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>> she was alive, and sam lopez cut her throat. it's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. >> reporter: the 21st anniversary of cathy's murder fell during the middle of trial. a day that reminded cathy's family once again of all they had lost. what'd your family do that day? >> we went to the cemetery. as we go every year in february. we take her red roses that she wanted for valentine's day that year. >> reporter: for 21 years the torrez family had demanded answers. two days after deliberations began, the jury reached a verdict. >> i couldn't breathe. i felt just tightness inside. and when...

>> he paged me, saying, "you know what, i need a ride." >> reporter: the prosecutor argued that if they were together and javier's dna put him at scene of the crime, then sam had to be there too. his alibi is at theurder scene. and for sam lopez, i think that's just devastating evidence. >> reporter: and he told the jury it was the first of many instances where the most powerful evidence of guilt came from sam's own words. >> it's sam's actions and it's sam's statements. >> reporter: so he gave you the case against him. >> the best evidence that we have in this case, and that we had, was sam l...

>> reporter: sam lopez was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. javier pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact. he served eight years and is now out of prison. sam's brother armando pleaded guilty to dissuading a witness and was sentenced to one year probation. and mary bennett is still facing the rest of her life without cathy. >> in 1994, i was given a sentence, and there was no parole from it. to live my life without ever seeing cathy again, without ever seeing her beautiful smile or having her come running in through the door and saying, "what's...

Page me on friday. >> we know that cathy's mom paged him 20 or 25 times in a matter of at least a couple of days trying to get him to contact her because he's so close to cathy and she's missing. >> he noted a key detail about those pages. >> mary's home phone and kraft i's are the same number. >> so seeing that number on his pager, how did sam know it wasn't cathy? >> if he knew she was alive, he would know he got 20 or 25 pages from cathy or at least think that. if he's guilty and he killed cathy, he knows those 20 or 25 pages were not from cathy. >> that was tell number two. >> then montgom...

>> then there was the second interview, the day cathy's body was found. detective wyatt studied that tape too. >> there was one thing that was important that sam didn't display that you would expect to see in a case like this. >> which is? >> emotion. he showed more emotion over the contents of the coke can. he picked it up when they left the room. he was reading the coke can, the ingredients and the number of calories. at one point he puts that down and picks up a baseball cap and brushes off and swearing about the fact that there's dirt on his cap. he never shows any emotion about the fact t...