Page 7 - Linking Sam News Today

>> which called into question sams story. >> it does. >> reporter: and daron noticed another inconsistency in sams account of the days right before cathy disappeared. mary, however, says sam was the one calling her home looking for cathy. 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 bo...

And the physical evidence seemed to confirm it. sams dna was not found anywhere on cathy or her car and his clothes, the ones he gave voluntarily to police, had no dna of cathys on them. but that behavior of sams which bothered cathys family, also bothered police, and they focused on him. however, when investigators took their suspicions to the orange county d.a., 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 lit...

Were in high school, lived across the street. cathys older sister was married to sams older brother. >> reporter: they had this long on again/off again relationship 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 m...

And yeah, it looked really tough. >> reporter: but what really made this case a prosecutors 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 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 a...

Little bungalow with his wife and his baby at the time, yet javier was there all the time, sleeping in the same -- essentially the same room. >> reporter: eventually, daron wyatt felt he had enough new information to get a search warrant. >> there was a loud pounding on our door. >> reporter: tina montelongo remembers it clearly. >> when i opened the door, there was about five police officers there. the one in the middle was wyatt. he put us against the wall and patted us down. >> reporter: what...

Look -- looking for what i had lost. >> reporter: daron chased some 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, i never tried getting him hurt and all this and i told her just calm down.

What walks out of the jail along with javier is any leverage you had to get him to name sam? >> 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. ...

That he was with sam, that sam had picked him up at his house in anaheim and driven him to another friends house in fullerton during the time that we believe cathy was contacted and ultimately murdered. >> reporter: so if you believe sams alibi, he couldnt have been the thing that interrupted cathy when she was writing that note. >> right. >> reporter: nevertheless, they pressed sam for more details. >> the clothing you were wearing saturday? >> i think it was a guess sweatshirt. >> reporter: sa...

We would always be laughing, making jokes. >> reporter: given their friendship, detectives were curious about what cathy might have shared with sam about albert. since albert tried to commit suicide, she was taking it pretty hard. was she 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 his -- her fault, okay? thats -- thats how she said it to me. we never really sat down and talked about it. wel...

8:00. then, shoo shoot, what id do that day? oh, 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 corroborated sams story. >> javier told investigators that he was with sam, that sam had picked him up at his house in anaheim and drive...