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Baker Kills Teen In Delivery Van After Offering A Ride · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we are unpacking a
0:04
Speaker 1: really massive stack of sources sent in by one of
0:07
Speaker 1: our listeners, Alex.
0:08
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, this was a thick folder.
0:09
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. And Alex reached out and asked us
0:12
Speaker 1: to explore the mechanics and really the psychology behind this
0:17
Speaker 1: incredibly complex true crime case from Denver, Colorado, the disappearance
0:22
Speaker 1: of Kenya mon Hester. And looking through all these articles
0:25
Speaker 1: and police reports and the timeline notes that Alex sent over,
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Speaker 1: the thing that immediately jumped out to me is the
0:31
Speaker 1: camouflage used by the perpetrator in this case.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's completely completely unsettling.
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Speaker 1: It really is, because usually when we think about a predator,
0:39
Speaker 1: we conjure up this very specific image, you know, like
0:41
Speaker 1: the stranger lurking in a dark alley or something, Rightmia exactly.
0:47
Speaker 1: But the core of the story we are diving into
0:49
Speaker 1: today is about a guy who spent his days baking
0:52
Speaker 1: and delivering homemade granola bars.
0:54
Speaker 2: To local coffee shops, Yeah.
0:56
Speaker 1: To coffee shops, just a totally folksy, unassuming guy.
0:59
Speaker 2: Well, and it is the ultimate camouflage really, because a
1:02
Speaker 2: local baker is a deeply community oriented profession. I mean
1:06
Speaker 2: it signals warmth, it signals nourishment. Right, it's wholesome exactly,
1:11
Speaker 2: instantly disarms your natural defenses, making the reality of how
1:15
Speaker 2: this person operated at night incredibly jarring to uncover.
1:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, jahing is the right word, and the timeline you
1:21
Speaker 1: sent over, Alex, it actually starts on a date that
1:23
Speaker 1: just adds this layer of cruel irony to the whole thing.
1:26
Speaker 1: It's April first, April Fool's Day.
1:29
Speaker 2: Oh wow. Yeah.
1:30
Speaker 1: So when her stepfather, a guy named Tony, gets this
1:33
Speaker 1: frantic phone call from his wife Maria, saying that their
1:37
Speaker 1: nineteen year old daughter Kenya is missing, he literally thought
1:40
Speaker 1: it was a prank.
1:41
Speaker 2: That makes total sense.
1:42
Speaker 1: Actually, he told his wife to stop playing around.
1:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's a very documented psychological response when you
1:48
Speaker 2: receive catastrophic news, especially on a day that is culturally
1:52
Speaker 2: dedicated to practical jokes. Your brain just rejects the trauma.
1:56
Speaker 1: It's trying to protect you, right, You.
1:58
Speaker 2: Reach for the most rational, least devastating explanation first, which
2:02
Speaker 2: on April first, is oh, this is a joke. But
2:05
Speaker 2: as Tony quickly realized from the sheer panic in Maria's voice,
2:09
Speaker 2: this was real. This was happening.
2:11
Speaker 1: Okay, let's untack this because to understand what actually happened
2:15
Speaker 1: that night, we need to look at Kenya's situation, and
2:18
Speaker 1: Alex your nuts really highlight the duality of her life
2:22
Speaker 1: at that exact moment.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very stark contrast.
2:25
Speaker 1: Because on paper, she's nineteen, she's in college dreaming of
2:29
Speaker 1: a career in broadcasting. She's working this customer service job
2:34
Speaker 1: to pay her rent, doing all the right things right,
2:36
Speaker 1: and she actually started a Sunday school class for the
2:39
Speaker 1: younger kids at her church. She's this beloved older sister
2:43
Speaker 1: to Kimberly and Anthony.
2:44
Speaker 2: So she is highly integrated into her family and her community,
2:47
Speaker 2: very visible, very active. Yeah, but there was a completely
2:51
Speaker 2: separate reality to her day to day life that her
2:55
Speaker 2: parents were largely unaware of, a secret party.
2:58
Speaker 1: Life, right, because she and her underage friends had fake id's.
3:01
Speaker 1: They were regularly going out to these twenty one and
3:03
Speaker 1: over downtown Denver clubs. And I was reading this thinking,
3:08
Speaker 1: it's almost like I'm trying to think of the right
3:09
Speaker 1: way to put this, like a double life. Yeah, like
3:11
Speaker 1: looking at two completely different resumes for the exact same person.
3:15
Speaker 1: You have some Sunday school teacher resume and the club
3:20
Speaker 1: promoter resume, right, and keeping those kinds of secrets as
3:23
Speaker 1: a teenager is incredibly common. I mean, we all did it,
3:26
Speaker 1: but the cascading effects of those secrets on this specific
3:30
Speaker 1: night set up.
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Speaker 2: A perfect storm because it creates a foundational vulnerability. On
3:36
Speaker 2: the night she vanished, Kenya was out utilizing those fake IDs,
3:41
Speaker 2: but in the early hours of the morning, the situation
3:44
Speaker 2: deteriorates rapidly.
3:45
Speaker 1: It really does.
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Speaker 2: Keny is escorted out of the club by security, and
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Speaker 2: the stated reason is intense intoxication. They effectively just put
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Speaker 2: her out into the street.
3:54
Speaker 1: And let's look at the physical reality of that moment.
