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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. whoever had killed cathy was still out there walking around. ....
Sam lopez. when police asked sam about that night, he remembered something very specific. a hickey. on her neck? on her right here. covered up with her bra. you mean way down here on her shoulder? right here. right here. reporter: sam claimed it was no big deal. i didn t want to hit her up, like, tell her, hey, you know, who were you with last night? whatever. reporter: but that night, police records showed sam received two traffic citations, both while driving cathy s car. one was an open container ticket for drinking alcohol in a parking lot. the other for failing to stop at a stop sign. the cop who pulled sam over for not stopping said sam flew through the intersection, and when he approached the car, the cop said it looked as if sam and 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. ....
January 1997, his lieutenant suggested daron apply to the homicide unit. so i ended up putting in for that job and being selected. reporter: it wasn t long before he cracked open the doors that housed the homicide files. and i open the cabinet and i see the torrez case. and i remembered the incident with debbie from about a year earlier. so i pulled it out and i started reading just on free time, just reading it a little bit. reporter: by then, the cathy torrez case had been cold for a good three years. and essentially no work had been done on it for at least the last two years. reporter: from the beginning, police had suspected cathy s one-time boyfriend sam lopez had something to do with her murder. but they had nothing connecting him to the crime. no witnesses. no dna. and sam had that solid alibi. tina was still married to sam s brother, armando. the two families intertwined, as cathy s family continued to search for answers. ....
i was a squeaky wheel. reporter: your mom was relentless with the police. yes, she was. i went with her a couple times to meet the the new chief that would come into the police 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 t ....
On her sock, on the back of her knee, and under her right 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 ....