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Hello, I'm Keith Morrison. Yeah, I went file diving the other day, burrowed into a pile of,
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must be hundreds of stories I've been privileged to tell on Dateline. Stories about things human beings do to one another, are capable of doing,
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whether we want to admit it or not. Each of these stories was unforgettable in its way.
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And some, well, I don't need to look through the file. I think about them all the time.
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Not because they were especially frightening or horrible, though, you know, perhaps some were.
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No, the thing that sticks is the amazing, unexpected stuff that somehow makes it through, no matter what.
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As in this story, we called it Deadly Connection. The woman in the ICU was barely alive.
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Her jaw shattered in a dozen pieces. A once beautiful face, unrecognizable, after the brutal beating, the rape, the fire, the fall,
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the massive, nearly fatal stroke. Someone thought she'd be dead now. Someone who'd fled into the night.
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Someone killing women. And this one, deep in a coma, at the threshold of death, is their only chance to catch him before he does it again.
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What happened here was spawned in a very dark corner of the human condition. By that terrifying flaw that forces us to admit, yes, Virginia, there really is a boogeyman.
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And against him were the only weapons they had. The power of one family, a determined cop, and one remarkable gift in the face of evil.
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Here's where it began, three months before that scene in the ICU. This is the nightclub district, Denver, Colorado.
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People here call this part of town Lodo, short for Lower Downtown, very trendy. It was the night before April Fool's Day 2011, a warm early spring evening in Denver.
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Girls' night out. An attractive 19-year-old named Kenya Monhey was on her way to Lodo to party with some girlfriends.
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She was very kind, friendly, outgoing, just a happy person. Among the party is Janet Gomez, one of Kenya's closest friends.
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And she loved to have fun. Yeah, she loved to have fun. Underage fun. No trouble sneaking in.
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They charmed the bouncers, flashed fake IDs. Kenya and her crew had a kind of an unwritten safety rule.
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Go together and leave together. Look out for each other. But on this particular night, things didn't go as planned.
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We had planned to meet at Lavish. We went in there and she wasn't in there. Kenya had gotten a ride downtown with two other girls she didn't know very well.
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Her plan was to meet Janet and some other friends at Lavish, but she didn't show up.
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I started texting her and no response, and I called her three times, nothing. What Janet didn't know is that Kenya and the two other girls couldn't get into the club.
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The bouncers weren't buying their fake ID cards. So they went to another club nearby, even took a few pictures.
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But they didn't tell anyone they were there. And I sent her the last message about 11.30 and nothing.
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So, when the club's closed, Janet headed home without Kenya, who she assumed was with some other friends.
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I thought, okay, they're probably just having fun, you know, and they'll call tomorrow.
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She would always call me in the morning. Yeah, she wouldn't take chances. No. Now let me see how I look.
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This is not my favorite. No, because though she loved to party, Kenya was known as the responsible one.
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Reliable, ambitious, hardworking, not flaky at all. She had recently graduated from one of Colorado's top high schools,
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was now considering careers in TV production or criminology. Here she is directing a student film.
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All the more remarkable because just seven years earlier, Kenya didn't know more than a word or two of English.
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And not a single person in Denver. Apart that is from her mother, Maria, who had migrated from Honduras a few years before.
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And when she and Kenya were finally reunited... It was a happy day in my life. When I hug her, hold her, telling her how much I miss her.
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And she said, I miss you too, Mom. And now we are together. Nothing going to separate us.
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By the time Kenya came to Colorado, Maria was married to Tony Lee. And together, they had two children.
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Now Kenya made three. I remember meeting her for the first time. The first words that she said to me were, thank you, Daddy.
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I'll never forget that, and she hugged me. So, connecting with the family took no time at all.
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I always thought about a song from the Brady family, how we all came together and became a family.
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It was pretty much that was kind of how it worked out, and it clicked from day one And there all the girls all the wonderful women in my life Thank you Daddy And for Kenya little sister Kimberly
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it felt like the best thing that ever happened. Tomorrow, Kenya makes one whole year in America.
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I thought she was going to be like the big sister that everybody dreams of. It was even better than what I imagined.
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Better? Mm-hmm. She was very loving and caring. I felt like she was like my twin.
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We text each other every day. Every morning, every night, throughout school, she would call me sometimes.
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She would just want to say, I love you. But she was independent, too, was Kenya.
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After high school, she moved out to make it on her own. She always wanted to be something big.
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She always wanted to be a CEO of something. That was her goal in life, was to be somebody.
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She came from having nothing to being somebody. And on one of her calendars, it says, like, study, study, study, and then it says party on the last day.
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She was balancing her job, and she was balancing school, and she was balancing, like, her party life.
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But on the morning of April Fool's Day, 2011, nothing was balanced. Something was wrong.
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Her friend Janet Gomez, desperate to hear from Kenya, dove for her phone the moment it rang.
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but it wasn't Kenya. It was another girlfriend. She's like, are you with Kenya? And I say, no, I thought she was with you.
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And that's when it all started. Started? Oh, it had more than started for Kenya Monhe.
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Swallowed up by, well, whatever it was, some dark presence haunting the happy, tipsy streets of Lodo.
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Coming up, Kenya's family starts to worry. Had that dark presence, whatever it might be, come for their own daughter?
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That's when I went into high alert. April 1st, 2011. Dawn in Denver, Colorado. Bright. Spring-like.
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And for the friends of 19-year-old Kenya Monhay. Terrifying. I just kept calling her and calling her.
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We were all worried and scared. Where was she? Kenya was supposed to have met her friends at a downtown bar the night before.
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Didn't show. And now, she didn't answer her phone. Not like Kenya. Not at all. We didn't know what happened. Nobody knew nothing.
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Kenya's friends, truly frightened now, kept texting and calling. But not a single lead turned up.
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No tips, no clues, and no Kenya. We were just trying to be strong because we didn't want to think negative or anything.
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We had a lot of thoughts. I don't know, maybe we shouldn't have done that. Shouldn't have done what?
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Going out to, you know, we're just 19, we were not 21. Yeah, and you should have looked after her.
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Yeah. She wasn't with me because I know if she would have been with me, she would have been safe.
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Even her sister Kim, with whom Kenya texted constantly, hadn't heard a word. But she did get a call from Kenya's boyfriend, who had been talking to Kenya's worried friends.
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He was like, have you seen your sister? And I was like, no. He was like, have you talked to her?
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I was like, no. He was like, well, she's missing. I was like, shut up. Like, this isn't funny.
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Tell me the truth. Like, where is she? He was like, I'm being serious. You need to call your parents and tell them to call the police and file a missing person report.
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And then I called my mom. I started calling my sisters and my family, all the family.
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And I said, maybe it's a joke. And my sister got very worried. She said, I don't think it's a joke.
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When I got my call from my daughter Kim and she said that she had not heard anything from her that day,
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that's when I went into high alert. But when Tony called Kenya's friends, They weren't exactly straight with him about their underage bar hopping the night before in those Lodo nightclubs.
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It was very, very, very confusing because these girls were, they were not telling me the truth about what they were doing and where they were at because they were covering their asses.