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Speaker 1: She is wearing a black minisker in red high heels
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Speaker 1: in Denver. It's April.
4:00
Speaker 2: It's cold, very cold.
4:01
Speaker 1: But more importantly, she is completely separated from her friends
4:04
Speaker 1: who are still inside the club. They have her purse,
4:06
Speaker 1: they have her jacket, and they have her cell.
4:08
Speaker 2: Phone, leaving her with absolutely nothing.
4:10
Speaker 1: So hold on, if her friends have her phone, how
4:13
Speaker 1: does she call a cab? How does she call for help?
4:16
Speaker 1: I mean, structurally, what is a venue supposed to do
4:19
Speaker 1: when a patron is that intoxicated? Just tossing someone onto
4:22
Speaker 1: the sidewalk with no phone seems incredibly reckless.
4:25
Speaker 2: It is a massive point of friction, and hospitality management
4:30
Speaker 2: venues have a liability to remove patrons who are incapacitated
4:35
Speaker 2: or causing issues, But ejecting a nineteen year old woman
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Speaker 2: alone into the night without a coat or way to
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Speaker 2: communicate it effectively severs her from her safety net.
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Speaker 1: It's basically handing her over to whatever.
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Speaker 2: Is out there exactly. But what makes the toxicology of
4:49
Speaker 2: this situation even more suspect is the testimony from her
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Speaker 2: friends later on.
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Speaker 1: Right, because they said they were drinking the same amount.
4:56
Speaker 2: They stated they were all drinking together and Kenya hadn't
4:59
Speaker 2: consumed more alcohol than the rest of them, They were fine,
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Speaker 2: But Kenya's physical impairment completely mismatched the volume of alcohol
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Speaker 2: she had actually ingested.
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Speaker 1: Meaning there is a very high probability someone slips something
5:11
Speaker 1: into her drink.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yes, when we look at the mechanics of date rape drugs,
5:15
Speaker 2: substances like GHB or roe hypnoal, they don't just make
5:18
Speaker 2: you sleepy, right, They act as central nervous system depressants that,
5:23
Speaker 2: when combined with even a small amount of alcohol, They
5:26
Speaker 2: exponentially amplify the intoxication.
5:28
Speaker 1: So it hits you like a freight train.
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Speaker 2: Right, they strip away motor control and situational awareness, and
5:34
Speaker 2: predators look for this exact scenario.
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Speaker 1: They're hunting for it.
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Speaker 2: They look for the compromised target who has been separated
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Speaker 2: from the herd. Once she was on the street, isolated
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Speaker 2: and chemically impaired, her primary defenses were entirely gone, and.
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Speaker 1: She wasn't kicked out completely alone. Security booted her alongside
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Speaker 1: a mystery man she had been acting inappropriately with.
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Speaker 2: On the dance floor, just some guy from the club.
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Speaker 1: Not her boyfriend, just a random guy. So her stepdad Tony,
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Speaker 1: finds all this out the next day and he is
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Speaker 1: just beside himself.
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Speaker 2: Oh, I can't even imagine.
6:05
Speaker 1: And instead of just waiting by the phone, he basically
6:08
Speaker 1: turns into an amateur detective because he is so frustrated
6:11
Speaker 1: with the police response. He feels like they aren't doing enough.
6:14
Speaker 2: Well, we have to look at why that police response
6:17
Speaker 2: feels so slow to a family member in these crucial
6:20
Speaker 2: early hours. Law enforcement operates on probability and protocol. Right,
6:25
Speaker 2: they have checkboxes exactly for a missing adult, especially a
6:29
Speaker 2: nineteen year old with a known fake ID in a
6:32
Speaker 2: history of partying. The statistical probability for them is that
6:35
Speaker 2: she's just sleeping it off on a friend's couch.
6:37
Speaker 1: They see it every weekend.
6:38
Speaker 2: Right. Police departments simply don't have the resources to launch
6:42
Speaker 2: a full scale tactical search within the first twelve hours
6:45
Speaker 2: for every young adult who doesn't come home from a club.
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Speaker 1: But Tony obviously doesn't care about police statistics.
6:51
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
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Speaker 1: He is running on pure paternal adrenaline. So he starts
6:55
Speaker 1: analyzing the only piece of physical evidence he has access to,
6:59
Speaker 1: which is Kenya a cell phone. Her friends had brought
7:02
Speaker 1: it back to.
7:02
Speaker 2: The house, right, which is a huge detail.
7:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Tony is scrolling through her messages looking for
7:08
Speaker 1: anything out of place, and Alex, this detail from your
7:11
Speaker 1: sources is the one that just made me stop reading
7:14
Speaker 1: and stare at the wall.
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Speaker 2: It's chilling.
7:16
Speaker 1: Tony finds a text message from an unknown number and
7:19
Speaker 1: the text says, Hey, this is Travis guy from last night,
7:22
Speaker 1: white creepy van. Did you get home?
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Speaker 2: Sitting there on her phone.
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Speaker 1: Tony sees this and immediately assumes, Okay, this Travis person
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Speaker 1: is the mystery guy she got kicked out of the
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Speaker 1: club with It's.
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Speaker 2: The most logical leap. But when investigators eventually start pulling
7:36
Speaker 2: the CCTV footage from the downtown Denver grid, the physical
7:40
Speaker 2: evidence contradicts that theory completely.
7:43
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, how so.
