MURDERED: Kenia Monge

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:30] Hi Crime Junkies. I am your host Ashley Flowers. And I'm Brett. And I want to remind you that we are brought to you by Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana. We just had our fundraiser event for the year and while we had a lot of volunteers here in Indianapolis, we didn't have as many donors as I'd like to see. And I want to remind you the only reason we started this podcast was [01:00] what we've been doing for these 22 episodes, if you have been listening to 22 episodes of content, please go to crimetips.org and make a donation if it's one buck, a couple of bucks. Let us know that you're listening. Let us know that you want us to keep going because if we don't get donations, then what's the point? We're trying to help a nonprofit here. So go to crimetips.org, [01:30] and written review wherever you're listening to this podcast.

[01:34] And with that, [01:36] Let's get on to the show. [02:06] *Dramatic music* [02:08] So this week is actually a listener suggestion again. A girl named Abriel reached out to me on Facebook to tell me that I had to look into the murder of Kenya Monhe and the attempted murder of Lydia Tillman. Because about six months prior to Kenya's murder, she had actually met with the killer at her work. And she had been texting with him. And he was repeatedly asking her to go out to dinner, go out to drinks, whatever. Yeah, thank God she said no. [02:38] and she's still here today so I'll real keep being weird keep being rude and stay alive girl so the story I'm telling you starts on March 31st of 2011 a young 19 year old girl named Kenya is planning a night out with her girlfriends in downtown Denver Colorado she was only 19 but she had a fake ID which I totally had at 19 but Britt I'm assuming you did not I did not I was a [03:03] Very goody tissues. Yes, you were. Well, all of her friends planned to meet at a specific bar, and they didn't ride together. And Kenya actually got a ride downtown with another group of girls who she didn't really know quite as well. And when Kenya got to the bar, her and the whole group of girls that she was with weren't able to get in because the bar wasn't like accepting their fake IDs. So instead of just calling it a night, they decided to go to another bar or club where they know they're going to be able to get in.

[03:31] From what I can tell from the phone records that are discussed later, I don't think she told her initial group of friends that she couldn't get in and they were making other plans. I think they just thought that she flaked and didn't show. And I probably wouldn't even be here telling you this story if Kenya had made it to the first bar that night to meet up with her good friends. So you see, they had a rule. Like, they would never leave without each other. They came together, they left together, and they always knew where each other were. [04:01] friend and something bad could happen to her with this new group of girls that she was with they were not as close and they didn't have that rule when they were out with Kenya they saw her dancing with a guy and by the time the club was closing and they were getting ready to leave they couldn't find her anywhere and maybe this would normally be not concerning because again this was like a new group of friends they didn't have that kind of code but they found that Kenya had left with the guy but left her [04:29] phone and her purse with a group of friends, which I feel like should have been raising red flags right and left. Yeah, definitely. So when they decided to leave, they just took her stuff and thought that they would return it later. The next morning, it was Kenya's good friends that start to raise the alarm. It was one thing for her not to show up, but no one could even get a hold of her anymore. [04:51] since like the day before. So that next morning, they call Kenya's half-sister Kim and ask her if the family has heard from her. And when she says no, everyone collectively keeps trying to call and text her. And finally, it's Kenya's boyfriend who tells Kim, listen, something isn't right, you have to get your parents involved, and they need to call the police and file a missing person report.

[05:12] About the same time that Kenya's friends, boyfriends, and sister are freaking out, her mom and stepdad get a knock at the door. And from here on out, I'm just going to refer to him as her dad because that's really what he was. And at the door, it's one of the girls Kenya went out with, and she was returning her purse and her cell phone. And her stepdad, Tony, tries to question them and, okay, like, where was she? Who was she with? What's going on? And he knows that they're lying. Like, they're all trying to cover their butts. [05:42] underage using fake IDs. But finally, he's like, cut the crap. Something's wrong. She's not okay. And so they give in, tell him they were at this club, and she was dancing with a guy. And about 1 a.m. is when she disappeared and they couldn't find her. Her dad tried to file a missing person report right away, but police said that it's too soon. They said, listen, she's an adult, and we need to make sure that she just doesn't come home before we run around looking for her. [06:12] And it's so weird. I think like it's happening less and less. I think I like to hope. But it's amazing how many times we tell a story about a missing person and the police are like they have to. Let's wait and see. I know. And I part of me like like coming from their perspective. I get it. [06:29] Yeah. [06:30] Like because there are so many missing person reports and a lot of times they do come home, but it's like, [06:35] My God, I wish we had the resources to treat every single one like they weren't. [06:40] So while her family is waiting for police to get involved, the first thing her dad does is start going through her phone. And what he realizes is that

