Though he ran his own business - Forbes made a living selling gluten-free granola bars - his background was spotty. His old van smelled overwhelmingly of bleach and its carpet was brand new. At the gas station, Forbes claimed, Monge encountered a fellow smoker and, in a drunken stupor, walked off with him.Īs police dug into Forbes' story, several red flags appeared. He offered to give her a ride home in his van but on the way, he said, Monge wanted a cigarette so Forbes stopped his van at a Conoco gas station. Tillman would later learn that police had already been building a case against her attacker for an assault on another woman - an assault that ended in murder.Īfter 19-year-old Kenia Monge went missing in downtown Denver on April 1, police questioned Travis Forbes, 31, a local entrepreneur, after Monge's step-father found a text message from Forbes on Monge's cell phone.įorbes told police that he had met Monge while she was drunk and incoherent near a popular nightclub. When the medics asked whether she knew the assailant, Tillman repeatedly told them 'No, no, no' before suffering a stroke that left her in a coma for over five weeks. To cover his crime, police say the man then poured bleach on her body and throughout her apartment, then started a fire.ĭespite the physical trauma, Tillman found the strength to survive by leaping out of her second-story window and running into an ambulance that had just arrived. Sometime after Tillman attended a 4th of July fireworks celebration in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado, a stranger sexually assaulted and strangled her, beat her head, shattered her jaw, and left her for dead in her apartment. 'I'm tough,' said Tillman, an acclaimed sommelier and a seasoned world traveler. For a woman who spent over five weeks in a coma after being sexually assaulted, strangled and doused in bleach, this is no small feat. 10, 2011 — - 'I can talk,' said Lydia Tillman with pride and great effort.

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