>> that does it for us. remember you can catch the katie phang show saturdays at 12 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. and on that note, i wish you a good night from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news. thanks for staying up late. i'll see you. see you. >> this weekend. and her baby hadn't come home. narrator: cathy's week had been nothing but trouble. she couldn't tell me what had happened. she was so upset.

narrator: it was about to get much worse. tina mora: my mom would say, if you find the car, you'll find cathy. you didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking. she had been stabbed multiple times. there was blood within the interior of the car. she was a targeted victim. narrator: who killed cathy? we had no witness. we had no confession. we had no dna. narrator: 20 years went by. i still had to keep looking for what i had lost. narrator: but cathy had her, and she had him. i put a lot of faith in god. daron was his tool. narrator: and the killer? he never had a chance. this was everything to her. i fulfilled my promise. [theme music] narrator: in the wee, small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world is fast asleep, mary bennett is awake, not because she wants to be,

but because some things stay with you whether you want them to or not. and for mary bennett, it's the time, 3:40 am. every day, i wake up around that time. it's embedded in my brain. narrator: for more than two decades, that particular time has stabbed her in the heart, pulled her awake. it's an internal clock, permanently set to the worst day of her life. it began with a phone call, then a knock on the door, and news of something that should never have happened to this family, to this girl. when she would come inside the house, her favorite thing was "i'm home. what's for dinner?" even if we just finished cleaning the kitchen, she'd still ask, "what's for dinner?" that was cathy. narrator: cathy torrez grew up in placentia, a small town nestled amongst the sprawling cities of southern california. even as a baby, she was a good baby.

narrator: mary bennett is cathy's mother. she was always happy, always running, and always very loud, and always smiling. narrator: that radiant smile shined everywhere she went, says cathy's sister, tina. cathy was energetic. she was happy. she loves to laugh. narrator: cathy was one of four siblings. there was younger brother, marty, and the baby, debbie. tina was the eldest. she watched as cathy excelled in school. cathy was exceptional. cathy made her own way. she didn't follow a role model. nobody guiding her, and nobody pushing her. exactly, she had her own drive. mary bennett: she used to tell her younger sister that she had to leave her mark. you had to leave your mark in this world so that people would remember you when you moved on. you have to leave your mark on the world. did you teach her that? no, that was just her. seems like an admirable thing for a kid to come up with.

well, cathy was different. narrator: beautiful, smart, and social, and popular. you knew more about her dating life than maybe your mom and dad did. yes, i believe to some extent, yes. narrator: cathy dated a few guys in high school, but no one she was terribly stuck on. and then in 1994, out of high school and a young woman of 20, cathy started to see a boy named albert, a boy she played with as a child and was now interested in romantically. were they boyfriend and girlfriend? she said that they were, you know, seeing each other. but it wasn't anything serious or formal that i knew of. that's how she explained it to me, you know. he was a nice guy. narrator: cathy's plate was full that february of 1994. she was an honor student at cal state, fullerton, holding down two jobs-- one at the local drugstore and another as a teacher's aide, all to pay for college.

and now she was also seeing a new guy. just a few days before february 14, cathy told sister, tina, what she wanted for valentine's day. she said, tina, i would just like it if somebody gave me a dozen red roses for valentine's day. and i said, yeah, that's all you want? she said, i would just like a dozen red roses. narrator: she had never received a dozen roses from anyone. but that year, she was hopeful. it was saturday, february 12, and cathy went off to her job at the drugstore. how was she that morning? she was fine, just routine, nothing out of the ordinary. narrator: 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. narrator: that smile, that moment, burned into her memory. cathy's shift ended at about 8 o'clock that night. she was supposed to come straight home, but mary didn't see her. so 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock comes, you're not worried? no, i wasn't worried. saturday night, she probably went out after work. yeah. narrator: but then sunday morning came, and still no cathy. coming up-- cathy's family launches a search. tina: when i drove into the parking lot, i said, let me just see her car. let me just see her car. narrator: and the fear and the frustration grow. just felt like you were out in-- in this time warp. you know, there was no days and no nights. and you didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking. narrator: when "dateline" continues.

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>> com was already taken. get 20% off and free shipping on. 20% off and free shipping on. >> your first order@n valentine's day, 1994, was two days away, but mary bennett's heart was already racing, and for all the wrong reasons. her daughter cathy, torrez, never came home after her shift at savon ended. and the next morning, there was still no sign of her. mary called cathy's friends. no one had seen her. so mary got in the car and scoured the streets of 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 was hurting because she was looking for her baby. she would say, find the car. if you find the car--

it was like an equation. find the car, you'll find cathy. you get any sleep sunday night? no, just waiting. 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 back door. narrator: 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. she could have met some guy, and they're in vegas right now. and you're saying-- no. not possible. at that point, you want to yell and scream at them and tell them, that's not true. you don't know, not my cathy. narrator: the torrez family was not going to wait for police to catch up to what they already knew, that cathy was not someone who'd just disappear. they went to reporters. mary spoke to knbc in los angeles--

this is one thing that nobody should have to go through. narrator: --and took the search into their own hands. the police department wasn't receptive. so i told my mom, ok. give me a picture. narrator: tina was in charge of flyers. mary worked the phones at home. and younger brother, marty, kept watch in front of savon. hi, did you guys ever receive a flyer? narrator: soon, it wasn't just the torrez family searching for cathy. you know god's there for you. narrator: police did jump on the case, and it seemed as if all of placentia did, too. we had strangers, people coming to the house, asking, what can we do? where can we take the flyers? can we have some flyers to pass out flyers? narrator: tina drove to the school where cathy worked. all the while, mary's mantra echoed through her mind. find the car, and you'll find cathy. tina: when i drove into the parking lot, i said, let me just see her car. let me just see her car, because i knew a lot of things were going on in her life, you know, in that week prior.

