janet gomez: she was like, are you with kenia? and i said, no, i thought she was with you. somehow she disappeared. she was, like, are you with kenya? and i say u no, i thought she w with you. where was she? and clues on the surveillance tape and strange stories from a witness. and then another beauty. this one left for dead. she was unrecognizable. was evil stalking young women? both dark haired. both pretty girls. it was chillingly similar. a place that led to unheard of t places. and then finally, far from the city, the truth revealed on a quiet country road. he got out of the car. and let out this scream. and an act of courage from a woman who refused to be a victim. and i won. and i won. the woman barely alive. her jaw shattered in a dozen pieces. aaten once-beautiful face unrecognizable after the brutal beating, the rape, the fire, the fall, the massive, nearly-fatal stroke. someone thought she would be deadgh now. someone who fled into the night
parking lot. and monica poole told one of the detectives, hey, that s my grease barrel. what s it doing down there? reporter: travis claimed he was using it to burn some moldy marijuana. the barrel was sent to the crime lab. we ran that for dna. we ran that for fingerprints. reporter: but nothing turned up. if there were any clues in that barrel, they had been burned. travis forbes, despite all his suspicious behavior and his strange story, was still just a person of interest. people do weird things in their normal life. how do we know that he s just not a weird guy? reporter: and then a few days later gurule s investigation turned up more surveillance video, which seemed to tell a whole new story because there was kenia with another man entirely. this caught the two of them in the lobby of an apartment
the fact of having a child out there and not knowing if they were alive and where they were. i really wanted to be able to give them that information. reporter: they focused first of course on the good samaritan, the guy who d given kenia a ride, travis forbes. he was 31, they discovered, had a rap sheet for theft and drugs. but now he owned a small business in denver, baking and delivering gluten-free granola bars. he was renting a space at a local bakery, owned by monica poole. travis was energetic. he seemed friendly. wanted to have a business. he launched into granola bars, which i thought was a great idea. they didn t exist in the marketplace. not the way he was making them. reporter: travis could bake. but he wasn t the best businessman. he was often in debt, sometimes missed deliveries and deadlines. and one day he came to work, seemed a little frazzled, and told monica about his odd encounter the night before. he said i gave some girl a ride home and she s missing and s
for the missing car and then travis forbes. so my lieutenant said, grab your search warrant for his dna and head to texas. so i hop a plane that night. reporter: a few hours later gurule was face to face with travis forbes again. you know what? they sent me to texas because they think you re running to mexico. i was thinking of mexico. and you he d call me nash. i d call him travis. it was similar to you and i just talking. i wasn t confrontational with him. if he asked me a question i d give him an honest answer. one of the questions he asked me on one of the interviews i did with him, he said, what do you think of me? i said i think you re a creep. i think you re a jerk. i think you re a monster. how did he respond to that? he just looked at me and said, yeah, you re probably right.
they re not going to do anything. i got to go. and i got the phone, and i called 911. tony roared over to that conoco station, nerves on edge, gun close to hand, expecting what? a violent confrontation, a dangerous standoff? a weirdo? it was none of those things. travis forbes was there all right, patiently waiting, and he looked fine. not scary at all. he was very thin. blond hair, blue eyes, good-looking eyes. my first impression of him was looks decent enough guy, if you re going to have somebody pick up your kid and help them out, you know. seemed like a nice guy. yeah. and because maria called 911, the denver police were at the gas station, too. so the cops, not tony, did most of the talking with travis. he told them that same story that he told me on the phone. and it was very consistent. the story he told them matched exactly. i told the officer, man, everything he s told me just