- Missing teen, kenia monge, was last seen
At a denver nightclub.
She reportedly went to the restroom,
Left her purse and cell phone behind,
And never came back.
- Where is my sister?
What if she's part of, like, a sex trafficking ring?
What if someone kidnapped her?
- Everybody was considered a suspect
That came in contact with her.
- I'm going through her phone,
And her friends were sending her messages,
Trying to get in contact with her,
You know, and she's not responding to it at all.
- I don't know if they had a girl code
Or if they followed a girl code.
- Do not leave your friends.
- We see them going into the apartment building.
- Well, kenia's in danger.
- You think, how does this happen?
- Every day, I would tag her,
I would write on her facebook page
Like, "kenia, where are you?"
- This case just pulled at my heart.
- Everyone had hope.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
- A young woman is missing tonight
After leaving a bar with a stranger,
Then texting "help" to a friend.
♪ ♪
- You are watching her terrifying abduction.
♪ ♪
- A missing woman's nude body was discovered in this ravine.
- Miraculously, the young woman survived.
♪ ♪
- There is an alarming crisis of violence, kidnapping,
And murder against innocent women.
- The senseless murder has struck a chord
With thousands of women.
- This has sparked a global movement online
Of women sharing their own fears.
- They're united under a hashtag,
#textmewhenyougethome,
A phrase that women are all too familiar with.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- My name is kim monge-lee,
And I'm kenia's little sister.
There was nothing that we wouldn't talk about,
Everything and anything, I'm just--
I'm so blessed to be able to call her my sister.
♪ ♪
She was so beautiful, just breathtaking.
Like, she had a beautiful smile.
Kenia was very trusting
And she was such a kind person.
She expected that kindness back.
♪ ♪
Kenia is my big sister from my mom's side.
My dad is her stepdad,
But he never really referred to himself as the stepdad
'cause he raised her.
- She didn't like "stepfather."
She said, "I don't feel like that."
And I told her, "I don't feel like that either."
She said, "do we have to use that?"
I said, "do you want to use it?"
And she says, "no, I don't. You're my dad."
There was nothing else we were ever going to be.
And she just looked up at me and she said, uh--
♪ ♪
Um, then she just looked at me
And said, "thank you, daddy."
[indistinct chatter]
Yeah. - Oh, thanks, daddy.
It's so cute.
- At the time she was in school,
She wanted to be a director, a producer, or just,
You know, like, being the mastermind behind all of that.
She loved that.
♪ ♪
Kenia moved out of my parents' house
And into her boyfriend leo's apartment.
- When I was told that that was her decision to do that,
I didn't have a problem with it, you know, it's like, okay.
I mean, I did the same thing at the same age, you know?
And it was like, yeah, okay, this is what you do.
- She wasn't living with him that long, maybe a few months.
It wasn't the most healthy relationship.
Kenia just kind of lived her life.
She wanted to have fun with her friends,
So they did the bar scene and party.
- I had noticed, you know, that they were--
Her and her friends, they were going out a lot.
♪ ♪
- Thursday, March 31st, I spoke with her that day.
We were texting all day.
Kenia loved a girls' night out.
That was their thing.
They would go out and just hit clubs
And just, you know, just really enjoy their time.
The last thing I told her was just,
Like, you know, "have fun."
We always say, "bye, I love you" to each other.
Usually, she'll call me after she goes out.
♪ ♪
When I was talking to her that day,
I just thought it was going to be a regular night for her.
She was gonna go out, and then she was gonna tell me
About the night the next day.
♪ ♪
Lodo is downtown denver.
You can hit one bar and then go to another bar
And go to another bar.
It's just a really nice nightlife type of thing.
She had the same group of friends
That she known since she was in high school.
I don't know if they had a girl code
Or if they had, like, a buddy system going on.
It was just a bad night,
And it could have happened to any of us.
I didn't know that kenia was going to 21 and up clubs.
I didn't know she had a fake id.
And I guess they weren't really
Checking that much for that,
Which is why kenia was able
To go into that bar that night.
[upbeat music playing]
[indistinct chatter]
The way kenia drank,
There's just no way that she could be that drunk.
She knew her limits. She always knew her limits
Because she didn't want to be that drunk.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
I remember I was folding towels,
And I was on the phone with my friend,
And I get a call from my sister's boyfriend.
