s office, to a guy named larry montgomery. ore than 30 years working homicide, larry's put away his share of bad guys, not usually by knocking on doors. instead, larry works by looking very closely at the evidence. he doesn't work fast. in fact, larry is meticulously slow, and that was just what this cold case needed. >> was there anything in the original investigation that struck you as something that you needed to re-examine? >> everything. >> everything that had led placentia police into that wall trying to decide between two suspects. >> i mean, i'm concerned about this girl, you know? and she's missing. >> marty, lynsie's older friend who kept their relationship a secret and lied about his name and chris. >> she might be still alive. >> the last person known to have seen lynsie who dropped her off at that corner. >> at that point any idea on your part which of those two was the more likely suspect? >> no. i don't know until i get into it and see the details. >> you're no doubt aware you have a reputation for believing that

to a guy named larry montgomery.porter: by 2008, lynsie ekelund had been missing for seven years. the case had gone from cold to frozen in time. so placentia pd decided to outsource the investigation to the cold case unit at the orange county d.a.'s office. to a guy named larry montgomery. with more than 30 years working homicide, larry put away his share of bad guys. not usually by knocking on doors. instead, larry works by looking very closely at the evidence. he doesn't work fast. in fact, larry is meticulously slow. and that was just what this cold case needed. was there anything in the original investigation that struck you as something that you needed to re-examine? >> everything. >> reporter: everything that had led placentia police into that wall, trying to decide between two suspects. >> i mean, i'm concerned about this girl, okay. you know. and she's missing. >> reporter: marty, lynsie's older friend who kept their relationship a secret, and lied about his name. and chris. >> in my heart, it seems like she

a detective whose legendary skill with cold cases has earned him a reverential nickname. >> larry montgomeryuy is -- the evidence whisperer. another nickname for him is st. larry. >> reporter: larry sees things other people don't see? >> larry sees things that many people don't see, yeah. and he looks at it from a different perspective. >> reporter: 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. guilty people have tells, just like in a poker game? >> absolutely. they don't have that innocent mindset, and they -- they have other fears. they fear being caught. they can't get their stories straight because there's too many details. >> reporter: montgomery spent months carefully listening and re-listening, watching and re-watching, hours of sam's interviews. looking for the tells. >> how long have you guys been dating? >> it's -- it's an off-and-on thing. on-and-off thing. >> okay. >> reporter: tell number one, how sam talked about his re