Transcript of The After Show: Evil at the Door New

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Hello everybody, welcome to 2020: The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts and as always, It's so good to have you with us as we dig a little deeper into our most recent 2020 report. And today we're going to take a look at our episode which aired Friday night. You saw it. And if you saw it, I'm sure you haven't forgotten it. It's the heartbreaking story of Kenyia Monje, who went missing after a night out dancing with friends in downtown Denver back in April of 2011. She was only 19 years old, and she could have been the sister or the daughter of somebody you knew. I mean, a young girl whose life was really just all before her. She was active in her church, close to her family, and as I said, her life was unfolding. She had graduated high school and was about to go off to college. The only thing that made Kenia a target, it seems, was that she was a young, unsuspecting woman. Well, Ana Garcia, a frequent 20/20 contributor whom you've seen on many of our episodes, brought us this story. She's here with me today to give us some exclusive details from Kenia's family and detectives whom you met in our reporting, um, and more that we weren't able to on Friday night.

Anna, so good to see you.

So good to see you, Deborah.

I see you on the air all the time. We don't get a chance to talk face to face like this. But before we do, I mean, folks here know you as a hard-charging reporter. You've been a serious news reporter for a long time. You've been in true crime for a long time on podcasts. And certainly they may have seen you on our reporting. And I'd love for folks to hear a little bit more about you and what it is that intrigues you about this kind of reporting, because all of us have come to it in different ways.

I think, Deborah, we can all see ourselves in a situation like this, right? I have children, you have children, and no one thinks that when you go out the door to have a good time with your friends that you're not coming home. That's just not on your list of how your day and night are going to go. And that's, for me, what crime reporting is about. It is about these stories of survival, these moments of forgiveness and going forward and surviving something that I learned so much from the survivors.

Mm.

And you always do it so poignantly, too. Well, let's talk about what happened after this, because her stepfather, Tony, jumped in. He managed to get a hold of her phone. He found a message from an unknown number that said something like, hey, this is Travis, the guy with the creepy white van, just checking to see if you made it home okay. I mean, creepy white van right away. That's, that's pretty bizarre.

Right? That is creepy. It's creepy and it's scary, right? Because your daughter is missing. She's been separated from her phone, her belongings. Her girlfriends brought these belongings to the parents and you're trying to figure out what happened to your daughter. And let's complicate this, Deborah. It's April Fools'. So on the day that Kenia goes missing, it's the day of pranks. Yeah. Right? So you have to factor that into, you know, did she just take off with someone? You know, is she coming right back? Is she sleeping? Sleeping it off, right? The kind of, I guess, the lesser harmful things that you hope for, right? You never jump to, oh my God, she's been killed. That is not where your thoughts jump to. So when he sees this text message, obviously he freaks out as a dad, and he actually calls him, but Travis Forbes, the person who sent this text message, actually waits until Saturday to call back Tony, the stepdad. And Tony gets right on it and says, "Hey, where did you last see her? How do you know my daughter?" And he explains that he picked her up because he saw her crying outside and he gave her a lift.

She didn't have her phone. She didn't have a wallet or anything. And she said she wanted a cigarette, so I drove her to a gas station. And then she sees— this is the story that this guy is telling the dad, right?

Pretty detailed.

Pretty detailed, right? And that she sees a guy kind of homeless and she bums a cigarette off of him. His name is Dan, and she takes off with him. And that's the last I saw of her. So the dad says to Travis, can you meet me at this gas station? And he's like, yeah, I'll meet you right there. So now you're kind of thinking, okay, so maybe this guy really is just like a good Samaritan. He wants to be helpful, like a witness. Yeah, maybe he can help me piece what happened to my daughter, and he may know what happened to Kenya, right? I mean, that's, that's kind of reasonable, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you would think so. And also to add to it, he is a sharp-looking guy, you know, attractive and so forth. Where are police in the middle of all of this?

So police have been contacted, and the family said, look, our daughter is missing, but she hasn't been missing that long. And sadly, Deborah, you know from lots of experience and the saddest of cases, if You know, the most important time when someone goes missing is the first 24 to 48 hours. But that's also when you're dealing with an adult, when unless there's something very specific that leads you to think that she's in danger, you know, police have to factor in free will.

Yeah, they may have run off.

Yes, exactly, right? Yeah. So in this gap of time when police are trying to figure out what it is, is it really serious, Dad and mom are not wasting any time at all, and they're going straight to the last person they think may have seen her.

Yeah, yeah. And that Travis Forbes— so Travis Forbes starts to factor in. Initially, folks are thinking he wants to be helpful. He agrees to a police interview and blames himself essentially for not helping Kenyon, bringing her home. Let's just listen to part of our report from Friday night.