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So Tony turned amateur detective and was finally able to confirm that Kenya had spent the evening not with her close friends,
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but with two other girls she barely knew and she had left her purse her phone and her id and all
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that stuff in the bar her stuff kenya never went anywhere without it especially her cell phone
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and she certainly wouldn't just leave it with two people she hardly knew something is really wrong something is wrong the night after kenya was last seen here in lodo one
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of the girls she was drinking with showed up at the Lee's house to drop off her belongings.
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Kenya was happily dancing till about one o'clock in the morning, she said, with some guy, and then
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she disappeared. They looked for her but couldn't find her, she said. And when the bar closed,
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they took her purse and cell phone and just kind of assumed that Kenya would get home on her own
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somehow. I was looking through her text messages from the day before, and these conversations she
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was having with her friends and letting her know, hey, this is where we're going to hook up at.
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The phone showed that Kenya suddenly stopped sending texts right after 11 p.m. But of course her phone kept receiving texts practically all night Her boyfriend started texting her asking hey where you at You being good Hey you not contacting me The next morning the text continued from Kenya
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friends, all asking, where was she? And then there was a dead area. And then the next text that came
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in was about 7 p.m. that night. But this one, this one jumped off the screen, was just plain weird.
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and the message said, hey, this is Travis, the guy in the creepy white van, smiley face.
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Did you get home okay? Travis? Who was Travis? Nobody in Kenya's circle of friends and family had ever heard of anybody named Travis.
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I kept calling him. I kept leaving these messages. No answer. No calls back. At this point, the mysterious Travis in the creepy white van
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was the only possible lead in their daughter's disappearance. They filed a missing persons report, but it was too soon.
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The police told them to start an investigation. And so alone, they panicked. We were running out like chickens with our heads cut off.
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And we didn't know what to do first. So we're just trying to figure out what we got to do.
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And then, one terrifying day later, the mysterious Travis finally returned Tony's calls.
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And Travis had some rather stunning news about Kenya's whereabouts. and just who she might be with.
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Coming up, Tony on a mission that would leave his wife paralyzed with fear. I'm going to have the 9mm pistol.
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I packed it in my waist. And I told her, I'm on my way to meet this guy. Kenya and Kimberly
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as close as two sisters could be always together always talking texting Facebooking
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at first when the messages suddenly stopped. I didn't really take it seriously. Like, I didn't really think that
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she was going to be gone that long. But after 48 long hours, what's that like, that feeling?
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It's a feeling of being, like, desperate to know where your sister is. Like, because that was not
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only my best friend. Like, that was my sister. That was my other half. Like, that was everything to me.
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And then that second night after Kenya vanished, there was this call from a total stranger named
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Travis. Travis called me back about 8 p.m. The guy who left that rather odd text message on Kenya's
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phone to see if she'd gotten home safely from the nightclub. And he told me the story. Oh yeah,
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you know, I was seeing her out there. Asked her if she needed any help because, you know, she seemed
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like she was really drunk and she was really out of it, you know. So I said, well, I better help her.
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So, you know, she got in my van. Travis told Kenya's dad that as he was driving her home,
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she asked to stop at a gas station for cigarettes. But there something strange happened.
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She met another guy who said he'd take her home. And so said Travis, he left him there.
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And that's the lasty sovereign. That's what he said, the lasty sovereign. And I got off the phone and I thought to myself,
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that is the most fantastic story I've ever heard. Not one word of what he told me made any sense to me.
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Tony called the Denver police to report all that, but was told, remember, that the cops couldn't open an investigation
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because Kenya hadn't been missing long enough. I'm pissed. I'm just sitting there. It's like, I can't believe this.
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So I took matters into my own hand. I called Travis back, and I said, Travis, I've got some questions I want to ask you.
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Tell me again where you last saw her at. And he says, well, I was at this conical station.
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Tell you what, why don't you meet me there? I told him I'm on my way. Immediately I was so afraid, I said, oh my God.
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I grabbed a 9mm pistol, I packed it in my waist, and I told her, I'm on my way to meet
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this guy. Maria was down on her hands and knees, literally, begging me, Tony, don't do this.
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Don't go down there. This is dangerous. This don't sound right. I told her, I gotta go.
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They're not gonna do anything. I gotta go. And I grabbed the phone, and I called 911.
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one. Tony roared over to that conical station, nerves on edge, gun close to hand, expecting
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what? A violent confrontation? A dangerous standoff? A weirdo? But it was none of those
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things. Travis Forbes was there, all right, patiently waiting. And he looked just fine.
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Not scary at all. It's very thin, blonde hair, blue eyes, good looking guy. My first impression
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of him was, you know, looks decent enough guy. If you're going to have somebody pick up your kid,
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you know, and help him out, you know. Seemed like a nice guy. Yeah. And because Maria called 911,
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the Denver police were at the gas station too. So the cops, not Tony, did most of the talking
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with Travis. He told them that same story that he told me on the phone. And it was very consistent.
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The story that he told them matched exactly. I told the officer, I said, man, everything he's
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told me it just don't sound right. It just don't sound right. Didn't sound right to the cops either.
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But they had nothing to hold Travis on. He'd been cooperative, forthcoming, concerned for Kenya.
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So they let him go. As the meeting wrapped up, Travis sidled up to Tony and started talking.
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He was crying. He's telling me, you know, I promised I'd take care of her. I wish I could
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have followed through on what I'd done. I feel responsible for this. You know, I wish I could
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have done more. Travis certainly seemed sincere. His story, though strange, was consistent.
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Maybe he was telling the truth And that man Kenyameta the gas station had abducted her I stuck my hand out and said I appreciate it and we shook hands
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And when I shook his hand, it was as if an earthquake was going on under his feet.
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And it was only in my hand that I could feel it. His arm wasn't shaking, his body wasn't shaking, there was no quivering.
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But I felt that shake, and I looked at him, and I knew that I was shaking the hand of the last person that seen Kenya alive.
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There was no doubt in my mind. I knew it at that instant. And you believed that as of that moment that she was dead?
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Yes. Coming up. Was he right? They were about to come across a disturbing clue. He was determined to erase something.
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Everything. Everything. Kenya Monge was at a downtown Denver nightclub with her friends one week ago.
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Kenya Monge's disappearance was big news in Denver. She was last seen wearing a black skirt, black jacket and red high heel shoes.
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Kenya's family was frantic, desperately hoping she was still alive. I couldn't sleep by praying. I get on my knees every day.
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God, please bring Kenya home, please. Janet Gomez and Kenya's other close friends kept looking,
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hoping someone would come forward with a clue. We kept just putting flyers everywhere.
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We had to do it, you know, she's our friend. And got nowhere. You just have to be strong and...
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and just pray for the best. But by now, family and friends were not alone in their search for Kenya.
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A veteran Denver police detective named Nash Grulé started looking too. Grulé specialized in missing persons cases and brought a special intensity to his work.
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I wanted to find her. I wanted to give her family closure. I wanted to give the city of Denver closure.
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I was determined to bring her home. I was determined to bring her home. Also assigned to the case was Deputy DA Carrie Lombardi.
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We had to do something, you know, and time was sort of of the essence because they were still hoping she was alive.
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They focused first, of course, on that good Samaritan, the guy who'd given Kenya a ride, Travis Forbes.