narrator: a lot of things was an understatement. cathy's family was very worried about her state of mind after a strange and terrifying series of events that had happened the week before she vanished. first she'd come home the previous saturday in a bizarre state-- incoherent, unable to stand up. mary bennett: she couldn't get out of the car. my son went out to help her. that cannot have made you happy. no, it didn't, because i had never seen her come home like that. and she couldn't tell me what had happened. did she smell like alcohol? no, she didn't. that was-- that was the scary part to me, you know, that she did not smell like alcohol, yet something was wrong with her. narrator: even more alarming, mary later realized cathy's underwear was missing. what you're describing is what happens when people come home

after they've been date raped. yes. narrator: you know, they can't remember what happened. they're maybe not wearing all of their clothes, and they are clearly under the influence of something. well, yes, i was afraid that maybe that had happened to her. but i didn't know for a fact. and she had no memory? and she had no memory. did you think about calling the police? sadly, no, i didn't think about that. narrator: it didn't end there. the next morning, tina saw cathy's car. i remember looking at the tires and saying, what happened? how could this be? the way they were slashed-- it was deliberate. and i just kept saying, what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires? and she'd say? and she'd say she didn't know. narrator: but the worst was yet to come. two days after cathy came home in that strange condition, her new boyfriend, albert rangel, apparently tried to commit suicide. he even left a note that seemed to be

in his own handwriting, all of this just days before cathy disappeared. albert hanged himself at work, but he didn't die. he lingered in a coma in the hospital, and cathy was devastated. she was so upset. she was crying. she couldn't believe that someone would do something like that. narrator: and now, the torrez family was left to wonder if and how all of this connected to cathy's disappearance. mary bennett: you just felt like you were out in-- in this time warp. you know, there was no days or no nights. and you didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking. narrator: the next big search was planned for saturday morning, february 19, one week since cathy had last been seen. we got all the maps ready, and we had just got another box donated of flyers. and everything was set. narrator: and then around 3:40 am saturday, there was a knock on mary's front door.

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standing up for usaid and foreign aid in the history of the agency, as any other president ever tried to remove a member of the board the way donald trump tried to remove you, what do you think democrats can do right now in opposition, to try to mitigate some of the harm that's being caused as they dismantle the federal government? the opposition is now awake and increasingly emboldened. tells you it's on. emboldened. tells you it's on. it is on. the torrez family had planned a major search for cathy on saturday, a week after she disappeared. but at 3:40 that morning, mary had a visitor. a police officer. narrator: he asked for cathy's keys. i gave him the key, and i asked him if it was cathy's car. and he just looked straight-- he didn't look at me. and he said he didn't know, that they had just told him to come and pick up the key. then he left. narrator: find the car, and you'll find cathy. it had become practically a family motto.

so when another officer arrived hours later, the torrez family was waiting for what they had dreaded all week. my mom asked him, what happened? did you find cathy? and then he looked at my mom. and then he said, i'm sorry. and all i remember were the flyers that were on my mom's table in the living room and feeling so much pain. i was yelling, not my cathy, not cathy. narrator: mary bennett had been right all along. cathy's toyota corolla had been spotted in a hospital parking lot. a plastic bag was peeking out of the trunk. officers opened it, and cathy torrez was missing no longer.

she had been stabbed multiple times, all about the upper chest and neck. narrator: detective sergeant daron wyatt. there's no way to time the death. but i think it's pretty safe to assume that she had been dead since she disappeared on that saturday night on the 12th. narrator: it was devastating not just for the torrez family, but for all those in placentia who had been searching so tirelessly for cathy. she was a vibrant, very intelligent young girl. this is truly a tragedy. narrator: detectives went to work trying to find cathy's killer. they set up a hotline-- woman: if you have any information regarding the homicide of cathy torrez-- narrator: --and scoured placentia for clues. by studying her car and her body, investigators got a sense of what happened. first, cathy was completely clothed, no sign of sexual assault. and one more thing also seemed clear.

most likely, the attack started in the car. there were pieces of the gearshift that were broken, pieces of the center console that were broken, as if a struggle had occurred. and then there was blood within the interior of the car. narrator: orange county prosecutor matt murphy later reviewed the case. he noted blood on everything the killer must have touched-- the steering wheel, above the glove compartment, the driver's side armrest, and, of course, the trunk release. but one noteworthy place where there was no blood? the driver's-side seat lever-- 4' 11" cathy drove her car with the seat moved closest to the steering wheel. but when police found the car, the seat was racked all the way back, suggesting that somebody taller than cathy was operating the car. not only operating the car, but did that before the murder itself took place, because that was touched and that seat was moved without any transfer of blood at all. so the seat was moved back before the killing started.

narrator: and if so, perhaps it was because cathy knew her killer and opened the door for him or her. investigators also found cathy's right shoe on the floorboard of her car and her sock, covered in dirt. she got out of the car? yes, absolutely, cathy had fled from the vehicle on foot, had most likely been caught and attacked again before she was ultimately placed in the trunk of the car and died. she fought pretty hard to get away. she did. she ran for her life. narrator: to detectives, this was not a sex crime or a robbery. more than 70 stab wounds suggested something else. there's nothing random about it. she was a targeted victim. narrator: and perhaps the most chilling clue-- a letter, in cathy's own handwriting, found tucked away on the passenger side of cathy's car. she says in the letter, it's a little after 8:15. yeah, it's 8:15, just finished my shift.

today was crazy. everybody was all buying v-- and the v was for valentine's day. and that's as far as she got? that's as far as she got, so she's interrupted mid-sentence. narrator: just who had done that? detectives weren't quite sure. daron believed the letter was intended for albert, who at the time of cathy's murder was lying in a coma in the hospital after a suicide attempt. he never woke up and died almost two years later. obviously, you have to look at all of that. and you have to ask, is there something that's involved in that? narrator: it was almost too strange to imagine, except to police. there were rumors within the community that that may have been the motive for her disappearance and murder, was that, hey. you need to look at the rangel family. narrator: members of albert's family, the rumors said, were angry with kathy, thinking that she might have been the cause of his suicide attempt. because of his relationship with cathy and the fact that she wasn't as serious about him

as he was with her, so that had to be examined. it had to be looked at. narrator: so the investigation continued, as people in placentia paid final respects to the friendly cashier they knew from savon. more than 1,000 people attended cathy's funeral. pretty impressive. the kind of person cathy was, she touched a lot of people. they remembered her. she left her mark. she did. narrator: cathy had hoped for a dozen red roses that february. instead, her family remembered her with a headstone. "your smile will shine forever." that wasn't the only promise cathy's mother made. i didn't know how long i would have to wait. but i knew that we had to do everything that we could to get the answer. because? because it was my daughter, and someone had taken her away from me. someone had done something horrible to her,

and someone needed to be accountable. narrator: no one could have imagined at the time just how long mary's quest for justice would take. coming up, detectives have a few questions for one of cathy's closest friends. narrator: when "dateline" continues. ♪ it's native ♪ 24-hour moisturizing body wash that locks in four times the moisturizers of your old body wash! wow! and just 12 ingredients! heavenly! clean, moisturizing body wash isn't a myth- it's native! [coughing] copd is an ugly reality. do you have his medical history? i watch as his world just keeps getting smaller. but then, trelegy helped us see things a little differently.

