reporter: daron went deeper into sam and cathy s relationship. there were a lot of things that brought them together, they were in high school, lived across the street. cathy s older sister was married to sam s older brother. reporter: they had this long on again/off again relationship in which what, he couldn t let go of her or she couldn t let go of him? i think a lot of it was mutual. reporter: even after cathy started dating albert and sam had another girlfriend, too, they continued to see each other. and daron found evidence that in sam s mind, his relationship with cathy was far from casual. mary gave me a shoe box full of letters that were written between sam and cathy, and the content of these letters showed a very jealous guy. a guy who would get angry any time somebody flirted with cathy. reporter: sam didn t try to hide the fact that he was prone to jealousy. she knows, every time she mentions some guy s name, i get
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? correct. reporter: and where was he? he was in state prison. reporter: so whatever s going on with this guy, he s not your guy. he well, he s not personally. but is he related to does he know? what s the connection? why is this stuff in the trunk of his car? reporter: when you say to him, why would you have articles about cathy torrez s murder and receipts from sav-on in the trunk of your car, his answer s what? that s all my wife s stuff. he disowns it. he separates himself from it, which now raises a little bit more suspicion. reporter: could you tell if he was connected to anyone in the case? not initially. i really had to dig a little bit deeper to see what t
60% of the last three months in unstructured executive time, based on leaked schedules. the president reportedly spends the first five hours of each day in his residence, watching tv, reading papers and calling people on the phone. actor and musician jussie smollett returns to the stage. this a week after he told police the two men shouted slurs, threw a chemical substance at him and put a rope around his neck. now back to dataline. welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. it was a gruesome discovery. a week after cathy torrez disappeared, her body was found. more than a thousand people turned out for her funeral. and as the heartbroken community said goodbyes, police focused on finding her killer, starting with a man from cathy s past an
old boyfriend and close confidant who said he saw cathy just days before she went missing. and what a story he had to tell. once again josh mankowitz. cathy torrez had been murdered and stuffed in the trunk of her car. police were considering what role her new boyfriend, albert, and his attempted suicide may have played. but for now, they were left with unanswered questions and a town shaken by her murder. cathy had so much to live for and was a very happy person, a people s person. reporter: that was armando lopez speaking back in 1994. armando was cathy s brother-in-law, tina s then husband. but that wasn t the only connection between the two families. it turned out cathy had dated armando s younger brother, sam, off and on. and the families lived right down the street from each other. you can see one house from the other.
placentia, searching for cathy and her red toyota corolla. cathy s sister tina saw the wrenching worry in their mother s face. she was a mom full of pain. she was a mom who who was hurting because she was looking for her baby. she would say, just find the car. if you find the car, it was like an equation. find the car, you ll find cathy. reporter: you get any sleep sunday night? no. just waiting. reporter: you don t want to call the police because that makes it real? that s right. it makes it real because you re still holding onto the hope that she s going to come running in through that backdoor. reporter: by monday, cathy still wasn t home. panic was setting in and mary called the police department to report her daughter missing. 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.