I'm like, "oh, girl, I'ma call you back.
"my sister's boyfriend's calling me.
"it may be some drama or something.
I'm ready to hear it." so I answer the call.
And he's like, "hey, have you heard from your sister?"
"no. Why? What's going on?"
And he's like, "well, she didn't come
Back home last night."
And he was like, "yeah, the girls that she was with,
They don't know where she's at either."
And I'm just like, "it's April fool's.
"are you playing? Like, this is a sick joke.
I--like, where is my sister?"
He's like, "no, kim, I promise it's not a joke."
I hung up with him. I immediately called my dad.
And he's like, "that's weird," because he knows
That if I don't talk to my sister,
Then my mom would talk to her.
And neither one of us have heard from her.
- It was in that instant where I went into high alert,
Because I knew they talked several times every day.
And if, by 1:00, kim had not heard from her,
That was concern to me.
- He was just like, "okay. Let me call the police."
She was 19, so that's considered an adult.
- They let me know, "we'll contact you Monday.
"and if she hasn't come home, you know,
"we'll look into this a little bit more.
And she's most likely gonna be home."
So you know, I got off the phone and I was pissed.
- My dad's like, you know, "that's not good enough.
I need to know where my daughter is."
♪ ♪
I did reach out to the girls
That she was out that night with.
They just were like, "kenia just walked away.
We didn't know where she went."
Which irritated me because I'm just like,
"have your friend's back."
- They told me she left all of her stuff there,
Her purse, her phone, and all that.
I said, "you have it?" and she said, "yes."
You know, and I just told her,
"look, I need that phone. And I need it now."
- They bring her things to us.
And they just, like, were very apologetic.
You could tell that they were, like,
Shaken up about the whole situation.
I'm just like, "why wouldn't you follow her?"
First of all, like, she's the tiniest one in the group.
- They're telling me, "we were at the bar."
And I said, "you guys are going to bars
Where they are serving alcohol, liquor?"
Then they said, "yeah, that's what we were doing."
You know, and I'm debating myself
On how I am going to handle this particular thing
That she's doing when I see her.
- Maybe she went to go hang out with another guy
After the club, or maybe--
There was millions of thoughts racing through my mind.
I was just like, "oh, my goodness.
"what if she's part of, like, a sex trafficking ring?
What if someone kidnapped her?"
Luckily, my mom knew her passcode,
So we went into her phone.
- I'm going through her phone, and her friends were
Sending her messages, trying to get in contact with her,
You know, and she's not responding to it at all.
- And we see a text message from this guy named travis.
And the text message reads like, "hey, this is travis,
"the guy with the white creepy van.
Did you make it home okay?"
♪ ♪
- I must have called that phone number 20, 25 times
Over the next 24 hours.
And I left messages.
It got to the point where I was not calling
Any of her friends anymore
Because I felt that this person
Seemed to have been the last person to have seen her.
In the meantime, kenia's friends
Wanted to get actively involved, so they created
These handmade posters, you know,
And had some printed up, and everybody went.
You know, my daughter, kim, my son, anthony,
They went also with them.
And on the night of April 2nd at about 8:00 p.M.,
Is when I got my first call from travis forbes.
♪ ♪
We started talking, you know,
Nice guy I'm thinking, you know, and I said,
"well, you seem to have been the last person
"to have spoken to her, so can you kind of
Tell me what happened?"
And he proceeded to tell me.
- Travis is like, "oh, yeah,
Like, yeah, I gave her a ride."
- He was dropping off one of his friends
At this place called the lofts apartments downtown,
And he saw this girl talking to a homeless man.
He asked her, "hey, you know,
Is there anything you need help with?"
You know, and she says, "yeah, I need to get to my friends."
- Travis said that he picked her up in front of a loft
And that he just knew she got kicked out of the club.
- Kenia and this guy had been kicked out
Of the club at some point.
♪ ♪
And so travis let her use his phone
To call the friends that she was supposed to be with.
Nobody answered.
♪ ♪
And where she lived with her boyfriend, leo,
Was maybe a mile away from travis's job
And where he had been staying.
You know, and he just offered to take her home.
He explains to me that, you know,
As they were leaving downtown, kenia wanted a cigarette.
And he said, "well, I don't smoke."
He said, "we see this gas station."
They pulled in.
"we see this guy, and he was smoking."
- Travis is like, "she met this guy named dan.