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He was 31, they discovered, had a rap sheet for theft and drugs. But now he owned a small business in Denver,
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baking and delivering gluten-free granola bars, he was renting a space at a local bakery
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owned by Monica Poole. Travis was energetic. He seemed friendly, wanted to have a business.
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He launched into granola bars, which I thought was a great idea. They didn't exist in the marketplace,
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not the way he was making them. Travis could bake, but he wasn't the best businessman.
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He was often in debt, sometimes missed deliveries and deadlines. And one day he came to work, seemed a little frazzled,
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and told Monica about his odd encounter the night before. He said, I gave some girl a ride home, and she's missing, and she's gone.
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And I thought, wow, that's kind of strange, whatever. And then, a few days later, Monica's bakery was crawling with cops.
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When the police showed up, I thought, wow, that must be that missing girl. Detectives looked around, even shot this video of the place, but they didn't find much.
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Travis was there, so they took him downtown for questioning. Travis, this is Detective Gruen.
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How's it all this is, Travis? Hello. He's a talker. Very, very charming. Very, very manipulative.
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I never met her before then. And talk Travis did, reciting the very same story he told Tony Lee
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about picking up a lost and distressed Kenya downtown, then stopping for cigarettes at that gas station
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where she met another man who said he'd take her home. She put her arm through his arm, like, while they were sitting there smoking.
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And they spoke Spanish, and they walked off, and that's it. That was the last, that was it, and I went home.
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And that's the last you see her? Yes. Travis was cool, calm, even contrite about leaving Kenya with that strange fellow at the gas station.
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If she had made the choice to go back home or to get in my van, I would have taken her home.
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I would not. I mean, if I felt any sort of weirdness about her walking up with that guy, I would have done something.
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He was really worried about this whole investigation about this missing girl. but we believe him. He didn't do anything.
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In fact, there was no evidence Travis did anything wrong. He certainly wasn't a suspect, barely a person of interest.
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He even had an alibi for his whereabouts after he dropped off Kenya. He said he'd gone to his girlfriend's house
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at the time that we knew that she had disappeared and then his girlfriend came in, but she supported his statement.
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Yeah, of course, they let him go. That do. But what about that mysterious man Travis said he left Kenya with at the gas station?
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We couldn't find him. He was gone. Wow. We send out bulletins, we put it on the news,
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and we didn't get anybody to come forward and say, yeah, I know this guy. But D.A. Lombardi did get a search warrant for Travis's white cargo van
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to see if it held any clues. And inside, it reeked of bleach. to the point where when you
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You spray something like on a ceiling, a roof, and you spray it so much it drips down.
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That's how much bleach heaps sprayed on this van. He was determined to erase something.
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Everything. Everything. So we're going through his van, we're taking off doors, we're vacuuming, we're crawling underneath it.
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The van, for the most part, was spotless. Except for something odd that caught the cop's attention.
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We found some weeds underneath. We found some dirt, some dust, different things.
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Hmm, what did that tell you? He's been on a dirt road, at least that van has. So Gurley and Lombardi poured through Travis' cell phone records
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to see where he was around the time of Kenya's disappearance. And they noticed he made and received several calls
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from a rural area near a little place called Keensburg, about 40 miles northeast of Denver.
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Not exactly one of the stops along Travis's granola bar delivery route. We sent probably 25 detectives up there looking in fields, running the gulches, checking the ponds,
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talking to the neighbors to see if they saw a white van. We were checking everything.
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But there was no sign? Nothing. But back at the bakery, another clue surfaced on surveillance video.
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and it showed Travis Forbes doing a lot more than baking granola bars. Coming up, just what was he doing?
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That just seemed really strange. And then another piece of tape. I, man. The trouble started before Kenya Monhay went missing.
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Trouble at this Denver bakery, that is, the one where Travis Forbes rented space to bake his granola bars.
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Somebody was pilfering money from the bakery cash register. Owner Monica Poole was at first puzzled by the discrepancy,
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then gradually became sure there was a thief in the shop. Fortunately, Monica had allowed for the possibility of that sort of thing
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when she had surveillance cameras installed around the shop. So, by now, a couple of days after Kenya disappeared,
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she went to check the tape to see if that would tell her who took the cash. But for some strange reason, the recorder was unplugged.
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I plugged it back in and I wound it back to the place to see who had unplugged it.
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It was Travis Forbes, turning off the system. So Monica rewound the tape a little farther, but if she expected to see Travis stealing, she got a surprise.
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It looked like he had been scrubbing. So as he's coming into the office with these gloves on his hand,
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they're not just like little gloves like you wear when you're handling food. They're cleaning gloves, rubber, Playtex, you know, the kind that yellow go all the way up to your elbows.
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I thought, what in the world is he wearing those for? Monica stopped the tape and called the cops, who took a good look at the whole security system and found this intriguing scene of Travis, this time with his granola bar cooler.
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He actually unloads the cooler, puts it on a little cart, and it's taped shut with black duct tape,
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and puts it in the freezer, in the bakery. And there's employees walking around.
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Detective Gurley consulted Monica. The police asked me, did he store the cooler in the freezer?
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And I said, no. He never puts it in the freezer. It has granola bars in it. They don't need to be frozen.
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So that just seemed really strange. All that, the cleaning, the cooler moving, happened two nights after Kenya went missing.
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So Detective Gurley checked with several of the bakery's employees to see what else Travis was up to that evening.
00:28:04
He burns some stuff in a barrel. But if there were any clues in that barrel, they had been burned.
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Travis Forbes, despite all his suspicious behavior and his strange story, was still just a person of interest.
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People do weird things in their normal life. How do we know that he's just not a weird guy?
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And then, a few days later, Gurley's investigation turned up more surveillance video,
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which seemed to tell a whole new story, because there was Kenya with another man entirely.
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This caught the two of them in the lobby of an apartment building near the club where Kenya had been drinking.
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Was she going up to his place? Well, if she was, she didn't stay long because a few minutes later, Kenya showed up in yet another surveillance video,
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weaving somewhat unsteadily across the lobby of a nearby hotel. And the way Kenya was acting caught the attention of D.A. Carrie Lombardi.
00:29:09
I think that from all the surveillance, she was very obviously intoxicated. It was scary. She was someone that you would look at and think, this is a victim waiting to happen.
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This, according to family and good friends, was not like Kenya. She didn't drink to excess.
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She would never run off with a strange guy and leave her purse and phone and keys behind.
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In fact, when Tony saw this video, he was convinced Kenya wasn't drunk. Something was done to her.
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I absolutely believe 100% that she would slip the date rape drug because everything that she did in that club that night
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was against anything that she's ever done before. Rillet tracked down the young man from the apartment lobby,
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and he admitted dancing with Kenya at the club and showing her his loft but she left right away he said The video confirmed it He was cleared So that left only two possible suspects
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The mysterious man at the gas station and Travis Forbes. And apparently Travis was feeling the heat.
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I... man. So out of the blue, he decided to go public. You know, the truth is all we have.
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You went on camera with the Denver TV station. At this point, I mean, it's been two weeks.
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Nobody's heard from her. There's been no trace of her. Like, it's... It's surreal.
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I don't even know what to think of it. Since you're a person of interest, let me ask you this.
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Did you do something with her? No. Did you kidnap her? No. Did you sexually assault her?
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I did not. Did you murder her? I did not. No. No. And, you know, having that on you, you know, having that energy on you is very stressful.
