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Chapter 1: What events led to the disappearance of Kenya Monheim?
In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered.
I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.
For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.
It's July 4th. An attractive young woman has just finished watching a fireworks display in a Fort Collins park, and she starts walking home to her apartment. What she doesn't realize, though, is that she's being followed. This man breaks into her apartment. Before the night is over, the apartment is on fire. Massive flames coming out of the second story. This is a huge fire.
Neighbors are calling 911.
911, what's the address of the emergency?
There's a fire going on. Looks like the top floor.
People barely have time to process the fire when... A person comes flying out of the window, and she's alive. When paramedics get here, she is running towards them naked, trying to get them to help save her life. The media had no idea that she had been beaten and left for dead. She was attacked so brutally that she couldn't speak. She couldn't say what had happened. She goes into a coma.
It's horrible. But just 30 miles away in Denver, another woman's gone missing. Now everyone is wondering, could these two crimes be connected? This can't just be a coincidence. Families plea for help. Their teenage daughter is missing, and their hope is fading for 19-year-old Kenya Monheim.
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Chapter 2: How did detectives connect the cases of Kenya and Lydia?
We'll run into her later.
They met some guys when they walked in. They sat down. One of the booths had bottle service. Started drinking. We even have a picture of them all together on that booth. There's Kenya at the table talking to these young men. They pour them drinks. They're drinking.
Kenya was 4'11", 100 pounds. Drinking any amount of liquor affected her.
Kenya gets up, goes to the bathroom. When she comes back, she's with some guy. Friends don't know who he is. They go back out to the dance floor. They start dancing. Kenya was dancing with someone and was just enjoying this person's company. They're definitely flirting, having a good time.
Meanwhile, she's left all of her belongings with her friends, her purse, her keys, and most importantly, her phone. Police are told that security at the bar warned Kenya and the man that they're getting out of hand to try and cool things down. But soon after, the two of them are actually kicked out of the club, and Kenya's friends don't see it happen. They don't know where she went.
She just kind of disappears. They're looking for her, her friends that she came with. They're looking for her. They can't find her. They didn't know that they were asked to leave. They don't know what happened to her. For whatever reason, they continue to hang out at the bar. And so she was really in the most vulnerable spot she could be in.
Have no way to communicate, have no identification, no money, and you're dressed to be out at the bars. It's just a bad combination. The girls that were out with Kenya, they can't find her. They were hoping she was home, but she hadn't come home.
In the morning, her other best friend called me and asked, have you seen Kenya? She's not answering her phone.
I haven't heard from her. Have you talked to her? I'm worried. This isn't like her. And so we know pretty quickly this isn't just somebody that ran away or hasn't gotten home yet or ended up somewhere else and that this is not good. Especially when surveillance video of Kenya walking into this building with a man is uncovered.
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Chapter 3: What role did Travis Forbes play in the investigation?
You know, that's terrifying. Your child is missing. Maria was absolutely heartbroken. She just was in so much agony for her daughter. Tony, he was very determined to try to figure out what happened to her.
Then I started going through her phone and I'm seeing all these names, you know, and I'm calling the friends that I know and I'm saying, you know, look, this is where I'm at.
This is what's going on. And none of them has heard anything from her. Her parents became pretty worried, because that was odd for Kenya to do that, just vanish and not call, not show up, not say, hey, here, this is where I'm at. Tony has the phone, has Kenya's phone. When a text comes in.
All of a sudden, I get this message. And the message said, hey, this is Travis, guy in creepy white van. Did you get to your car OK?
It's just chilling. Of course it's a creepy white van. It's just, ugh.
That's my biggest nightmare. Whatever you relate creepy white van to, it's never a good thing.
None of her family, none of her friends knew who this Travis was. I started calling him.
I've left a message after message after message because To me, this is the last person who saw Kenyon.
Finally, someone calls him back, and Travis has a story about what happened.
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Chapter 4: What evidence linked Travis to the crimes?