"and they were speaking spanish to each other,
"and she felt comfortable with him.
And they were smoking a cigarette, so I just left."
- And I said, "that's the last you've seen or heard of her?"
You know, and he said, "yeah."
- Kenia probably did go with dan,
Because kenia did smoke cigarettes,
And she did speak spanish, and she was very friendly.
So I thought that it was a credible story.
- "okay, where's this gas station?
"what direction did she go?
Where--did you see or anything like that?"
He says, "hey, look, this gas station is off
Of 3rd and speer. Why don't you meet me there?"
And I told him, "I'm on my way."
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
- I went upstairs, and I got my pistol.
And I'm going down the stairs, you know,
And maria was on her hands and knees,
Begging me not to go. She says, "tony, don't--
Don't do this. Let's just call the police."
I said, "maria, we've done that."
And so, I--you know, I pulled my arm away from her,
You know, and went down to my truck, and I left.
- My mom, she knows my dad more than anything.
So she calls the police and she goes,
"you need to meet my husband right now
"because he's meeting up with this man.
And I don't think it's gonna end well."
So before my dad gets there, the police are already there.
- The officers are dispatched there
Because mr. Lee's wife says,
"hey, he's gonna go there and he has a gun,
And he's gonna confront this guy."
- As I'm pulling in, I see two police cars.
And as I'm getting out, one of the officers came over,
And he knew my name. He said, "mr. Lee, I'm officer monahan.
"I'll tell you why we're here.
You know, we got a call from your wife."
And, you know, and his first question,
"where is your firearm at, mr. Lee?"
I said, "it's in my truck."
And he told me, "leave it there."
I says, "okay."
♪ ♪
There was no evidence. There was no signs
That kenia had ever been inside of that van, front or back.
So he had no choice but to take a statement and let him go.
And he says, "hey, would you be interested in talking
"to travis over here?
He would like to talk to you, you know, before he goes."
And I says, "yeah, I'd be happy to."
He was tall, thin, clean cut,
Blonde hair and blue eyes, looked very clear to me.
You know, and in my mind, it's like, I'm thinking,
You know--you know, he's a nice enough looking guy.
You know, that this-- if somebody picked up
Your daughter and they picked them up off the street,
This is kind of what I would want that guy to look like.
- He sees travis and he's like, okay, you know,
Good-looking man, doesn't look like a boogeyman.
You know, he's like, okay, well, if my daughter is going
To get picked up by someone, hey, why not this guy?
He looks pretty trustworthy.
- He tells me, "look, you know,
"I'm sorry I didn't follow through, you know,
"with what I intended to do by taking her back
To her boyfriend's house," you know?
And I told him, "look, man. Thanks."
- I do remember my dad telling us that travis felt bad
For leaving my sister with dan
Because he knew that if she would have stayed with him,
She would have been safe.
♪ ♪
- By Monday morning, I got a call
From missing persons. "have you heard anything?"
I said, "no one's heard anything."
And they said, "there is something here."
Later that day, we got a call from the fbi.
They said, "we feel that our resources can help
In finding kenia."
That really, you know, just kind of threw us into,
Okay, this is big, big now.
♪ ♪
- We didn't really have, like, a specific person
That we thought, but we always had something
In the back of our mind, like, maybe the boyfriend,
Because they did have kind of a--
What we like to say now, a toxic relationship.
Maybe he lost his temper, or maybe--we didn't know.
We just always thought, like, question the boyfriend.
Ask him, 'cause that's usually who you would go to.
- Kenia's boyfriend, leo, was considered a suspect.
Everybody was considered that came in contact with her
And who was part of her life.
- We looked at his phone records.
We looked at her phone records.
And he sent a lot of text messages to her,
Asking her, you know, where she was,
What she was doing, was she being--is she okay.
♪ ♪
Everybody got involved in this,
And we just sent detectives out looking for video,
Do canvasses, I mean, interviewing people.
It was kind of a shotgun effect.
There's no video of her leaving the bar.
The first video we find is her at the apartment building.
[eerie music]
♪ ♪
We see them going into the apartment building.
♪ ♪
- I didn't know that there was any type of surveillance
On my sister that night.
I didn't know that she went to the loft.
I know that the police questioned the guy
That she was with.
[upbeat music playing]
♪ ♪
- She actually goes up to the-- mr. Davis' apartment,
Is in there for a few minutes, leaves.