7:45
Speaker 2: Well they track the initial mystery man from the club,
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Speaker 2: Kenya does walk with him to his apartment lobby. She
7:51
Speaker 2: almost goes up to his loft. Then on the video
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Speaker 2: you see who visibly change her mind?
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Speaker 1: She just turns around.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, she walks out the cameras tracker staggering down the street.
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Speaker 2: She speaks briefly to a homeless man uses a hotel bathroom,
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Speaker 2: and then she walks off camera forever.
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Speaker 1: So the guy from the club didn't do it. The
8:08
Speaker 1: timeline clears.
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Speaker 2: Him completely precisely because she walked away from his building
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Speaker 2: under her own power. The real threat was the person
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Speaker 2: waiting after she walked off camera, the person who sent
8:20
Speaker 2: that text message.
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Speaker 1: Wait, I need to interrupt you there, because the phrasing
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Speaker 1: of that text message is baffling to me. White creepy van. Yeah,
8:27
Speaker 1: if you are hunting for victims, why on earth would
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Speaker 1: you label your own vehicle with the ultimate stranger danger stereotype?
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Speaker 1: It makes zero sense to advertise yourself as a threat.
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Speaker 2: It seems completely counterintuitive until you analyze it as a
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Speaker 2: calculated psychological disarming tactic.
8:43
Speaker 1: Discarming. By calling himself creepy.
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Speaker 2: Yes, by calling his own van creepy, he is deploying
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Speaker 2: self deprecating humor. He is acknowledging the cultural stereotype out loud,
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Speaker 2: and by poking fun at it, he projects an image
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Speaker 2: of harmlessness.
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, So he's saying the quiet part out loud
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Speaker 1: to make it.
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Speaker 2: Seem like a j exactly. He's playing the role of
9:02
Speaker 2: the self aware nice guy. It's a highly manipulative way
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Speaker 2: of lowering a victim's defenses, essentially communicating, look, I know
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Speaker 2: how this looks. I know I'm a guy in a
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Speaker 2: white van, but I'm just a regular, safe guy offering
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Speaker 2: you a warm place to sit.
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Speaker 1: That is so twisted. It's weaponized self awareness.
9:17
Speaker 2: It's predatory adaptation.
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Speaker 1: Really, so this text message gives Tony a target. He
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Speaker 1: starts calling this Travis number relentlessly, just calling and calling.
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Speaker 1: He's leaving voicemails demanding to know where his daughter.
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Speaker 2: Is, applying intense pressure.
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Speaker 1: And finally, a full forty eight hours after Kenya vanished.
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Speaker 1: Travis Forbes calls Tony back, and.
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Speaker 2: Forbes comes to the phone with a highly rehearsed narrative
9:43
Speaker 2: because he's had two days to prepare it. He claims
9:46
Speaker 2: he was just driving around he saw Kenya stumbling on
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Speaker 2: the street, and he offered her a ride because he's
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Speaker 2: a good samaritan. Of course he is, And he actually
9:53
Speaker 2: admits to letting her use his phone to call her
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Speaker 2: own phone, which is his way of explaining why he
10:00
Speaker 2: sent that text message. He's trying to get ahead of
10:02
Speaker 2: the evidence.
10:03
Speaker 1: Right, because he knows the texts out there. So Travis
10:05
Speaker 1: claims they drove toward her house, but she wanted to smoke,
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Speaker 1: so we pulled over at a closed gas station, right,
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Speaker 1: And according to Travis, Kenya got out, she started chatting
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Speaker 1: with a young Asian man named Dan who was smoking nearby,
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Speaker 1: and then she just walked off into the night with
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Speaker 1: this Dan guy.
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Speaker 2: Introducing a phantom suspect like Dan is a classic deflection
10:24
Speaker 2: strategy in these types of investigations. Just make someone up exactly.
10:28
Speaker 2: It gives the family and a police a ghost to chase.
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Speaker 2: It buys the perpetrator time, and Folds is so confident
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Speaker 2: in this deflection that he agrees to meet Tony face
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Speaker 2: to face at that exact gas station to show him
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Speaker 2: where he dropped.
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Speaker 1: Her off, which is insane arrogance. And Tony goes to
10:45
Speaker 1: this meetup armed.
10:46
Speaker 2: He was ready for anything.
10:48
Speaker 1: He is terrified of this. Right the girlfriend, He tells
10:51
Speaker 1: detectives that after he dropped Kenya off, he went straight
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Speaker 1: to his girlfriend's house. Right, and the girlfriend, Carrie Humphrey,
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Speaker 1: corroborates the entire timeline. She tells the police. Yes, Travis
11:02
Speaker 1: was with me from about three point thirty in the
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Speaker 1: morning until seven or eight am.
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Speaker 2: Which is the exact critical window.
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Speaker 1: So during the exact window Kenny disappeared. The police have
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Speaker 1: a cooperating witness saying Travis was in bed with her.
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Speaker 2: But detectives, you know, they are trained to look past alibis,
11:20
Speaker 2: especially when the suspect is the last known person to
11:23
Speaker 2: see the victim alive. You don't just take the girlfriend's
11:25
Speaker 2: word for it and walk away, right, you verify. So
11:28
Speaker 2: they start digging into Forbes's daily routine, which leads them
11:31
Speaker 2: to execute a search warrant on his workspace, and that
11:34
Speaker 2: workspace is the commercial bakery in downtown Denver where he
11:38
Speaker 2: manufactured his granola bars.