[06:49] texts stop going out of her phone at 11 p.m. But the whole time, there are so many texts coming in. It's all of her boyfriend, her friends, those people who are trying to get a hold of her. [07:01] At 7pm, the night after she was last seen, there's a strange text message that comes in that really sticks out to Tony. [07:08] And this is what it said: [07:10] Hey, this is Travis, the guy in the creepy white van. Smiley face. Did you get home okay? I'm sorry. That's an introduction if I've ever heard one. Yeah. Travis, the guy in the creepy white van. Like, there's a reason white vans are stereotyped because... [07:28] They're creepy and people who drive them are creepy. As a general rule. As a general life rule. Like a crime junkie life rule. [07:36] Don't get into white fans. [07:38] ever, ever, ever, ever. So Tony calls this guy and he keeps calling and calling and calling, but he isn't getting any answer until finally Travis returns his call at 8 p.m. the following day. So this is 24 hours after he sent that text message. And he tells Kenya's dad this story. He said, listen, I was driving. [07:59] I saw her outside and she seemed really drunk and out of it, so I wanted to help her. And she got in my van and I was going to give her a ride home and while we're driving, she asked to stop at a gas station for cigarettes. And while she's there, she met another guy who said that he would take her home and so that's where I left her. She said she wanted to go with this guy, like I don't know her, I just picked her up, so she left with this other guy.

[08:23] And as soon as Tony gets off the phone with him, like, it just feels wrong. The story doesn't feel right to him. And he immediately calls Denver police and tells them this story. And they're still like, listen, I get it. But, like, we can't do anything with that. She might very well be with this other guy. And we have to wait. It's not been long enough. I'm sorry. [08:43] So Tony calls Travis back and just says, okay, tell me your story again. Where did you see her? What gas station? And when he tells him, he said, well, why don't you meet me there? Like, show me where this gas station was. Maybe I can go from there and figure out what happened to my daughter. [08:59] So Travis says, sure, let's meet up. I'll meet you there. And Tony at this point is sure that [09:04] that he is going to meet with the person who abducted his daughter. He's really nervous, and he actually takes a gun with him because he has no idea what he's going to encounter there. And Kenya's mom is really scared. She's begging him not to go. She's calling the police again, but the police won't do anything, so he just leaves. She calls the police one more time, and she's like, listen, I'm terrified. He took a gun. I have no idea what's going to happen. You don't have to take a missing person report on my daughter, but at least go and just oversee this interaction, which they actually do. The [09:33] There's some guy going with a gun to where he thinks his daughter was abducted. Like, we'll go make sure everything... [09:39] doesn't go down wrong. Well, thank goodness. Thank goodness. So Tony gets to the gas station before police and Travis is waiting there with him with his big white van. And initially, Tony said he got this like sense of relief that washes over him because this guy looks totally normal. He's this thin blonde hair, blue eyed, good looking guy. And Tony even says like after

[10:09] better, I would probably want it to be this guy. Tony clearly doesn't know crime junkie rule number one. You never really know anybody. Travis could look like a really decent guy [10:21] and be a monster. Yeah, there have been like plenty of Prince Charmings who were serial killers. So it doesn't last very long. So the cops arrive and all together they talk and Travis tells the same story about picking Kenya up that night. I saw her outside. She seems drunk. I wanted to help her. We go to the gas station, get cigarettes. There's this other guy, blah, blah, blah. And even the cop agrees with Tony. Like something feels off, but they can't do anything. There's no missing person [10:51] He hasn't done anything illegal. And he's sitting there openly talking with her dad. When they realize nothing's going to get out of control, like Tony's not going to shoot Travis, the cops end up leaving. And before Travis goes, he starts breaking down crying in front of Tony, saying that he just feels so bad, like he should have done more and he should have taken care of her. And this again starts like turning on Tony's head. [11:17] senses saying like this isn't right, like why are you weeping about [11:20] somebody you didn't know that you just gave a ride to for a couple of minutes. And before they leave, [11:25] Tony goes to shake Travis's hand, and he said as soon as they locked hands, he could feel Travis shaking. He couldn't see it from the outside, but he could feel him trembling. And in that moment, he knew...

