KENIA MONGE - 19 yo - Denver CO

Police ask for help finding missing teen


4:13 PM, Apr 6, 2011







DENVER - Officers are asking the public for help in locating a teen who went missing on Friday in downtown Denver.
Denver Police say 19-year-old Kenia Monge was last seen near the Lavish bar at 14th and Market Streets at about 12:30 a.m.
Police say the Honduras native was also spotted at the Conoco at Pennsylvania Street and Speer Boulevard a few hours later.
She was last seen wearing a black skirt, black jacket and red high
heeled shoes. Police say she is Hispanic and is 4 feet 11 inches tall
and weighs about 115 pounds.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Denver Police Department Missing and Exploited Persons Unit at 720-913-2000.
tp://www.9news.com/news/local/article/191707/346/Police-ask-for-help-finding-missing-teen?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|t

Investigators and volunteers from across the nation are joining in the
search for an Aurora teenager who disappeared after a visiting a lower
downtown Denver nightclub with friends last week.

Denver Police
Lt. Matt Murray told reporters on Thursday that investigators are
working around-the-clock to solve the case of Kenia Monge, 19.


"We are absolutely committed to putting the resources into this that it
warrants," Murray said. "We’re not going to stop until there’s a
resolution in this case."

The last verified sighting of Monge, a
recent Cherry Creek High School graduate, was around 3:00 a.m. Friday
morning at a Conoco gas station at Speer Blvd. and Pennsylvania St. -
roughly two hours after she separated from her friends at the "24K"
nightclub at Larimer Square.

She left her purse and her cell
phone on a table that she was sharing with two other girlfriends who,
along with Kenia, got into the club using fake identification, the
family said.

“We have been able to find numerous witnesses (from
the nightclub) who could provide information and we have talked to
them,” Murray said.

Kenia's stepfather, Tony Lee, says a man
claims to have seen the teen walking with a homeless man and that he
offered Kenia a ride. The man says Kenia accepted the ride, which makes
Lee think she may have been drugged, he told us.

Police are
revealing few details about the investigation, labeling it only as
“missing persons” case with no suspects at this point.

Representatives from the National Center Missing & Exploited Children and the FBI's Safe Streets Task Force are assisting with the investigation.

Murray said Monge’s family has been cooperative.

“The family is obviously very emotional and distraught at this time,” he said. “They really just want their daughter back.”

http://www.kwgn.com/news/kdvr-aurora-missing-teen-case-gaining-national-attention-resources-20110407,0,2350715.story

As Denver police expand the investigation into 19-year-old Kenia Monge's
disappearance, more information is coming out about what may have
happened that night."It's a nightmare," said Lt. Matt Murray,
about what the family is going through, not knowing what's happened to
Monge. "Some of the facts of the case got our attention right away, and
we began putting resources into it, and as we began following leads we
became more concerned."The case is serious enough, he said, that investigators have brought in outside help.
The National Center For Missing And Exploited Children and the FBI Safe
Streets Task Force are assisting the investigation, said Murray.It's
been almost a week since the 4-foot-11, 90-pound teenager disappeared
from a downtown Denver nightclub, leaving behind her purse, cellphone
and car keys.Earlier this week, Monge's stepfather told 7NEWS a
"Good Samaritan" had come forward saying he picked up Monge near the
club the night she disappeared."He told her he lived not far from her, so he would take her home," said Tony Lee, Monge's stepfather.Lee said the person claimed to have dropped off Kenia with another man at the Conoco where police said she was last seen.But Murray would not confirm that story or any details of the investigation.He said police have interviewed numerous witnesses, but they are asking anyone with information on the case to come forward.Through Crimestoppers, they can remain anonymous, and there is a reward.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/27470758/detail.html