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Speaker 1: And this is where the physical evidence starts to diverge
11:42
Speaker 1: completely from his nice guy baker persona dramatically diverged. Detectives
11:46
Speaker 1: pull the security footage from inside the bakery and they
11:50
Speaker 1: see Travis wheeling this massive granola bar delivery cooler into
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Speaker 1: a walk in freezer on the exact night Kenya disappeared.
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Speaker 2: A cooler large enough to hold person.
12:00
Speaker 1: Yes, And when forensics teams get a hold of that cooler,
12:04
Speaker 1: they discover it has been meticulously washed with industrial bleach,
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Speaker 1: scrubbed clean. Furthermore, when they search his white van, it
12:12
Speaker 1: doesn't look like a working delivery vehicle at all. It
12:14
Speaker 1: is completely devoid of normal dirt, hair, or debris.
12:18
Speaker 2: Which is impossible for a working van.
12:19
Speaker 1: It smells intensely of bleach, and the flooring has brand
12:23
Speaker 1: new carpet installed.
12:24
Speaker 2: He ripped the old carpet out completely.
12:26
Speaker 1: Yes, But the forensics team in Denver is relentless on
12:30
Speaker 1: that leeched cooler, specifically on the little plastic drain plug
12:34
Speaker 1: at the bottom. They swab it and they find exactly.
12:36
Speaker 2: One human cell, one single cell.
12:39
Speaker 1: One single cell is almost like imagine examining a perfectly
12:42
Speaker 1: forged document and under a microscope, one single letter is
12:45
Speaker 1: just slightly misspelled. That one microscopic error gives a whole
12:49
Speaker 1: game away.
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Speaker 2: It breaks the whole illusion. Yah.
12:51
Speaker 1: But let's dig into the science here for a second,
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Speaker 1: because how on earth does someone clean a cooler so
12:56
Speaker 1: thoroughly that they only leave one single cell behind.
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Speaker 2: Well, it requires a sophisticated understanding of biological evidence destruction
13:04
Speaker 2: bleach or you know, sodium hypochlorate. It doesn't just wash
13:08
Speaker 2: away blood or DNA like soap. Does it chemically destroys it?
13:12
Speaker 1: It alters it, right, It.
13:13
Speaker 2: Breaks down the cellular walls and oxidizes the genetic material
13:17
Speaker 2: until it is completely unreadable to a lab. Most criminals
13:21
Speaker 2: who try to clean a scene, they panic, they rush it. Yeah,
13:24
Speaker 2: they wipe things down haphazardly, They miss the undersides of handles,
13:27
Speaker 2: or they dilute the chemicals too much with water.
13:30
Speaker 1: But forms didn't do that.
13:31
Speaker 2: No, the level of forensic countermeasure we are talking about here,
13:35
Speaker 2: removing vehicular carpeting, scrubbing a porous plastic cooler until it
13:39
Speaker 2: is clinically sterile. That suggests a highly organized methodology.
13:44
Speaker 1: He knew what he was doing.
13:45
Speaker 2: That one single cell survived only because the drain plug
13:48
Speaker 2: has microscopic threaded crevices. It is incredibly difficult for liquid
13:53
Speaker 2: to penetrate those threads perfectly without high pressure submersion, just.
13:57
Speaker 1: One tiny drop mist. So that implies a terrifying level
14:01
Speaker 1: of practice to me, you don't execute a near perfect
14:04
Speaker 1: chemical sanitization of a crime scene on your very first try.
14:07
Speaker 2: Statistically, no, you do not.
14:10
Speaker 1: But despite this incredibly suspicious, circumstantial evidence, the bleach, the
14:14
Speaker 1: new carpet, the cooler on the tape, the police hit
14:18
Speaker 1: a massive legal wall because they do not have a body.
14:22
Speaker 2: Exactly the rule of corpus to lecti. Without a body
14:26
Speaker 2: and with a girlfriend providing a solid alibi, a bleached
14:29
Speaker 2: fan and a clean cooler just aren't enough to secure
14:32
Speaker 2: a murder indictment from a grand jury. They mean more right,
14:35
Speaker 2: and Forbes realizes the heat is on. He knows they're
14:38
Speaker 2: looking at the cooler, so he flees. He vanishes from
14:41
Speaker 2: Denver and resurfaces down in Austin, Texas, where he ends
14:44
Speaker 2: up getting arrested for driving a stolen car.
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Speaker 1: The Denver police hear about this, and they immediately send
14:50
Speaker 1: Detective nash Girl down to Austin with a warrant to
14:52
Speaker 1: get a DNA sample from Travis.
14:54
Speaker 2: They want to match him to that one cell, right.
14:56
Speaker 1: But then the guy in Denver who originally reported the
14:58
Speaker 1: car stolen, decides he doesn't want to press charges anymore, and.
15:01
Speaker 2: This introduces a massive jurisdictional problem for the detectives.
15:05
Speaker 1: Because Austin can't hold him right.
15:07
Speaker 2: If the local Austin charges are dropped, the Austin police
15:10
Speaker 2: have no legal authority to keep him in a cell. Wow,
15:14
Speaker 2: Denver PD hasn't charged him with murder yet, so they
15:17
Speaker 2: can't extradite him back to Colorado. Their only option at
15:20
Speaker 2: this point is to put undercover officers on him to
15:23
Speaker 2: monitor his movements, hoping he might return to a burial
15:26
Speaker 2: site or just make a mistake.
