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disappeared. >> mary, however, says sam was the one calling her house looking for cathy. >> he called how many times? >> quite a few times looking for her. >> she said sam sound okay until she told him where cathy was. >> i said she was at the hospital and she wasn't back yet. >> at the hospital visiting albert, her boyfriend who had attempted suicide. >> sam okay with that? >> no. he got upset. >> sam told police he was just worried about cathy. especially after he spoke with her that week. >> messed up. i told her to calm down. >> remember, this interview happened while cathy was still missing. sam seemed to be implying she might have hurt herself or that another boyfriend might be involved.

>> then there was the second interview, the day cathy's body was found. detective wyatt studied that tape too. >> there was one thing that was important that sam didn't display that you would expect to see in a case like this. >> which is? >> emotion. he showed more emotion over the contents of the coke can. he picked it up when they left the room. he was reading the coke can, the ingredients and the number of calories. at one point he puts that down and picks up a baseball cap and brushes off and swearing about the fact that there's dirt on his cap. he never shows any emotion about the fact that his gal has been brutally murdered. no emotion whatsoever. >> that's a big red flag? >> huge. >> darren went deeper into sam and cathy's relationship. >> there are a lot of things that brought them together. they lived across the street,

dated in high school. cathy's older sister was married to sam's older brother. >> they had a 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. >> even after cathy started dating albert and sam had another girlfriend, too, they continued to see each other. and darren found evidence that in sam's mind, his relationship with cathy was far from casual. >> mary gave me a shoebox full of letters 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. >> 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 pissed off, okay? >> that led the detective to take a fresh look at the bizarre events the week before cathy

disappeared, when she came home impaired and then had her tires slashed. >> she never regained full memory of what happened. but she was able to tell everybody who she had been with that night. >> the person cathy had been with that night, sam lopez. when police asked sam about that night, he remembered something very specific. >> a hickey. >> on her neck? >> on her right here. >> way down here on her shoulder? >> right here, right here. >> sam claimed it was no big deal. >> i didn't want to hit her up. >> 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. when he approached the car, it

looked as if sam and kraft i had been arguing. he did say cathy looked fine. nobody was sure what happened after that. except they apparently parted company. sam in his car, cathy in hers. she was too out of it to realize she had been driving on slashed tires. >> i kept saying, what happened to your tires? >> she says she didn't know. she knew she had gone out with sam that night. >> darren 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 told her let's runoff and elope. she told him, you're joking. this is not -- what are you talking about? are you serious? >> remember, cathy was seeing another guy, albert. >> when tried to kill himself.

>> she thought about sam's proposal all that week. ultimately, cathy decided, says, tina, she was so broken up about albert, she was going to tell sam the answer was no. >> she's crying and she said i'm going to tell him saturday i will not take off with him and elope. that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came home. >> 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 darren 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

pointed to a whole new suspect. coming up -- new dna and a new man in the hot seat. >> he sat there and put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself from talking. >> when "dateline" continues.

back in 1994, police suspected sam lopez of killing his sometime girlfriend, cathy torrez. but they couldn't make the case. one big reason, sam's cousin javier who told detectives he was with sam the night of the murder. javier was sam's alibi. >> so he wasn't suspected of being part of the murder or even being at the crime scene? >> that's right. they were looking at javier solely as an alibi witness who was lying to cover for sam. >> that's why they discovered even though investigators took blood, hair and fingerprint samples from javier, they never had those tested.

>> they had sent all of the evidence related to sam lopez to the crime lab, his fingerprints, hair, his blood, but they hadn't sent anything related to javier lopez related to the crime lab. >> they sent javier's samples now three years old to the crime lab. then 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. >> javier's print was on the trunk of cathy's car? >> yes. >> weeks later, another car from the lab. a blood stain on the car 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 hit me like i got

punched in the face. there was arterial spurt on the side of the side panel. >> meaning one thing. cathy was still alive when she was placed in the trunk of the car. if javier put her there, he could be charged with murder. >> why not grab javier up that day and say, okay, your dna and fingerprints were at the scene. we didn't know that until now. you're going away for murder unless you start talking. >> let's say we did that. we bring him in and says yes, my fingerprint was there because i helped her change a te or push her cut of the street. i cut my finger and i bled on it. instead of approaching javier, they spent five months carefully watching him and sam. he learned the two cousins were unusually close. >> sam lived in a one-bedroom little bungalow with his wife and baby at the time. yet javier was there all the time. sleeping in the same -- essentially the same room. >> eventually, darren wyatt felt