[11:40] that he was shaking the hand of the last guy who saw his daughter alive. Full body chills. [11:46] Finally, after enough time had passed, the police get involved and a missing report is officially filed. And the police start with Travis. They pick him up at a bakery. He rents out like a little space there to run his own business where he makes and delivers granola bars. And they don't find anything suspicious at the bakery, but they bring him in for questioning anyways. And he recites the same story he's been saying over and over again. He even said that he had an alibi after dropping Kenya off. [12:16] for him. [12:18] When they try and track down this man at the gas station, there's no video – [12:23] No one is coming forward. I mean, they put this all over the news. It was a huge story. No one's coming forward. And they don't know if that's because this man doesn't exist or if this man really was the guy who did something. He's not going to come forward on his own. [12:36] While they're looking for this other man, they get a search warrant for Travis's van. And as soon as they open the doors, the inside reeks of bleach. And they take the van apart, but it was almost spotless. [12:50] except for the actual tires and underneath his car. There was like all this dirt and weeds. And they knew that wherever this car had been, it wasn't in downtown Denver. They had to have gone like off the road somewhere in somewhere rural. So then they get this idea. They want to try and look up his cell records to see if they can find any pings on his cell phone records that match like

[13:13] areas that would be full of dirt and weeds and very rural like that. And sure enough, this town called Kingsburg pops up. And it's not a usual area that he would go. He didn't have any like routes or deliveries there. So they decide that this would be a great place to check out. And they do [13:31] a search of this little town and they are looking down back roads they're searching fields they bring out the dogs but there's just nothing they can't explain why he went there but there's nothing there [13:42] By this point, they're getting pretty suspicious of Travis. Something feels wrong about this guy, just like Kenya's dad had been saying all along. [13:49] And everyone's fears were confirmed when the owner of the bakery where Travis rents space comes forward with an interesting story. A couple of days after Kenyon disappeared, the owner of the bakery was worried that someone was stealing money. Like, there was money going missing, and so she's like, all right. [14:07] I've got a security system. I'm going to go look at the footage and see who was doing this. So she notices when she goes, though, to look at the security footage that the recorder has been unplugged. And so what she does is she plugs it back in, and she rewinds to see, okay, who was the last person to unplug this? And sure enough, it was Travis. But when she rewound a little bit more... [14:33] She realized that when he comes into the office, he's wearing these [14:36] big yellow rubber cleaning gloves that like go up to your elbows. Naturally. And he doesn't clean the bakery like ever. He doesn't clean his own stuff there. He doesn't clean there. That's like not part of his gig. So she immediately has red flags going off. She stops the tape and calls cops. And cops look at the whole thing.

[14:55] And what they see him do is that that day he comes in and with people there, it's not like he came in in the dead of night. There's people walking around the bakeries and like, [15:04] full swing, totally open. He unloads his giant cooler, but it's taped shut and he wheels it in and then puts it in the freezer. [15:15] And then like walks away and leaves it in the freezer. To be clear, this guy is selling granola bars, right? That's what he makes. Yeah. I cook and bake quite a bit and I'm pretty sure there's nothing in granola bars that needs frozen to the... [15:28] Point that you need a giant cooler for them. Right. And so that's how police immediately know that something is up. They keep asking around and they also find out from people who work at the bakery that he was burning stuff in a barrel outside of the bakery shortly after Kenya went missing as well. The barrel is sent to the crime lab, but nothing comes up from that. Travis is looking fishy, but they don't have anything solid on him. Like it's just all this circumstantial stuff. [15:58] trying to see if they can find anything solid to show them exactly what Kenya's last movements were, the night that she went missing. Can they put them on video together? Anything. [16:09] And they get lucky. In an apartment complex near the bar that she was dancing at, they pull surveillance video and find Kenya. And she's in the lobby of this apartment complex with a man... [16:21] But the man isn't Travis. She's seen going up to his apartment, and then a few minutes later, she comes down alone, leaves, and then she's caught on another hotel lobby camera, like weaving as she walks by.