15:28
Speaker 1: So Denver PD tails him for two days, just watching him,
15:32
Speaker 1: but he doesn't do anything. He just goes about his business.
15:34
Speaker 2: He's playing it cool.
15:35
Speaker 1: So they dropped the surveillance and Alex as someone who
15:39
Speaker 1: consumes a lot of true crime, my first thought was,
15:41
Speaker 1: why would you ever drop the tail on a prime
15:44
Speaker 1: murder suspect.
15:45
Speaker 2: It sounds crazy from the outside, absolutely, but the reality
15:49
Speaker 2: of undercover surveillance is constrained by budgets, manpower, and the
15:53
Speaker 2: Fourth Amendment.
15:53
Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for us.
15:55
Speaker 2: You cannot maintain a twenty four to seven covert tail
15:58
Speaker 2: on a civilian indefinitely without probable cause or an active warrant.
16:02
Speaker 2: It's just not legal and logistically it requires multiple vehicles,
16:06
Speaker 2: rotating shifts of detectives, and massive overtime pay, often across
16:11
Speaker 2: state lines. In this case, when Forbes showed no signs
16:14
Speaker 2: of leading them to evidence, the department had to make
16:17
Speaker 2: a pragmatic resource decision.
16:18
Speaker 1: They had to pull the plug. Yeah, but dropping that
16:21
Speaker 1: tail had unimaginable consequences. It really did, because just two
16:25
Speaker 1: days after the police pull back, an hour north of
16:27
Speaker 1: Denver and Fort Collins, a young woman named Lydia Tillman
16:30
Speaker 1: is attacked in her apartment, and.
16:32
Speaker 2: The mechanics of this secondary crime are profoundly disturbing. Forbes
16:36
Speaker 2: breaks into.
16:37
Speaker 1: Her apartment, a total stranger.
16:39
Speaker 2: Yes, he rapes her, he strangles her, and he beats
16:42
Speaker 2: her so severely that he actually shatters her jaw. Then,
16:46
Speaker 2: falling back on his usual chemical countermeasures, he douses Lydia
16:50
Speaker 2: and the entire apartment in bleach.
16:52
Speaker 1: He's trying to erase the DNA again exactly, and to
16:55
Speaker 1: ensure the total destruction of the scene, he sets the
16:57
Speaker 1: apartment on fire and leaves her for dead. Just evil.
17:01
Speaker 1: But Lydia Tillman is just incredibly resilient. I mean, she
17:04
Speaker 1: has a shattered jaw, she's been doused in industrial bleach,
17:07
Speaker 1: her apartment is literally in flames, and she somehow manages
17:11
Speaker 1: to drag herself to a second story window and jump out.
17:14
Speaker 2: The adrenaline and the sheer will to survive required to
17:18
Speaker 2: execute that jump with those severe physical injuries is staggering.
17:23
Speaker 2: It's a miracle she survived.
17:24
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets really interesting from an investigative standpoint.
17:28
Speaker 1: When she is found because of the jaw trauma, she
17:30
Speaker 1: can't speak to the medics.
17:32
Speaker 2: Right, she can't tell them who did it.
17:33
Speaker 1: They actually have to place her in a medically induced
17:36
Speaker 1: coma just to stabilize her airway and treat her injuries.
17:39
Speaker 1: But while she is unconscious, the crime scene investigators process.
17:43
Speaker 2: Her hands standard procedure, and.
17:44
Speaker 1: They find that Lydia fought back hard. They extract skin
17:48
Speaker 1: cells from deep under her fingernails, and when they run
17:51
Speaker 1: that DNA, it is a direct match to Travis.
17:53
Speaker 2: Forbes, which is the smoking gun they needed.
17:55
Speaker 1: Exactly, And when Lydia finally wakes up from her coma,
17:59
Speaker 1: she confirms it. She positively identifies Forbes.
18:02
Speaker 2: She points right at him.
18:03
Speaker 1: But I keep coming back to the timeline of this escalation,
18:06
Speaker 1: right because the police tail him for two days, they
18:10
Speaker 1: drop it, and two days later he attempts a brutal
18:12
Speaker 1: murder in another city. What is happening in his head
18:16
Speaker 1: to cause that kind of rapid, violent escalation.
18:19
Speaker 2: It says the psychology of a pressure cooker. Forbes knew
18:22
Speaker 2: the police were circling him for Kenya's disappearance. I mean
18:25
Speaker 2: they flew a detective all the way to Texas just
18:28
Speaker 2: to swab his cheek.
18:29
Speaker 1: So he knows they're breathing down his neck.
18:31
Speaker 2: He knows his DNA is now officially in the system.
18:34
Speaker 2: That kind of intense localized pressure frequently causes predatory offenders
18:39
Speaker 2: to lose their self control. They just snap right. The
18:42
Speaker 2: attack on Lydia was brazen, It was loud, and it
18:45
Speaker 2: is incredibly disorganized compared to the quiet, methodical disappearance of Kenya.
18:50
Speaker 2: He didn't use a van to hider. He broke into
18:52
Speaker 2: an apartment. He used fire instead of a hidden grave.
18:55
Speaker 1: It's completely different.
18:56
Speaker 2: It was the explosive, reactive violence of a predator who
18:59
Speaker 2: feels the wall closing in and wants to exert control
19:02
Speaker 2: one last time.
