04-14-2011, 02:39 AM
9News
DENVER - A 31-year-old convicted burglar says he is the main suspect in the disappearance of 19-year-old Kenia Monge and says he's told police several times he did not kidnap, sexually assault or kill her, 9Wants to Know has learned.
"Being the last person so far to have seen her, my life has been turned inside out," Travis Forbes told Investigative Reporter Deborah Sherman. "I have a criminal record, so it's been very difficult. The detectives in this case are going through my life with a fine-toothed comb."
Denver Police told 9Wants to Know Wednesday night they do not have a person of interest or a suspect in the case and still consider it a missing person case.
"All of our focus is bringing Kenia home to her family," Lt. Matt Murray of the Denver Police Department said.
Murray says police do not know why Forbes considers himself the main suspect.
Forbes says he's very concerned about Monge but only knew her for 20 minutes in the early morning of April 1 when she disappeared.
Forbes say he was driving home from the bar Opal in his van with his friend Eddie after celebrating a friend's graduation from cosmetology school. He would not tell us Eddie's last name. He says they saw Monge around 15th and California Streets and pulled over to help her because she was drunk, stumbling around and crying.
"She was very inebriated and emotional and I was just trying to figure out where she had come from, who her friends were," Forbes said. "When we found her at 2:30 in the morning, she was drunk."
Forbes says his friend Eddie got out of his van and walked home while he drove Monge to the Lavish Bar, where she told him she left her car and her friends. They drove around, but didn't find either.
He says he let her borrow his cell phone so she could call her own phone to see if her friends would answer it. No one did.
Forbes says he agreed to take her home but she wanted to stop for cigarettes so he pulled over at a Conoco gas station along Speer Boulevard but it was closed. That Conoco is the last place police say Monge was seen.
Forbes says she wanted a cigarette so badly, she jumped out of his van to bum one off of a man who was at the gas station smoking a cigarette.
"They sat down, smoked cigarettes and all of a sudden, I was no longer important. I was just one stranger and then she was off with another stranger," Forbes said. "I didn't think anything of it. I didn't get any bad vibes from this person. He was clean cut. He wasn't homeless."
Forbes says he got a good look at the man and could pick him out of a lineup if necessary. He described him as possibly Asian, 5 feet 4 inches tall, thin, small build, round, boyish face and nice looking. He says the man was wearing jeans, basketball shoes, a silver jacket and spoke fluent Spanish with Monge.
"She walked off with him. There was no reason for me to have thought anything about it. And it was 3 in the morning. So I went home," Forbes said.
The next morning, Forbes says he texted Monge to see if she ever found her car. He says he never heard back from her.
rest of article here:
http://www.9news.com/news/article/193425...ssing-teen
DENVER - A 31-year-old convicted burglar says he is the main suspect in the disappearance of 19-year-old Kenia Monge and says he's told police several times he did not kidnap, sexually assault or kill her, 9Wants to Know has learned.
"Being the last person so far to have seen her, my life has been turned inside out," Travis Forbes told Investigative Reporter Deborah Sherman. "I have a criminal record, so it's been very difficult. The detectives in this case are going through my life with a fine-toothed comb."
Denver Police told 9Wants to Know Wednesday night they do not have a person of interest or a suspect in the case and still consider it a missing person case.
"All of our focus is bringing Kenia home to her family," Lt. Matt Murray of the Denver Police Department said.
Murray says police do not know why Forbes considers himself the main suspect.
Forbes says he's very concerned about Monge but only knew her for 20 minutes in the early morning of April 1 when she disappeared.
Forbes say he was driving home from the bar Opal in his van with his friend Eddie after celebrating a friend's graduation from cosmetology school. He would not tell us Eddie's last name. He says they saw Monge around 15th and California Streets and pulled over to help her because she was drunk, stumbling around and crying.
"She was very inebriated and emotional and I was just trying to figure out where she had come from, who her friends were," Forbes said. "When we found her at 2:30 in the morning, she was drunk."
Forbes says his friend Eddie got out of his van and walked home while he drove Monge to the Lavish Bar, where she told him she left her car and her friends. They drove around, but didn't find either.
He says he let her borrow his cell phone so she could call her own phone to see if her friends would answer it. No one did.
Forbes says he agreed to take her home but she wanted to stop for cigarettes so he pulled over at a Conoco gas station along Speer Boulevard but it was closed. That Conoco is the last place police say Monge was seen.
Forbes says she wanted a cigarette so badly, she jumped out of his van to bum one off of a man who was at the gas station smoking a cigarette.
"They sat down, smoked cigarettes and all of a sudden, I was no longer important. I was just one stranger and then she was off with another stranger," Forbes said. "I didn't think anything of it. I didn't get any bad vibes from this person. He was clean cut. He wasn't homeless."
Forbes says he got a good look at the man and could pick him out of a lineup if necessary. He described him as possibly Asian, 5 feet 4 inches tall, thin, small build, round, boyish face and nice looking. He says the man was wearing jeans, basketball shoes, a silver jacket and spoke fluent Spanish with Monge.
"She walked off with him. There was no reason for me to have thought anything about it. And it was 3 in the morning. So I went home," Forbes said.
The next morning, Forbes says he texted Monge to see if she ever found her car. He says he never heard back from her.
rest of article here:
http://www.9news.com/news/article/193425...ssing-teen