We don't know. Police say they have to consider the possibility that this mysterious Dan could be responsible for Kenya's disappearance. But as Tony is about to leave the gas station, he says that something chilling happens.
We went to shake, and it was then that I noticed that his hand was shaking as if there was an earthquake going off inside of his body. When I let go, I knew that I was shaking the hand of the last person to see Kenya alive.
No. Oh, no? Welcome to Get Real. I got something to say. A weekly talk show for the reality TV obsessed. Oh, my God. It's going to be deliciously desperate. Why do these girls forgive him?
She has a soft spot for troubled men.
Boo, bloody boo. This is your show. Find Get Real wherever you get your podcasts. Love runs deeper than we know. And stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. It's my first day of work and I need to make a big impression. From executive producer Mindy Kaling. This is our sexual harassment training. Hands off your co-workers.
Now sign this saying that I trained you or you're fired. Yes, ma'am. Work relationships are too messy.
I just met the woman of my dreams. You gotta chill out and not come on too strong.
That goes against my entire personality, but I'll try. Watch the new Hulu original series, Not Suitable for Work, premiering June 2nd on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.
Denver police say this case is the department's top priority.
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Chapter 5: How did Travis's confession impact the investigation?
What's her name?
Carrie Humphrey.
So we contact Carrie Humphrey and bring her in for an interview. Thursday night into Friday morning, Travis came home sometime between, I think you told me, you rolled over, the clock said 3.33 a.m., and he left sometime before 8. Mm-hmm. Okay, you sure about that? Mm-hmm. Carrie corroborates what Travis said. He came home at 3 a.m. He left for work at 8 a.m.
Before I woke up, I never saw him again that day. She certainly did give him an alibi. Travis is telling us that he's just a good Samaritan trying to help out somebody. No one's trying to say you did anything wrong by letting her walk off with this guy. Not at all. But I mean, we're just trying to eliminate everybody who's ever came in contact with her. That's all.
We don't have anything that says that he's lying. We have no evidence that says he's lying. So now we need to find this Dan. And nobody came forward. We sent it out on the media. We sent out Crimestoppers, and we never found out who this Dan was. So this case has to be investigated. And that investigation soon leads to a woman who worked closely with Travis.
My name is Monica Poole, and I own Blue Hummingbird gluten-free bakery. It used to be called Debbie's. Travis came to me with a concept about granola bars. He made them in my space. So that same day that Kenya disappears, something unusual happens at the bakery. Monica comes in, and she suspects that Travis might have taken money from her office.
We had a security system installed in the bakery when we opened it. There were six cameras, one in the office, two in the kitchen, two in the front lobby, and one in the back, back storage room. She sees that the money's gone. She looks at the video, and she sees Travis had disconnected the video. When I came into the bakery, I did my normal counting back the drawer and it was short.
I called the police and I said, look, I have someone renting from me, stealing money out of my cash register. And he said, can you prove it was him? And I said, no, he turned off the camera. In talking to Monica, we learned that her video had been cut off coincidentally around when Kenya went missing.
Let's go in here. On Friday.
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Chapter 6: What were the circumstances surrounding Lydia Tillman's attack?
When I started tracking him through cell towers, it showed him coming from Denver and basically he's cordoned the track all the way up here to Kingsburg. The cell phone records and where Travis has been confirms he wasn't with his girlfriend and also that he had gone outside of Denver shortly after Kenya went missing to Kingsburg. So he was out in this general area for hours.
We just didn't know what he was doing. Travis had no friends or family out there. At one point we learned that Travis stopped to get gas. Why is he up there? What is he doing? So a team of detectives come up here and they start searching the area up in these fields all over here. We were searching a lot and found no evidence of anything, nothing.
Kenya's parents are just completely devastated at this point. Tony starts looking for her himself, going around Denver. I learned how to search a dumpster.
You need a big stick to dig where you can't reach the bottom. I was very purposeful on what I was looking for when I went dumpster diving, as I called it. I was looking for Kenya's body. That's it. Nothing else. I was looking for Kenya.