DENVER -- Police searching for a missing Aurora
teen and evidence of her whereabouts are searching in locations outside
of Denver, including just outside a Weld County landfill.Denver police said the Kenia Monge case is the police department's top priority.On Friday, detectives released cell phone pictures of Monge at the 24K Lounge taken on the night she disappeared.7NEWS has learned exclusively that
DPD investigators were at a landfill in Keenesberg earlier this week and
were searching along County Road 59, just outside the landfill site,
for evidence.While Denver police won't get into specific search
locations, they have made it clear, they're looking for Kenia in several
different places, far from this nightclub in Lower Downtown.Her
family said the 19-year-old abruptly left the nightclub just around
12:30 a.m. on April 1. They said she left behind her purse and cell
phone. Police said Monge was last seen at a gas station about two miles
away at 3 a.m.When 7NEWS asked police Lt. Matt Murray if Monge
was in danger, Murray replied, "Anybody who has been missing as long as
she has you would suspect would be in danger. With no contact with her
friends and family, you'd have to be concerned."The pictures
released on Friday were taken from a cell phone but police won't say who
took the pictures and whose cell phone was used. "I hope folks
take a look at these pictures," Murray said. "If they recognize or have
any information about her, let us know right away."Kenia was
last seen wearing a black tank top, black skirt and red high heels.
Police won't identify the people seen on the picture with her, and if
they were her friends or if they were people she met that night.Based
on their discussions and investigations, police don't think Kenia ran
away. Police are still calling this a missing person's case, unless they
find some evidence that shows otherwise.She hasn't talked to anyone since the night she disappeared and that's unlike her, her friends and family said.The FBI and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children are assisting in the investigation.Kenia is described as 4 feet 11 inches and 115 pounds.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/27483658/detail.html

The search for a missing 19-year-old girl in Denver is now moving into its second week.

There has been no sign of Kenia Monge since she disappeared last Friday night while partying with friends in Lodo.

Denver Police were back at a gas station along Speer Blvd. this afternoon where witnesses reported seeing Kenia.

Crime Scene Unit Investigators took
measurements and pictures of a silver VW Jetta sitting in the parking
lot.

A worker said the car belongs to a friend of the owner of the station.

Police confirmed they have gone back to other businesses in the same
area over the past 24 hours in the hopes of finding any evidence.

"We will not discuss the details of this on-going investigation.
However, detectives are and will continue to pursue any lead or
potential leads to find Kenia and return her to her family," Lt. Matt
Murray said.

Tony Lee, Kenia's step-father, said he is no longer doing interviews at the police request.

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-missing-teen-search-txt,0,2134139.story

There's a couple of (if not more) strange things happening in this case.
First, the step-dad has been given a gag order by LE. What's up with that? Why wouldn't they want him pleading for her return?
I am also reading reports that indicate that Kenia was a "regular" at the club and must have had fake ID. Club employees say that she was unique and they distinctly remember her dancing the night away with some guy who she left with....leaving her belongings at the table with her friends.
My thoughts are: The only reason she would do this is if she were just going out to the parking lot for a "short period of time". Maybe they wanted to speak privately or something "else". Regardless, she was, in her mind, coming right back.
Then, you've got all these reports of people giving her rides, some indicate that she had a male companion with her. Some say she was being driven home. Others say she was dropped off at a gas station and walked from there and was seen on the street later.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-teen-kenia-monge-cops-search-landfills/story?id=13339134

Cops Search Around Landfills for Missing Teen Kenia Monge

By DEAN SCHABNER and RUSSELL GOLDMAN
April 9, 2011

Police have been searching in and around a Weld County, Colo., landfill
for any sign of a 19-year-old Aurora woman who disappeared after
mysteriously leaving friends at a Denver nightclub.

Kenia Monge,
a recent high school graduate, went to the 24K Lounge, a downtown
Denver hot spot the night of Saturday, April 2, where a group of
underage friends had been drinking.
Her friends told police that she excused herself from the table to go to the restroom and never returned.
She left behind her purse and cell phone but few clues.

Monge was last seen
several hours later at a Conoco gas station a few miles from the club
at 3 a.m. Sunday, according to the Denver Police Department.

ABC News affiliate KMGH-TV in Denver
reported that it had learned exclusively that Denver Police Department
investigators were at a landfill in Keenesberg early in the week,
searching for evidence along the highway just outside the landfill.

Police say the case is not a typical missing person investigation.
Officials from the Denver Police Department have called in the FBI and
Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help in the investigation,
an indication that they do not believe Monge simply ran away.


"We get lots of missing cases," said Denver Police spokesman Lt.
Matthew Murray. "No one thinks this girl ran away. We have reason to
believe that what took place is not good. We are very concerned."
For the family, he added, "this is a nightmare scenario."


