police had their suspicions about sam lopez s involvement in the murder of his neighbor and former girlfriend, cathy torrez. but there was no physical evidence tying him to the murder. and he had a solid alibi on the night cathy was killed. sam was with his cousin, javier. which is why when police took their case to the d.a. s office, the d.a. refused to file charges against sam. police pursued other leads too, like a possible connection to the suicide of cathy s boyfriend, albert. did you think that cathy s disappearance had anything to do with albert? no. reporter: coincidence. yeah, just two tragedies happening at the same time. reporter: but not connected. but not connected, no. reporter: even though that coincidence continued to bother them, police were forced to agree. but that left the investigation with nowhere to go.
i was ready. i was, this is it. this is who i want to be with. this is who i want to grow old with. this is who i want to have kids with. reporter: and they did. a year later came a baby girl. and sam embraced his role as dad. he was like mr. mom, you know. he stayed home and took care of the baby while i worked. reporter: if sam had anything to do with cathy s murder, he certainly didn t act like it. he stayed put. living with his wife and baby right down the street from cathy s mom, mary. she would sit outside and stare at us, and i felt like she was doing it to make me uncomfortable, and probably him, too. but i m sure she didn t want him to be happy if she thought that he had anything to do with what happened to her daughter. reporter: sam say anything about mary? no. no. he would try to tell me to
it was 1996. two years had passed since the gruesome murder of cathy torrez in placentia, california. i had been to several places, had knocked on many doors. and all i ever wanted was the truth to come out as to what had happened to cathy. reporter: the case had gone cold, but its memory still clung to the breeze in this small town. daron wyatt was a patrol officer back then, and one afternoon his shift brought him to this park just across the street from where cathy had grown up. daron was about to bust a drug suspect when the guy started talking. he s playing the game of, you know, i ll tell you whatever you want to know, just you know, ask the right questions and i ll tell you and then you won t take me to jail. so, you know, just almost as a flippant remark, i tell him, okay, so tell me who killed
cathy torrez. reporter: it was a shot in the dark. a tactic he d picked up at a seminar for cultivating informants. and the patrol officer that is next to me starts kind of kicking my foot. and he s got an explorer scout who s riding with him a young hispanic female. and i look at her name tag and it was d. torrez. turned out it was debbie torrez, cathy s youngest sister. reporter: who just heard you ask that question. correct. reporter: you had no idea it was her? i had no idea. reporter: debbie torrez cathy s baby sister was now 14 years old. eager, her mom says, to assist police because of everything her family had been through. she remembered that when we needed help, people came to help us. so she thought it was her turn to help others. reporter: which is why debbie was in the park that afternoon, and how she heard daron mention cathy s case. that is a weird coincidence. we don t believe in coincidences.
ignore it. reporter: i mean, was this like the hatfields and the mccoys? what happened? there was no communication, no associations with them, you know. that that was basically it. that they became estranged. reporter: which made it difficult for tina, who was still married to sam s older brother, armando. police continued to work the case, but the fact was, they had no solid leads. they weren t even close to arresting anyone. but then two years after cathy torrez was murdered, an unexpected meeting put this investigation in the fast lane. an explorer scout with a familiar last name inspires a renewed search for a killer. that is a weird convince coincidence. we don t believe in coincidences. in terms of treating sensitivity, 3 days is really fast.