And tonight, a family's plea for help. About two weeks after Kenya disappeared, her family goes public. They are begging people to come forward with information. They've sent out flyers to the media. They've checked local hospitals. They've talked to her friends. I covered this case. I remember talking to the family. It was heartbreaking.
Kenya's mother has this message for her missing child.
I really had hope. It's almost like this blind faith.
I genuinely believed that Kenya was going to make her way back to us.
Travis himself is hardly hiding. He too goes public agreeing to an interview with a local news station. Travis Forbes says he only knew missing 19 year old Kenya Monet for 20 minutes.
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Chapter 7: What was the family's response to the discoveries made in the case?
Just before leaving town, he had borrowed his friend Siva's car, and now she can't reach him. Siva had become a close friend of his while he'd been living in Denver. I would call and check on her and ask her, hey, did you get your forerunner back? Has he reached out to you? She said no.
The only reason why I haven't reported it stolen is because the last thing I wanted is for there to be more stress in his life about a car. Because I didn't want him to get in trouble.
I just think that she thought he was this nice guy and people were afraid to make him look bad.
He's just always been very close to me. Like, I just, I consider him like a brother. You could just tell that he was a little stressed and that's not uncommon for him. He's very high, strong.
Siva also tells police that right before disappearing, Travis told her that he was being questioned about a missing girl. He said, I never knew that 20 minutes with a complete stranger would change my life like this. He started crying. Like I could just tell that this really affected him on a deep level. Not only the stress of, oh my God, you know, this, this poor girl is missing, but
Now, you know, I'm being under a microscope of, like, what happened. So when I speak to his friend, Seba, she just didn't understand why we were looking into him.
And to me, it's a witch hunt.
I understand being a defendant. I understand that. I expect that. In my opinion, 100%, he is not capable of murder. Absolutely not. I bet my life on it. He's an outstanding human being that wants to help people. but sometimes it winds up biting him in the ass. I know he tried giving two guys a ride home two months prior to this, and they tried carjacking him.
But Siva gets more frustrated about her missing car, and now Travis is not returning her calls, so she gives police her license plate number. I wish someone knew something about him, because I was getting nervous about my car regardless.
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Chapter 8: What lessons can be learned from the tragic outcomes of these cases?
Police say a woman had been beaten. But the victim survived. And everyone is wondering, could it be connected to what happened to Kenya?
The Monge family had always hoped that Kenya would be found alive.
This is at prom night. The 19-year-old disappeared after getting a ride home. And they just wanted her to come forward. I couldn't afford a prom dress, so Kenya let me borrow one of hers.
I hate that Kenya's constantly painted as this party girl when that was just one tiny window into her life. It wasn't any fault of her own. She was absolutely in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then no one was there to help her.
Breaking new details now on the disappearance of Aurora teenager Kenya Monhey. 7 News has learned police are searching for evidence in several different locations. I feel like people in Colorado were really glued to their TVs. They wanted to know what happened to this girl. Suddenly, it wasn't a safe place to go out. People were very concerned about this young woman and what happened to her.
I know Tony was doing his own investigation and searching places. I got in contact with a local printing company and they printed me 500 of the high gloss, the ones you see on the news. We're going out hunting fires.
Her family is putting up missing posters everywhere they can, desperate to get those answers.
I think those were some really long, frustrating months where it felt like her case was at a standstill. Months have passed. There have been no new leads in the Kenya Monge case. The trail is going cold. The family is desperate for answers. And the only person who really seems to know anything is Travis Forbes. Forbes admitted to giving her a ride home from this nightclub April 1st.
He's the top of the suspect list and he's the only one we're focusing on right now because he's the last one that's had contact with her. As fishy as his story is, there simply is not enough to arrest him. Remember, Forbes is being held by Colorado police on that car theft charge, but he's released after his friend Siva decides not to press charges. He gets released from jail.
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