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Detective Gurley was watching this, of course, but he focused as much on Travis's actions as his answers.
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He lied. It was in his demeanor. It was in his body language. It was all there. man i'm sorry that i that i was indifferent that i didn't think anything i didn't think
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anything i didn't think she would she was gonna disappear when the reporter asked him
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did you murder her i did not no he says no Then, as the interview was wrapping up,
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Travis, who seemed to remember every little detail of that night, had trouble recalling one small but rather critical fact.
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What's her name? Kenya. Kenya, yeah. Travis Forbes remained free, not even aware, quite possibly,
00:32:03
of what the detective and the D.A. were up to. We had a lot of conversations and we did a lot of warrants.
00:32:08
You know, we're pouring through phone records, and they continue to interview people constantly.
00:32:15
And we just were waiting for the one thing, something we could arrest him with. But even if they could arrest Travis, first they had to find him.
00:32:26
Because not long after that TV interview, Travis Forbes disappeared. Coming up, Travis gone.
00:32:37
I put out a teletype saying, you find any bodies, give me a call. And then another surprise.
00:32:44
My lieutenant said, grab your search warrant for his DNA. So I hop a plane that night.
00:33:03
He was the boogeyman. And that's what we called him. Everybody was looking over their shoulders, looking who was behind them, looking who.
00:33:13
They were afraid of him as long as he was on the street. The boogeyman was Travis Forbes, the last person known to have seen Kenya Monge alive before she disappeared.
00:33:25
The man whose strange behavior had ramped up Detective Gurley's suspicions, even though the evidence did not warrant an arrest.
00:33:33
But now, weeks after Kenya vanished, Gurley had two problems. Kenya wasn't the only one who was missing.
00:33:40
So was Travis. He was gone. I couldn't find him anywhere. I was scrambling to find him.
00:33:48
I was checking news. I would put out a teletype online for the law enforcement saying, you know, you find any bodies.
00:33:56
Give me a call. Days passed in a week. No sign of Travis. Detective Gurley was now working the case almost 24-7.
00:34:05
even his wife was involved. There was nights where I'd jump out of bed and it would scare her
00:34:11
because I'd jump out of bed and grab the phone and she's like, did you hear the phone ring?
00:34:14
I said, no, I'm leaving myself a message because I need to do this. Yeah, right.
00:34:18
She said, you talk in your sleep about it. Kenya's name or even Travis's name. She says, you're dreaming about this.
00:34:28
Kenya's family wasn't sleeping much either. I thought that she might have been kidnapped and put in the basement
00:34:37
and they weren't letting her get any contact with anyone. I had dreams and things and I still felt like I had that sister connection
00:34:45
that she was just still here somewhere, needing me to come help her or just save her and just bring her back home.
00:34:53
Were you thinking about it all the time? Yeah. It's hard going from talking to someone every day
00:34:58
and then not being able to talk to them anymore. it like breaks your heart. Something is seriously wrong.
00:35:09
Kenya's father Tony made himself a public fixture on local media. But privately, he conducted his own very lonely investigation.
00:35:19
I went dumpster diving. I was looking at trash cans for her body. Up and down the alleys all over.
00:35:26
And yet you couldn't tell Maria. I couldn't tell her. I could not share what I was feeling because that early in would have removed the only thing that right now everybody had.
00:35:40
And that one thing that everybody had was hope. I was hoping that she would pop up and say, here I am.
00:35:51
But as time went by and she wasn contacting anybody and I knew it was bad He also knew that the key to finding Kenya was finding Travis Forbes
00:36:07
The Denver police had no idea where Travis was, whether he was hiding here in town
00:36:12
or had left the city, left the state, left the country. He was just gone. Wasn't much they could do.
00:36:19
He was a person of interest, but not officially a suspect. And then two weeks later, out of the blue, detectives got a call from Austin, Texas.
00:36:33
And my lieutenant walked into the office and said, Okay, and I said, what? She said, Austin PD just called our fugitive unit.
00:36:41
We might have him in Austin, Texas. I'm like, what? Travis, it turned out, had borrowed a car from an old girlfriend in Colorado.
00:36:49
So when he didn't return it, she went to the police and filed a report, which more often than not would have led nowhere at all,
00:36:56
except a policeman in Austin with a little time on his hands decided to check up on an out-of-state license plate he'd just happened to notice
00:37:05
and discovered first the report for the missing car and then Travis Ford. So my lieutenant said, grab your search warrant for his DNA and head to Texas.
00:37:18
So I hop a plane that night. A few hours later, Gurley was face-to-face with Travis Forbes again.
00:37:30
You know what? They sent me to Texas because they think you're running to Mexico.
00:37:35
Oh, they're doing Mexico. You had a tan. He'd call me Nash. I'd call him Travis.
00:37:42
It was similar to you and I just talking. I wasn't confrontational with him. If he asked me a question, I gave him an honest answer.
00:37:50
You didn't fly all this way out here. You just asked me some questions. Well, actually, I did.
00:37:55
Did you do anything to him? No. Sure? No. We never touched. At all? Not even a hug.
00:38:04
And I usually hug people. Galay questioned him for more than three hours. But Travis stuck to his original story.
00:38:14
So, does she have sex with you? Nash, I think at this point, my lawyer should be present.
00:38:22
So Travis refused to talk anymore. But he didn't have a choice about providing his DNA,
00:38:29
thanks to that warrant Detective Gurley brought from Colorado. And though a stolen car charge seemed hardly enough to warrant extradition,
00:38:41
it was, in the end, just enough. And a few weeks later, Travis was back in a Colorado jail.
00:38:48
But Detective Gurley was in for a big surprise. Slippery guy, that Travis Forbes.
00:38:57
Coming up, the story moves on to another chapter, a different city, and another young woman.
00:39:06
Fort Collins is a college town, and it has a lot of young women there, and they like to party.
00:39:13
Travis Forbes was right where they wanted him, behind bars. They were holding him on suspicion of stealing a friend's car.
00:39:34
Not for Kenya Monet's disappearance, but at least he was here, back in Colorado.
00:39:40
Getting him back, how important was that to you? Very important. I wanted to know where he was.
00:39:47
And you wanted him in your town? Yes. Detective Nash Gurley was hoping to coax Travis to tell the real story of what happened to 19-year-old Kenya Monge.
00:39:56
By this time, Kenya had been missing for several weeks. He was the person. We had eliminated pretty much everybody else.
00:40:05
But just as Detective Gurley was closing in on Travis, as he geared up to pry out a confession,
00:40:10
or at least evidence sufficient to lay a charge, He got a nasty little surprise.
00:40:16
His friend dropped the charges on the stolen car. She was very adamant that he didn't do anything wrong.
00:40:22
Why did that happen? I would talk to her sometimes daily, and she was his biggest supporter.
00:40:28
She wouldn't believe that he was a dangerous guy? Absolutely not. Not the Travis Forbes she knows.
00:40:34
There is no way that he did anything to Kenya. But here was the problem. Without the stolen car charge, there was no way to keep Travis in jail.
00:40:45
They had to let him go. Deputy D.A. Carrie Lombardi was... Nervous. I mean, I was really worried about what he would do.