19:03
Speaker 1: Well, thanks to Lydia fighting back and securing that DNA,
19:06
Speaker 1: the police finally have the leverage they need to hold him.
19:09
Speaker 2: They have him dead to rights on the fork Collins.
19:11
Speaker 1: Attack, and with Forbes locked up for the attempted murder,
19:14
Speaker 1: his entire defense back in Denver starts to fall apart.
19:18
Speaker 1: Detective subpoena Travis's historical cell phone location data from the
19:22
Speaker 1: night Kenya disappeared, which they.
19:24
Speaker 2: Probably couldn't get a warrant for until they had him on.
19:26
Speaker 1: This new charge exactly, and cell tower triangulation is incredibly precise.
19:31
Speaker 2: Well, I'll puts you right on the map.
19:32
Speaker 1: The data proves definitively that Forbes's phone was nowhere near
19:36
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, Carrie Humphrey's apartment during that three point thirty
19:40
Speaker 1: am to eight am window she vouched for.
19:43
Speaker 2: He was miles away.
19:44
Speaker 1: Right confronted with the digital evidence, carries alibi shatters. She
19:48
Speaker 1: is arrested for lying to the police and obstructing a
19:51
Speaker 1: homicide investigation.
19:52
Speaker 2: So his whole safety net is gone.
19:54
Speaker 1: Suddenly. Forbes has no alibi, his girlfriend is in handcuffs,
19:57
Speaker 1: and he is facing attempted murder charges for Lydia, with
20:01
Speaker 1: a potential death penalty looming for Kenya. In Colorado, the.
20:04
Speaker 2: Walls have officially closed in.
20:06
Speaker 1: So he takes a plea deal. He confesses to the
20:09
Speaker 1: murder of Kenya mon Hester. But Alex, the story he
20:13
Speaker 1: tells the detectives during this confession is just It's infuriating
20:16
Speaker 1: to read.
20:17
Speaker 2: It is a textbook example of narrative minimization.
20:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, he tries to make it sound like an accident.
20:22
Speaker 1: Forbes claims the murder wasn't premeditated. He tells investigators that
20:26
Speaker 1: he didn't pull over with the intention of hurting her.
20:29
Speaker 1: His version of events is that Kenya simply fell asleep
20:33
Speaker 1: in the passenger seat of his van. He admits to
20:35
Speaker 1: initiating sex with her while she was asleep, which is horrifying,
20:38
Speaker 1: and then he claims she woke up midway through, became upset,
20:43
Speaker 1: slapped him, and that he choked her to death in
20:46
Speaker 1: a reactive panic.
20:47
Speaker 2: Right, a sudden loss of control.
20:49
Speaker 1: Okay, I have to push back on his logic here.
20:51
Speaker 1: He says he didn't intend to harm her, but he
20:54
Speaker 1: just admitted to having sex with an unconscious, highly intoxicated woman.
20:58
Speaker 1: That is the definition of right. Absolutely, what is inherently
21:00
Speaker 1: a predatory violent crime? Why construct this elaborate story where
21:04
Speaker 1: she slaps him and he just panics? Does he genuinely
21:07
Speaker 1: believe his own twisted narrative?
21:09
Speaker 2: It's a defense mechanism rooted in severe cognitive dissonance. Very
21:14
Speaker 2: few killers can psychologically tolerate categorizing themselves as monsters or predators.
21:20
Speaker 1: They have to be the hero of their own story.
21:22
Speaker 2: Exactly, by claiming she was asleep and that the strangulation
21:26
Speaker 2: was just a startled reaction to being hit, he is
21:29
Speaker 2: attempting to reframe a calculated sexual homicide as a tragic
21:34
Speaker 2: accident or a crime of passion.
21:36
Speaker 1: Like, oh, things just got out of.
21:37
Speaker 2: Hand, right. He wants to view himself as a regular
21:40
Speaker 2: guy who just made a series of unfortunate mistakes, rather
21:43
Speaker 2: than a hunter who capitalized on a vulnerable target.
21:46
Speaker 1: But the cover up completely destroys that accidental panic.
21:49
Speaker 2: Narrative, totally dismantles it.
21:51
Speaker 1: After he strangles her, the steps he takes are like
21:54
Speaker 1: a set of well like macabre nesting balls of concealment.
21:57
Speaker 1: That's a good way to put it, hiding the body
21:59
Speaker 1: in a cooler, hiding the cooler in a freezer, hiding
22:02
Speaker 1: the evidence in fire, and then finally burying her in
22:05
Speaker 1: the ground. He tells police that after he killed her,
22:08
Speaker 1: he stuffed her body into his granola bar cooler right
22:11
Speaker 1: the van, but rigor mortis had already started to set in.
22:14
Speaker 1: Her arms began to stiffen and spring upward, preventing the
22:17
Speaker 1: lid from closing. So he physically went and got tape
22:21
Speaker 1: to tape the cooler shut.
22:22
Speaker 2: Which demonstrates a chilling level of compartmentalization.
22:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's just problem solving exactly.
22:28
Speaker 2: A panicked person runs away or abandons the vehicle. A
22:32
Speaker 2: calculating person goes to the hardware store for tape, secures
22:36
Speaker 2: the lid, and continues with their logistics.
22:39
Speaker 1: He drays around for hours with the cooler in the van.