he had enough new information to get a search warrant. >> there was a loud pounding on the door. >> tina mont long owe remembers it clearly. >> when i opened the door, there was about five police officers there. when the -- he put us against the wall, patted us down. >> what was sam's demeanor while that was happening? >> he was calm. you know, he really was. i was freaking out. >> he wasn't worried? >> no. no. >> maybe he had no reason to be. police didn't find anything in the house linking sam to cathy's murder. they even sprayed his truck with luminol looking for signs of blood. >> we took the seats out, we did everything we could. there was nothing. >> police briefly detained sam but he was back home by morning. >> now, darren wyatt focused on javier. >> we really approached it low key. we think that you can really provide some great information

for us. would you mind coming down with us and talking. >> they brought him down to the station and listened patiently as he distanced himself from cathy torrez. >> he had never been shopping with her, never changed a tire on her car. never carried groceries. we went through the litany of things. >> no, no, no. that's all true. i'm a million miles away from her. >> separated himself. >> but in so doing, javier ruled out any innocent explanation for finding his dna and fingerprint on her car. so when police told him that's exactly what they had found >> it was like vapor lock. then all of a sudden, well, you know, this one time i was at the video store and i saw sam and cathy there together and i went and i sat in cathy's car and sat in the back seat and waited for them and then they came out and i left. that was really his only contact that he can give us with cathy's

car. >> fold up like a house of cards and say, all right, fine you got me. >> you've watched thousands of these interviews and sometimes people don't say is just as important what they do say. >> what javier either would not or could not say were these words. i did not kill cathy torrez. >> he says i don't know who did. that's not what i asked, javier. did you kill cathy torrez? i don't know who did. we played that several times to where he'd finally say i didn't do it. you doesn't what? >> can't say the words killed cathy. >> right. >> then it moved did you put her body in the trunk of the car. i don't know who did. finally he sat there and put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself from talking. >> but javier had managed to talk himself into an arrest for murder. nearly four years after cathy's death. he was booked into the orange

county jail. >> cathy's family was stunned when they heard the news. tina included. remember, she was still married to armando, sam's brother and javier's cousin. >> that was a shock. >> 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. >> but they were relieved. at last the case was moving forward. darren 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. >> so javier is set free. >> javier walks. >> coming up, a dee detective who refuses to quit. >> i have a cold case to look at. >> now another good reason not to. >> my first daughter was born

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i'm dara brown. president trump tried to clarify comments about vladimir putin and russian meddling in the u.s. election. while he believes that putin believes that russia did not meddle, he stands by u.s. intelligence agencies find thags they did meddle. the embattled senate candidate being accused of sexual misconduct with a minor almost 40 years ago, the republican denying the reports by the "washington post" as fake news. now back to "dateline." detective darren wyatt never believed javier lopez acted alone, even when he arrested javier in 1997 for the murder of cathy torrez.

he thought javier's real role was helping the prime suspect. javier's cousin, sam lopez. tina mont long owe, his 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 javier help him because they're close family. i don't see that. >> neither did the d.a., who decided there was not enough evidence to file charges. >> how do you tell mary that we had javier but we had to let him go? >> it was extremely difficult. there's a lot of crying on both sides. >> darren 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? >> yeah, absolutely. >> now you really are back to square one? >> yes. >> is that the end? >> to some people. >> but not to him. and not to mary. you put a lot of faith in darren. >> i put a lot of faith in god. darren was his tool. >> but for the time being, it seemed darren's hands were tied. after all, the case had been rejected by the d.a.'s office twice before. >> this case got a lot of baggage over the years. >> yes, it did. >> 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. >> 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. >> yeah. >> did this have something to do with that? >> definitely.

