Kenia Monge has been missing for 72 days now. A section of a living-room wall in her parents’ Aurora home has been covered by pictures of her. Kenia at Cherry Creek High School. Kenia receiving an achievement award. Kenia laughing. Kenia making faces. Fliers with her photo and the word “Missing” are propped along the piano. Another 10,000 fliers, the latest batch, sit in boxes. The room is both shrine and television backdrop.
“I want you to see this,” Kenia’s stepfather, Tony Lee, says, and he swings the front door shut to display the wall behind it. A dried rose and a red lollipop are taped next to a sheet of paper. Kenia’s 8-year-old brother, Anthony, drew a star upon it, with the words: “Dear Kenia, Welcome home. I really apresheat that you are hom and I really love you.”
If it is images that reporters need, Tony and Maria Lee will provide them. They will take time away from work. They will flip through photo albums. They will go upstairs to the bathroom where every day Maria prays, “Dear Lord, please bring Kenia home.”
“Like this,” Maria says, and she falls to her knees in front of the basin. The gesture, her hair swinging forward, her hands reaching for holy oil, is so unguarded and desperate, it is heartbreaking.
“This is pure hell,” Tony says. “You can’t get away from it for one second of one day.”
Kenia, 19, was partying at 24K, a downtown bar, into the early morning of April 1. Travis Forbes is the man last known to have seen her. He said he found her drunk not far from the bar. He said he offered her a ride home, but then left her at a gas station where she had struck up a conversation with another man. Forbes, a former addict with a criminal record, sits in a Jefferson County jail on an unrelated charge. Denver police have searched his van and the bakery where he worked, but say only that he is not a suspect in Kenia’s disappearance.
Seventy-two days pass. Family and friends crowd the house, but all the tears and prayers only remind Tony of the abnormality that has taken over his life. He tries to reassert “a new normal.” He goes to work. Until summer break, the kids went to school and did their homework. He makes dinner. Maria fasts every day from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. to strengthen her prayers.
In 72 days, reporters come and go, and when they are gone too long, Tony makes calls. He maintains a Facebook page called Help Us Find Kenia. He tries to raise money to increase the $2,000 Crime Stoppers reward. He refused to celebrate his birthday. No cake. No presents. What for? He does not sleep.
Seventy-two days, a thousand images: Kenia coming down the stairs. Kenia leaping into the arms of her 15-year-old sister, Kimberly, and wrapping her legs around her waist as the two laughing girls made their way to Kenia’s car. That was a week before she disappeared. She was living with a friend.
Seventy-two days pass. Time doesn’t. On Friday, Tony says; “Today’s date is April 1, 2011. I don’t know how else to say it. We are stuck there.”
It doesn’t add up to them. Kenia wouldn’t leave a bar without her purse and cellphone, especially her phone. She wouldn’t get into a car with a strange man. They are certain she was drugged.
The Lees don’t know what to make of Forbes, who offered to show Tony the gas station where he said he dropped off Kenia and then shook Tony’s hand upon meeting him. They have been following other missing-person cases, looking for similarities. They do what it takes to keep Kenia’s name and face in the public eye because as long as people are seeing her face and saying her name, she has not disappeared entirely.
They are her parents. They believe she will come home because they must.
“Until we have her back, there’s still hope,” Tony says.
“I know she will come back to us,” Maria says, crying. “Miracles do happen.”
Maria decided to prepare a room for Kenia. It’s just a few steps away from her and Tony’s bedroom. Tony was unaware she was doing this. Maria put Disney princess posters on the wall and piled stuffed animals on the bed. A canopy of pink tulle cascades from the ceiling. Little Anthony told his mom that when Kenia came home, they could close the canopy so that she could not leave again.
When Tony sees the room Friday, he slowly shakes his head. “This,” he tells his wife, “is a fantasy.” But she grabs a Curious George stuffed animal with ears that stick out just like Kenia’s did and, holding it to her belly, the two sit together on their daughter’s bed.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
