The After Show: Evil at the Door

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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 heart-breaking story of Kenya Monhay, 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 Kenya a target it seems was that she was a young, unsuspecting woman.”

Well, Anna Garcia, a frequent 2020 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 Kenya's family and detectives whom you met in our reporting and more that we weren't able to share on Friday night and us 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 the stories of survival. These moments of forgiveness and going forward and surviving something that I learned so much from the survivors.

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 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 Fool's. So on the day that Kenya goes missing, it's a day of prank, right?

“So you have to factor that into, you know, did she just take off with someone?”

You know, she's coming right back, is she sleeping it off, right? The kind of, I guess the lesser harmful things that you hope for, right?

You never jumped to, "Oh my God, she's been killed."

Right? That is not where your thoughts jumped 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, this guy is telling the dad, right? Pretty detailed. Pretty detailed, right? And that she sees a guy kind of homeless, and she bumps 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 cigarette."

He wants to be helpful.

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 kind of reasonable, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you would think so.

And also, too, add to it, he is a sharp-looking guy, attractive, and so forth. We're a 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 status of cases.

“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, 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 Liam's himself, essentially, for not helping Kenyan bringing her home. Let's 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's nothing that jumped out and said, hey, this guy murder is killing people. We don't. It's nothing like that.

“You know, you go through your mind and all the things”

that you should have done. All the things you could have done. He's laid back. He's easy going. He's charming.

Remember, before meeting Travis Kenya

is seen on surveillance video first

at the apartment building of the man that she 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. They look weird. They look sketchy.

So we intervened. Hold this guy locked off. Okay? Then we'll have this. You know,

we wanted to get her home. Take her somewhere.

Travis drops off his friend

and drives away alone with Kenya. Then we're here. Okay? She asks me for cigarettes. I tell her I don't smoke.

I don't have any cigarettes. I saw a conco 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 this cigarette. She asked him for a cigarette and asked him

to sit and smoke with her. She immediately attacked herself to this guy. She put her arm through his arm 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 Kenya is 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 in to a role as the good Samaritan,

but maybe taking it a little too far because 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 shift it. So stay with us.

We'll be right back. This day morning, about 10 a.m. when Leslie Jenning Prior's colleagues became concerned she hadn't come to work. In 2001, Leslie Prior was living

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on ABC in the ESPN app. Welcome back to 2020 the app to show. I'm sitting here getting details from our last 2020 report with Anna 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 Kenya Monhay. Just two days after she goes missing, a woman who owned a Denver area bakery

called police about Travis Forbes. Anna, this was a big moment that began to help investigators connect some 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 and he's got

these big rubber gloves on. And she's like, what 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 mother load 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. And so many of these stories that I have done and that you have done too.

Well, the local media gets when that police are doing this investigation that things are sort of

turning in this case. And then Travis stars 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 Adam and says, "Did you murder her?

Did you attack her?

Did you sexually assault her?"

And it 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? Wow. Wow.

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

Well, when watching this story, I was certainly thinking and I'm sure many of our viewers

were thinking it like for police, like just a rest of 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 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

it. Then, 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, ever. 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. Of course, there's

going to be some DNA

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 5, 2011, Lydia Tillman was viciously attacked

sexually assaulted and then her own apartment set on fire. And so

to save her life, she throws herself out of secondary window. And it's just

a horrific case, but then it eventually connects to Kenya'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

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's no way you didn't have to

create this. I was telling you about I do. But that's your choice.

She's a writer. Who's that? I do. You're right. Thank God for her.

Thank God. Thank God for her strong will. She said, "Because you were the killer?" No.

Yeah, you were. If that fire was spread out there before she got out, you would have killed her.

When everything happens by it's going to be horrific. Her injuries. Do they hurt us? Oh, yeah.

You can make me think of stress. You know, when you bring a little river killer, I mean, that the tenet thing was when he and I used to bring a little river killer.

I don't know. Okay. When the BTT killer got caught, and he professed that detected me in advance. I wanted him to pass so bad.

So Travis, and 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 got to 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 extra hierarchy there.

Yeah, and you were talking about how there's a whole different system. They're set up and sex offenders are targeted. And he knew that would happen. He's also asking the 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? That as if he is a reflective individual. You know, clearly he knows who he is. He's a monster.

The 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 Kenya and truly what happened to her.

And I want to talk more about that. We're going to get another quick break in. So don't go anywhere. We're going to be right back. No.

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Love runs deeper than we know. And stream new episodes Thursdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I'm here with Anna Garcia.

A true crime reporter. One of our contributors here at 2020 who reported on our most recent episode on Friday night, centering on the murder of 19 year old Kenya Monhay. 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 have 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.

Kenya had been separated somehow from her friends after she'd been out for a night of a few drinks. So this was a young girl out drinking with her friends. The big tip office for 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, whoever lets go over their phone. Especially teenagers. Exactly. So it was circumstances that separated them. I've got kids and I remember my daughter of a teen daughter going out and so forth and being worried.

It was devastating for her family, of course. And talked 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 Kenya was alive.

That she would come back to them because it's been something like five 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 Kenya'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 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 agreed to an interview, sometimes they don't. In this case, actually our team was able to reach out to Travis and prison.

He sent one of our producers in email and let me retell 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. I hurt hurts all the time and I'm okay with that.

My heart, my soul, the 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 you 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 mean, I feel poor me. I'm the victim here.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't do better, but really let's get back to me again. It's 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 now oftentimes at the core are women who are 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?

“You should never expect it 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,

And they've got headphones on or they're ear buds in. And they're not paying attention. No. Yeah. There are so many times I just want to pull over in LA and screen.

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 audio book and my music. And now I can't do it.

I can't do it. 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, it clubs and things like that being very careful who they're trusting.

“I think if nothing else, sometimes with the, there are lessons here for other people that maybe they can take away.”

And 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 2020 episodes on Friday nights on ABC. And of course, stream episodes like this one on Disney Plus and Hulu.

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