Page 7 - D Torrez News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Report her daughter missing. and the police said? >> "well, you know, you don't know that. maybe she went off and --" but i knew. >> reporter: that she could have met some guy and they're in vegas right now. and you're saying -- >> no. >> reporter: 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." >> reporter: 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...

>> 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." turned out it was debbie torrez, cathy's youngest sister. >> reporter: who just heard you ask that question. >> correct. >> reporter: you had no idea it was her? >> i had no idea. >> reporter: 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, peo...

"okay, so tell me who killed cathy torrez." >> reporter: 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." turned out it was debbie torrez, cathy's youngest sister. >> reporter: who just heard you ask that question. >> correct. >> reporter: you had no idea it was her? >> i had no idea. >> reporter: debbie torrez -- cathy's baby sister -- was now 1...

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, then you knock on a lot of doors, trying to keep it out there. >> reporter: 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...

>> reporter: soon it wasn't just the torrez family searching for cathy. >> we know god's there for you. >> reporter: 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. >> reporter: tina drove to the school where cathy worked. all the while, mary's mantra echoed thru her mind -- find the car and you'll find cathy. >> when i drove into the parking lot, i said, "let me just see her car. let me just see her car." because i knew ...