22:41
Speaker 1: He takes it into the bakery freezer, which is what
22:44
Speaker 1: the camera's caught. Right later, he removes her body, strips her,
22:48
Speaker 1: washes her with bleach, washes himself with bleach, sanitizes the
22:52
Speaker 1: entire van, and burns all her clothing in a barrel.
22:55
Speaker 2: It's an exhausting amount of work.
22:57
Speaker 1: And then finally he drives out to a remote ravine
22:59
Speaker 1: outside of Denver and buries her in a five foot
23:02
Speaker 1: deep grave.
23:03
Speaker 2: And we really have to talk about the physical mechanics.
23:05
Speaker 1: Of that burial, because it's not easy.
23:07
Speaker 2: No digging a five foot grave in rural Colorado terrain
23:11
Speaker 2: which is famously rocky and dense, that takes hours of grueling,
23:15
Speaker 2: backbreaking labor.
23:16
Speaker 1: You'd need a pickax.
23:17
Speaker 2: You do not dig a hole that deep in the dark,
23:21
Speaker 2: sanitize an entire vehicle, and incinerate evidence in a state
23:25
Speaker 2: of panic. That is the execution of a methodical forensic
23:30
Speaker 2: counter strategy.
23:31
Speaker 1: As part of his plea deal to avoid the death penalty,
23:34
Speaker 1: Forbes has to physically lead the detectives to the grave,
23:38
Speaker 1: and the police reports describe this really bizarre scene when
23:41
Speaker 1: they get there, right his reaction plumps, gets out of
23:43
Speaker 1: the transport vehicle, He points down into this grove of trees,
23:46
Speaker 1: and he just starts screaming and solving, telling the detectives
23:49
Speaker 1: you're standing right on top of her.
23:51
Speaker 2: Analyzing that emotional display is really complex.
23:54
Speaker 1: Is it real or is it an act?
23:56
Speaker 2: Well, on one hand, it could be the crushing weight
23:58
Speaker 2: of confronting the physical reality of his actions, just the
24:01
Speaker 2: sheer gravity hitting him. But more frequently, in cases like this,
24:06
Speaker 2: it is a final performance.
24:07
Speaker 1: For the audience of detectives.
24:09
Speaker 2: It's a way for the perpetrator to center themselves as
24:11
Speaker 2: the tragic emotional focal point of the narrative. Even at
24:14
Speaker 2: the victim's gravesite, he's making it about his.
24:17
Speaker 1: Pain, regardless of why he was crying. The resolution of
24:20
Speaker 1: finding Kenya brings a definitive end to the physical search,
24:24
Speaker 1: but for her family, the emotional damage is permanent.
24:28
Speaker 2: It shatters the family tree.
24:29
Speaker 1: The strain of the investigation and the sheer weight of
24:32
Speaker 1: the tragedy eventually led Tony and Maria to divorce.
24:35
Speaker 2: Which is sadly very common.
24:37
Speaker 1: Tony has spoken about how the grief is just a
24:39
Speaker 1: constant hum in the background of every second of his life.
24:43
Speaker 1: But amidst all of that destruction, Alex your source has
24:47
Speaker 1: highlighted these acts of forgiveness that I find genuinely hard
24:49
Speaker 1: to comprehend.
24:50
Speaker 2: They are profound.
24:52
Speaker 1: Lydia Tillman, the woman who survived the Fort Collins a pack.
24:55
Speaker 1: She actually stood up in court and openly forgave Forbes,
24:59
Speaker 1: and Kenya's young sister, Kimberly, actually struck up a correspondence
25:03
Speaker 1: with Forbes while he was in prison.
25:04
Speaker 2: The concept of radical forgiveness in the wake of violent
25:07
Speaker 2: crime is a fascinating psychological mechanism.
25:10
Speaker 1: How does someone even get to that point?
25:12
Speaker 2: Well, for victims like Lydia or family members like Kimberly,
25:15
Speaker 2: this type of forgiveness is rarely about absolving the killer
25:19
Speaker 2: of their guilt. It's not saying what you did is okay.
25:23
Speaker 2: It is a tactical tool used to reclaim power. When
25:26
Speaker 2: someone commits a trauma against you, they essentially tether your
25:30
Speaker 2: emotional state to their actions.
25:31
Speaker 1: Year linked to them forever.
25:32
Speaker 2: Exactly by looking at the perpetrator and choosing to forgive them,
25:37
Speaker 2: the victim severs that tether. It's a profound way of saying,
25:42
Speaker 2: you do not dictate my capacity for grace, and you
25:45
Speaker 2: no longer control my mind.
25:46
Speaker 1: That is incredibly powerful. So in these letters, Kimberly is
25:50
Speaker 1: asking him why he did this, and Forbes's responses are
25:53
Speaker 1: deeply unsettling. He writes back, admitting that Kenya didn't deserve it.
25:57
Speaker 1: He refers to himself as evil and a dark person.
26:00
Speaker 1: He even told police investigators that he needed to look
26:03
Speaker 1: up the clinical definition of a sociopath because he was
26:05
Speaker 1: pretty sure he fit the criteria.
26:07
Speaker 2: He's self diagnosing.
26:08
Speaker 1: But there is a much darker shadow hanging over these interactions.
26:13
Speaker 1: Forbes hinted to the police that Kenya and Lydia were
26:16
Speaker 1: not his only victims.
26:17
Speaker 2: The classic top.
