when i went forth and said, "hey look, i need time to concentrate specifically on this case." >> reporter: daron pored through the files and hunted down new leads. and then a tip came in, seemingly out of nowhere. >> so a guy from a repossession company calls the police and says, "hey repo'd this car earlier today, and there was a folio in the trunk of the car. and i'm going through the folio, there are articles in there about this murder in placentia from 1994 and there are receipts from sav-on. >> reporter: sav-on. the drugstore chain where cathy was working at the time she was stabbed to death. that had to make everybody sit up straight. >> it did. >> reporter: there was more. the guy whose car had been repossessed had recently been released from state prison and was now in custody for threatening someone with a knife. >> reporter: and what you wanted to know first was, "where were you on the night cathy torrez disappeared?"