00:40:54
It was very stressful because I really wanted to be able to find her. And we really wanted to get some evidence that we could hold him on.
00:41:04
At least, vowed Detective Grille, they would not lose him. Not again. We put surveillance on him for a couple days,
00:41:12
and he went up to that area in Kingsburg. Kingsburg, that little farm town an hour east of Denver.
00:41:20
He used his credit card, and I had his bank records. So I saw that he swiped it at this gas station,
00:41:28
so we went up there and got the surveillance tape, and it's him trying to get gas.
00:41:32
This was not Travis's first trip to Kingsburg. remember he was tracked here soon after Kenya disappeared
00:41:38
so what was he doing here? had he brought Kenya out here? was there a body hidden somewhere on the high plains?
00:41:47
detectives scoured the fields again and found nothing and then Gurley discovered Travis was on the move again this time he headed north 60 miles up the highway to his hometown a team of undercover cops on his tail and then Gurley discovered Travis was on the move again This time he headed north 60 miles up the highway to his hometown A team of undercover cops on his tail We found out he was going to go to Fort Collins and stay with his dad
00:42:08
Fort Collins is a college town, and it has a lot of young women there, and they like to party.
00:42:16
Yeah, I was worried. It was now July 1st, exactly three months since Kenya disappeared.
00:42:22
and Gurley had good reason to worry. Our detectives are watching. He goes out to the bar district in Fort Collins
00:42:30
and he's acting like a fool, jumping on people's cars, raising, just trying to get a lot of attention.
00:42:39
So Fort Collins police, unaware that Travis was the subject of a Denver investigation,
00:42:45
pulled him aside there in the bar district, had a little talk with him, nothing serious, no charges,
00:42:50
just conversation. After they finished contact with him, our detectives go up and say, hey, we're watching him.
00:42:57
He's a person of interest on our case. You might have heard of the case, explained the case to him.
00:43:03
They're like, OK, OK, I'll let everybody know. Denver police kept an eye on Travis, hoping he might lead them to Kenya's body.
00:43:11
But he stayed in Fort Collins, crashed at his grandparents' place. And so from an already overstretched police department, a decision.
00:43:19
He was pretty much keeping a low profile. so we pull our surveillance. They couldn't know, of course, couldn't know what was coming.
00:43:29
Fourth of July, fireworks lit up the Fort Collins sky. And then, early the next morning at an apartment complex,
00:43:38
a fire of a different sort altogether. We kicked the door in and we're screaming for somebody.
00:43:44
The upstairs is, we're just calling for somebody to see if there's somebody in the apartment.
00:43:48
Oh, yes, there was someone in that building. And this much we can tell you. That someone was not Travis Forbes.
00:44:01
Coming up, who was it? And was there any link to Kenya? Finally, he said, oh, my God, I get chills now talking about it because it was it was quite the moment.
00:44:12
Investigators about to piece together a deadly connection. Pre-dawn, July 5, 2011, the fire in the apartment building was visible blocks away.
00:44:33
It was a really hot fire and all of the handles and the closet doors were basically melted because the fire was so hot.
00:44:41
Fort Collins, Colorado Police Detective Jacqueline Shackley drove over to investigate.
00:44:46
When I got there, there was a burned building and several fire trucks and a lot of people working.
00:44:51
Lydia was actually gone from the scene. Lydia was Lydia Tillman, 30 years old, a well-traveled wine company representative,
00:44:59
the lone occupant of the burned apartment, and now barely alive. She had been beaten severely and had jumped out the second-story window to escape the fire.
00:45:08
Crew got there. They found her in the backyard, and she stood up and ran straight to the ambulance and got in the back.
00:45:13
Looking awful. Looking awful. She had been beaten severely, and she didn't have any clothes on.
00:45:19
Lydia, as paramedics discovered, had also been raped. But that wasn't all that happened.
00:45:25
Then once she got to the hospital, she suffered a massive stroke. It was because of her injuries that she suffered the stroke.
00:45:32
She was severely beaten. She was stomped. Some of her injuries were indicative of, like, a high-speed car crash.
00:45:39
Lydia was airlifted to an intensive care hospital in Denver. Her sister Esther got the news and rushed to the hospital.
00:45:46
She was unrecognizable when I first saw her. I couldn't believe it was her. I would look at her and nothing looked like her.
00:45:55
And then she has a tattoo on her calf. I knew it was her. Lydia's condition was critical, quite possibly, even probably, terminal.
00:46:05
The doctors induced a coma, an attempt to keep her alive, stabilize her, treat her horrendous injuries.
00:46:11
Her jaw was crushed and her eye sockets. And her wrist was broken, shattered. And then she had broken ribs, probably more than we even know.
00:46:23
What's the emotion that comes with that? I didn't want to lose my sister. I wanted her in my life.
00:46:30
What did we need to do to help her, to get her back to us? Lydia was single, attractive, very popular.
00:46:39
But now, here she was, raped and beaten, nearly burned to death in her own home.
00:46:45
When somebody is beaten that severely, it just sounded very personal. So we thought for sure it was somebody that was in her inner circle that was close.
00:46:52
It had to be somebody that she knew. So, for the next two days, Detective Shackley home Fort Collins, checking with anybody who knew Lydia.
00:47:01
We had talked to ex-boyfriends. We had talked to who she had dated. We had talked to who she worked with, her family, and crickets were chirping.
00:47:07
Crickets were chirping? Crickets were chirping. It was a whodunit. Everyone loved her and said that there was nobody that would do this to her.
00:47:14
We can't imagine this would happen. The crime scene offered very few clues. It was so destroyed from the fire,
00:47:21
especially where the actual assault and sexual assault took place in her bedroom.
00:47:26
It was so burned. You could basically make out where the bed was. Fingerprints, footprints, any forensic evidence, all up in smoke.
00:47:33
Or destroyed by something else discovered in the apartment. He did a really good job of cleaning up.
00:47:39
He did quite the job with the bleach. Bleach. The apartment still smelled of it despite all the smoke.
00:47:48
But in spite of all that bleach, they did find microscopic evidence that the attacker left behind.
00:47:56
His DNA. And the majority of that DNA was under Lydia's fingernails, so no doubt she put up a fight.
00:48:03
She was trying to defend herself. Yeah. Now Lydia was continuing that fight. Odds, not good.
00:48:10
She was not out of the woods, is what the doctor kept telling us. Every day I would ask him, are we out of the woods yet?
00:48:18
No, we're not out of the woods yet. And out of the woods is life or death. The hardest thing is not knowing whether she was going to live or die.
00:48:25
And if she was going to live, what kind of life was she going to have? And then three days after the attack, still no suspects, no leads.
00:48:34
Detective Shackley heard about the man police talked to just a few days before Lydia's attack.
00:48:39
The one who was acting up in the Fort Collins Bar District. And wasn't that the man the Denver police had under surveillance?
00:48:47
This possibly could be related. He's wanted for murder and he's in Fort Collins.
00:48:51
I don't know. It could be a long shot, but they may want to know about it. So what did you think when you heard that?
00:48:54
I thought, thank goodness, we have something that we can maybe look into. So, long shot, she figured.
00:49:02
But Detective Shackley called Detective Gurley in Denver. So I laid out what had happened, some of the evidence that we had found.
00:49:10
He set the place on fire and he used bleach on her, around the house. And he was silent on the other end of the phone.