There's a homeless guy-- he seems to be a homeless guy.
He kind of starts chatting her up.
- They showed video of her in that lobby
Of her talking to the homeless guy.
She went outside and around to the right there.
- We see her across the street at a hotel.
It looks like she went to the restroom area
At the hotel, and then she comes back.
About that time is when travis sees
Kenia sitting on the sidewalk crying.
♪ ♪
- Travis, this is detective gurule.
- How's it going? - This is travis forbes.
- When I first interviewed him,
What he tells me is that he goes up to her,
"hey, I can give you a ride home.
My bakery is down that way."
- To my knowledge, he made granola bars
At the bakery that he worked at.
And then he would go out in the morning
And deliver those granola bars to different businesses.
- She gets in the van with him,
And she tells him that she wants a cigarette.
So he drives down speer boulevard
And goes to a gas station.
♪ ♪
- Travis gave an alibi,
And then she substantiated the alibi.
Didn't seem to care.
You know, she didn't have any concern
About this person that was missing.
- We listened to the rest of his story.
He tells me about dan.
And then we ask him to come back for a polygraph.
♪ ♪
We go out and try to find this person.
- It made no sense. He leaves her with somebody.
Like, who does that?
You know, the whole time, she was trying to get home,
She was trying to get to her car,
She was trying to find her friends.
Really doubtful she would just leave with a random stranger
At a gas station at 2:00 in the morning or 3:00 in the morning.
- Even if this dan doesn't exist,
We still have to do our due diligence in the investigation.
- So we had the boyfriend, we had travis, we had chad,
This homeless man, this guy named dan,
And there was actually another guy named travis
That texted my sister
Who was the bouncer at the club,
So we reached out to him as well.
But just nothing was really leading to where kenia was.
- Posters can be seen all over downtown denver
For missing teen, kenia monge,
Last seen at the club 24k.
She reportedly went to the restroom,
Left her purse and cell phone behind,
And never came back.
♪ ♪
- Monica poole sees travis.
He brings this white cooler in that's duct taped shut
And puts it into the walk-in freezer.
And what caught her as strange
Is that every time somebody would walk into that cooler,
He would walk in after them.
- It's very eerie to watch,
Really unsettling.
♪ ♪
- She sees him walk into the office
After everybody leaves with long cleaning gloves.
And he unplugs the recorder.
And she just thought that was odd.
We write search warrants, and we search down there.
We find nothing inside the bakery,
But we find out back, a barrel
Where things have been freshly burned.
Um, we found a zipper,
And it was on some type of black clothing.
♪ ♪
- You know, monica poole really made
A huge impact on this case.
♪ ♪
- All around that van, you know, was the smell of bleach.
And I've watched enough, you know,
True crime stories and whatnot,
But bleach means something.
♪ ♪
As I look back on things now, in my mind,
It all goes back to that handshake
That night at the gas station.
As I was shaking his hand,
He was trembling inside of him.
And it wasn't visible.
I mean, he wasn't visibly shaking or anything,
It was just in that handshake.
♪ ♪
I could not share that
With my family, friends, public, or anybody like that,
Because everyone involved
In what was going on with kenia had hope.
And it is what got everyone up every day
With the passion to continue looking for her.
♪ ♪
When I needed to let it go,
I'd go to my walmart,
And I would park way out front,
And I'd lose it.
Hey, I got to go to the store, be back.
Go pick up a pack of gum just to show
That I had went to the store, but that's where I went,
'cause I could not do it in my wife's arms
Or in my children's presence
Because I was the rock in all this thing,
You know, and I had to maintain that.
♪ ♪
- Since you're a person of interest, let me ask you this.
Did you do something with her?
- It's been two weeks. Nobody's heard from her.
There's been no trace of her.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
Like, it's...
It's surreal.
I--I don't even know what to think of it.
- We were all together and watching it,
And it comes to a point where he says,
"um, what was her name again?"
- Um--what's her name?
- Kenia. - Kenia. Yeah.
- And--and that just--
At that time, that was the only name in town.
It was the only story in denver.
- Since you're a person of interest, let me ask you this.
Did you do something with her? - No.
- Did you kidnap her? - No.
- Did you sexually assault her? - I did not.
- She asked him directly, "did you kill kenia?"
- Did you murder her? - I did not. No.