[16:35] And they end up clearing this other guy that she was seen with. His story is like, listen, we were dancing at the club. I asked her if she wanted to see my place. She came, but then she left. And the video surveillance backs him up. He didn't follow her. She left on her own. And this supposedly is when Travis would have picked her up and seen her drunk and weaving and needing help. [16:55] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [17:15] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [17:22] wherever you get your podcasts. [17:25] When Tony saw the video, he was sure that something had been done to her. He said that she was super responsible. She didn't drink to excess. She wouldn't have left her friend. She wouldn't have left her phone. She wouldn't have left her purse. [17:37] He thinks that maybe she was drugged, and I don't know if that's true. [17:40] I try and remember what I was like at 19. And I've always been very responsible and even like paranoid. I've been like a crime junkie since day one. But I've been 19 and been drunk, like way too drunk than I should have been or that was safe for me. And luckily nothing happened to me. [17:56] But... [17:57] I don't know, you know, if she was drugged or if she was just being 19 and her parents are being a little bit naive. Right. Legitimately, it could be either. She could have been drugged or she could have just been a 19-year-old girl who let her guard down and got too drunk.

[18:09] Either way, she's a victim and it wasn't her fault. Right. So they try looking down these other avenues, but every road keeps leading back to Travis. And Travis does himself no favors because he takes an interview with one of the local news channels in Denver where he gives a really bizarre interview. Oh, I think I've seen this. He gets like really emotional and breaks down crying at one point. Then he's asked flat out if he killed her. [18:39] nods yes at the same time, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. And detectives in Denver, like, obviously see this. And as soon as that happened, when he's like, he's saying he didn't kill her, but he's nodding, like, that's how they knew. And he does something really interesting at the end, too, where he pretends like he doesn't even know her name. I was dropping Eddie off is when we met the missing girl. Or, um, what's her name? Kenya. [19:09] murder and her story is all that the news is covering. Come on. [19:14] You know her name. Yeah, I have to think that's just his way of trying to distance himself from her. Because he was feeling the heat that police were putting on him. So much so, in fact, that shortly after this interview, Travis left Denver but didn't tell police where he was going. The detective is freaking out because he is really concerned that Travis is dangerous. He believes that he's killed Kenya and thinks he's going to do it again. Yeah. [19:39] They only had one hope of finding him. When Travis left, he didn't take his creepy white van. He took a car from one of his old girlfriends and when he didn't return it, she actually reported it stolen. So they could use this and have like an all points bulletin out on the car.

[19:55] While this is going on, the family is still looking for her. [19:59] In like the meantime, they're putting up flyers. Her sister has this fear that she's being kept somewhere and they weren't going to be able to get to her in time. But really at night, her dad would go dumpster diving every single night looking for her body. Oh my God. And he didn't tell the family what he was doing because everyone else still had this hope that she was alive, that she was just being kept somewhere. [20:29] you [20:29] couldn't take the only thing that they had away from them. That's [20:33] so incredibly heartbreaking. I know. [20:37] And while he spends his nights... [20:39] looking for his daughter's body, police get a call. A cop in Austin, Texas, was driving his patrol route, and he gets this weird feeling about... [20:49] an out-of-state plate. Like he can't explain it, but he just decides to run it. And sure enough, it was marked as a stolen car and he sees the whole history with Travis. So he's able to pull him over and arrest him. And this kind of reminded me, there was this fun game I used to play as a kid. Like, okay, fun game. Let's hear it. Well, that's what I'm saying. I think when everyone else went on road trips, they would play like I Spy or who knows. What I would do is we would [21:19] find a car that I felt was suspicious and like write down the license plate and who was driving because I like thought maybe I'd see a news broadcast one day that was asking for that kind of information. So I literally have this notebook filled with

