person of interest. people do weird things in their normal life. how do we know that he s not just 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 building near the club where kenia had been drinking. was she going up to his place? well, if she was, she didn t stay long, because a few minutes later, kenia showed up in yet another surveillance video, weaving somewhat unsteadily across the lobby of a nearby hotel. the way kenia was walking caught the attention of d.a. kerry lombardi. i think from all the evidence, she was obviously very intoxicated. it was scary. she was someone you would look at and think, this was a victim waiting to happen. reporter: this, according to family and good friends, was not like kenia. she didn t drink to excess.
a veteran denver police detective named nash gurule started looking, too. to say detective gurule is imposing is perhaps an understatement. looks more like a character from the sopranos but hates when children go missing. i wanted to find her. i wanted to give her family closure. i wanted to give the city of denver closure. i was determined to bring her home. i was determined to bring her home. reporter: also assigned to the case was deputy d.a. kerry lombardi. we had to do something. time was of the essence because they were still hoping she was alive. reporter: they focused first on the good samaritan, the guy who had given kenia a ride. he was 41, they discovered, had a rap sheet of theft and drugs, but now he had a business in denver delivering gluten-free bars. travis seemed friendly.
she was very adamant that he didn t do anything wrong. why did that happen? i would talk to her sometimes daily and she was his biggest supporter. she wouldn t believe that he was a dangerous guy. absolutely not. not the travis forbes she knows. there is no way that he did anything to kenia. but here was the problem. without the stolen car charge there was no way to keep travis in jail. they had to let him go. deputy d.a. kerry lombardi was nervous. i mean, i was really worried about what he would do. it was very stressful because i really wanted to be able to find her and we really wanted to get some evidence that we could hold him on. at least, vowed detective gurule, they would not lose him. not again. we put surveillance on him for a couple days, and he went up to that area in keensburg. keensburg, that little farm
and i was shocked. we were shocked. yeah. reporter: but they still didn t know what happened to kenia. quickly, the lee family called a news conference and delivered a message to travis forbes. anybody s going to relay any messages to him, tell him, or if you guys talk to him, tell him we ve got just one question. where is kenia? that s it. reporter: but travis wasn t talking anymore. so lee offered a radical idea. i called assistant d.a. lombardi, and i said make a deal. you wanted a deal? yeah. i don t care what it is. i said i don t care. you could take it down to manslaughter. i didn t care. just make a deal. let s just we just want kenia. we really couldn t i mean, we were getting there. we were still investigating. what i really wanted was for tell us where she was.
i know this guy. reporter: but d.a. lombardi did get a search warrant for travis cargo van to see if there were any clues. inside it reeked of bleach. to the point where if you spray something on a ceiling, a roof, and you spray it so much it drips down, that s how much bleach he sprayed on this van. reporter: he was determined to erase something. everything. everything. so we re going through his van, we re taking off doors, we re vacuuming, we re crawling underneath it. reporter: the van, for the most part, was spotless. except for something odd that caught the cop s attention. we found some weeds underneath, we found some dirt, some dust, different things. reporter: what did that tell you? that he had been on a dirt road. at least, that van had. reporter: so d.a. lombardi pored through some records to see where he was. they learned he had been in