calling the police? sadly, no. i didn t think about that. reporter: it didn t end there. the next morning tina saw cathy s car. i remember looking at the tires and saying, what happened? how could this be? the way they they were slashed. reporter: it was deliberate. i just kept saying, what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires? reporter: and she d say? and she d say she didn t know. reporter: but the worst was yet to come. two days after cathy came home in that strange condition, her new boyfriend albert rangel apparently tried to commit suicide. he even left a note that seemed to be in his own handwriting. all of this just days before cathy disappeared. albert hanged himself at work, but he didn t die. he lingered in a coma in the hospital. and cathy was devastated. she was so upset. she was crying. she couldn t believe that someone would do something like that. reporter: and now the torrez family was left to wonder if and how all of this connected
with cathy and the fact that she wasn t as serious about him as he was with her. so that had to be examined, it had to be looked at. reporter: so the investigation continued, as people in placentia paid final respects to the friendly cashier they knew from sav-on. more than a thousand people attended cathy s funeral. pretty impressive. the kind of person cathy was. she touched a lot of people, and they remembered her. reporter: she left her mark. she did. reporter: cathy had hoped for a dozen red roses that february. instead her family remembered her with a headstone. your smile will shine forever. that wasn t the only promise cathy s mother made. i didn t know how long i d be i would have to wait. but i knew that we had to do everything that we could to get the answer. reporter: because? because she was my daughter. and someone had taken her away
there was younger brother marty and the baby, debbie. tina was the eldest. she watched as cathy excelled in school. cathy was exceptional. cathy made her own way. she didn t follow a role model. reporter: nobody guiding her and nobody pushing her. exactly. she had her own drive. she used to tell her younger sister that she had to leave her mark. you had to leave your mark in this world so that people would remember you when you moved on. reporter: you have to leave your mark on the world. did you teach her that? no, that was just her. reporter: seems like an admirable thing for a kid to come up with. well, cathy was different. reporter: beautiful, smart and social. and popular. you knew more about her dating life than maybe your mom and dad did. yes, i believe to some extent, yes. reporter: cathy dated a few guys in high school, but no one she was terribly stuck on. and then in 1994, out of high school and a young woman of 20, cathy started to see a boy named albe
and the police said? well, you know, you don t know that. maybe she went off and but i knew. reporter: that she could have met some guy and they re in vegas right now. and you re saying no. reporter: not possible? at that point you want to yell and scream at them and tell them, that s not true. you don t know, not my cathy. reporter: the torrez family was not going to wait for police to catch up to what they already knew that cathy was not someone who d just disappear. they went to reporters. mary spoke to knbc in los angeles. this is one thing that nobody should have to go through. reporter: and took the search into their own hands. the police department wasn t receptive. so i told my mom, okay, give me a picture. reporter: tina was in charge of flyers. mary worked the phones at home. and younger brother marty kept watch in front of sav-on. hi, did you guys receive a flyer? reporter: soon it wasn t just the torrez family searching for
little after 8:15. it s yeah. it s 8:15, just finished my shift. today was crazy. everybody was all buying v and the v was for valentine s day. reporter: and that s as far as she got? that s as far as she got. so she s interrupted mid-sentence. reporter: just who had done that? detectives weren t quite sure. daron believed the letter was intended for albert, who at the time of cathy s murder was lying in a coma in the hospital after a suicide attempt. he never woke up, and died almost two years later. obviously you have to look at all of that, and you have to ask, is there something that s involved in that? reporter: it was almost too strange to imagine. except to police. there were rumors within the community that that may have been the motive for her disappearance and murder, was that, hey you need to look at the rangel family. reporter: members of albert s family, the rumors said, were angry with cathy, thinking that she might have been the cause of his s