>> darren wyatt was promoted to detective sergeant and his case load shifted to other types of crime. but he never forgot his promise to mary, in part, because of a milestone in his own life. >> my first daughter was born and i remember going to mary shortly after that and looking her in the eye and saying i know, i know now how you feel. i know t i can feel it myself. i'm a dad now. and you haven't given up. i won't give up. >> in 2003, nine years after the murder, darren once again approached a friend in the d.a.'s office. >> i said i've got a cold casey need you to take a look at. he physically stops walking and says if it's the case i'm thinking about, i'm not going to touch it. >> darren was persistent. eventually, he persuaded his friend to take cathy's case back to the d.a.'s homicide unit. the same unit that rejected it twice before. this time, though, something

different happened. a prosecutor unfamiliar with the case agreed to take a fresh look. his name is matt murphy. and he noticed one thing right away. >> the first thing you see when you look at the file is a big rejection from really good lawyers who reviewed it individually and as a group. >> which means, they tried very hard to make a case and they couldn't do it. >> they tried very hard, that's right. they figured, based on their review that they couldn't do it. >> some of the reasons were apparent from the get-go. >> when you look at it on its face, this case is a real tough one. >> for one thing, there was so much evidence they didn't have against sam. >> there was no murder weapon here. we had no witness, we had no confession. we had no dna. so you can look at it that way in a conventional review. and yeah, it looked really tough. >> but what really made this case a prosecutor's nightmare was the fact that all the

physical evidence pointed away from the man they thought was the killer. any defense attorney would ask, if police found javier's dna and fingerprint, why would they charge sam? >> were you surprised you didn't find sam's dna there? >> yes. >> he thought newer better tests might find sam's dna. but it was too late for that. cathy's family had sold the car. the case against sam would have to be entirely circumstantial. murphy felt the key to that was somewhere in the interviews sam gave to police. but here too, there was a problem. >> when you look at the interview, everything that sam lopez said seemed logical at the time, everything seemed to make sense. >> taking apart those interviews would be critical. >> this is one of those cases where you have to look at the details and it's truly one of the -- you have to look at each detail in light of every other

detail. >> when you rearrange the letters in little tiny details, it spells larry montgomery. >> absolutely. >> larry montgomery or as he's known here at "dateline," the evidence whisperer. coming up -- >> asked her to marry you. >> a human lie detector goes to work. >> a guilty person knows a lot. all that information is in his brain and it can slip out. >> when "dateline" continues. thanks for giving victor the energy to be the rowdiest fan. and joseph, the ability to see monsters. when you choose walgreens, you choose to make a difference... like how every vitamin and flu shot you get at walgreens helps give life-changing vitamins and vaccines... to children in need around the world and here at home. so, really... happy thanks for giving! walgreens. at the corner of happy and healthy.

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by day 28? years off your skin age. but don't take it from us, take it from one of the millions of real women already in the know it's not often you can say, you know i saw results right away visible results or your money back olay. ageless there is not a friend that i have that will not own this product the investigation of the torrez murder was compelling but he knew that making the case against sam lopez wouldn't be eesz i. the d.a.'s office declined to try it twice before. so murphy called for help from a detective whose legendary skill with cold cases has earned him a

nickname. >> larry montgomery is the real deal. i mean, the guy is evidence whisperer, another nickname is st. larry. >> he sees things other people don't see? >> he sees things that many people don't see. he looks at it from a different perspecti perspective. >> they both felt the key to the case lay in sam lopez's own words. his taped interviews with the original detectives. they thought the perfect man to listen to the interviews was the evidence whisperer. >> guilty people have tells like in a poker game. >> absolutely. they have other fears. they fear being caught. they can't get their stories straight because there's too many details. >> montgomery spent months carefully listening and relistening, watching and rewatching hours of sam's interviews. looking for the tells. >> how long have you guys been dating? >> on and on thing, on and off thing. >> tell number one, how sam

talked about his relationship with cathy. >> she's always going out with somebody and she would call me up. we were always calling up -- nothing serious at the time. >> sam definitely was trying to limit his connection with cathy, give the impression that it's not that big of a deal. >> remember, cathy's sister tina had told detectives sam had proposed to cathy just days before she disappeared. but when police asked him about that, he denied it. >> asked her to marry you then? >> no. >> later he changed his story but seemed to say getting married was cathy's idea. >> a lot of people -- that we were supposed to ee open, okay? >> this is what she -- look, she had a crazy idea to go to mexico. okay? just the two of us. >> then there was sam's claim that cathy never tried to contact him after she disappeared. >> i thought she was going to

page me on friday. >> we know that cathy's mom paged him 20 or 25 times in a matter of at least a couple of days trying to get him to contact her because he's so close to cathy and she's missing. >> he noted a key detail about those pages. >> mary's home phone and kraft i's are the same number. >> so seeing that number on his pager, how did sam know it wasn't cathy? >> if he knew she was alive, he would know he got 20 or 25 pages from cathy or at least think that. if he's guilty and he killed cathy, he knows those 20 or 25 pages were not from cathy. >> that was tell number two. >> then montgomery noticed how, in his second interview referred to cathy's murder. >> then this happened and, shoot -- >> he doesn't use the word murder or anything like that. this happened. as if it's small.