- He shook his head "yes."
Unconsciously, I think, he shook his head "yes."
- Did you murder her? - I did not. No.
♪ ♪
- He had just admitted it right there.
He said "yes."
- He says one thing,
And his nonverbal communication is entirely different.
- I mean, everybody who watched that interview
Thought the same thing.
I think they even wrote comments
On the news station saying "this guy's lying."
- Travis is the ultimate narcissist.
And he believed he could sell everybody on this,
And he portrayed himself as a hero
And a good samaritan and that--how much he cared.
And I think he really believed people would buy that.
- I could've intervened more, you know,
And not just said, okay, and--and gone home.
- I think he was so narcissistic
He probably thought he did a great job on the interview,
But I think things were closing in on him.
♪ ♪
- He obviously does not come back for a polygraph.
- I think he ran.
That certainly was, you know, scary that he had disappeared.
♪ ♪
- Her closest friends, they came and helped.
We even had strangers helping with the search party,
Especially since it was on the news.
One day, I would feel hopeful, like, you know what,
I just feel it in my heart, kenia's still live.
Kenia is okay. We're going to have her back.
And then the next day, I'm just like,
It's just been too long.
♪ ♪
If I could go back to the night
That kenia was going out, I would text her actually.
I would say, "hey, kenia, do you want to come over
"and maybe we can watch a movie
Or we could just have a girls' night?"
♪ ♪
Just so that she wouldn't have had to even go out that night.
She would just be home, safe with me.
She still had a bed where I was staying at,
So she could have stayed in the bed right next to me.
♪ ♪
I wanted to believe that she was alive.
But if she was, why wouldn't she call me?
Every day, I would tag her, I would write
On her facebook page like, "kenia, where are you?"
Like, "baby, we miss you.
We hope you're okay, wherever you are,"
And just hope that somebody had some type of information.
But all I would get was just the community saying
That they're praying for us or willing to help.
I could see that they really cared.
But there was just not much information anyone had.
♪ ♪
- I wrote a search warrant for travis's phone records
And covered the time from April 1st till April 8th.
And the way the phone tracked,
It went to northeastern colorado
To a town called keenesburg.
Keenesburg's this little town, and it's all farmland.
- Really tiny town. I'd never been there.
I'd never even heard of it before that.
- We sent detectives up there.
And I think we spent four days up there searching.
Later on, me and one of the detectives that I work with,
We went up there with bloodhounds,
And we went to every spot the phone showed,
And we don't find anything.
♪ ♪
Within, I want to say, hours,
My lieutenant walks into the office,
And she said, "go home and grab a suitcase
"'cause you're going to austin.
"they just found the stolen car.
He's taken into custody."
So I fly down to austin
And conduct an interview down there.
When he first saw me walk in,
The blood just drained out of his face.
I start asking him pointed questions about the case.
And finally, he says, "uh, I think I need an attorney."
I told him, "okay." and I slide a warrant
To get his dna.
- We had probable cause,
Which is the legal standard to get someone's dna,
Based on all of the evidence
That we had compiled on kenia's case.
So we were able to do that.
It's called a rule 41.
- I take that dna, and I bring it back to denver.
♪ ♪
- I got the call on June 30
That they are needing to release him
Because the girl who he borrowed the car from
Eventually dropped the charges of the stolen car charge.
And that's all we have on him right now.
So we have no choice but to let him go.
- Personally speaking, of course,
It's, like, sickening, right,
That you have to let someone like that go,
Because I knew-- certainly, we all knew he--
Who he was and what he had done.
We didn't have enough evidence to arrest him.
It was really a actually pretty stressful time.
- My biggest concern was, I need to know where he's at.
This way, I know other people are safe.
♪ ♪
Fort collins is a college town.
Lot of young women.
They have a bar district.
It was scary to have them there.
♪ ♪
- There was bleach involved and a fire involved.
And it was pretty evident right away,
It was travis forbes.
- Friday afternoon, I get home from work,
And I get a call from a detective jaclyn shaklee
From fort collins police.
And she tells me a young woman was blitz attacked,
Pushed into her apartment.
She was sexually assaulted,
Beaten beyond recognition.
The house smelled of bleach
And was set on fire.
She jumps out of the window.
She breaks her ankles.
An officer gets there.
She tells the officer through motions
That she was sexually assaulted.
