department. we go in there. you know, we just want to let you know that we represent cathy torrez, and we have not forgotten, and we just want to make sure that her case is still being worked on. reporter: we have not forgotten and we want to make sure that you don t either. right, right. reporter: the city of placentia didn t forget. the community learning center was dedicated in cathy s name. the cathy torrez learning center. yes. reporter: you ve got to leave your mark on the world. and she did, huh? reporter: and a tree was planted in cathy s memory across the street. they planted it in a way where from my mom s kitchen, she could see the tree. reporter: sam lopez could see it too. he was still living in the same home police had searched after cathy s murder. a search that had turned up nothing. and sam was also moving on with his life. in may 1994, just months after cathy s murder, sam walked into a local restaurant. he walked in with his friend.
back in 1994, police suspected sam lopez of killing his sometime girlfriend, cathy torrez, but they couldn t make the case. one big reason sam s cousin, javier, who told detectives he was with sam the night of the murder. javier was sam s alibi. so he wasn t suspected of being part of the murder, or even being at the crime scene. that s right, yeah. they were looking at javier solely as an alibi witness who was lying to cover for sam. reporter: that s why, as detective daron wyatt now discovered, even though investigators in 1994 took blood, hair and fingerprint samples from javier, they d never had those tested. they had sent all of the evidence related to sam lopez to the crime lab, his fingerprints, his hair, his blood. but they hadn t sent anything
i was having coffee at a mcdonald s before work and i was reading my bible. it was a little bit after 7:00 when i saw that i had a call from him. reporter: from daron wyatt. mary knew he was scheduled to meet with the d.a. my first thought was he was going to tell me that the meeting was canceled. again. reporter: but that was not the message. not at all. he said, i m standing here in front of sam s house and we are making an arrest right now. reporter: they re making an arrest. yes. and you thought? and i got up and i think i screamed there at the mcdonald s. reporter: years before, daron wyatt had made a promise. now, he felt, he was keeping it. that had to feel pretty good. yeah, there were tears of joy this time. reporter: sam lopez was arrested and charged with cathy s murder, but he wasn t alone. just as prosecutors now believed he wasn t alone the night he stabbed cathy to death.
armpit. reporter: did we tell you? no, we didn t tell you. how long had they known that? a couple of months, at least. and they, what, forgot to call? i think the examiner who had been doing it was waiting for additional results and didn t realize that she hadn t notified us. so the idea of touch-dna paid off? it did. reporter: but not quite the way they had all hoped. unbelievable that you would get touch-dna evidence back that long after the fact. right. but bad news, it doesn t have sam lopez s name on it. right. that s right. reporter: so the strongest physical evidence was still against javier. but it was sam who had the motive, and he was the first one going on trial, even without a trace of his dna anywhere. it had taken 13 years to arrest sam lopez, it would take another eight to bring him to trial. and just months before that trial began, matt murphy learned that sam had a new defense
what d you think when you heard sam was arrested? the same that i always had. like, here we go again. nothing to it, and he ll be out soon. yeah. reporter: after all, they d detained sam once before and had to release him. but as daron wyatt now explained to sam lopez, this time was different. i ve told you before that we wouldn t give up until until we were able to bring resolution to this case, and that s where we re at now. reporter: but just when it seemed the case was buttoned up, daron got a surprising call. remember the request for touch-dna daron had submitted months earlier? the crime lab finally called back. and the crime lab says what? hey, did we tell you that we found javier s dna on cathy s body? what? yeah, we found javier s profile on her sock, on the back of her knee, and under her right