[21:32] license plate numbers. And we actually had talked about this in the Facebook discussion group, and I'm not the only one. But clearly, I was meant to be a detective who has these feelings about cars and could do more than like write it in a notebook. If I could actually pull some plates, I bet I would have caught some murderers. [21:48] But... [21:48] When he pulls the plate, he arrests them, and detectives immediately hop on a plane with a warrant for his DNA. And while they have him in Austin, he is questioned for more than three hours and, again, sticks to his original story. I had nothing to do with it. This is what happened. [22:04] gas station, same old, same old, same. But he does give his DNA because they have a warrant for it. [22:09] They use the stolen car charge to bring him back to Colorado. But when they get back, the girlfriend wants to drop all of the charges so they can't hold him. She's convinced, like, listen... [22:21] I swear up and down, he has nothing to do with this. There's no way he could kill anyone. He's totally innocent, and I don't want to give you any reason to keep him in prison. Man, I feel like we're really emphasizing crime junkie rule number one today. I don't care if he was your boyfriend before, he's your boyfriend now. You never really know anyone anymore. [22:41] And you really don't know him now. Right. But she doesn't think that. So she drops the charges and they have to let him go. But this time they weren't going to lose him. So they put surveillance on him. Yeah. [22:53] And he did the strangest thing. Do you want to guess... [22:57] like one of the first places that he went to. And I want you to guess, and I love doing this because I love when listeners guess too.

[23:04] Okay, and this one I don't actually know, like the mannequins. Did he go back to the bakery? No. He went back to that small town Kingsburg. What? [23:17] Yeah, and so this... [23:19] makes police even more sure like okay there's something here like we are missing it yeah this is where his cell was like the time that she was missing this is what was underneath his truck like he's gone back here the second he gets out of prison he goes back here like where is he going but they didn't have like a good tail on him it's not he went to a specific place he didn't bring them to like a location where her body would be but they do another search of this area and they come up with nothing again [23:46] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [24:05] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [24:12] wherever you get your podcasts. [24:16] They still keep their guise on him and they keep tracking him. And thank God, because he skips town again to go to Fort Collins where his dad lives and he's going to go stay with him for a while. This is a college town, which makes detectives really nervous, like plenty of young girls just like Kenya who are out, who are drinking. And at this point, it's been about three months since Kenya disappeared.

[24:41] He goes out to the bar district one night, and he's just acting like an idiot. He's jumping on cars. He's drunk. He's trying to get attention. And Fort Collins police pull him aside, like, let him calm down. They basically said, like, dude, you can't act like an idiot. Like, be cool. Go home. Go home. [24:57] Sleep it off. They had no idea who he was. Well, after they let him go, the Denver police who are running the surveillance kind of pull them aside and say, listen, you need to keep an eye on this guy. This is what is going on in Denver. He's dangerous. We think he's going to do it again. We don't know when we don't know. [25:14] where we don't have enough evidence to like arrest him but watch this guy if he's going to be out on the streets that you're patrolling you need to keep an eye on him [25:23] Well, he stays in Fort Collins and eventually Denver is forced to pull their surveillance. And they just hope that the Fort Collins police will keep an eye on him. [25:32] And things kind of go quiet for a couple more weeks until July 4th. A graduate student named Lydia Tillman went out for the 4th of July. She went to like a firework show. And that evening, she ended up being assaulted in her own home. She was raped and then strangled and then beat so severely that her attacker shattered her jaw and her eye sockets. Oh my God. And then he broke her ribs. And... [26:00] Like that wasn't enough, when he was done, he left her for dead. But before he left her, he doused her body in bleach, like in an attempt to wash away evidence. And he set her apartment on fire.