00:49:17
And then finally he said, oh my God. And she said, what do you think? And I said, I think it's him.
00:49:23
I get chills now talking about it because it was quite the moment. Who was Travis Forbes?
00:49:30
A serial offender hunting women? Was he hunting another even now? The two detectives were convinced of it.
00:49:37
But as badly as they wanted to lock him away, they just did not have sufficient evidence.
00:49:43
So Travis was a free man, roaming Fort Collins at will and at night. Coming up, a relentless investigator,
00:49:53
more and more worried he's been outwitted. I'm thinking to myself, is he that smart?
00:50:00
Is he that smart? On the fourth floor of a Denver critical care hospital, Lydia Tillman was still alive, if barely.
00:50:22
Still in a medically induced coma, still suffering God knew what damage from her massive stroke.
00:50:28
But all the while her family sat by her side and talked to her. We'd say, Lydia, you're doing great.
00:50:35
You're healing. You just rest and heal. That's all you have to do. We'd play classical music for her.
00:50:41
We'd talk over her so she knew we were there. As if worrying about Lydia's fragile condition wasn't enough,
00:50:47
her family also feared the attack wasn't over. It was really scary. Since we didn't know who had done this, I kept looking out of the hospital room and seeing if someone would come to finish the job.
00:51:01
And so we had to keep her completely anonymous in the hospital. We had a code that we had to say to go see her. Only family members and only ones that were listed.
00:51:12
Lydia's family was quite unaware that police did have a prime suspect, Travis Forbes,
00:51:18
who was also a suspect in the disappearance of a girl Lydia's family had never heard of, Kenya Monhay.
00:51:24
The similarities were definitely the bleach. I don't know what it is about Forbes, but he has an obsession with bleach.
00:51:29
And we had actually heard that from his past girlfriends as well, that he would obsessively clean his house with bleach.
00:51:35
And there was bleach used in Kenya's case as well. The fact that they were both dark-haired, both pretty girls, around the same age, it was chillingly similar.
00:51:44
But the truly frightening fact was that their suspect was still out there somewhere on the street at large,
00:51:50
potentially targeting his next victim. And it would stay that way unless detectives could prove that the attacks were both the work of Travis Forbes.
00:51:59
There was one possibility, and really only one. Sitting in the Denver Police Crime Lab were several swabs of Travis's DNA,
00:52:07
which Detective Nash Gurley had obtained when the two talked in Texas. And we needed that, obviously, quickly to compare it to what had been collected from Lydia Tillman when she was transported to the hospital.
00:52:19
But she'd been sprayed with bleach and every other, and she'd been burned. I mean, was there actually any DNA left?
00:52:25
There actually was. It was pretty amazing. It's amazing how resilient DNA is. So, on a Friday evening just four days after Lydia's attack, the DNA found under her fingernail and the sample taken from Forbes were sent to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation for processing to see if they matched.
00:52:44
I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. There was no way. It didn't really matter. I didn't care.
00:52:51
Sixty miles away in Denver, Detective Nash Gurley was also awaiting those DNA results anxiously. But he was also angry.
00:52:58
Angry. At myself. At yourself? Why? Thinking to myself, what else could I have done to prevent this?
00:53:06
What other evidence could I have gathered that would have got him arrested? That I missed something that could have kept him there.
00:53:12
I could have had something concrete to arrest him on. What did I miss? And I threw that around in my head.
00:53:19
You take this stuff personally. This one I did. And I'm thinking to myself, is he that smart?
00:53:26
Is he that smart? And now Forbes was out here somewhere. Friday night, dark now.
00:53:35
It was warm in Fort Collins, a college town, remember. In the Old Town Bar District, young people gathered around favorite watering holes.
00:53:44
Plenty of young women, carefree, drinking, celebrating a weekend, unaware, unworried.
00:53:51
But this time the police were watching because they were very worried We were not going to let him out of our sights so we had teams that were rotating while we were waiting so we could actually make an arrest
00:54:05
All weekend, surveillance teams followed Forbes as he cruised the nightclub district.
00:54:09
He had a bottle of whiskey that he'd been carrying around with him all night. He didn't go into any of the bars.
00:54:13
He basically just walked around and... He was trolling. Trolling. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
00:54:19
Then late at night, the undercover cops spotted Travis following a young woman walking home, alone.
00:54:25
So, without revealing the surveillance team, one of the cops approached him, asked a question or two, and Travis gave a fake name, called himself Travis Kennedy.
00:54:35
The officer let him go, but Travis did not go home. And before very long, began following a second woman.
00:54:45
She appeared to be drunk. Travis closed in. They're like, this guy's too much of a danger, we've got to figure out a way to get him off the street.
00:54:52
So they ended up arresting him for false reporting, for giving a false name. In fact, Detective Shackley's husband was part of that surveillance team and actually put the cuffs on Travis.
00:55:02
What was it like when you two kind of got together to compare notes? It was pretty emotional.
00:55:07
And it was actually an emotional phone call. He called me to let me know that I'm going to get emotional now, that he had taken him into custody and that he was off the streets.
00:55:19
just some closure to five days of really scary, really scary for our community and in our home.
00:55:27
But there was a catch. When the cops arrested Forbes for giving a false name, it was only a misdemeanor.
00:55:35
Without some new charge, he'd be out on bail in no time. Coming up, a determined detective triggers a stunning break in the case.
00:55:48
Yes. Yes. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Brown brick building on the outskirts of Denver is normally quiet at night and on weekends.
00:56:12
But in mid-July 2011, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation Crime Lab was a beehive of activity.
00:56:20
A team of technicians were working round the clock comparing a DNA sample of Lydia Tillman's attacker to that of Travis Forbes to see if they matched.
00:56:30
Sixty miles away in Fort Collins, Detective Jacqueline Shackley couldn't sit still.
00:56:35
I was high on adrenaline. It was a waiting game. I mean, I kept looking at my phone, hoping for the technician from CBI to call me.
00:56:42
Especially because Travis Forbes, who was being held in the Fort Collins jail, was due to be released soon.
00:56:49
Very soon. He was given a bond and was about to bond out like 1030 on Monday night.
00:56:57
The weekend was over. Monday ticked by. It's a long process. It's not like a TV show where you can, they do it in 40 minutes and you have a hit.
00:57:07
So I knew it was going to take a while. I just kept praying that it would happen earlier.
00:57:10
And then, just minutes before Travis's release, a call from the CBI. We had a hit.
00:57:18
Wow. Yes. The man who attacked Lydia Tillman was, the DNA confirmed, Travis Forbes.
00:57:25
It was the biggest adrenaline dump ever, and of course I called Detective Gouray in tears.
00:57:31
We did it. He's charged. He's in jail. He's not getting out. I was relieved that now he's going to be in jail and he won't be able to hurt nobody.
00:57:44
Now we know where he's at, so I don't have to be searching for him. Word of Travis's arrest also traveled quickly to Kenya Monhey's family.
00:57:54
I was shocked. I knew that he would eventually hang himself, but I didn't think he'd go out and try to murder again this soon.
00:58:02
And I was shocked. We were shocked. Yeah. But they still didn't know what happened to Kenya.
00:58:09
Quickly, the Lee family called a news conference and delivered a message to Travis Forbes.
