cooperative. he voluntarily gave head hair samples, he gave a blood sample, he gave fingerprints. and at the end of that, he ultimately said, you know, whatever i can do, i ll do. reporter: but as he read the file, daron learned there were other things sam didn t do. for example, sam lived right down the street, yet cathy s family says he never stopped by during that whole frantic week when they were searching. he did speak extensively with police. i don t think anybody thought that sam was telling the truth. remember how sam told detectives cathy came to him looking for weed? but there was absolutely no indication that any of that was true. which called into question sam s story. it does.
the only thing she mentioned about him was that he hung himself and she was sorry for him doing that, because she thought it was his her fault, okay? that s that s how she said it to me. we never really sat down and talked about it. well, you know what? i think she was trying to hide from her problems by smoking out. reporter: meaning she was smoking marijuana. cathy s family said that for her, that would be out character. sam told detectives he had last seen cathy the thursday before she disappeared. he said she d paged him several times that day and when they finally met up she asked me for some weed, you know? and then she kept on asking me, so are you going to give it to me or what? and i go, you know what? the minute i said no to her, she blew up. she started cussing me out. you know, and, if i don t get it through you, i m going to get it through somebody else. reporter: and then, sam said, cathy got in her car and took off. so i m like, you know, i mean, wh
their suspicions to the orange county d.a., the outcome was not what they expected. coming up, sam has a new woman in his life who soon discovers his old life. you were a little freaked out by that? well, yeah. here s your buick sir. actually, that s my buick. your buick doesn t have a roof rack! this is my buick. how are we gonna fit in your mom s buick? easy. i like that new buick. me too. i was actually talking about that buick. i knew that. did you? buick s fresh new lineup is full of surprises. during buick s fourth of july sales event, pay no interest for 76 months on most 2019 buick models.
till they closed, which was around 8:00, a little bit after 8:00. then let me see, what did i do that day? somebody paged me, i think. oh, i picked my cousin up again. so if we had to contact everyone that you mentioned, you know, you could get the names and addresses, phone numbers. sure. they could confirm where you were on saturday night? reporter: and sure enough, they did. police spoke with javier who corroborated sam s story. javier told investigators that he was with sam, that sam had picked him up at his house in anaheim and driven him to another friend s house in fullerton during the time that we believe cathy was contacted and ultimately murdered. reporter: so if you believe sam s alibi, he couldn t have been the thing that interrupted cathy when she was writing that note. right. reporter: nevertheless, they pressed sam for more details. the clothing you were wearing saturday?
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.