[26:13] and he left. And by a freaking miracle, [26:17] Lydia was still alive and she jumped naked out of her apartment window, like to her own safety. And she was airlifted to the ICU once paramedics arrived. And she was immediately placed in a medically induced coma. And the doctors had no idea if she would make it. It was crazy. [26:33] very severe. Her family would come in day after day and just ask the doctor, like, are we out of the woods yet? And every single day he'd be like, not yet. [26:41] it's still we're writing that line she could make it she could not [26:45] When the Fort Collins police looked at her case, they initially thought it had to have been someone in Lydia's inner circle. It was so personal. It was so severe. They talked to all of her exes. They talked to her family and her co-workers. And the only thing they found was that everyone loved her. Everyone was... [27:03] saying she was so kind, they couldn't even think of someone that would do anything like this to her. And this scared them even more because they had no idea who this was. They're always looking over their shoulder. They even put security on her room to where like they would go to the ICU and have to give a code word to see her. When police tried to look at the crime scene to see if they could get any evidence that pointed to a perpetrator,

[27:33] in bleach, but he cleaned the whole apartment so heavily in bleach that even after the fire, you could smell the bleach. [27:41] The one thing they did have was under Lydia's fingernails, there was some DNA. But this was going to take time to process. And it really didn't mean much if they didn't have something to compare it to. They needed some suspects. [27:53] Well, three days after the Fort Collins detectives get word from their patrol officers about this interaction they had with a guy named Travis, and how he was being tailed by Denver police, who said he was a suspect for murder. And the detectives at Fort Collins know this is probably a long shot, but it's the case. [28:09] Literally the best lead they have at this point. So they get in touch with detectives from Denver. And as soon as Denver hears this story about Lydia, they tell Fort Collins immediately, like, you are looking for Travis. He's your guy and we are going to help you. We collected his DNA in a case for Kenya. [28:27] In case she was ever found, she hasn't been found. So you use it and see if you can match it to what was found under Lydia's fingernails. So they send off the DNA, but real life moves super slow. And all police can do is sit and wait and watch Travis. The Fort Collins police decide to put him under surveillance this time. And he would just walk around at night, sometimes all night.

[28:57] girl. [28:58] And in my mind, I was like, OK, [29:01] Let's follow him. Let's wait till he attacks her. And then we'll like get him right as he's going to attack her. And this is why I am not a police officer. And people much, much better than me have that job because they decided they couldn't risk him like getting away or something happening to this girl. So they have officers approach him, but in a way that wouldn't give their surveillance away. And he gives them a fake name. He says his name is Travis Kennedy. Travis. [29:27] And they have this like little conversation, but there's really nothing they could hold him on. They were really just holding him, giving this girl enough time to get away without blowing their cover. [29:35] So they go back to watching him, and literally not long after they let him go, he starts following another girl. What? What? [29:43] Yeah, and police are like, oh my god, we know exactly what's going to happen. Like, clearly he's got a one-track mind tonight, and if we let this guy keep walking... [29:51] Like, we have no idea what's going to happen. So they pull him aside again, and they end up arresting him for giving a false name. And false reporting is just a misdemeanor. [30:00] But, [30:01] For whatever reason, that's all they needed because when they bring him in for this misdemeanor, [30:06] And obviously Denver gets notified about this. [30:09] Like there's this interaction between Denver and Travis and he agrees. [30:13] to confess to everything. [30:15] Even without a body, without knowing the case against him, it had never happened in the history of the Denver Police Department. And he goes back and forth a little bit and jerks police around for a little while. But at the end of the day, he ends up agreeing to a deal. But this is what he wants. He said, no death penalty. I don't want any sex crime charges. And in exchange, I'll give you a complete confession for both crimes. And I'll show you where Kenya is buried.

[30:43] The police and the families agree to this, and so the day came for him to show them where Kenya was. They get this processional line of cars that all drive out together, with Travis in the first car leading the way, and they drove out to a place that they've been many times before, and sure enough, he drives them to Kingsburg. Okay. [31:04] and Travis tells them to pull off the side of the road and into an open field [31:08] They get out and walk to this cluster of trees that Travis pointed out. Then without warning, Travis gets out of the car and just screams. Like a blood-curdling scream. [31:21] that takes everyone by surprise. They don't know if he's like gonna go crazy. They don't know if he's gonna like... [31:26] - Oh my god. - But then he's... [31:28] He screams and then he like pulls himself together [31:31] And he says... [31:33] She's there. [31:34] You're standing right on top of her. Oh my God. So they dig and sure enough, there she was. They called the family before it was able to get to the news. And Tony had to tell his family that... [31:48] this is what happened. He had to take away their hope that she was coming home alive. But even though she wasn't coming home alive, they got to bring her home in some way and they got to give her a proper burial. But it wasn't over. For the deal, he had to give them a confession as well. He said he didn't mean to do any of it. It wasn't premeditated. It's not why he pulled over. He basically tells this story of like trying to be a nice guy that maybe snapped and

