Page 8 - Linking Sam News Today

>> reporter: and they did. a year later came a baby girl. and sam embraced his role as dad. >> he was like mr. mom, you know. he stayed home and took care of the baby while i worked. >> reporter: if sam had anything to do with cathys murder, he certainly didnt act like it. he stayed put. living with his wife and baby right down the street from cathys 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 im sure ...

>> reporter: remember, cathy was seeing another guy. albert. who, only days later tried to kill himself. tina says cathy thought about sams proposal all that week. ultimately, cathy decided, says tina, that she was so broken up about albert she was going to tell sam the answer was no. >> shes crying, and then she said, "im going to tell him this saturday that im not gonna take off with him, that i will not elope." that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came home. >> reporter: sams admit...

Loyalty to sam? >> no. i dont see that. if sam did it, would xavi help him just because theyre close family? i dont see that. >> reporter: neither did the d.a. who decided there was not enough evidence to file charges. how do you tell mary bennett, "we had javier, but we had to let him go"? >> it was extremely difficult. there was a lot of crying on both sides. >> reporter: daron knew exactly what releasing javier really meant. what walks out of the jail along with javier is any leverage you had...

Pissed off, okay? >> reporter: 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. >> she never regained full memory of what had happened, but she was able to tell everybody who she had been with that night. >> reporter: the person cathy had been with that night? sam lopez. when police asked sam about that night, he remembered something very specific. >> a hickey. >> on her neck? >> on h...

>> 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 was sams demeanor while all that was happening? >> he was calm, you know. >> reporter: he wasnt worried? >> no. no. >> reporter: maybe he had no reason to be. police didnt find anything in the house linking sam to cathys murder. they even sprayed his truck with luminol looking for signs of blood. >> we took the seats out, we did ...

>> he walked in with his friend. and i just remember thinking that he was cute. >> reporter: tina montelongo was a hostess then. >> so, i offered him some free food. and then we started talking. >> reporter: she felt the spark right away. >> i did think i would marry him when i first saw him. that was, like, the words that came out of my mouth. "im going to marry that guy." >> reporter: you were taken with him right away? >> i was. uh-huh. >> reporter: sam and tina started dating. but in a small...

>> 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. >> i mean, look, she, shes had, i know shes had a lot of problems in the past with boyfriends. >> reporter: then there was the 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. >>...

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 to police. but here, too, there was a problem. >> when you look at the interview, everything that sam lopez said seemed logical at the time. and everything seemed to make sense. >> reporter: picking apart those interviews would be critical. >> this is one of those cases where you have to look at th...

>> coming up, sam has a new love interest who soon heard the old rumors. >> you were a little freaked out by that. >> well yeah. a little freaked ot by that. >> well yeah ch. like somehow you wind up getting less. but now that i book at hilton.com, and i get all these great perks. i got to select my room from the floor plan... very nice... i know, im good at picking stuff. free wi-fi... laptop by the pool is a bold choice... and the price match guarantee. how do you know all of this? are you lik...

Evidence tying him to the murder. and he had a solid alibi on the night cathy was killed. sam was with his cousin, javier. which is why when police took their case to the d.a.s office, the d.a. refused to file charges against sam. police pursued other leads too, like a possible connection to the attempted suicide of cathys boyfriend, albert. >> did you think that cathys disappearance had anything do with albert? >> no. >> reporter: coincidence. >> yeah, just two tragedies happening at the same t...