to some people. reporter: but not to him. and not to mary. you put a lot of faith in daron. i put a lot of faith in god. daron was his tool. reporter: but for the time being, it seemed daron s hands were tied. after all, the case had been rejected by the d.a. s office twice before. this case getting a lot of baggage over the years? yeah, it did. reporter: and so if you go ahead with it, you re not only going ahead with the case, you re also kind of insulting the d.a.? yeah. reporter: years went by. the cathy torrez case grew colder by the day. and so did the marriage between cathy s sister tina and sam s brother armando. you and armando got divorced. yes. reporter: this have something to do with that? definitely it was all intermixed. reporter: daron wyatt was promoted to detective sergeant and his caseload shifted to other types of crime.
related to javier lopez to the crime lab. reporter: daron sent javier s samples, now three years old, to the crime lab. two months later, the phone rang. they had positively identified a fingerprint on the trunk of cathy s car, left there by somebody closing the lid of the trunk. reporter: javier s print was on the trunk of cathy s car? yes. reporter: weeks later, another call from the lab. a bloodstain on the car had tested positive for both cathy s dna and javier s. and the detective found there was something else another major piece of evidence investigators had initially overlooked. when you look at the crime scene photos in the trunk of the car, something jumped out at me. and it just it hit me like i got punched in the face, was there was arterial spurt on the sidewall of the trunk panel. reporter: meaning only one thing cathy was still alive when she was placed in the trunk
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 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
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
tina montelongo, sam s then-wife and javier s friend, wasn t buying it. can you conceive of javier going through with a murder or being involved in it because of his loyalty to sam? no. i don t see that. if sam did it, would javi help him just because they re close family? i don t see that. reporter: neither did the d.a. who decided there was not enough evidence to file charges. how do you tell mary bennett, we had javier, but we had to let him go ? it was extremely difficult. there was a lot of crying on both sides. reporter: daron knew exactly what releasing javier really meant. what walks out of the jail along with javier is any leverage you had to get him to name sam? yes, absolutely. reporter: and now you really are back to square one? yes. reporter: is that the end?