00:58:14
Anybody's going to relay any messages to him? Tell him, or if you guys talk to him, tell him we got just one question.
00:58:23
Where is Kenya? That's it. But Travis wasn't talking anymore. So Lee offered a radical idea.
00:58:32
I called Sister D.A. Lombardi. I said, make a deal. You wanted a deal? Yeah, I don't care what it is.
00:58:41
I said, I don't care. You can take it down to manslaughter. I didn't care. Just make a deal.
00:58:47
It's just, we just want Kenya. We really couldn't. I mean, we were getting there.
00:58:51
We were still investigating. What I really wanted was for, tell us where she was so we could give closure to this family.
00:59:00
but Travis was now facing an attempted murder charge for the assault on Lydia and as his case started working its way toward trial he sat silently mute in his cell especially
00:59:14
when detective Shackley paid him a visit he was looking at me like a caged animal his eyes were
00:59:19
huge he um it was it was really creepy obviously I wanted to talk to him I wanted to get an
00:59:24
interview with him and see if he would if he would tell me something and he immediately said
00:59:28
I'm not talking to you, get out of here. But across town, someone was communicating.
00:59:36
After spending five weeks in ICU, Lydia Tillman was transferred to a local rehab hospital,
00:59:42
and a long, slow recovery began. Hi, Lydia. I showed her a video of my kids saying hello to her
00:59:49
because they missed their Aunt Lydia. I want you to get better soon. And she got to the part where my 4 started to talk and she laughed and said Say hi Lydia Hi Lillab It the first time I got to see her laugh and I went She got memory
01:00:05
She can laugh. But Detective Gurley's murder case against Travis Forbes and his search for Kenya Monhe,
01:00:14
had both stalled nearly five months after Kenya vanished and still no sign of her.
01:00:21
But one day he got a call from the crime lab requesting another DNA sample of Travis for the FBI.
01:00:28
I drove up there to get his DNA. I walked in, laid down my recorder. He didn't want to talk to any of the detectives in Fort Collins, anywhere.
01:00:39
But he always talked to me. What's up, Max? Why are you here? I am here to have a work for you.
01:00:49
And for the next two hours, like a couple of old college chums, The two shot the breeze about philosophy and books and religion.
01:00:57
And of course, Kenya's case, about which Travis remained evasive. I said, I've been here a long time, Travis. I'm done.
01:01:05
I'm done playing chess with you. I said, you know, you moved one way, I move another way.
01:01:09
I said, I'm coming for you. I'm telling you that. I said, the next time you see me, I'll be charging you for murder.
01:01:15
I said, what do you want out of this? What exactly do you want out of this? I want to go to prison without being labeled as a sex offender.
01:01:25
Okay. What else? That's it. That's it. You'll confess to everything if you go to prison without being labeled a sex offender.
01:01:37
Is that what you're saying? Yes. You're mad enough to that? Yes. Yes. That's what I'm saying.
01:01:45
Detective Gurley was stunned. Travis wanted to cut a deal? Gile used a little reverse psychology to make sure he meant it.
01:01:54
I told him, I think you're full of it. I don't think you're going to do this. I think you're going to back out.
01:02:04
And I think you're spineless. And I think it's all about you. It's a game. I said, I think you're going to pull out.
01:02:15
He says, no, I won't. I said, Travis, you do what you say you're going to do, I'll be the first one to shake your hand.
01:02:24
Well, I knew that Fort Collins authorities would buy him. So all he needed now were the cross T's and dotted I's, the legal formalities.
01:02:32
I left the jail, went out to my car, and thought to myself, did I just hear this right or am I dreaming?
01:02:42
I even played the recording back to myself. and I thought wow finally after frustrating months of knuckle-biting
01:02:54
tension disappearance as dead-end games of cat and mouse detective Gurley was about to get the answers
01:03:00
he'd been searching for and he was exhausted to celebrate and rest up Gurley decided to take a few days off
01:03:08
with his wife so we're driving out of town I get a call and said he pulled out Coming up, was it all over?
01:03:19
Or was there yet another surprise in store for investigators? He got out of the car and his whole demeanor changed and he let out this scream.
01:03:29
Just this blood curdle, it made me jump. It was a long, torturous weekend in the mountains of Colorado for Detective Nash Grillet.
01:03:50
On Friday, it looked like he'd finally cut a deal with Travis Forbes to reveal what happened to Kenya Monhe.
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But just hours later, Grillet got a call. The deal was dead. I was devastated. I was devastated.
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I went up the phone, my wife looked at me, and she says, you okay? And I looked at her and I'm crying. I said, there's nothing more I could do.
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I got him there. I let him there. I let him, I let him to the trough. Grelay and his wife went on their trip anyway. And for three long days, he was left twisting
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in the wind once again by Travis Forbes. Kenya's family knew nothing of this, still holding out
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hope that she was somehow alive. Every time I was driving down the street and I seen a skinny
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little black haired girl, I can't tell you how many accidents I've almost had trying to get around
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a corner to see who this little skinny black haired girl is. There were still reports coming up in
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of sightings of her and you've got to turn in all these sightings because you don't know.
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But then something happened to Travis Forbes that weekend. He apparently had second thoughts
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about his own second thoughts. And when I got back on Monday, I got a call and they said,
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deal's back on. It's being finalized. We should be able to be going next week. Sometimes taking a weekend away
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is quite profitable. Yes. The weight of the world just got lifted from me. The deal with Travis
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was quite straightforward. No death penalty, no sex crime charges. And in exchange,
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he would give them a complete confession. What he did to Kenya and Lydia. And one more thing, he would show them exactly where Kenya was.
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And so on a humid morning in September of 2011, Forbes found himself in a procession
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of police cars on a country road northeast of Denver. Investigators had been here many times before searching the fields near the farm town of Keensburg looking for Kenya But this day Travis had solemnly promised he was going to show them
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Trailing a car behind Travis was D.A. Carrie Lombardi, nervous, anxious, and pessimistic.
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I was worried he wouldn't follow through. Because I felt like he sort of liked this game, I thought.
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So along the way, what were you thinking? Will he do this? Will he not? Will something spook him?
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Will he change his mind? Is this a big farce? You know, I didn't know if, you know, there was even, if we were even going to the right place.
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Travis was in the lead car, which included detectives Nash Gurley and Jacqueline Shackley.
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It was really quiet for the first, like, five or ten minutes. And he was sitting right next to me.
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Well, I had an air cast on my foot because I had a running injury. He looked down and he said, what did you do to your foot?
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And I said, it's a stress fracture from running. And that got Travis talking. about running marathons, movies, food, all sorts of things.
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And obviously we were talking about whatever he wanted to talk about to keep his cooperation.
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I have to remember that I have a monster sitting next to me and just playing it up.
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We had to get to that body. We wanted to know where she was and bring her home to our family.
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Then we start getting closer. He starts getting a little bit more quiet. We drive out to the site next to a little grove of trees.
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And then quite suddenly, no warning, something came over. The cool and breezy Travis Forbes.
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He got out of the car and his whole demeanor changed. He let out this scream. Just this blood curdle. It made me jump. I wasn't expecting it at all.
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But just as quickly, Travis pulled himself together and pointed. He says, she's over there.