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mind to 215215 now. >> hi, i'm richard. >> lui with. >> a news update. >> ukraine's president volodymyr. >> zelensky saying. >> russia is responsible. >> for a. >> drone strike. >> on the protective. >> shell of the chernobyl nuclear plant friday. >> russia denies this. the drone was. >> armed with a warhead. >> but thus. >> far radiation. >> levels at the. >> site of. >> the. >> world's worst. >> nuclear accident. >> appear to be steady. and in munich, germany, zelensky.

>> meeting with. >> a us. >> delegation including vice president. >> jd vance and. secretary of state marco. >> rubio amid some mixed messages. >> from the administration. >> of. president trump. >> zelensky saying. >> the united states support. >> is vital. >> to ukraine's survival. for >> to ukraine's survival. for now. back to dateline. cathy torrez had been murdered and stuffed into 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. narrator: 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. tina mora: exactly. and she's going out with sam. you're married to his older brother. mm-hmm. so that house wasn't just another house on the street. it was family. right, right. narrator: police spoke with members of the lopez family. sam knew cathy the best. narrator: they interviewed him down at the station. narrator: given their friendship, detectives were curious about what cathy might have shared with sam about albert.

confiding in you? >> the only. >> thing she mentioned. >> about him. >> was that he hung himself. >> and she was sorry. >> for him doing. >> that because. >> she. >> thought it was her fault. and >> thought it was her fault. and that's why. narrator: meaning she was smoking marijuana. cathy's family said that for her, that would be out of character. sam told detectives he had last seen cathy the thursday before she disappeared. he said she paged him several times that day, and when they finally met up-- give it to me narrator: and then, sam said, cathy got in her car and took off.

narrator: sam shared his suspicions about what had happened to cathy, the same rumors about albert that were circulating around placentia. not. pointing a finger. >> to nobody. okay. >> to nobody. okay. >> but why? narrator: of course, police also asked sam where he was the night cathy disappeared. narrator: sam told police how he and his cousin, javier, helped their friend move in the afternoon. and then he said he dropped javier off at his home.

>> and i was there till shoot, till they closed. >> which was around. >> eight. >> a little bit after eight. then what did i do that day? i think? >> oh, i. >> picked my cousin up again. so if. if. >> we narrator: and sure enough, they did. police spoke with javier, who corroborated sam's story. javier told investigators that he was with sam, that sam had picked him up at his house in anaheim and driven him to another friend's house in fullerton during the time that we believe cathy was contacted and ultimately murdered. so if you believe sam's alibi, he couldn't have been the thing that interrupted cathy when she was writing that note. right. narrator: nevertheless, they pressed sam for more details.

narrator: sam readily gave those clothes to the police. he let them search his house, too, and he willingly gave samples of his hair and blood. but something about sam's behavior the week cathy was missing bothered her family. mary said she'd repeatedly paged sam looking for cathy, but he was slow to respond. did he call you back? not at first. narrator: but eventually, he did? eventually, yes. and he said what, he hadn't seen her? he hadn't seen her. narrator: to all appearances, that was true, and the physical evidence seemed to confirm it. sam's dna was not found anywhere on cathy or her car. and his clothes, the ones he gave voluntarily to police, had no dna of cathy's on them. but that behavior of sam's which bothered cathy's family also bothered police, and they focused on him.

however, when investigators took their suspicions to the orange county da, the outcome was not what they expected. coming up, sam has a new woman in his life who soon discovers his old life. you were a little freaked out by that? well, yeah. narrator: when "dateline" continues. ♪♪ vicks vapostick provides soothing non-medicated vicks vapors. easy to apply for the whole family. vicks vapostick. and try new vaposhower max for steamy vicks vapors. cosequin. >> for athletes in the. >> ring and at home. trust cosequin. >> cosequin. >> the official. >> joint health supplement of the westminster. >> dog show.

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>> we're going to start with breaking news on capitol hill. >> mounting questions over the. future of tiktok in the us. >> reporting from philadelphia. >> el paso. >> in. >> the palisades. >> virginia, from msnbc world >> virginia, from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. police had their suspicions 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 he was killed. sam was with his cousin, javier, which is why when police took their case to the da's office, the da 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. coincidence? yeah, just two tragedies, happening at the same time. but not connected? but not connected, no. narrator: 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. yes, still out there, enjoying the sun. breathing the same air you're breathing. yes. did you think about that a lot? i did, especially if it was a beautiful day. narrator: those sunny days turned dark. months passed. seasons changed, and still the torrez family was left wondering who had killed cathy. something that never changed was mary, steadfast in her resolve to get justice for her daughter. early on, a friend gave her some advice.

she said remember, mary, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. don't let anyone tell you different. you keep going. and that's what i did. narrator: mary and her family sought the attention of the media. they marched in rallies, lobbied officials for greater victim's rights, and spoke with then-california governor pete wilson about cathy's murder. they even contributed to reward funds, some of it by selling tamales at the local fair. you were doing just about everything you could think of, weren't you? yes, yes, well, you have to. you have to, because you don't have the name or the resources to do it on your own. so then you look, and you knock on a lot of doors, trying to keep it out there. narrator: the torrez family says they spent thousands of hours knocking on doors, speaking at events, all in the hope that cathy's case would not lie forgotten in a filing cabinet. and mary did something else, too. i worked part time for the city.

and it just so happened that my desk was right at the door, the hallway that connected the police department with the city. and so they would see me sitting at my desk when they walked into city hall. so every new police chief-- every. --would get a meeting with you? yes, i would actually go into their office and talk to them and tell them, see what they could do. you were a pest? i was a squeaky wheel. narrator: your mom was relentless with the police. yes, she was. i went with her a couple times to meet the new chief that would come in to the police department. we'd go in there. you know, we just want to let you know what we represent cathy torrez. and we have not forgotten. and we just want to make sure that, you know, her case is still being worked on. and that's all we basically-- we have not forgotten, and we want to make sure that you don't, either. right, right. narrator: the city of placentia didn't forget. the community learning center was dedicated in cathy's name. the cathy torrez learning center. mary bennett: yes.

you've got to leave your mark on the world. and she did. narrator: 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. narrator: 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 turned up nothing. and sam was also moving on with his life. in may 1994, just months after cathy's murder, sam walked into a local restaurant. he walked in with his friend. and i just remember thinking that he was cute. narrator: tina montelongo was a hostess then. so i offered him some free food, and then we started talking. narrator: she felt the spark right away. tina montelongo: i did think i would marry him when i first saw him. that was, like, the words that came out of my mouth. i'm gonna marry that guy. you were taken with him right away? i was, mm-hmm.

