cathy had been arguing. but he did say cathy looked fine. nobody was quite sure what happened after that, except they apparently parted company. sam in his car, cathy in hers. then cathy arrived home, too out of it to realize she d been driving on slashed tires. tina saw the tires the next day. i just kept saying, who what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires? reporter: and she d say? and she d say she didn t know. she she just knew that she had gone out with sam that night. reporter: daron wyatt now believed sam drugged cathy, possibly assaulted her, and slashed her tires. the next day, cathy called tina with more details about her strange night with sam. he had told her let s run off, let s get married. let s run off and let s elope. and she told him, you re joking, this is not you know, what are you talking
cathy s family was stunned when they heard the news. tina included. remember, she was still married to armando, who was sam s brother and javier s cousin. yes. that that was a shock. that was a shock. reporter: you didn t see that coming and police didn t tell you? right. that was part of their investigation, and we had no knowledge of that. reporter: but they were relieved. at last the case was moving forward. daron wyatt was confident he had enough evidence to prove javier lopez had killed cathy torrez. but once again, the orange county district attorney did not agree. the d.a. decided not to charge? correct. reporter: and so javier s set free? javier walks. a detective who refuses to quit i said i have a cold case i need you to take a look at. reporter: now has a reason not to. my first daughter was born. and i remember going to mary shortly after that looking in the eye and saying i know.
reporter: he hadn t told you that? he hadn t told me that. that was in the first couple of weeks that i was dating him. reporter: sam emphatically denied any involvement in cathy s murder. but just the idea spooked tina. so she made up a lie. i met him and i told him that i was dating somebody else. reporter: which was not true? which was not true. reporter: you were a little freaked out by that? well, yeah. reporter: but the spark that drew her to sam was too strong, and though tina had only known him a few short weeks, something in her heart said sam was innocent. so i gave him a call. and i started dating him again. reporter: okay. i mean, you re an attractive woman. i have trouble believing that there were not guys available who weren t already suspects in a murder investigation. i m sure there probably were. but there they didn t have my attention. reporter: they dated for a year, and then married.
about, are you serious? reporter: remember, cathy was seeing another guy. albert. who, only days later tried to kill himself. tina says cathy thought about sam s proposal all that week. ultimately, cathy decided, says tina, that she was so broken up about albert she was going to tell sam the answer was no. she s crying, and then she said, i m going to tell him this saturday that i m not gonna take off with him, that i will not elope. that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came home. reporter: sam s admitted jealousy, cathy s doting on albert, a rejected proposal. all of it seemed to add up to motive. but motives don t prove murder. there was still no physical evidence tying sam to the crime. all the blood on the car had been tested, and it was all cathy s. but then, while combing the case file, detective daron wyatt learned something shocking. there were blood and hair samples that had never been sent to the crime lab. and when those samples were analyzed, they pointe
hopeful. it was saturday, february 12th, when cathy went off to her job at the drugstore. how was she that morning? she was fine. just routine. nothing out of the ordinary. reporter: tina was trying to catch up with cathy that day before she went to work, but just missed her at home, only to see her moments later in traffic. we saw each other and she gave me the biggest smile that i will always remember. she saw me. we looked at each other. it was a beautiful smile. reporter: that smile, that moment, burned into her memory. cathy s shift ended at about 8:00 that night. she was supposed to come straight home. but mary didn t see her. so 9:00, 10:00 comes, you re not worried? no, i wasn t worried. reporter: saturday night she probably went out after