As the first week following Monge's disappearance comes to a close,
Murray said they're treating it as a missing person case but said
"there is something different" about it. He would not say what made it
so strange.
Monge's stepfather, Tony Lee, told KMGH
that a "good Samaritan" came forward and told police that he picked up
the girl and was with her at the gas station early Sunday morning where
she met and left with another man.

Police would not confirm that detail, or where the "good Samaritan" had
found Monge to give her a ride, but Murray told ABCNews.com they were
"talking with several key witnesses. We're working every lead."
"Miracles do happen. I've seen them happen," Lee said, hoping for the best.
Monge is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, and weighs 90 pounds. She was
last seen wearing a black skirt, black blouse and high-heel boots.
Police found a body in a suburban Denver park Friday, but
Murray said it was not Monge, nor did it have anything to do with her
case.


http://abcnews.go.com/US/missing-teen-kenia-monge-cops-search-landfills/story?id=13339134&page=1

Boyfriend of missing Aurora teen assumes she is dead
DENVER -- Laith Essmaeil says his relationship with Kenia Monge was like many others. Typical date nights involved movies and dining out.

But it all came to an abrupt end on the morning of Friday, April 1 when Essmaeil says his live-in girlfriend of 6 months failed to return home from a night of partying with friends in lower downtown Denver.

“This is probably the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through,” Essmaeil told us. “It’s overwhelming. It’s a lot to deal with. Anybody missing is just too much.”

The last confirmed sighting of Monge, 19, was at a Conoco gas station at Speer Blvd. and Pennsylvania Street - roughly two hours after she abandoned her friends at the 24K Lounge at Larimer Square, leaving through the back door with a man who she had been dancing with, a nightclub spokesperson said.

Denver Police have labeled the case as their "top priority" and continue to interview friends, family members, witnesses and downtown business owners in hopes of locating Monge, a recent Cherry Creek High School graduate.

While investigators have not ruled out the possibility that Monge is still alive, their search has included the banks of Cherry Creek, adjacent to the Conoco, and at least one landfill.

Essmaeil is also pessimistic.

“She’s so young...she had her whole life ahead of her...and now she's gone.”

http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-boyfriend-of-missing-aurora-teen-assumes-she-is-dead-20110412,0,3304095.story

The parents of the 19-year-old woman last
seen almost two weeks ago at a downtown Denver night club are holding
onto hope and begging for their daughter's return.
Tomorrow marks two weeks since Kenia Monge of Aurora disappeared from
the the 24K Lounge in lower downtown Denver. Police still consider her
disappearance a missing-person case, but have revealed few details about
the investigation.
Monge's mother, Maria Lee, and her stepfather, Tony Lee, said they
believe their daughter is alive and someone is keeping her from
contacting her family.
Today, the two asked anyone with information about Kenia's whereabouts to come forward.
"Whoever has Kenia, please, let her go," Maria Lee said. "We won't give up, we're still looking for you (Kenia)."
Denver police say there is no evidence suggesting that Monge
disappeared voluntarily and the case is considered a high priority for
the department.
Investigators have been following tips from across the state, Sonny
Jackson, spokesman for the Denver Police Department said. Jackson did
not release any details about who investigators have spoken with or
where they are looking.
In 2004 Monge moved to the United States from Honduras, Tony Lee
said. Monge was a "normal teenager" who never had any problems with the
police, Lee said. The family last saw Kenia a few days before she
disappeared when the family went out to dinner.
The family has received phone calls and letters from across the
country and has started a Facebook page titled "Help US FIND Kenia."
"You cannot give up hope," Lee said.
The hardest thing is not getting that phone call and waiting for news, they said.
Monge went to the club on March 31 and was last seen at a gas station about 2 miles away at 3 a.m. on April 1.
She is described as 4-feet-11 and 115 pounds. She was wearing a black skirt, a black jacket and red high-heeled shoes.
Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 720-913-7867.
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17837388