narrator: sam and tina started dating. but in a small town like placentia, it wasn't long before tina heard the whispered rumors. i found out that my sister went to school with him. and i asked her what she knew about him, what she thought about him. and that's when she told me that he was the one that they suspected. in the murder of cathy torrez? yes. 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. narrator: 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. narrator: which was not true? which was not true. you were a little freaked out by that? well, yeah. narrator: but the spark that first 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.

ok, 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 they didn't have my attention. narrator: they dated for a year and then married. tina montelongo: i was ready. i was-- this is it. this is who i want to be with. this is who i want to grow old with and also who i want to have kids with. narrator: and they did. a year later came a baby girl, and sam embraced his role as dad. tina montelongo: he was like mr. mom, you know? he stayed home and took care of the baby while i worked. narrator: 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. did sam say anything about mary? no, no, he would try to tell me to ignore it. narrator: was this like the hatfields and the mccoys? i mean, what happened? there was no communication, no association with them. you know, that was basically it. they became estranged. narrator: which made it difficult for tina, who was still married to sam's older brother, armando. police continued to work the case. but the fact was they had no solid leads, and they weren't even close to arresting anyone. but then two years after cathy's torrez was murdered, an unexpected meeting put this investigation in the fast lane. coming up, an explorer scout with a familiar last name

inspires a renewed search for a killer. that is a weird coincidence. we don't believe in coincidences. narrator: and then a tip that catches one investigator's attention. that had to make everybody sit up straight. it did. narrator: when "dateline" continues. hey, i just got a text from my sister. you remember rick, her neighbor? sure, he's the 76-year-old guy who still runs marathons, right? sadly, not anymore. wow. so sudden. um, we're not about to have the "we need life insurance" conversation again, are we? no, we're having the "we're getting coverage so we don't have to worry about it" conversation. so you're calling about the $9.95 a month plan -from colonial penn? -i am. we put it off long enough. we are getting that $9.95 plan, today. (jonathan) is it time for you to call about the $9.95 plan?

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just $7 is try friday plans.com. it was 1996. two years had passed since the gruesome murder of kathy torrez in placentia, california. i had been to several places. i had knocked on many doors. and all i ever wanted was the truth to come out as to what had happened to cathy. narrator: the case had gone cold, but its memory still clung to the breeze in this small town. daron wyatt was a patrol officer back then. and one afternoon, his shift brought him to this park,

just across the street from where cathy had grown up. daron was about to bust a drug suspect, when the guy started talking. he's playing the game of, you know, i'll tell you whatever you want to know. just ask the right questions, and i'll tell you. and then you won't have to take me to jail. so just almost as a flippant remark, i tell him, ok. so tell me who killed cathy torrez. narrator: it was a shot in the dark, a tactic he'd picked up at a seminar for cultivating informants. and the patrol officer that is next to me starts kind of kicking my foot. and he's got an explorer scout who's riding with him, a young hispanic female. and i look at her name tag, and it was d. torrez. it turned out it was debbie torrez, cathy's youngest sister. who had just heard you ask that question. correct. narrator: you had no idea it was her? i had no idea. narrator: debbie torrez, cathy's baby sister, was now 14 years old, eager, her mom says, to assist police because of everything

her family had been through. she remembered that when we needed help, people came to help us. so she thought it was her turn to help others. narrator: which is why debbie was in the park that afternoon, and how she heard daron mention cathy's case. that is a weird coincidence. we don't believe in coincidences. narrator: to daron wyatt, it felt more like fate. and just months later, in january 1997, his lieutenant suggested daron apply to the homicide unit. so i ended up putting in for that job and being selected. narrator: it wasn't long before he cracked open the doors that house 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. i pulled it out, and i started reading, just on free time, just reading it a little bit. narrator: 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. narrator: 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. and then in april of 1997, i got a phone call from mary bennett. narrator: cathy's mom, it would be their first conversation of many. mary told daron how she'd seen reports about a new program in orange county centered around investigating cold cases. cathy's case had specifically been mentioned. and mary said, if they're going to use my daughter's murder as publicity for their program, by all means, they're going to work it. and it's your job to make sure that that happens.

narrator: there were no new murders in placentia in 1997, allowing daron to focus his full attention on this old one. and because you have mary bennett, the family who's persistent, who are very well known and very well liked within the community, it did give me a lot of leverage when i went forth and said, hey, look. i need time to concentrate specifically on this case. narrator: daron pored through the files and hunted down new leads. and then a tip came in, seemingly out of nowhere. so a guy from a repossession company calls the police and says, hey. i repoed this car earlier today, and there was a folio in the trunk of the car. and as i'm going through the folio, there are articles in there about this murder in placentia from 1994. and there are receipts from savon. narrator: savon, the drugstore chain where cathy was working at the time she was stabbed to death.

that had to make everybody sit up straight. it did. narrator: 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. and what you wanted to know first was, where were you on the night cathy torrez disappeared? correct. narrator: and where was he? he was in state prison. so whatever is going on with this guy, he's not your guy. 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? when you say to him, why would you have articles about cathy torrez's murder and receipts from savon in the trunk of your car, his answer is what? that's all my wife's stuff. he disowns it. he separates himself from it, which now raises a little bit more suspicion. 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 the connection was. narrator: daron finally located the convict's wife. she was uncooperative at first, which, again, now this is raising suspicions again. ultimately, she did come in and talk to us. and her explanation was that she went to valencia high school with cathy. and then upon closer examination, we were able to see that the receipts from savon were from a different savon than the one that cathy worked at. and this was basically, like, her keepsake file. she'd saved those articles just because she knew someone who got murdered? correct. so this had nothing to do with her husband who was in prison at all? absolutely nothing. so you're back to basically no suspects. no, we're back to sam. narrator: but at the same time, daron had to admit that sam certainly did not fit anyone's profile of a murder suspect. no criminal history, there was no indicators that he was anything other than a normal 22-year-old kid. he didn't sound like a killer. no, absolutely not. narrator: detectives had interviewed sam

on two separate days, first on audiotape when cathy went missing. narrator: and later, this time on video, after her body was found. narrator: he had always been cooperative. he voluntarily gave head hair samples. he gave a blood sample. he gave fingerprints. and at the end of that, he ultimately said, you know, whatever i can do, i'll do. narrator: but as he read the file, daron learned there were other things sam didn't do. for example, sam lived right down the street, yet cathy's family says he never stopped by during that whole frantic week when they were searching. he did speak extensively with police. i don't think anybody thought that sam was telling the truth. narrator: remember how sam told detectives cathy came to him looking for weed?