We find that Travis is somebody who's been arrested a few times, did some time. So it was nothing that jumped out and said, hey, this guy murders— is killing people.

We don't—

it's nothing like that.

You know, you go through your mind, all the things that you should have done, all the things you could have done.

He's laid back. He's easygoing. He's charming.

Remember, before meeting Travis, Kenya is seen on surveillance video first at the apartment building of the man that she'd met at the bar. Then she's crossing the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel across the street. Police say soon after that, Travis sees her outside.

On the night that Travis met and ran into Kenya, he wasn't alone.

He was with a friend.

When they drive up, they see Kenya talking to this guy. Kenya is Crying. She's upset. They get out. They talk to her.

It looked weird. I mean, it looked sketchy, so we intervened. Homeless guy walked off.

Okay, and what happens?

You know, we wanted, you know, to get her home, take her somewhere.

Travis drops off his friend and drives away alone with Kenya.

Then were you Okay.

She asks me for a cigarette. I tell her I don't smoke. I don't have any cigarettes. I saw a kanako on the other side.

Okay.

So I turned around.

This is the big moment in his story. They pull up to the gas station and this mysterious man, Dan, is there.

There was a guy, a man that was walking by. He was smoking a cigarette. She asked him for a cigarette and asked him to sit and smoke with her. She immediately, like, attached herself to this guy. She put her arm through his arm, like, while they were sitting there smoking, and they walked off, and that's it.

What did you make, Anna, of that interview that Travis gave initially?

It was so interesting. He's kind of blaming himself for the fact that Kenia's missing, blaming himself, saying, my gosh, if I'd known this was going to happen, I should have insisted on driving her home, inserting himself into a role as the Good Samaritan, but maybe taking it a little too far because, you know, this is a stranger taking responsibility for someone else's life. It seems a bit extreme, but okay, maybe he's a reflective soul.

Exactly, exactly. And that's what we started to think early on. Well, Anna, I want to dig a little bit more. I want you to just stay with us. We're going to have to take a quick break, but things started to shift pretty quickly in this case because of surveillance footage, which plays a big role in a lot of our stories. So when we come back, we're going to take a look at how this investigation shifted. So stay with us. We'll be right back.

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Welcome back to 20/20: The After Show. I'm sitting here getting details from our last 20/20 report with Ana Garcia, a contributor and true crime reporter who brought the story to us on Friday night's episode. It centers around the mysterious disappearance of 19-year-old Kenia Monje. Just 2 days after she goes missing, a woman who owned a Denver-area bakery called police about Travis Forbes. Ana, this was a big moment that began to help investigators connect dots in this case.

Travis Forbes was a baker of granola bars, and he rented some space in this bakery. And that van, that creepy white van, is what he would use to deliver his granola bars around Denver. So now you have the name of Travis Forbes popping up two times. Once, claims to be the last person to have seen Kenya alive. And now the woman that he rents the space from is accusing him of stealing money from the office because she reviewed surveillance video and she sees this video of her office and she sees Travis walking in. He's got these big rubber gloves on and she's like, what the heck is he doing in my office? And why is he turning off all the security cameras?

Almost.

All the security cameras, and she's got some money missing. So she calls police, and it turns out to be, you know, the motherlode.

Yeah, of evidence, digital evidence that Travis wasn't exactly this clean-cut guy that everybody thought he was. It's amazing to me how surveillance video plays such a huge part in these investigations, in so many of these stories that I have done and that you have done too. Well, the local media gets wind that police are doing this investigation, that things are sort of turning in this case, and then Travis starts talking on television, which is like really shocking. Why would he do that?

That is the question of the century, Deborah. Why? Why would you do this? Why send the text message? He inserts himself into this. You know, if he had never sent that text message, if he had never spoken on TV, chances are we may never have connected Travis to this case. Isn't that bizarre? Yeah, it's so strange. So here he is on television, kind of like the Good Samaritan. He gave her a ride. He's telling his story. And he's being asked on camera, you know, lots of details. And then the reporter goes right at him and says, did you murder her? Did you attack her? Did you sexually assault her? And each time he's saying no, but his head is slightly going up and down.

Yeah.

Which is making everybody like really nervous. At some point he interrupts and he says to the reporter, this is about Kenya, the victim here. What was her name again? Oh wow, dude.

Wow.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?