it's not that big of a deal. it's not horrendous. he doesn't want it to be horrendous because he did it. >> tell number three. and then larry caught something else in the interview sam did before cathy's body was found. listen carefully. >> so you went out with her the saturday before the thursday? >> right. in other words a week before she was -- >> did you hear that. >> the week before she was -- what? dead? murdered? either way, larry thought sam knew more than he was telling. >> the guilty person knows a lot. cannot forget all that he knows. so when he's talking, all that information is in his brain and it can slip out. >> another reason to think sam knew much more than he was saying. in his second interview after cathy's body was found, police spoke with sam for 90 minutes before he asked them a single

question. when he finally did. >> >> larry noticed a telling statement. >> thought you were never going to ask. >> because i don't want memories to come back, you know. >> i don't want memories to come back. >> what memories does he have? >> if he's innocent, he has memories of cathy, good times, what they did. >> people would want those memories. >> if he had a memory he killed her, that's certainly a memory he doesn't want to relive. >> after listening to the interviews time and again, the evidence whisperer had no doubt sam killed cathy. >> but could the team prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? >> ultimately in cold case murders, time becomes one of our friends because technology changes. >> at the time of the murder, dna tests could only be done on big samples like blood spatter.

but in the years since, analysis became possible for touch dna. the microscopic calling cards that many of us leave behind by putting our hands-on something. if sam and javier did place cathy's body in the car's trunk, maybe thought larry there would be touch dna on her clothes. >> search for dna in the areas that might be grabbed. especially areas that might be grabbed that don't have blood on them from cathy. >> so you looked on the ankles and under her arms. >> ankles, arms, i think under the legs. >> darren wyatt send out for touch dna. are you optimistic or are you thinking, shot in the dark? >> no. i was not optimistic. i was not optimistic. >> because what? >> because on this particular case, it seemed like for the beginning phases everything that could go wrong, pretty much went wrong. >> he also knew he was working with a cop on a mission.

darren wyatt was not going to quit before i filed a case or i died or he died i guess. he was dedicated to this. >> if murphy declined the case a third time, the cathy torrez case would certainly go from cold to dead. what would he decide? no one understood the stakes better than cathy's mom. >> darren had told me that we were going to meet with the d.a. my interpretation of it was he was going to tell me there was nothing they could do. coming up. a key piece of evidence arrives. better late than never. >> how long had they known that? >> a couple of months at least. >> they what, forgot to call? >> it isn't the smoking gun. when "dateline" continues. alright, off you go.

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it was an early morning in

2007, 15 years after cathy torrez had breathed her last. >> i was having coffee. it was before work and i was reading my bible. it was a little bit after 7:00 when i saw that i had a call from him. >> from darren wyatt. mary knew he was scheduled to meet with the d.a. >> my first thought was he was going to tell me that the meeting was canceled again. >> but that was not the message. not at all. >> he said i'm standing here in front of sam's house and we are making an arrest right now. >> and you thought? >> i got up and i think i screamed there at the mcdonald's. >> years before, darren wyatt had made a promise. now he felt he was keeping it. >> that had to feel pretty good. tears of joy this time. >> sam lopez was arrested and charged with cathy's murder. but he wasn't alone. just as prosecutors now believed

he wasn't alone the night he stabbed cathy to death. sam's cousin javier was also arrested and charged with murder. police also arrested sam's older brother armando who was once married to cathy's sister tina and had helped search for cathy. >> it's just a tragic loss. it hurts. everybody loved cathy. >> armando was charged with being an accessory after the fact for allegedly helping cover up the murder. >> we believe he was telling people who had information that could help convict sam not to cooperate with the police. >> cathy's sister had to ponder what that might mean about her former husband. >> betrayal of the worst kind. >> betrayal of her, betrayal of you. >> everything. >> your family. >> my family, trust, betrayal, everything. broken beyond belief. >> sam and his wife had also separated by this point. she was at work when her sister