narrator: but-- there was absolutely no indication that any of that was true. which calls into question sam's story. it does. narrator: coming up, as daron digs deeper into the case, some telling behavior from sam in those old interview tapes. daron wyatt: he never shows any emotion about the fact that his gal has been brutally murdered, no emotion whatsoever. and that's a big red flag. it's huge. narrator: and he learns cathy and sam's relationship was anything but straight forward. narrator: when "dateline" continues. oh. >> that's great. >> what position did you play? >> first base. that's where grandpa. >> used to play. >> when our hearing wouldn't allow us to use a regular phone,

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cathy's family said he never stopped by the house while the family was searching for her. and daron noticed an inconsistency in sam's account of the days right before cathy disappeared. mary, however, says sam was the one calling her home looking for kathy. josh mankiewicz: he called how many times? mary bennet: quite a few times looking for her. narrator: mary says sam sounded ok at first, until she told him where cathy was. mary bennet: i said she was at the hospital and she wasn't back yet. narrator: at the hospital visiting albert, her boyfriend who had attempted suicide. josh mankiewicz: sam ok with that? mary bennet: no, he got upset. narrator: sam told police he was just worried about cathy, especially after he spoke with her that week.

narrator: 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. narrator: then there was the second interview the day kathy's body was found. detective wyatt studied that tape too. detective daron wyatt: there was one thing that was important that sam didn't display that you would expect to see in a case like this. josh mankiewicz: which is? detective daron wyatt: emotion. he showed more emotion over the contents of a coke can. he picked it up when they left the room. and he was reading the coke can, and the ingredients, and the number of calories. and then at one point he puts that down, and he picks up a baseball hat that he had been wearing, and he sees some dirt on it. he brushes it off and he starts swearing about the fact that there's dirt on his hat. sam lopez: [on video] oh, [bleep].. detective daron wyatt: but he never shows any emotion about the fact that his gal

has been brutally murdered, no emotion whatsoever. josh mankiewicz: and that's a big red flag? detective daron wyatt: it's huge. narrator: daron went deeper into sam and cathy's relationship. detective daron wyatt: there were a lot of things that brought them together. they dated in high school. they lived across the street. cathy's older sister was married to sam's older brother. josh mankiewicz: 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? detective daron wyatt: i think a lot of it was mutual. narrator: even after kathy 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. detective daron wyatt: mary gave me a shoebox 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 anytime somebody

flirted with cathy. narrator: sam didn't try to hide the fact that he was prone to jealousy. narrator: that led the detective to take a fresh look at those bizarre events the week before cathy disappeared, when she came home impaired, and then had her tires slashed. detective daron wyatt: she never regained full memory of what had happened, but she was able to tell everybody who she had been with that night. narrator: the person cathy had been with that night? sam lopez. when police asked sam about that night, he remembered something very specific. narrator: sam claimed it was no big deal. narrator: 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. and then cathy arrived home too out of it to realize she'd been driving on slashed tires. tina saw the tires the next day. tina mora: i just kept saying, what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires? detective daron wyatt: and she'd say? tina mora: and she'd say she didn't know. she just knew that she had gone out with sam that night. narrator: 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.

tina mora: 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. you're-- you know-- this is not, you know-- what are you talking about? are you serious? narrator: remember, cathy was seeing another guy-- albert-- who only days later tried to kill himself. tina said cathy thought about sam's proposal all that weak. ultimately cathy decided, says tina, that she was so broken up about albert, she was going to tell sam the answer was no. tina mora: she's crying, and then she said i'm going to tell him this saturday that i'm not going to take off with him, that i will not elope. that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came. narrator: 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 on cathy's. but then when 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 pointed to a whole new suspect. narrator: coming up-- new dna. and a new man in the hot seat-- detective daron wyatt: he sat there and he put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself talking. narrator: -- when dateline continues. [music playing] how are folks 60 and older having fun these days? family cookouts! ♪♪ playing games! ♪♪ dancing in the par... (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound) (high pitched sound)

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>> did it surprise you that you were fired, given how resolutely nonpartisan you have been? >> and for more in-depth reporting, narrator: 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 xavier, who told detectives he was with sam the night of the murder. xavier was sam's alibi. josh mankiewicz: so he wasn't suspected of being part of the murder or even being at the crime scene? detective daron wyatt: that's right, yeah. they were looking at xavier solely as an alibi witness who was lying to cover for sam. narrator: that's why, as detective daron wyatt now discovered, even though investigators in 1994 took blood, hair, and fingerprint samples from xavier, they'd never had those tested. detective daron wyatt: they had sent all of the evidence related to sam lopez to the crime lab--

his fingerprints, his hair, his blood. but they hadn't sent anything related to xavier lopez to the crime lab. narrator: daron sent xavier's samples, now three years old, to the crime lab. two months later, the phone rang. detective daron wyatt: they had positively identified a fingerprint on the trunk of cathy's car, and left there by somebody closing the lid of the trunk. josh mankiewicz: xavier's print was on the trunk of cathy's car? detective daron wyatt: yes. narrator: weeks later, another call from the lab. a blood stain on the car had tested positive for both cathy's dna and xavier's. and the detective found there was something else-- another major piece of evidence investigators had initially overlooked. detective daron wyatt: 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. narrator: meaning only one thing--

cathy was still alive when she was placed in the trunk of the car. so if xavier put her there, he could be charged with murder. josh mankiewicz: why not grab xavier up that day and say, ok. your dna and fingerprints were at the scene. we didn't know that until just now. but you're going away for murder unless you start talking. detective daron wyatt: well let's say that we did that and we bring him in. and he says, well, yes my fingerprint was there because i helped her push her car out of the street a week before. when i was helping her change a tire, i cut my finger, and i bled on it. narrator: so instead of approaching xavier, daron wyatt spent nearly five months carefully watching him and sam. he learned the two cousins were unusually close. detective daron wyatt: sam lived in a one-bedroom little bungalow with his wife and his baby at the time. yet xavier was there all the time, sleeping in the same-- essentially the same room. narrator: eventually, daron wyatt felt he had enough new information to get a search warrant.

tina montelongo: there was a loud pounding on our door. tina montelongo remembers it clearly. tina montelongo: when i opened the door, there was about five police officers there. the one in the middle was white. and he put us against the wall and patted us down. josh mankiewicz: what was sam's demeanor while all that was happening? tina montelongo: he was calm. you know, he really was. i was freaking out. josh mankiewicz: he wasn't worried? tina montelongo: no, no. narrator: 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. detective daron wyatt: we took the seats out. we did everything we could. and there was nothing. narrator: police briefly detained sam, but he was back home by morning. now, daron wyatt focused on xavier. detective daron wyatt: we really approach it very low key. we think that you can really provide some great information for us. would you mind coming down with us and talking?

