. presidential elections.

Scandal, so many things. I've never really covered a case that people will literally run away from you if you ask them a question about it. A lot of it is that there's big money there in Boquete. Mel Gibson has his house there, has a house there. I'm sure he's got many, but... And the former president of Panama has a palatial spread there. And so this is like not a place that you want bad gossip, right? Where even if it was an accident, but people think it's a murder.

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As we were rolling into town asking questions, you know, we have a crew, we have camera gear. You obviously stick out, you know, as someone who's clearly not from there. So I think we were quickly identified by everyone and people had to decide whether to talk to us or not. I do have to mention this one thing because it has a lot of personal significance for me as to the fact that I needed to be there to cover this case and to find out what happened to Chris in the sand.

And it's so two things happened. The we went up the Biennista on April 1st and it just so happens that my birthday is on April 2nd. So, you know, I'm just reflecting on the fact that I'm. here in this remote part of the world doing this. And I'm very close to my father who passed away four years ago, unfortunately. Our birthdays are just two days apart, so I knew that his was coming. I feel his presence just around me always, guiding me. And the most eerie thing happened.

is the fact that we land in Panama City, then we have to travel to David, then from David we go to Boquete. Guys, just for you to understand, this is about a... a 10-hour drive if you were to do it driving because I did it driving a second the second time around and finally we get to the place where we're staying which is this small little kind of

open air hotel, which is like a bunch of bungalows in this town that Jeremy described. And Jeremy says to me, Mari, I need you to grab a pen and paper to write down the questions for our indigenous interviewees. This was about what time, Jer? 11 o'clock at night as as as my birthday is coming up and my dad's birthday is coming up so

We're working in this kind of diner that they lend to us in the middle of the night. And I go around the diner to try and find a piece of paper. And when I finally see the notepad that is there. It is the notepad from my dad's high school from when he was growing up. So imagine I'm so far from home and I see this school that was very important to my dad.

from Indiana. My father's Venezuelan, went to school in Indiana. So it was just, when I grabbed that notepad, just my, the hairs in my neck just stood up. And I'm like, Dad, I know you're here, and I know that I'm meant to be here. So that was an added layer of significance as to why I knew that I had to be there on the ground with you, Jeremy. And it's telling, too. Imagine finding a...

Indiana Culver Academy notebook in Panama. This is not a typical Panamanian town, right? Boquete is very gringified. And remember, we had this source.

telling us how they wanted to create a little aspen right so they're gentrifying this community and even like a thing like finding that notebook just shows you how like the cultural appropriation at work like this is basically like a an enclave of foreigners who have taken over this town and and a lot of the you know a lot of the locals and and indigenous

Can't even afford to pay rent there anymore. And all of this is important for the case because when you also think about, we talked about this in episodes one and two, when you think about Chris in the sand as victims. and the attention that the case garnered, which they absolutely deserved, it was also very painful to hear about other local women with Latino names, indigenous names.

That have disappeared and nobody cares about. This is true. That's why it's important to know that there's just a different regard for missing women there.

A worrying ratio of women missing, women and girls missing in this area versus other parts of the country, which we also wondered about. We were thinking if Chris in the Sand disappearing, accident or murdered also was a part of that. They were just a part of the statistic. Yes. And because of this anomalous. high number of people going missing, women and girls especially, going missing in the David to Bocas del Toro corridor. All kinds of rumors swirl about organ trafficking.

Absolutely. I think that's a real mystery is why there are so many people going missing in that neck of the woods. And an issue that we hope to shed light on with... And I think that if we touched a little bit on the kind of inherent machismo of the culture and in talking about the sheer number of... women that have gone missing. I thought it was interesting what Jose Donderes said about how if... And he's the, he was the guy who was the former head of Cineproc. That's like the female of Panama.

And we interview him in episode two, just as a reminder for folks. And he said that if it had been a couple of young men who had gone missing, that they... probably would have done more to find them. Especially in the beginning. I think that because these were two women... 21, 22 years old, they were dismissed as victims in the beginning. There's this idea of, oh, they're probably out partying, you know, let's waste another 12 hours in trying to send out.

search missions to find them. And that was precious time that was lost. And Donderry said if this would have been young men, people would have acted on it much faster.

