someone would come to finish the job. and so we had to keep her completely anonymous in the hospital. we had a code that we had to say to go see her. only family members and only ones that were listed. you were always kind of looking over your shoulder. definitely. reporter: lydia s family was quite unaware that police did have a prime suspect, travis forbes, who was also a suspect in the disappearance of a girl lydia s family had never heard of, kenia monge. the similarities were definitely the bleach. i don t know what it is about forbes, but he has an obsession with bleach, and we d actually heard that from his past girlfriends as well, that he would obsessively clean his house with bleach. and there was bleach used in kenia s case as well. the fact they were both dark-haired, both pretty girls, around the same age, it was chillingly similar. reporter: but the truly frightening fact was that their suspect was still out there somewhere on the street at large, potentially ta
he decided to go public. you know, the truth is all we have. reporter: he went on camera with a denver tv station. i mean, it s been two weeks. nobody s heard from her. there s been no trace of her. like it s it s surreal. i don t even know what to think of it. since you re a person of interest, let me ask you this. did you do something with her? no. did you kidnap her? no. did you sexually assault her? i did not. did you murder her? i did not. no. no. and you know, having that on you, you know, having that energy on you is very stressful. reporter: detective gurule was watching this, of course. but he focused as much on travis s actions as his answers. he lied. it was in his demeanor. it was in his body language. it was it was all there.
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 she s gone. and i thought, wow, that s kind of strange. whatever. reporter: then a few days later monica s bakery was crawling with cops. when the police showed up, i
reporter: it was now july 1st, exactly three months since kenia disappeared, and gurule had good reason to worry. our detectives are watching. he goes out to the bar district in fort collins, and he s acting like a fool. jumping on people s cars, you know, raising just trying to get a lot of attention. reporter: so fort collins police, unaware that travis was the subject of a denver investigation, pulled him aside there in the bar district, had a little talk with him, nothing serious, no charges, just conversation. after they finished the contact with him, our detectives go up and say hey, we re watching him, he s a person of interest on our case, you might have heard of the case, explained the case to them. they re like, okay, okay, i ll let everybody know. reporter: denver police kept an eye on travis, hoping he might lead them to kenia s body. but he stayed in fort collins, crashed at his grandparents
surprise. his friend dropped the charges on the stolen car. 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. kerri 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. reporter: 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