They searched his van, even took the door off the hinges, but the bleach he used to clean the interior erased any DNA and created a false positive in tests used to detect blood.Īs they followed leads, police watched as Forbes continued meeting women, giving them different names and taking them out to dinner. While Forbes was never named a suspect, Gurule and Estrada continued whittling their way through his story. I’ve never personally had that happen until now,” he said. “They like to get in there and see what the cops know. What he was really doing, Gurule believes, is trying to find out what detectives knew by talking to reporters who might have information. At the same time, Forbes started talking to local reporters, depicting himself as a good Samaritan who offered a lost girl a ride home. In mid-April, Monge’s parents, Tony Lee and his wife, Maria, asked for the public’s help in finding Monge. They said nothing publicly, as the Monge case was officially still a search for a missing living person, but they scoured ditches, waterways and even a nearby dairy farm looking for disturbed earth, predator activity and skeletal remains.ĭuring the next five months, authorities would search the area 15 times and find nothing.

Authorities combed the area on foot, horseback, in helicopters and on ATVs, Estrada said. One week after Monge disappeared, detectives drove through fields near Keenesburg, after records showed activity on Forbes’ cellphone there shortly after Monge went missing. Gurule would not speak to him again for a month. He had a story and an excuse for everything.”įorbes was released after his interview. “Every time he talks, he has something to cover up,” Estrada said of Forbes. The day Estrada was assigned to the case was the day he recognized it as a homicide. “He could tell you that he climbed Mount Everest, every detail about it, but he’s never been there,” Gurule said.ĭenver homicide Detective Louis Estrada also was brought in to assist in the missing- person case, should it turn into a homicide. Looking Gurule in the eye, he streamed together calculated details about the night. “Why would you take a girl to a closed Conoco? From across the river, you can see the Conoco is closed.”įorbes was calm and confident. Without a flinch or a stutter, he recited the same story he told Lee days before. The video shows Forbes rolling a large, white cooler into the freezer, carrying in a roll of carpet from his van and later walking out to the van carrying what looked like a bottle of bleach before he turned off the cameras.įorbes was brought in for questioning. The same day, surveillance video of Forbes was recovered from the southeast Denver bakery where he made organic granola bars. On April 5, Denver police Detective Nash Gurule, with the Missing and Exploited Persons Unit, was assigned to the case. Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menuįor the next 72 hours, suspicion swarmed around Forbes’ story as the hunt for Monge continued.

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