And then she has a stroke.
♪ ♪
- She was out enjoying, you know, fireworks.
It was a holiday. She was out with friends.
At some point, she went home.
I think he had followed her.
What we do know from the physical evidence
Is that he broke into her home,
That he very violently assaulted her,
That he poured bleach on her
To try to get rid of evidence,
That he set her apartment on fire.
- Detective shaklee tells me all this.
And she said, "I understand that you were surveilling
"a guy named travis forbes
On a possibly similar case that happened in denver."
And I just told her, I said, "this is him."
And she said, "well, we have dna."
I told her, "I have dna from him."
♪ ♪
Fort collins police notice that he's following a girl.
♪ ♪
He starts talking her up, and they're walking together.
And he's kind of leading her off the beaten path.
And police contact him,
He gives a false name,
And they split them up.
Well, then later on in the night,
He's doing it again, and he's following a girl.
This time, it was called,
And one of their sergeants says, "you know what,
Just arrest him for the false information."
So they arrest him and put him in jail
For the false information.
And just as he's getting released,
They get their results back,
And they get a match.
♪ ♪
- When she was attacked, it hit the news.
I didn't really make a connection at that point.
I just thought, because it was in another town, you know,
It wasn't here in the denver metro area, you know.
But it was interesting to me for some reason, you know.
And so on the morning of July 12th,
I got a call from kerri lombardi, the denver da.
And she told me
Travis forbes has been arrested in fort collins
For the attack on this young lady.
And I said, "you mean the girl who's been on tv?"
You know, and she said, "yes."
- After hearing about this case
And that travis was involved, it kind of made
Our family think like, "whoa, this man is dangerous.
"kenia's in danger.
"like, what--what could he have done to kenia
If he did this to this woman?"
♪ ♪
- He says, "I'll tell you what I did,
"where her body is,
"as long as you don't label me a sex offender
And you don't give me the death penalty."
And I said, "you'll tell me everything?"
He said, "yeah." I said, "okay."
I go back to the da's in denver,
And they cut a deal with him.
♪ ♪
So we get a truck.
He takes us to this area,
And it's a grove of trees right next to a highway.
So we get him out.
And he says, "she's over by the trees."
And I walked down this little ravine,
And I look up at him, I say, "where is she?"
And he goes, "take two steps to your right."
I take two steps to my right, and he says,
"you're right on top of her."
So he knew exactly where she was.
♪ ♪
And we marked the spot.
We called the crime scene unit out.
She was pretty far down.
She was buried, like, 5 1/2 feet down.
- They put up a tent, because the media was everywhere
On this case.
And I was really, really worried about tony lee and them
Finding out from the media
That there was a search going on.
And so once they dug up
What appeared to be her--
And it was probably one of the most
Horrifying things I've seen,
Because she was, like,
Rolled up in a little fetal position,
Naked, buried, you know.
And you have in your mind these gorgeous pictures
Of this girl out that night, having fun.
Like, all the things you know about her at that point,
And to see that
Was such a--just a surreal sort of stark contrast to,
You know, what was in your head
About this beautiful young girl.
- The da at the time, kerri lombardi,
Thought it would be a good thing
To let tony lee know
That we might have found her.
- I just felt like, as a parent,
Like, I don't want you to hear about this on the news.
This is, you know, the worst news you could get.
And I knew they were holding out hope.
At least her mom was still holding out hope.
And so I called them to say,
"I think that this is what we have found.
"it's not for sure, but I'm--
"you know, we're pretty certain that this is it.
I don't want you to see it on the news."
And, of course, that was horrifying for him.
And then he had to tell his family.
- I got the call from district attorney kerri lombardi,
And she says, "you are about to hear news reports
"of maybe some possible activity with kenia.
We just need you to be aware of this."
It was at that moment that I knew that,
Okay, they--they found kenia, and--and I needed to get home
And let maria and the kids know before this thing hit the news.
So I went out to my truck
And I kind of just sat there.
I had to control myself before I could go
And take away their hope.
And I had--and that--
[somber music]
♪ ♪
[no audible dialogue]
♪ ♪
And that was the toughest thing
I've ever done.
♪ ♪
Woke maria up. She asked me what was wrong.
And I looked at her, and I says,
"maria, they-- they found kenia."
And she asked me this question,
"is she alive? Where is she?"
I says, "maria, she's dead."