The whole scene didn't look right to Travis Forbes.
There was an attractive young woman across the street from a
nightclub called the 24K Lounge. It was 2:30 a.m. on April 1 and she was
talking to a homeless man. Forbes talked with her, thought she was
clearly drunk, and said he offered her a ride.
She eagerly jumped into his van. "She was really emotional, really upset," Forbes said.
The young woman was Kenia Monge, 19, who friends say vanished from a nightclub around 1 a.m. that morning.
But Forbes says he doesn't know what happened to Monge. He planned to
give her a ride home, but said he ultimately dropped her at a gas
station when she asked to stop for cigarettes. Last time he saw her, she
was walking away with another man as he drove away, Forbes said.
Forbes, who said he got Monge's cell phone number from her that
night, tried to call her later that morning. Then, he texted her to see
if she was okay but never got a response.
Forbes, who spoke with The Denver Post a few days after Monge went
missing, is the last person known to authorities to have seen her before
she disappeared.
"I ... failed," he said. "If I had taken her to detox, life would
just gone on and I would have never known that I saved someone's life."
But on that night, Forbes said he fell short. He was trying to help but he didn't do all he could have.
Forbes said he worries about her well-being because of how much time
had already passed since she was last seen and because she didn't have
her purse, car keys, cell phone.
"For some girls a cell phone is like an appendage," Forbes said.
Forbes said he was out that night celebrating his sister's birthday
downtown with his friend Eddie. On their way home he spotted Monge
wearing a hoodie and miniskirt.
When they approached her, Monge immediately wrapped her arms around
theirs, he said. She had a thick accent. Monge was upset after splitting
up with her boyfriend, Forbes said.
"'My heart is broken,'" he said she was saying while sobbing. "'Why do men treat women like that?'"
It was apparent she had been drinking heavily that night, he said.
They sat in the van for a few minutes deciding how they could help her.
At first they concentrated on getting her to her car, then to her
friends. She used Forbes' cell phone to call her phone, hoping her
friends would answer, but there was no answer.
When they drove Monge around the block back to the nightclub it was
closed. Forbes asked her where she lived and realized her home in Aurora
was only blocks from the bakery where he works. He offered to take her
home.
"She really didn't want to go home because she didn't want her dad to see her like this," Forbes said.
Monge asked Forbes and Eddie if they had girlfriends, which they both
did. She asked Forbes if she could just go home with him. He said no
but he would take her home.
Forbes dropped his friend off at his house and was heading to Aurora
when Monge saw a Conoco station at Speer and Pennsylvania and said she
needed a cigarette. When they drove up to the station it was closed.
Monge started crying again.
Forbes started to drive away when she suddenly spotted a man walking
down the street smoking a cigarette. She asked him to stop and she
jumped out and ran over to the man, immediately putting her arm around
his.
It was as though she completely forgot about Forbes, he said. She
asked the man, who was well dressed, for a cigarette and the two sat
down on the curb to smoke. Then they stood up and started walking down
the sidewalk arm in arm.
"They were talking in Spanish," Forbes said. "He had a very round
face. He was Asian and South American. He didn't seem shady to me at
all."
Forbes, who has a criminal record for assault, trespassing and theft,
got back in his van and drove away as Monge and the stranger were
walking together down the street.
"Until they find this girl it's going to weigh on me," Forbes said.
"I do feel responsible. I chose not to care, to be indifferent."
Monge's stepfather Tony Lee said the night his daughter disappeared
she had met her friends at a nightclub and drove with them to the LoDo
nightclub, leaving her car at the first nightclub.
She asked her friends to hold her purse, keys and cell phone while
she went to the bathroom. She would be right back. She never returned.
When he got his stepdaughter's cell phone, he found that Forbes was the last one to call his daughter.
Denver Police Lt. Matt Murray said detectives have interviewed Forbes as part of their investigation of Monge's disappearance.
"We have never told him that he is a suspect," Murray said. "Every day that goes by is very troubling."
http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_17838782

