Since Kenia Monge vanished from a Denver nightclub, her family has relived the day she disappeared in excruciating detail, day after day.
Now, they say they want Travis Forbes to help them move past April 1.
“We want to know where Kenia is, and we think he knows,” said her stepfather, Tony Lee of Aurora. “I want him to man up and talk. Until he does that, we’re stuck on April 1, 2011.”
In interviews with The Denver Post, Forbes has described himself as a suspect in Monge’s disappearance but denies being involved.
Denver police have not identified a suspect in the case, spokesman Sonny Jackson said.
On Tuesday, Forbes was charged with first-degree assault, attempted first-degree murder, arson, aggravated motor-vehicle theft and sexual assault in an attack on Lydia Tillman at her Fort Collins apartment.
Tillman is still hospitalized.
Until now, Lee said, he has been reluctant to point the finger of blame, even at Forbes.
But after Forbes’ “shocking” arrest in a case he believes mirrors his stepdaughter’s disappearance, he no longer has any doubt about her fate, he said.
“It’s the same nightmare,” Lee said. “I’m glad this girl is alive. I’m sure that was not his intention.”
In previous interviews, Forbes said he was only trying to help Monge when he offered her a ride home in the early morning of April 1 at a Lower Downtown nightclub. He said he let her out at a gas station and that she walked off with a stranger. Monge, 19, has not been seen since.
Police have searched Forbes’ business and van and a farm in Larimer County. They found holes in his story. Witnesses had seen men burning something in a barrel near an Aurora bakery where Forbes worked until shortly after Monge’s disappearance.
Lee said that when he heard Forbes had allegedly lit Till man’s apartment on fire, it reminded him of the barrel-burning incident.
“It’s the same thing all over again,” Lee said. “It makes you wonder what else he has done.”