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So we walk over there, and he's standing up on top of the hill, and there's like a little ravine.
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And he says, you're standing right on top of her. Soon the digging began. And it was a very, very slow process.
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There was an anthropologist there. And so then they finally got the dirt off of her, and there she was.
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And it was pretty awful. I stood there, and of course I'd seen these beautiful pictures of her.
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There's this smiling image in your head of her having a good time and smiling, and then to see that, it was very difficult.
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There was something else, perhaps even more difficult, that Carrie Lombardi had to do.
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I called Tony Lee and said that they had found a body where he had told us she was.
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We had found something. And I needed to let my family know before any of this hit the news.
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You can't prepare yourself or practice yourself or write down a speech for that day.
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And I had to tell her. What was that like? That was the hardest thing that I've ever done.
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But she had been hanging on to hope. She had been hanging on to that hope. You had to finally.
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I had to snatch that rug out from under her. And she lost it. And there was nothing I could do for her because I had already lost it myself.
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Then Tony had to tell his children, Kenya's little sister and brother. And the first question out of both of their mouths at the different times, is she alive?
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And I had to tell him no. And I couldn't do nothing for her. I just don't feel like it's fair that people get to grow up with their sisters,
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but she was only there for a little bit of my life. Like, she won't be able to see, like, me grow up and get married or have kids,
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and I won't be able to see her grow up and get married and have kids. Like, we just never get to have that bond.
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But this most horrendous of days wasn't quite over. Police still needed a complete confession from Forbes on tape.
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While we're driving back, I look back at him. He goes, hey, Nash, I told you I'd tell you where she was.
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He goes, are you happy you found her? He goes, are you happy? And I said, there's some questions that need to be answered.
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And I said, once those questions are answered, then I'll be happy. All right, Nash, I told you I'd do it. I told you I would do it.
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And I said, yes, you did. Detective Gurley sat down with Travis for one last interview.
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after five long months, out came the words he needed to hear. I killed her. I did not mean to kill her.
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I didn't pull over to kill her. I didn't pull over to rape her. None of that was in my head. None of it was premeditated.
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But then it all came out. Travis told them how he spotted Kenya on the street, how he raped her, how he strangled her, how he stuffed her in his cooler.
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drove around with the body in his white van for a whole day, then stored it in the bakery's freezer
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while he cleaned out his van with bleach and burned her clothes. And then, early the next morning,
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he buried her body near a clump of cottonwood trees. After we were done with our interview,
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I walked up to him and stuck out my hand. I go, thanks. And he stood up, shook my hand, and he said,
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I told you I would do it. I said, you did. He says, you just wouldn't give up. And I looked at him and I said, you're right.
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Later that day, Travis also confessed to the attempted murder Tillman. Soon he would be sentenced separately for both crimes. But there was one last surprise
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coming. Something no one saw coming. Least of all, Travis Forbes. Coming up, a courtroom stunned.
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To do what she did and to endure what she went through, I couldn't imagine. She's a superhero in my eyes.
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She was home now, after five long, horrible months. Kenya Monge was given a proper burial.
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We needed her home, or we needed to know a place to where we at least could go and be with her every day.
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And that was either home or in a grave someplace. Thank God we have answers. Not the answers we exactly want,
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but we do have answers now. And it still hurts. But as one family mourned, another had something remarkable to celebrate.
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Lydia Tillman was coming home. Because of the stroke, speech was still practically impossible.
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But the fact she was walking at all, truly amazing. Some kind of miracle, said a doctor, Rebecca Bearden.
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I believe that Lydia shouldn't have survived that day. She went through so much, and she probably shouldn't have made it, but she did.
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And it was because of her determination and her joy. Soon after that, at Travis Forbes sentencing hearing, Lydia met Kenya's family.
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I look at Lydia and wish it was Kenya. I hate to say that, but I'm glad she was able to escape the monster.
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Yeah. It was overwhelming to see the amount of her strength and her will to live,
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and what she did during her court proceedings on the day that he was sentenced for what he did to her.
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What she did that day was simply amazing hard to believe Sitting just feet away from the man who raped her smashed her face and body doused her with bleach set her on fire Lydia Tillman struck a blow
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against evil. She gave Travis a gift. She forgave him. Since she was unable to speak herself,
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her father read her statement for her, saying that to forgive is easier than holding anger.
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There wasn't a dry eye in that courtroom, including the judge. It's freeing for her, and I understand that.
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And I did the same, because we're not going to live in that hatred, in that state of mind
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that doesn't allow you to recover and to heal. She's amazing. to do what she did and to endure what she went through,
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I couldn't imagine. I couldn't imagine. She is... She's a superhero in my eyes. And then there was one more surprise.
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No, not Travis's sentence, life in prison. That was merely a formality. It was another gift, this time from Kenya,
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to Lydia. I started crying with her. She started crying with me. I felt very strong inside of me,
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like Kenya was telling me, Mom, give her that ring. I was wearing that ring. Give it to her.
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It was Kenya's dream. Give it to her. It was Kenya's favorite ring. And I gave it to her,
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and she was so happy. I mean, she said, thank you, and she was holding me. And that moment I was
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holding her, it's like I was holding Kenya. We are related in tragedy. We've got a connection
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with each other, unfortunately, for the rest of our lives, because of Travis. Tony and his family built a memorial
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here on the high plains where Kenya was found. And they devote themselves now to spreading awareness
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and warnings and help. The story of Kenya is what has created the Kenya Monhe Foundation.
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We go to the families of the missing, reach out to them, and they are very grateful.
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And then it actually keeps me and Maria sane And Lydia Tillman We saved this surprise for last Lydia has worked very hard to recover
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Try this one. And to speak. Stim, you lie. Stim, you lie. Nice. Yeah, try yesterday.
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Lydia has, she's rocked my world. Dr. Jill Armour. I think Lydia has the ability to make a full recovery.
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And I think she's tenacious and perseveres enough that she may just well do that.
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And so, a proper introduction. Here, just ten months after the attack that nearly took her life, is Lydia Tillman, in her own words.
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People were amazed you survived at all, frankly. Yeah. I am amazed too. What has been in the long recovery process the most difficult thing to do?
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Re-learning how to speak was still difficult. Yes. I'm trying to find a balance between my ambitions and my still healing body and brain.
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Yeah. So where were you in the process of getting better when Travis went to court to plead guilty and be sentenced?
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I was just out of rehab. The hardest day of my life. Really? To forgive him was super difficult.
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How could you do that after what he did to you? To heal myself rather than being angry
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Because that would not help you. Yeah. You harbor no bitterness, no... And rarely I get mad.
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I believe Travis Forbes was acting out of fear and hatred. I choose love and peace.
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over fear. Fear. And I won. So she did. And then she said, with that big infectious smile on her face,
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that she'd brought a gift for me. It's a bracelet. It's on... Can I open it? Yes.
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on, um, a-ki-um, a-k-ro-nim for my name. Ah. It's, it says, live your days inspired anew.
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Which, of course, spells Lydia. There's great sadness surrounding the story of Travis Forbes
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Unending sadness for Kenya's family For the unknown other families who, as many now suspect
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May have been victimized by his past behavior And then, from that darkest place Came the indomitable Lydia
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Who forgave, who won Who told us Live your days inspired anew.