called and told her police had once again come for sam. >> what did you think when you heard sam was arrested? >> the same that i always had. here we go again. >> he'll be out soon. >> yes. >> after all, they had detained sam once before and had to release him. but as darren wyatt now explained to sam lopez, this time was different. >> i've told you before we wouldn't give up until we were able to bring resolution to this case and that's where we're at now. >> but just when it seemed the case was buttoned up, darren got a surprising call. remember the request for touch dna darren had submitted months earlier, the crime lab finally called back. >> and the crime lab says what? >> hey, did we tell you that bee found javier's dna on cathy's body? >> what? we found javier's profile on her

sock on the back of her knee and under her right armpit. >> 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 was waiting for additional results and didn't realize she hadn't notified us. >> the idea of touch dna paid off. >> but not quite the way they had hoped. >> unbelievable you would get touch dna back not long after the fact. >> but bad news. it doesn't have sam lopez's name on it. >> that's right. >> 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 8 to bring him to trial and just months

before that trial began, matt murphy learned that sam had a new defense attorney, someone matt knew very well. >> he's so good and i would be lying if i said my heart was not in my throat. >> sam's defense attorney was the former assistant d.a. who supervised the homicide unit. in fact, he was the original prosecutor who back in 1994 didn't think there was enough evidence to charge sam. not only that, lou was the man who brought matt into the homicide unit. >> lou took me under his wing and trained me how to do homicides. >> what's it like to go up against your mentor? >> it's terrifying. >> neither one of them had ever lost a murder case. but someone's winning streak was about to end. february 10, 2015, 20 years after cathy torrez's murder, sam lopez went on trial. >> at the end of this case, you

are going to hold that man accountable for exactly what he did. >> the very first witness matt murphy put on the stand was cathy's mom mary. it seemed a safe way to start. >> there's a cardinal rule, you don't do a hard cross-examination on a mother. >> but matt's mentor broke that rule. >> he really pressed her on some of the details and scored some points. scored big points. i mean, scored big-time points. >> mary initially told the jury sam only responded to one of her pages. but under cross-examination mary revealed he had actually returned three pages. >> they were tryg to paint picture of sam that he did absolutely nothing and that is not true. >> it's one of the only cases i've done in my career where i realized he understands this case as well as i do. >> it was mentor against pupil. and the stakes couldn't be higher. coming up -- >> it's as cold blooded as you

can possibly get. >> where is the evidence? >> a 20-year search for a killer draws to a close. but as always, the jury gets the last word. when "dateline" continues.

matt murphy was facing the biggest battle of his career against his former mentor, famed prosecutor turned defense attorney lew rosenblum. >> but you've only heard one side. >> reporter: the same man who back in 1994 felt there was not enough evidence to charge sam lopez was now defending him. it was an epic showdown in a packed courtroom. >> two of the best attorneys in the nation battling one another over a high-stakes murder with absolutely zero physical evidence on the defendant who's being tried. and it was teacher versus student. >> reporter: sam had been a

suspect for 20 years. and during that entire time, his attorney said, police had it all wrong. >> the detectives made up their mind about who did this murder within hours. "we had a bad feeling about you," they said. "we're gonna prove it." and they spent the next 21 years, over and over, trying. >> reporter: the defense argued sam's behavior didn't prove anything. not only was sam in touch with cathy's family the week she disappeared, he also participated in the search, putting up a flyer at his girlfriend's store. and that business about him not showing any emotion in his interview with police? >> it is very easy to sit back and say, "he should have done that. he should answer this way. look, he's stretching. he's yawning. he's reading a coke can. obviously he's a sociopath." where is the evidence? >> reporter: step back from those supposed tells, the defense said, and you'd see the man sitting in that chair was not lying to cover up a murder.

>> he voluntarily gives hair, blood, prints, shoes, clothes, everything they want, not a man who's hiding. that's a man who wants to prove his innocence. >> reporter: and the defense said after 14 years of tests, not a single forensic link -- not his fingerprints, not his dna -- had ever been found tying sam to cathy's brutal murder. >> everything that they expected to find of my client -- everything -- none of it was there. why? because they're wrong. >> reporter: the fingerprint and dna at the crime scene made it obvious. the wrong man was on trial. >> javier lopez is all over this. prints, dna, because he was the one that did it, not my client. >> reporter: but prosecutor matt murphy argued that javier's dna and fingerprint were really evidence against sam. remember, from the beginning, javier had been sam's alibi.