She lost it.
And there was nothing I could do for her.
And I told her,
"I need to go and get the kids."
♪ ♪
- I remember I was in class.
It was my 11th grade english class.
And my teacher was like, "hey, kim,"
Like, "it's time for you to go. Your dad's downstairs."
And I'm like, that's weird. Why?
And I just see my dad just looks very serious, very calm.
And he's like, "you have a dentist appointment."
I'm like, "okay." but usually he tells me, like,
A month in advance that I have a dentist appointment.
But I'm like, "whatevs." so I get in the car.
The radio's off. It's just silent in the car.
- She asked me, "why's your radio not on, dad?"
And I said, "I don't feel like listening to this stuff today."
- We get home. I hear my mom,
She's just crying like crazy upstairs.
Like, I'll never be able to forget this cry.
He's like, "um, I have something to tell you."
I'm like, "what's going on?"
And he's like, "well, they found kenia."
And my first question was, "dead or alive?"
And he said, "dead."
I didn't think that that was the news that I was gonna get.
I always thought that my sister
Was gonna come back to me.
So when he said that in that moment,
It was almost like, "how dare you say that?"
Like, how? Where?
Why? Where is she?
And I just broke down right there.
I just couldn't remember where I was, anything.
- Kim fell on the floor in the kitchen,
And my son fell on the stairs.
♪ ♪
And there's nothing I could do for them.
Um, so, uh,
We were all just a mess.
- It was really awful.
It was, uh,
Unforgettable and just really awful.
Especially when you have kids and you think,
How does this happen? Where one minute, you're having fun,
And you're enjoying your life, and you're young and beautiful,
And then your, like-- one encounter with, you know,
A monster, and that's how your life turns out?
- Once we find her, that's when we start doing the interview.
- That day, travis confessed to murdering my sister.
- He says that she passed out.
He has sex with her while she's asleep.
- He said that he raped her.
- She wakes up, she confronts him,
She starts hitting him.
- He said that he strangled her.
- He panics, doesn't know what to do.
So he puts her in the cooler,
And he describes how rigor mortis had already set in,
And that how hard it was to put her arm down
And hold the lid down,
So he said he had to tape it up.
And then he goes back to the shop
Where we have him on camera.
He says that he takes her into the cooler.
He unplugs the video,
And then he says he takes her out
Of the cooler that he had her in.
He takes all her clothes off, burns everything,
Pours bleach on her and cleans her with bleach,
Puts her back in the van, and then takes her
Up to keenesburg where he buries her.
- He said he wanted to find
The most peaceful place to bury her.
He found a tree, and he just dug right there,
And he buried her.
- There was never a dan guy anyway.
It was always travis.
It validated what I felt
After that handshake that night.
♪ ♪
Actually I think she is a pretty despicable person
Because had she been honest, lives, you know,
Would not have been altered.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
It was a terrible case
But she's really kind of the hero of stopping him,
Because without her,
I'm not sure we would have ever had enough on travis
Or found kenia, frankly.
- I have nothing but respect for her.
She's just such a sweet woman and so strong and positive.
When I gave her a hug, I broke down.
I just-- I don't know, it was weird.
I just felt, like, a connection with kenia
When I was hugging her.
It was like I was almost hugging my sister.
I'm not sure how to really explain that.
- This case just--
Um, it just--it just--
It just pulled at my heart.
♪ ♪
- My only message was to tell him
That I pray for him every night
And that, you know, I hope he finds peace
And I hope he finds god.
He wrote me a six page,
Dark, dark, dark, very dark letter.
I don't think that I've ever shared it with anyone.
♪ ♪
I did not write him back,
Because I said what I had to say.
- I truly feel, to this day, that he's a serial killer.
And that there are many, many, many more that are out there.
- He's absolutely a predator.
And I frankly, don't think these are the only two people.
You never know.
There's always, always somebody out there,
Looking for an opportunity.
- I know kenia's story can and has helped
A lot of women, including myself.
When going out, I know a lot of women,
They do the buddy system, they make sure, hey,
I need to know where my friends are.
- I created a foundation, and then through this foundation,
I help families of the missing.
It's a passion that I've got.
It's something that I-- that I do.
- Now, me and my friend will say,
"hey, just text me when you get home.
"let's be in each other's business because, you know,
"you being in my business
Could potentially save my life."