narrator: they brought him down to the station and listened patiently as he distanced himself from cathy torrez. detective daron wyatt: he had never been shopping with her, never changed a tire on her car, never carried groceries for her. we went through the whole litany of things that would-- josh mankiewicz: and he said, no, no no-- that's all true. i'm a million miles away from her. detective daron wyatt: right, right-- separated himself. narrator: but, in so doing, xavier ruled out any innocent explanation for finding his dna and fingerprints on her car. so when police told him that's exactly what they had found-- detective daron wyatt: it was like vapor lock. and then all of a sudden he said, 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 they came out, and then i left. and that was really his only contact that he can give us with cathy's car. josh mankiewicz: but he doesn't fold up like a house of cards and say, all right, fine.

you got me. detective daron wyatt: you're right. but josh you've watched probably thousands of these interviews, and sometimes what people don't say is just as important as what they do say. narrator: what xavier either would not or could not say were these words-- i did not kill cathy torrez. detective daron wyatt: he says i don't know who did. that's not what i asked, xavier. did you kill cathy torrez? i don't know who did. and we played that several times to where he'd finally say i didn't do it. you didn't do what, xavier? i didn't do what you say i did. josh mankiewicz: can't say the words "killed cathy"? detective daron wyatt: correct. then it moved to did you put cathy's body in the trunk of the car? i don't know who did. finally he sat there, and he'd put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself from talking. narrator: but xavier had already managed to talk his way 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, who was sam's brother and xavier's cousin. tina mora: yes, that was a shock. that was a shock to us. josh mankiewicz: you didn't see that coming, and police didn't tell you? tina mora: right. that was part of their investigation and we had no knowledge of that. narrator: but they were relieved. at last the case was moving forward. daron wyatt was confident he had enough evidence to prove xavier lopez had killed cathy torrez. but once again, the orange county district attorney did not agree. josh mankiewicz: the da decided not to charge. detective daron wyatt: correct. josh mankiewicz: and so xavier's set free? detective daron wyatt: xavier walks. narrator: coming up-- a detective who refuses to quit-- detective daron wyatt: i said i've got a cold case that i need you to take a look at-- narrator: -- now has another good reason not to-- detective daron wyatt: 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.

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relief on your knees. absolutely free. order now. call (800) 743-4995. that's 800 743 4095. president trump's first 100 days. watch. >> i'm going to be here five days a week again. >> read and listen. >> staying up. >> half the. >> night, reading executive. >> orders for this defining time in the second trump presidency. stay with msnbc. celebrating 50. >> years of. >> music live featuring arcade fire, 52 backstreet boys, bad bunny, bonnie raitt, brandi carlile, chris martin, dave grohl, david byrne, devo, eddie vedder, jack white, jelly roll, lady gaga, miley cyrus, mumford and sons, post malone, the and sons, post malone, the roots. narrator: detective daron wyatt never believed xavier lopez acted alone. even when he rested javier in 1997 for the murder of cathy torrez, he thought xavier's real role was helping the prime suspect, xavier's cousin sam lopez.

tina montelongo, sam's then wife and xavier's friend, wasn't buying it. josh mankiewicz: can you conceive of xavier going through with a murder or being involved in it because of his loyalty to sam? tina montelongo: no. i don't see that. if sam did it, would xavi help them just because they're close family? i don't see that. narrator: neither did the da, who decided there was not enough evidence to file charges. josh mankiewicz: how do you tell mary bennet we had xavier, but we had to let him go? detective daron wyatt: it was extremely difficult. i mean there was a lot of crying on both sides. narrator: daron knew exactly what releasing xavier really meant. josh mankiewicz: what walked out of the jail along with xavier is any leverage you had to give him to name sam. detective daron wyatt: yeah, absolutely. josh mankiewicz: and now you really are back to square one. detective daron wyatt: yes josh mankiewicz: is that the end?

detective daron wyatt: to some people. narrator: but not to him. and not to mary. josh mankiewicz: you put a lot of faith in daron. mary bennet: i put a lot of faith in god. daron was his tool. narrator: but for the time being it seemed daron's hands were tied. after all, the case had been rejected by the da's office twice before. josh mankiewicz: this case is getting a lot of baggage over the years. detective daron wyatt: yeah, it did. josh mankiewicz: and so if you go ahead with it, you're not only going ahead with the case, you're also kind of insulting the da. narrator: 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. josh mankiewicz: you and armando got divorced? tina mora: yes. this this have something to do with that? tina mora: definitely. it was all intermixed. josh mankiewicz: daron 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. detective daron wyatt: 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 it. i can feel it myself. i'm a dad now. and you haven't given up. i won't give up. narrator: in 2003, nine years after the murder, daron once again approached a friend in the da's office. detective daron wyatt: i said i've got a cold case and i need you to take a look at. and he physically stops walking, and he says if it's a case i'm thinking about, i'm not going to touch it. narrator: but daron was persistent. eventually he persuaded his friend to take cathy's case back to the da's homicide unit, the same unit that had 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. matt murphy: and 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. josh mankiewicz: which means they tried very hard to make a case, and they couldn't do it. matt murphy: they tried very hard. that's right. and they figured, based on their review, that they couldn't do it. narrator: and some of the reasons were apparent from the get-go. matt murphy: when you look at it on its face, this case is a real tough one. narrator: for one thing, there was so much evidence they didn't have against sam. matt murphy: 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. narrator: 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 xavier's dna

and fingerprints, why would they charge sam? josh mankiewicz: were you surprised you didn't find sam's dna there? detective daron wyatt: yes. narrator: 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 those interviews sam gave to police. but here too there was a problem. matt murphy: when you look at the interview, everything that sam lopez said seemed logical at the time, and everything seemed to make sense. narrator: picking apart those interviews would be critical. matt murphy: this is one of those cases where you have to look at the details. and it's truly one that you have to look at each detail in light of every other detail. josh mankiewicz: and when you rearrange the letters in little tiny details, it spells larry montgomery. matt murphy: absolutely. narrator: larry montgomery, or as he's

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for disease control and. >> prevention. >> as well as the agency overseeing u.s. nuclear weapons stockpiles. for now. stockpiles. for now. >> back to dateline. narrator: prosecutor matt murphy thought daron wyatt's investigation of cathy torrez's murder was compelling. but he knew that making the case against sam lopez wouldn't be easy. the da's office had declined to try it twice before. so murphy called for help from a detective whose legendary skill with cold cases has earned him a reverential nickname. matt murphy: larry montgomery is the real deal. i mean the guy is the evidence whisperer. another nickname for him is st. larry. josh mankiewicz: larry sees things other people don't see? detective daron wyatt: larry sees things that many people don't see. yeah, and he looks at it from a different perspective. narrator: they both felt the key to the case lay in sam lopez's own words-- his taped interviews with the original detectives.

