Page 15 - Linking Sam News Today

She was going to -- i mean, this was going to happen. >> reporter: sam shared his suspicions about what had happened to cathy. the same rumors about albert that were circulating around placentia. >> but you know what? hey, its a possibility that, shoot, somebody else from his family -- im not blaming anybody. im not pointing fingers at nobody, okay? but why -- why the coincidence that after he hung himself, this happened? why? have you ever thought of that? >> reporter: of course, police also as...

Nearly four years after cathys death, he was booked into the orange county jail. cathys family was stunned when they heard the news. tina included. remember, she was still married to armando, who was sams brother and javiers cousin. >> yes. that -- that was a shock. that was a shock. >> reporter: you didnt see that coming and police didnt tell you? >> right. that was part of their investigation, and we had no knowledge of that. >> reporter: but they were relieved. at last the case was moving for...

He called how many times? >> quite a few times looking for her. >> reporter: mary says sam sounded okay at first, until she told him where cathy was. >> i said she was at the hospital and she wasnt back yet. >> reporter: at the hospital, visiting albert, her boyfriend, who had attempted suicide. sam okay with that? >> no, he got upset. >> reporter: sam told police he was just worried about cathy, especially after he spoke with her that week. >> she was crying on the phone, i messed up you know, ...

In which what, he couldnt let go of her or she couldnt let go of him? >> i think a lot of it was mutual. >> reporter: even after cathy started dating albert and sam had another girlfriend, too, they continued to see each other. and daron found evidence that in sams mind, his relationship with cathy was far from casual. >> mary gave me a shoe box 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 any time ...

The physical evidence pointed away from the man they thought was the killer. any defense attorney would ask, if police found javiers dna and fingerprint, why would they charge sam? were you surprised you didnt find sams dna there? >> yes. >> reporter: he thought newer, better tests might find sams dna, but it was too late for that. cathys 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 ...

>> yes, absolutely. >> reporter: and now you really are back to square one? >> yes. >> reporter: is that the end? >> to some people. >> reporter: but not to him. and not to mary. you put a lot of faith in daron. >> i put a lot of faith in god. daron was his tool. >> reporter: but for the time being, it seemed darons hands were tied. after all, the case had been rejected by the d.a.s office twice before. this case getting a lot of baggage over the years? >> yeah, it did. >> reporter: and so if yo...

Him doing that, because she thought it was his -- her fault, okay? thats -- thats how she said it to me. we never really sat down and talked about it. well, you know what? i think she was trying to hide from her problems by smoking out. >> reporter: meaning she was smoking marijuana. cathys family said that for her, that would be out character. sam told detectives he had last seen cathy the thursday before she disappeared. he said shed paged him several times that day and when they finally met u...

Nobody was quite sure what happened after that, except they apparently parted company. sam in his car, cathy in hers. then cathy arrived home, too out of it to realize shed been driving on slashed tires. tina saw the tires the next day. >> i just kept saying, "who -- what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires?" >> reporter: and shed say? >> and shed say she didnt know. she -- she just knew that she had gone out with sam that night. >> reporter: daron wyatt now believed sam drugged cathy...

Second interview, the day cathys body was found. detective wyatt studied that tape, too. >> there was one thing that was important that sam didnt display that you would expect to see in a case like this. >> reporter: which is? >> emotion. he showed more emotion over the contents of a coke can. he picked it up when they left the room and reading the coke can and the ingredients and the number of calories. and at one point he puts that down and picks up a baseball hat he had been wearing, sees dir...

>> from there i went to my girlfriends store. and i was there till, shoot, till they closed, which was around 8:00, a little bit after 8:00. then let me see, what did i do that day? somebody paged me, i think. oh, i picked my cousin up again. >> so if we had to contact everyone that you mentioned, you know, you could get the names and addresses, phone numbers. >> sure. >> they could confirm where you were on saturday night? >> reporter: and sure enough, they did. police spoke with javier who cor...