[32:15] and [32:16] Ended up raping her and strangling her and he said that he drove around for a whole day with her in his van. And then he eventually did put her in that cooler, taped it up, stored it in the freezer, completely cleaned out his van with bleach, and then he went back and got her. [32:35] and then went and buried her out in Keensburg. [32:38] Travis also confessed to the attempted murder of Lydia. And Lydia actually ended up making a recovery. She's having to relearn how to speak because the damage to her brain was so severe. But doctors say it's a miracle that she was even walking. And Lydia ended up meeting Kenya's family at Travis's sentencing hearing. Just like she was sitting just feet away from this guy who literally took her speech away from her. [33:08] from her who tried to kill her and she stood up to give a victim impact statement which she wrote but her father had to read because she wasn't able to fully speak yet and in the statement she gave Travis her forgiveness and she said that it's easier for her to forgive than to just hold this anger inside of her and Travis ended up getting life in prison and after the trial Kenya's [33:38] like Kenya was telling her to give it to her and they exchanged this hug and her mom said like just for a moment it felt like I was hugging Kenya

[33:48] The family set up the Kenya Monhe Foundation, and you can actually go to the website if you want more information. It's k-e-n-i-a-m-o-n-g-e.wordpress.com, and they really help families with missing people. When they're in those first critical hours, they go and help them. They're really doing a lot, so if you want to look into that organization. Ten months after the attack... [34:13] Lydia did an interview with Dateline that, don't mind me, I was weeping. I'll weep at any dog things. It takes a lot to make me weep at human things, but... [34:24] It was. There's something, it was a lot like the Peyton interview we did. The update episode for Nikki McGowan where we interviewed her daughter. There's... Just like inspirational and strong and... Yeah, because... [34:37] Amazing. Yeah, it's something that like I, because I feel like it's something that I see that is so lacking in me. I don't think I could come back from something like that where someone did something like that to me or my family. But to see people like Peyton and to see people like Lydia, who she was so joyful and. [34:55] And even as she's learning to speak 10 months later and is doing this interview, is just so happy with life. And it's like, listen, I can't be holding on to this anger. I can't be drugged down like that. Like, I'm going to keep living my life. Like, everything he did was out of fear. And I want to live my life out of joy. [35:14] And I just... Almost, like, gracious and, like... I was weeping.

[35:19] Yeah, I cannot imagine. It was beautiful. I'm the same way. I can't imagine being the type of person to like rise above in that way. I don't trust myself to do that. [35:29] you know right so she gives like these wonderful inspirational speeches she still goes around and like talks to groups and she's gotten a lot of her her speech isn't a hundred percent but she's able to like communicate on her own it's just a little bit slow she's able to walk she has a full life so he couldn't really take all of that away from her even though he tried and unfortunately she's forever linked to Kenya's family like they're they said you know they're related in tragedy now [35:57] If you want more information on the Kenya Monhe Foundation, you can go to our website. We'll also have pictures there of Kenya, of Travis, of Lydia, and all of the stuff that she's doing now. It's CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Twitter at CrimeJunkiePod and on Instagram at CrimeJunkiePodcast. And if you need an extra fix of true crime this week, be sure to check out the promo after the credits. It's a show we both enjoy and we think you'll like it too. [36:27] the new crime story. Crime Junkie is written and hosted by me. All of our sound production and

[36:57] So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [37:05] *Mario* [37:08] This is Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. We'd like to invite you to check out season two of our true crime podcast, Criminology, out right now. Season two is all about the East Area Rapist, Golden State Killer, and we'll be detailing every aspect of these crimes using the actual police reports and files to chronicle this predator's deeds. [37:38] that didn't survive. We'll also talk to witnesses, experts, and investigators to help tell this story. You can find Criminology on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or on your favorite podcast app. [37:51] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [38:09] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [38:13] I think you'll love it too. [38:14] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.