and they thought the perfect man to listen to those interviews was the evidence whisperer. josh mankiewicz: guilty people have tells-- just like in a poker game. larry montgomery: absolutely. they don't have that innocent mindset. and they have other fears. they fear being caught. they can't get their stories straight because there's too many details. narrator: montgomery spent months carefully listening and re-listening-- watching, and re-watching-- hours of sam's interviews, looking for the tells. narrator: tell number one-- how sam talked about his relationship with cathy. larry montgomery: sam definitely was trying to limit his connection with cathy, give the impression that it's not that big of a deal. narrator: remember, cathy's sister

tina had told detectives sam had proposed to cathy just days before she disappeared. but when police asked sam about that, he denied it. narrator: later, he changed his story, but seemed to say getting married was cathy's idea. narrator: then there was sam's claim that kathy never tried to contact him after she disappeared. larry montgomery: 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. narrator: montgomery noted a key detail about those pages. josh mankiewicz: mary's own phone and cathy's own phone are the same number. larry montgomery: they're the same numbers. narrator: so seeing that number on his pager, how

did sam know it wasn't cathy? larry montgomery: 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. narrator: that was tell number two. then montgomery noticed now in his second interview sam referred to cathy's murder. larry montgomery: he doesn't use the word murder. he doesn't say anything like that. it's like, 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. narrator: tell number three-- and then larry caught something else in the interview sam did before cathy's body was found. listen carefully. narrator: did you hear that?

narrator: before she was what-- dead, murdered? either way, larry thought sam knew more than he was telling. larry montgomery: 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. narrator: 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. and when he finally did-- narrator: larry noticed a telling statement. larry montgomery: well, that's an interesting statement-- i don't want memories to come back. what memories does he have that he doesn't want to remember?

if he's innocent. he has memories of cathy-- good times, what they did. josh mankiewicz: people would want those memories to come back. larry montgomery: yeah. if he had a memory that he killed her, that certainly is a memory he doesn't want to relive. narrator: after listening to the interviews time and again, the evidence whisper had no doubt sam killed cathy. but could the team prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? detective daron wyatt: ultimately in cold case murders, time becomes one of our friends because technology changes. narrator: 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 many of us leave behind just by putting our hands on something. if sam and xavier did place cathy's body in the car's trunk, maybe, thought larry, there would be touch dna on her clothes.

larry montgomery: we had searched for dna in the areas that might be grabbed, especially areas that might be grabbed that don't have blood on them from cathy. josh mankiewicz: so you looked what-- on the ankles and under her arms? larry montgomery: ankles, arms, i think under the legs. josh mankiewicz: daron wyatt sends out the evidence for touch dna. you optimistic? or are you thinking shot in the dark? matt murphy: no, i was not optimistic. i was not optimistic. you know we-- josh mankiewicz: because-- because what? matt murphy: because on this particular case it seemed like for the beginning phases everything that could go wrong pretty much went wrong. narrator: but he also knew he was working with a cop on a mission. matt murphy: daron wyatt was not going to quit until i filed this case or i died-- or he died, i guess. daron was absolutely dedicated to this. narrator: the truth was if murphy declined the case a third time, the cathy torrez file would almost certainly go from cold to death. what would he decide? no one understood the stakes better than cathy's mom.

mary bennet: daron had told me that we were going to meet with the da. my interpretation of it was that he was going to tell me that there was nothing they could do. narrator: coming up-- a key piece of evidence arrives, better late than never. josh mankiewicz: how long have they known that? detective daron wyatt: a couple of months at least. josh mankiewicz: and they, what-- forgot to call. narrator: but is it the smoking gun? -- when dateline continues. no matter what kind of teeth you gotta brush, oral-b electric cleans better with one simple touch. oral-b's dentist inspired round brush head hugs em, cleans em, and gets in between em, for 100% cleaner teeth. your perfect clean starts with oral-b. refreshed. >> for a more productive day. get 24. >> hour. continuous relief that does not fade bewise all take xyzal at night.

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again. call or go to roof. max. com or call 1-800-913-6708. that's 1-800-913-6708. or go to. >> roof max.com. >> call 1-800-913-6708. >> tired of sciatic nerve pain radiating down your leg and lower back. get relief. >> finally with magnilife. >> leg and back pain relief, a. >> combination of. >> four active ingredients that get to work fast. so get living. >> available at. >> your local retailer. msnbc presents a new original podcast hosted by jen psaki. each week, she and her guests explore how the democratic party is facing this political moment and where this political moment and where it's headed narrator: it was an early morning in 2007, 13 years after cathy torrez had breathed her last. mary bennet: i was having coffee at a mcdonald's before work,

and i was reading my bible. it was a little bit after 7 when i saw that i had a call from him. narrator: from daron wyatt-- mary knew he was scheduled to meet with the da. mary bennet: my first thought was he was going to tell me that the meeting was canceled-- again. narrator: but that was not the message-- not at all. mary bennet: he said i'm standing here in front of sam's house, and we are making an arrest right now. josh mankiewicz: they're making an arrest. mary bennet: yes. josh mankiewicz: and you thought? mary bennet: and i got up, and i think i screamed there at the mcdonald's. narrator: years before, daron wyatt had made a promise. now he felt he was keeping it. josh mankiewicz: that had to feel pretty good. detective daron wyatt: yeah, there were tears of joy this time. narrator: 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 xavier 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. armando lopez: it's just a tragic loss. it hurts. everybody loved cathy. narrator: armando was charged with being an accessory after the fact, for allegedly helping cover up the murder. detective daron wyatt: we believe that 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. tina mora: betrayal of the worst kind. josh mankiewicz: betrayal of her? betrayal of you? tina mora: exactly, everything. josh mankiewicz: your family. tina mora: my family, trust, betrayal-- everything is broken beyond belief. narrator: 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. josh mankiewicz: what did you think when you heard sam was arrested?

tina montelongo: the same that i always had, like here we go again. it's like-- josh mankiewicz: -- nothing to it. and he'll be out soon. tina montelongo: yeah. narrator: 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. detective daron wyatt: i've told you before that we wouldn't give up until we were able to bring resolution to this case, and that's where we're at now. narrator: 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. josh mankiewicz: and the crime lab says what? detective daron wyatt: hey, did we tell you that we found xavier's dna on cathy's body. what? yeah, we found xavier's profile on her sock, on the back of her knee, and under her right armpit. josh mankiewicz: did we tell you? no, we didn't tell you.