A 31-year-old convicted burglar says he is the main suspect in the
disappearance of 19-year-old Kenia Monge and says he's told police
several times he did not kidnap, sexually assault or kill her, 9Wants to
Know has learned.
"Being the last person so far to have seen her, my life
has been turned inside out," Travis Forbes told Investigative Reporter
Deborah Sherman. "I have a criminal record, so it's been very difficult.
The detectives in this case are going through my life with a
fine-toothed comb."
Denver Police told 9Wants to Know Wednesday night they do not have a
person of interest or a suspect in the case and still consider it a
missing person case.
"All of our focus is bringing Kenia home to her family," Lt. Matt Murray of the Denver Police Department said.
Murray says police do not know why Forbes considers himself the main suspect.
Forbes says he's very concerned about Monge but only knew her for 20
minutes in the early morning of April 1 when she disappeared.
Forbes say he was driving home from the bar Opal in his van with his
friend Eddie after celebrating a friend's graduation from cosmetology
school. He would not tell us Eddie's last name. He says they saw Monge
around 15th and California Streets and pulled over to help her because
she was drunk, stumbling around and crying.
"She was very inebriated and emotional and I was just trying to
figure out where she had come from, who her friends were," Forbes said.
"When we found her at 2:30 in the morning, she was drunk."
Forbes says his friend Eddie got out of his van and walked home while
he drove Monge to the Lavish Bar, where she told him she left her car
and her friends. They drove around, but didn't find either.
He says he let her borrow his cell phone so she could call her own phone to see if her friends would answer it. No one did.
Forbes says he agreed to take her home but she wanted to stop for
cigarettes so he pulled over at a Conoco gas station along Speer
Boulevard but it was closed. That Conoco is the last place police say
Monge was seen.
Forbes says she wanted a cigarette so badly, she jumped out of his
van to bum one off of a man who was at the gas station smoking a
cigarette.
"They sat down, smoked cigarettes and all of a sudden, I was no
longer important. I was just one stranger and then she was off with
another stranger," Forbes said. "I didn't think anything of it. I didn't
get any bad vibes from this person. He was clean cut. He wasn't
homeless."
Forbes says he got a good look at the man and could pick him out of a
lineup if necessary. He described him as possibly Asian, 5 feet 4
inches tall, thin, small build, round, boyish face and nice looking. He
says the man was wearing jeans, basketball shoes, a silver jacket and
spoke fluent Spanish with Monge.
"She walked off with him. There was no reason for me to have thought
anything about it. And it was 3 in the morning. So I went home," Forbes
said.
The next morning, Forbes says he texted Monge to see if she ever found her car. He says he never heard back from her.
Ever since, he says he's been the main focus of the police
investigation. Because of that, he says he and a bunch of his friends
meditated last weekend to send her positive thoughts.
"We all sent out cords of light to this girl, asking her to be found
and come home and clear the energy off of me from all of this," Forbes
said.
Forbes makes and sells gluten-free granola bars for his company "Forbies", which he founded in 2009.
He was released from parole a year ago after being convicted of
burglary in Larimer County and serving about three years in prison,
according to Colorado Department of Corrections records. Forbes told
Sherman he was addicted to drugs when he was a teenager and used to
break into dentist offices to steal the drug Demerol.
Three months ago, Forbes was caught allegedly shoplifting in Lakewood
and was charged in January with a misdemeanor along with driving with
expired license plates and without insurance, according to a criminal
history report by the Colorado Department of Public Safety.
Records show he has been arrested three times for burglary, twice for
shoplifting and several other times for assault, parole violations,
trespassing and disturbing the peace since June 1997.
Forbes has had problems with his finances in the last two years because of his business, according to his website.
He was evicted from his last residence in Denver in January because
he didn't pay rent and owes his landlord $3,000 in damages he left
behind, according to his landlord Dena Kitsos.
The caretaker of the property says Forbes had a pot growing operation
in the basement of the rental property and had rigged the electrical
meters to steal electricity for his lights.
"He had a roomful of pot plants. It was a serious grow room," said
Matt Smith of Foothills Painting, who had to clean out the property
after Forbes was evicted.
Smith estimates there were at least 15 large marijuana plants in the apartment.
Forbes has not been arrested because of the alleged plants.
Denver Police have been searching multiple areas looking for evidence in the Monge case.
Monge, who is from Aurora, was at a nightclub with her friends the
night she went missing. Friday, Denver Police released cell phone
pictures that were taken of her within hours of her disappearance.
Denver Police said Friday they do not believe the teen ran away and have made it their top priority to find her.
Police would not say if they are looking for the man whom Forbes
described as "walking away" with Monge. Police will only say they are
looking for anyone with any information about her.
Even though Forbes is the last person to possibly have seen her, he says he's not to blame for her disappearance.
"Everybody has their own choices. And she chose to walk off with this guy and I can't blame myself for that," Forbes said.

http://www.9news.com/news/article/193425/207/Man-calls-himself-main-suspect-in-case-of-missing-teen-says-he-didnt-do-it-