>> he paged me, saying, "you know what, i need a ride." >> reporter: the prosecutor argued that if they were together and javier's dna put him at scene of the crime, then sam had to be there too. his alibi is at theurder scene. and for sam lopez, i think that's just devastating evidence. >> reporter: and he told the jury it was the first of many instances where the most powerful evidence of guilt came from sam's own words. >> it's sam's actions and it's sam's statements. >> reporter: so he gave you the case against him. >> the best evidence that we have in this case, and that we had, was sam lopez himself. >> reporter: sam was the one who told police he had a jealous streak. >> every time she mentions some guy's name, i get pissed off, okay? >> reporter: cathy was seeing another guy -- albert. the prosecution said sam's jealousy was triggered the night he took cathy out and saw that hickey. >> what effect is that going to

have on a guy who gets "pissed," his own word, "pissed," if she even mentions another guy? what is he gonna do when he sees a hickey? >> reporter: what he did, matt said, was slash cathy's tires. >> obviously somebody had -- would have to be very angry at her to slash her tires. if those tires were slashed, ladies and gentlemen, there's only one suspect. there's only person that did it. >> reporter: murphy said sam's anger continued to build as cathy's attention turned to albert -- the same week when sam asked her to elope. a proposal she told her sister tina she was going to reject on saturday -- the day she was killed. >> so now it's not just a hickey. it's a denial of a proposal, and it's all because of another guy. >> reporter: the result, the prosecutor said, was an attack so savage -- cathy stabbed more than 70 times -- that it could only be the work of a jealous lover. >> every one of those cuts meant something. every one of those stab wounds meant something. >> reporter: and the finishing blow --

>> she was alive, and sam lopez cut her throat. it's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. >> reporter: the 21st anniversary of cathy's murder fell during the middle of trial. a day that reminded cathy's family once again of all they had lost. what'd your family do that day? >> we went to the cemetery. as we go every year in february. we take her red roses that she wanted for valentine's day that year. >> reporter: for 21 years the torrez family had demanded answers. two days after deliberations began, the jury reached a verdict. >> i couldn't breathe. i felt just tightness inside. and when the clerk took the folder, i started my prayer. "the lord is my shepherd. i shall not want." >> we the jury find the defendant, samuel agustin lopez, guilty of murder in the first degree.

>> once i heard that, then i just -- all i remember is that i held my hands up to my chin like this and i just thanked god. >> reporter: daron wyatt was watching mary in that moment. >> this was everything to her. and i wanted to look in her eyes when they came back and see that she knew that i fulfilled my promise. >> reporter: for sam's ex-wife, the news was devastating. >> i cried. >> reporter: for your daughter? for sam? >> for both. >> reporter: doesn't sound like it shook your faith at all in him. >> it didn't. i still don't believe that he did it. >> reporter: after the verdict, people in placentia strung little white hearts on the tree that was planted in cathy's memory. did she leave the mark on the world that she always wanted to leave?

>> yeah, she did. we have letters of coworkers, of students she worked with. >> reporter: people you didn't even know. >> people we didn't even know that were able to come back and tell my mom or tell one of us, you know, "we miss her at sav-on. she was always smiling. she'd always help us." so what they did to her, all those stab wounds that she got, multiply those and those are her marks. >> reporter: for 21 years sam denied he inflicted those stab wounds, denied he killed cathy. but at his sentencing sam did something that was unexpected. >> i would like to apologize to the torrez family and to everyone for all of the harm and grief that i have caused them. this was a horrible act that never should have happened. it is entirely my fault. i take full responsibility.

>> reporter: sam lopez was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. javier pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact. he served eight years and is now out of prison. sam's brother armando pleaded guilty to dissuading a witness and was sentenced to one year probation. and mary bennett is still facing the rest of her life without cathy. >> in 1994, i was given a sentence, and there was no parole from it. to live my life without ever seeing cathy again, without ever seeing her beautiful smile or having her come running in through the door and saying, "what's for dinner?" and there's no -- i will never have any kind of parole from that. that is my life sentence. >> reporter: she's serving it one night at a time, because the

wee small hours of the morning still call to mary bennett, reading the bible and waiting for dawn, while the whole wide world is fast asleep. good morning. i'm dara brown. it's 6:00 a.m. in the east, 3:00 a.m. out west and here is what is happening. the last leg, president trump arrives in the philippines. why the meeting with their leader could be perilous. >> i believe he believes that and it's very important for somebody to believe. >> believe it or not, the president offers a clarification on whether he believes vladimir putin or u.s. intelligence agencies. fallout, defiant roy moore faces a crowd for the first time. reaction from both sides as the man