26:18
Speaker 1: He said, I want to confess so bad because there's
26:21
Speaker 1: more victims out there. He promised that when everything finally
26:25
Speaker 1: comes to light, it will be horrific, horrendous. Both Tony
26:30
Speaker 1: and the Denver Police strongly suspect that Travis Forbes is
26:33
Speaker 1: a serial killer.
26:34
Speaker 2: And this requires us to look at the currency of
26:37
Speaker 2: imparcerated offenders.
26:38
Speaker 1: What do you mean by currency?
26:39
Speaker 2: When a killer is locked in a concrete cell for
26:42
Speaker 2: the rest of their life, they are stripped of all
26:44
Speaker 2: physical control over the world. They have nothing, but they
26:48
Speaker 2: quickly realize they possess one final, highly valuable asset, and
26:53
Speaker 2: that is undiscovered information the secrets right. Promising investigators that
26:58
Speaker 2: there are more bodies or horrific secrets is a recognized
27:01
Speaker 2: tactic used to maintain relevance. Keeps the FBI behavioral analysts
27:05
Speaker 2: visiting it keeps their name in the files.
27:07
Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? How do you separate
27:09
Speaker 1: the truth from the manipulation. When a guy like Forbes
27:11
Speaker 1: says there are more victims? Is he telling the truth
27:14
Speaker 1: or is he just a monster trying to make sure
27:16
Speaker 1: people are still talking about him?
27:17
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate puzzle for criminal psychologists. Given his
27:21
Speaker 2: extreme forensic discipline. You know the fact that he knew
27:24
Speaker 2: exactly how to use bleach to destroy cellular walls and
27:27
Speaker 2: leave only one microscopic cell behind. It is highly statistically
27:31
Speaker 2: probable that Kenya was not his first attempt at cleaning
27:34
Speaker 2: a crime scene.
27:35
Speaker 1: You just don't get that good on day one.
27:37
Speaker 2: Furthermore, the rapid escalation to the attack on Lydia it
27:41
Speaker 2: fits the behavioral profile of a serial offender who's cooling
27:45
Speaker 2: off periods are vanishing. They can't control the urge anymore, right,
27:48
Speaker 2: But concurrently, pathological narcissism dries these individuals. The thrill of
27:53
Speaker 2: holding secrets over the heads of law enforcement might be
27:56
Speaker 2: the only psychological stimulation he has left in a cell.
28:00
Speaker 2: Investigators have to treat his claims as credible threats while
28:03
Speaker 2: refusing to play into his ego driven games.
28:05
Speaker 1: Alex Reading through your deep dive request. It really makes
28:08
Speaker 1: you rethink the invisible infrastructure of our daily routines. We
28:11
Speaker 1: rely on this unspoken social contract just to function in society.
28:15
Speaker 2: We do. We trust people by default.
28:17
Speaker 1: We trust that our friends will notice if we slip
28:19
Speaker 1: away from the group. We assume the person offering a
28:22
Speaker 1: ride in the cold is just trying to help. We
28:24
Speaker 1: believe the guy delivering granola bars to the corner store
28:27
Speaker 1: is just making a living right the camouflage this case
28:31
Speaker 1: is a brutal reminder of the mechanics of situational awareness,
28:35
Speaker 1: of why it is so critical to stick with your
28:37
Speaker 1: group when you go out and to recognize when someone
28:40
Speaker 1: has been separated from the herd, And it really highlights
28:43
Speaker 1: the permanence of digital footprints.
28:45
Speaker 2: The text message.
28:46
Speaker 1: If Travis Forbes hadn't sent that one self deprecating text
28:49
Speaker 1: message trying to play the nice guy in the creepy
28:52
Speaker 1: Van Tony wouldn't have had a target. The police might
28:55
Speaker 1: never have looked at the baker.
28:57
Speaker 2: That single digital breadcrumb broke his chemic flushed completely. Without it,
29:02
Speaker 2: he could have very well continued his routine delivering bake
29:05
Speaker 2: goods during the day and hunting.
29:07
Speaker 1: At night, which leaves us with a really provocative thought
29:10
Speaker 1: to end on. Today, we are conditioned to think of
29:13
Speaker 1: the justice system as a machine that produces a finalized endpoint.
29:17
Speaker 2: The neat bow at the end of.
29:18
Speaker 1: The story exactly, the detectives find the clue, the gavel bangs,
29:23
Speaker 1: the cell door locks, and the story is over. But
29:25
Speaker 1: if Travis Forbes is telling the truth, if he truly
29:28
Speaker 1: has a string of hidden, horrendous victims buried out there,
29:33
Speaker 1: it forces us to confront a major flaw in how
29:36
Speaker 1: we perceive.
29:37
Speaker 2: Closure, because it's not always over.
29:39
Speaker 1: Sometimes the only key to solving a missing person's case
29:42
Speaker 1: relies entirely on a monster's willingness to brag about it
29:45
Speaker 1: from a prison cell. And it makes you wonder how
29:48
Speaker 1: many mysteries are sitting in cold case files right now
29:51
Speaker 1: simply because the killer had the discipline to stay quiet.
29:53
Speaker 2: It's terrifying, though, it really is.
29:55
Speaker 1: Alex, Thank you so much for setting in these sources.
29:57
Speaker 1: It's a heavy topic, but understanding how these investigations actually
30:01
Speaker 1: work is so important. We'll catch everyone else on the
30:03
Speaker 1: next deep dive.