Well, Anna, when watching this story, I, I was certainly thinking it, and I'm sure many of our viewers were thinking it, like, to the— for police, like, just arrest this guy already, because it seems pretty obvious. But this goes on and on in terms of the investigation. Travis is still out there sort of moving around and Police have not, but it's— I guess it's not always that easy when we think that they should have it, but we know that they've got to have more than, you know, just a suspicion to arrest somebody.

Correct. It would be months before he is arrested for Kenya's murder, and the reason is that even though they have evidence that looks very suspicious and all points toward Travis, there's a lot of evidence that's really missing here. His van, self-described creepy, was cleaned with bleach. I mean, it was spotless. He took the carpeting out of there. So there were no remnants, if you will. There was one hair, I believe, the police found in the van. But keep in mind, Deborah, he's already told everyone, the police and anyone who will listen, oh yeah, I picked her up. She was in my van. Yeah, yeah. So of course there's going to be some DNA of hers there. It's a great explanation. Yeah, I picked her up.

Yeah, pretty clever there. But the cleaning of the van and yanking out the carpet, how many times have we seen that in our stories, right? Okay, so it's just a matter of time, of course, before police do move in. But in the meantime, the thing that really turns this case is a crime that involves another young woman. On July 5th, 2011, Lydia Tillman was viciously attacked, sexually assaulted, and then her own apartment set on fire. So to save her life, she throws herself out a second-story window. And it's just a horrific case. But then it eventually connects to Kenia's case.

It's extraordinary. What ends up happening is that Lydia fought for her life. She fought for her life. And in doing so, she was able to gather some skin cells, some DNA evidence under her fingernails. And so when the police swab her hands, they get— some DNA evidence. Now they have to figure out who it belongs to. Who does it match? Travis Forbes. And Travis Forbes is a person of interest in Kenya's disappearance. He's also a man who has a thing for bleach and for fires. And poor Lydia, he poured bleach on her to destroy whatever evidence he could, and whatever the bleach didn't get, he figured that the fire would destroy. And he was wrong.

He was wrong. Absolutely. That DNA was unmistakable. Well, he still tries to explain himself and how this— this is how it kind of connects to Kenya. Let's take a listen to the police interview, that part of the interview that you didn't get to hear on Friday night.

There is no way you didn't have time to clean up this one.

I wish I could tell you about it.

I do too. But that's your choice.

She's alive though.

Who's that?

Lydia.

You're right. Thank God for her. Yeah. Thank God for her strong will. No, she's— because you would have killed her. No. Yeah, you would have. If that, that fire would have spread up there before she got out, you would have killed her.

When everything comes to light, it's going to be horrific.

Horrendous.

Horrendous.

Oh yeah, you're going to make me famous, Travis. You know, like the Green River Killer made You want to be that lieutenant famous when he interviewed the Greenwood River Killer? I don't know anything about that. When the BTK killer got caught and he confessed to that detective and made him famous. Do you want to be famous?

I want to confess. I want to confess so bad.

So Travis, Anna, I mean, that interview was just so obvious. He ultimately confesses to Kenya's murder, but then it's under one condition. That he doesn't have to go to prison as a sex offender. And of course, we know that's a dangerous label to have in prison. Talk a little bit about that confession and how he would even have the nerve to ask for a condition.

Oh, he definitely has the nerve, the gall to ask not only that he not be labeled as a sex offender, but he also wanted to avoid the death penalty. This is the part, Deborah, I do not understand about convicted killers. You have no problem taking someone else's life, but when your very own life is threatened, oh no, I gotta preserve myself. I mean, come on now. Come on, some human decency. But another reason he didn't want the sex offender label is because, you know, in prison there's a whole different justice system. And he's an expert—

Yeah, there's a hierarchy there. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you were talking about how there's a whole different system there set up and sex offenders are targeted. And he knew that would happen. He's also asking police about the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. What was that all about?

Yeah, it's almost like it was stream of consciousness. He's just talking out loud. Am I this? Am I that? As if he is a reflective individual. You know, clearly he knows who he is. He's a monster. This man is the devil without question. But sometimes you got to do a deal with the devil to get something extremely important. And in this case, was finding Kenia and truly what happened to her.

And I want to talk more about that. We're going to get another quick break in, Anna. So don't go anywhere. We're going to be right back.

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Welcome back to 20/20: The After Show. I'm here with Ana Garcia, um, a true crime reporter, one of our contributors here at 20/20, who reported reported on our most recent episode on Friday night, centering on the murder of 19-year-old Kenia Monje. I love, love hearing your analysis. I mean, you don't just like talk to us about the facts. You go behind that and talk about, you know, maybe what psychologically might've been going on. And let's talk about this story in particular, going back to April 1st, when, as we said, it was the early morning hours. Kenia had been separated somehow from her friends after she had been out for a night of a few drinks. So this is a young girl out drinking with her friends. The big tip-off was her belongings were left behind at a nightclub. It wasn't that she decided to ditch her friends. Nobody seemed to think that was the case immediately, right?