how long had they known that. detective daron wyatt: a couple of months at least. josh mankiewicz: and they what-- forgot to call? detective daron wyatt: i think the examiner who had been doing it was waiting for additional results and didn't realize that she hadn't notified us. josh mankiewicz: so the idea of touch dna paid off. detective daron wyatt: it did. narrator: but not quite the way they had all hoped. josh mankiewicz: unbelievable that you would get touch dna evidence back that long after the fact. detective daron wyatt: right. josh mankiewicz: but bad news-- it doesn't have sam lopez's name on it. detective daron wyatt: right, that's right. narrator: so the strongest physical evidence was still against xavier. 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 that sam had a new defense attorney, someone that knew very well.

matt murphy: he is so good. and i would be lying if i said my heart was not in my throat. narrator: sam's defense attorney lou rosenblum was the former assistant da who supervised the homicide unit. in fact, he was the original prosecutor, who back in 1984, didn't think there was enough evidence to charge sam. not only that, lou was the man who brought matt into the homicide unit. matt murphy: lou took me under his wing and trained me how to do homicides. josh mankiewicz: what's it like to go up against your mentor? matt murphy: well, it's terrifying to go up against your mentor. narrator: 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. matt murphy: at the end of this case, you are going to hold that man accountable for exactly what he did. narrator: the very first witness matt murphy put on the stand was cathy's mom mary.

it seemed a safe way to start. matt murphy: there's a cardinal rule that you don't ever do a hard cross-examination on a mother. narrator: but matt's mentor broke that rule. matt murphy: he really pressed her on some of the details. josh mankiewicz: and scored some points. matt murphy: scored big points-- i mean scored big time points. narrator: mary initially told the jury sam only responded to one of her pages. but under cross-examination, mary revealed he'd actually returned three pages. lou rosenblum: they were trying to paint a picture of sam that he did absolutely nothing. and that is not true. matt murphy: it's one of the only case i've done in my career where i realized he understands this case as well as i do. narrator: it was mentor against pupil, and the stakes couldn't be higher. coming up-- matt murphy: it's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. lou rosenblum: where is the evidence? narrator: a 20-year search for a killer draws to a close.

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your first year with xfinity mobile. plus, ask how to get the new samsung galaxy s25+ on us. narrator: matt murphy was facing the biggest battle of his career against his former mentor, famed prosecutor turned defense attorney lou rosenblum. lou rosenblum: but you've only heard one side. narrator: 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. detective daron wyatt: 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. narrator: sam had been a suspect for 20 years. and during that entire time, his attorney said, police had it all wrong. lou rosenblum: the detectives made up their mind about who did this murder within hours. we had a bad feeling about you, they said. we're going to prove it. and they spent the next 21 years over and over trying. narrator: 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 the interview with police?

lou rosenblum: it is very easy to sit back and say he should have done that. he should have answered this way. look, he's stretching. he's yawning. he's reading a coke can. obviously he's a sociopath. where is the evidence? narrator: 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. lou rosenblum: 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. narrator: 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. lou rosenblum: everything that they expected to find of my client-- everything-- none of it was there. why? because they're wrong. narrator: the fingerprint and dna at the crime scene

made it obvious. the wrong man was on trial. lou rosenblum: xavier lopez is all over this-- prints, dna-- because he was the one that did it. not my client. narrator: but prosecutor matt murphy argued that xavier's dna and fingerprint were really evidence against sam. remember, from the beginning xavier had been sam's alibi. narrator: the prosecutor argued that if they were together and xavier's dna pit him at the scene of a crime, then sam had to be there too. matt murphy: his alibi is at the murder scene. and for sam lopez, i think that's just devastating evidence. narrator: 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. matt murphy: it's sam's actions and it's sam's statements. josh mankiewicz: so he gave you the case against him. matt murphy: the best evidence that we have in this case,

and that we had, was sam lopez himself. narrator: sam was the one who told police he had a jealous streak. narrator: cathy was seeing another guy-- albert. the prosecution said sam's jealousy was triggered the night he took cathy out and saw that hickey. matt murphy: 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 going to do when he sees a hickey? narrator: what he did, matt said, was slash kathy's tires. matt murphy: obviously somebody 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 one person that did it. narrator: 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

matt murphy: so now it's not just a hickey, it's a denial of a proposal. and it's all because of another guy. narrator: 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. matt murphy: every one of those cuts meant something. every one of those stab wounds meant something. narrator: and the finishing blow-- matt murphy: she was alive, and sam lopez cut her throat. it's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. narrator: 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. josh mankiewicz: what did your family do that day? mary bennet: we went into the cemetery, as we go every year in february. we take her red roses that she wanted for valentine's day that year. narrator: for 21 years the torrez

family had demanded answers. two days after deliberations began the jury reached a verdict. tina mora: 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. juror: we, the jury, find the defendant samuel augustine lopez guilty of murder in the first degree. tina mora: 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. narrator: daron wyatt was watching mary in that moment. detective daron wyatt: this was everything to her. and i wanted to look in her eyes when i came back and see that she knew that i fulfilled my promise. narrator: for sam's ex-wife, the news was devastating. tina montelongo: i cried. josh mankiewicz: for your daughter, for sam?

tina montelongo: for both. josh mankiewicz: it doesn't sound like it shook your faith at all in him. tina montelongo: it didn't. narrator: after the verdict, people in placentia strung little white hearts on the tree that was planted in cathy's memory. josh mankiewicz: did she leave the mark on the world that she always wanted to leave? tina mora: yes, she did. we have letters-- of coworkers, of students she worked with. josh mankiewicz: people you didn't even know. tina mora: people we didn't even know that we're able to come back and tell my mom, or tell one of us, you know-- we miss her at savon. 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. narrator: for 21 years, sam denied he inflicted those stab wounds, denied he killed cathy. but at his sentencing, sam did something unexpected.

sam lopez: i would like to apologize to the torrez family and to everyone for all of the harm and the 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. narrator: sam lopez was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. xavier 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. mary bennet: 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 saying what's for dinner? and there's no-- i will never have any kind of parole from that. that is my life sentence. narrator: 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. [theme music] i'm andrea canning, and this is "dateline." vehe had gone off the road into this creek bed. she was face up in about ankle-deep water. terry tinker: she's got severe injuries to her head. andrea canning: little did you know, the mystery that was about to unfold.