Yes, and that's a haunting thing to think about. So let me ask you, just in terms of what our audience has listened to already. And you have had way more experiences with him. What are your initial thoughts of Feliciano at this point in the investigation? He's a very interesting individual. He's either a tremendous... saint and human being who's tirelessly searched and met with the families when they came to Panama from Holland, the Kramers and Fron families, and given of himself. Or he's...

Someone who has something to hide, which it's very hard to say. You know, you want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. And we certainly don't have any evidence at this point that he's. a perpetrator. He was accused of having tampered with evidence when he went into the girl's room, basically taking it upon himself as opposed to going to law enforcement.

Can we just talk about how weird that is? I mean, it's either weird or it's innocent. I can see it both ways. I mean, on the one hand, right. Imagine like you went to a vacation spot and you... you know contracted a guy to take you out on a tour and then didn't show up like and he would just go through your room like that but then when you factor in that it's a tiny community where he knows the landlady of the house their friends i mean this is

What's so frustrating is that he won't go on the record and talk to us. He could just... probably clear this up. If you sat down with him and looked into his eyes and asked him questions and read his body language, I think it would, it would clear up so much. Uh, but the fact that he won't talk is, and he's the. I mean, other people shy away, but they're not like material witnesses to the case. You know what I mean?

actively involved in finding the remains and one of the last people to see them alive. It's strange that he would not speak to journalists. Let me ask you this, though. What do people in town say about Feliciano? Well, he's got a reputation as a would-be Lothario. Some of the hotel owners have said that they don't allow him to solicit.

clientele from you know from their property anymore because he has a history of of being kind of uh touchy-feely and uh with with women yes with and and you know he has a type which is what also has, I think, cast suspicion on him. He told me once over the phone that he didn't like Americans, that we're cheap and bad tippers, but he really likes European clients, specifically women. uh if you go to his facebook page there are photos of him you know with

clients out in the jungle in their swimsuits posing in the rivers, and they look remarkably like Chris and Lisanne. I mean, there was a French woman who wrote a book about her experience staying at his ranch.

in the Culebra Basin and how she felt threatened that he came on to her and when she rejected his advances, he became violent. She accuses him of... killing her dog now what this is just one person's story we don't know that it's true but you know she she did speak to me about that when i was working on a story for the beast on this

It's just a lot of red flags, everything that you said. He's banned from certain hotels for soliciting female clients? So I have been told. Wow. I mean, that does not make him a killer, right? Like, that just makes him a... a creep with women, perhaps, even if it's true. But, you know, there's this word we've talked about, bochinche, which...

You could translate better than I, Mariana. When you hear bochinche, how would you translate that into English? It's a gossip. Right. And yeah, and the bochete is just absolutely full of it, you know, full of gossip and rumors and... But then everything, as our listeners heard, not everything, but a lot of things tie back to him in terms of even the folks that ended up finding the backpack. And that is...

such a bombshell at the end of episode two, the fact that they were linked to Feliciano. So tell me about, you know, Irma and Luis, by the way, this man's name is Luis Atencio. No relation to me. I just want to clarify that. Okay. What?

What is it about these two people, this couple that find the backpack, what strikes you as weird about that or inconsistent? Some of their quotes in the police deposition seem... at loggerheads they they don't seem to necessarily be uh in line with one another's versions of events as you pointed out in episode two

There seems to be some confusion on who first opened the backpack. Were they together or not together when they found it? And one of the other kind of strange things about what they told investigators at the time is that they had. come to the banks of the Rio Culebra to tend to a rice paddy, but they're adamant in saying that this is the first time they've ever been there. So how does this rice paddy exist if they've never been there before?

Wouldn't they have had to cultivate it? Or were they ordered to go there and find this rice patty and work it? Apparently, it's either on or close to Feliciano's property. There's a mention when the investigators go with them back to where they allegedly found the backpack that they pass through Feliciano's property to get there. So this idea that they've.

Never been there before. They've gone there for the first time and just happened to find the backpack. Seems strange. They keep saying that in the police report. And how do you tend to a rice paddy that hasn't been tended to before? Right. Or even if it was somebody else's rice patty and you were going there for the first time, like, why would you do that, you know, and then be washing clothes there? But again, you know, it could just be innocent that.

something that's not included that would explain it. We don't want to cast aspersions unnecessarily, but it does seem curious. Thank you so much, Jeremy. And thank you everyone for tuning in to our after show and the episodes one and two. We have. So many compelling edge of your seat twists and turns coming up ahead. So just continue listening to Lost in Panama.