Yeah, absolutely. She was 19 years old. She and her friends were using fake IDs. They were out for the night. They're in a club, 21 and over. And what ends up happening is, according to the security at the club, is that she was getting a little out of hand, maybe had too much to drink, and she gets kicked out of the club. And that's how she gets separated from her purse and her phone. Women— I mean, certainly, who, whoever lets go of their phone, especially teenagers? Exactly. So it was circumstances that separated them.

I've got kids, and I remember my daughter, a teen daughter, you know, going out and so forth and being worried. It was devastating, uh, for her family, of course. And, uh, talk to us a little bit about her family. You mentioned her stepfather got involved. Her mom was so devastated by this. Give us a sense of what the family was going through while all of this was playing out.

You know, they never lost hope in the sense they thought that there was a strong possibility that Kenyia was alive, that she would come back to them, because it had been something like 5 months or so since her disappearance. And we have covered cases in which people disappear for years and come back alive. So that's what they were holding on to. So when they got the news that they had found Kenia's body, they were devastated. They were just devastated. It was the worst news that they could get, although there was a little bit, a little bit of help in the sense that now they could bury her properly. But that was not the news they wanted. They wanted to hear that she was alive.

Yeah. And I like that you avoided saying closure because there's no closure. Forbes eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in September of 2011. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. You know, it's always hard to know what's in their minds, and you want to hear from these folks. Sometimes they agree to an interview, sometimes they don't. In this case, actually, our team was able to reach out to Travis in prison. He sent one of our producers an email. Anna, let me tell you a little bit about it and read a little bit from what he wrote that viewers and listeners didn't get to hear on Friday night. "I wish I knew how to forgive myself, but I'm just not able to. I don't know if I ever will be, but maybe it doesn't matter either. My heart hurts all the time, and I'm okay with that. My heart, my soul is supposed to hurt. Kenya was a human being too, and I failed at seeing her. I will never forgive myself for that. I am deeply sorry for all the people I hurt. I think about it every day." I am sorry for not helping Kenya.

I did the complete opposite of what I was supposed to do. Kind of interesting. He said, I'm sorry for not helping her. He doesn't really quite cop to it, to the murder. What do you make of it?

No, it's all I, me, I, how I feel. Poor me. I'm the victim here. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't do better. But really, let's get back to me again. It was all about him. And you know what else is interesting, Deborah? He had been writing to Kenya's younger sister. And it was the same stuff.

Yeah.

And then going on about how he's an evil person, that he's, you know, he says, I'm not a monster. For some reason monster bothers him, but evil he's okay with.

Wow. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. And to think that he was even in contact with her. What do you say? You covered so many of these stories and oftentimes at the core are women who are victims victimized, right? So any lessons?

This case, for Kenya's case, this was a case of opportunity. She was standing outside, Travis is driving around, and that's how he got her. But there are, you know, there were so many circumstances to this crime, right? She'd never expected to be kicked out. She never expected to be separated from her phone. But one thing I see all the time that drives me crazy is when I see women of all ages is running or walking and they've got headphones on or their earbuds in.

And they're not paying attention.

No. Yeah. There are so many times I just want to pull over in LA and scream, "Please take those out of your ears." And for those of you who are saying, "Oh my God, you just sound like an old-fashioned mother," let me put it to you this way. Think of the animal kingdom, right? We always see animals and we see how their ears are always turning in the wild, right? Imagine if those animals had headphones on. We would decimate entire species because they would never hear the predator coming for them. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're removing a sense that we have of hearing something coming up from behind you. And so, I mean, it's kind of spoiled life for me as well. I used to love taking a walk in the Hollywood Hills, listening to my audiobook and my music, and now I can't do it.

I can't do it. Yeah, yeah. And to be on guard. I mean, in this case, as you said, it's a rare case of opportunity, a young woman, you know, but sadly trusted somebody. And, you know, you hate to say that we can't trust, but certainly, certainly in situations like this when they're out and, you know, at clubs and things like that, being very careful who they're trusting. I think if nothing else, sometimes there are lessons here for other people that maybe they can take away. Anna, we always love your reporting.

Thank you, Deborah. This has been such a pleasure.

Anna, thank you so much again for being with us. And you can watch our 20/20 episodes on Friday nights on ABC. And of course, Stream episodes like this one on Disney+ and Hulu. Thank you for being with us today. Everybody take care. See you next time.

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