Page 10 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> 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 her -- right here. covered up with her bra. >> you mean way down here on her shoulder? >> right here. right here. >> re...

>> reporter: at the time of the murder, dna tests could only be done on big samples like blood spatter. but in the years since, analysis became possible for touch-dna, the microscopic calling cards the microscopic calling card many of us leave behind just by putting our hands on something. if sam and javier did place cathy's body in the car's trunk, maybe, thought larry, there would be touch-dna on her clothes. >> search for dna in the areas that might be grabbed. especially areas that might be grabbed that don't have blood on them, from cathy. >> so you looked, what, on the ankles and under h...

So murphy called for help from a detective whose legendary skill with cold cases has earned him a reverential nickname. >> larry montgomery is the real deal. i mean, the guy is -- the evidence whisperer. another nickname for him is st. larry. >> reporter: larry sees things other people don't see? >> larry sees things that many people don't see, yeah. and he looks at it from a different perspective. >> reporter: they both felt the key to the case lay in sam lopez's own words, his taped interviews with the original detectives. and they thought the perfect man to listen to those interviews was th...

But then this happened and -- shoot. >> he doesn't use the word "murder," doesn't say anything like that. it's like, "this happened," as if it's small. it's not that big of a deal, it's not horrendous. he doesn't want it to be horrendous because he did it. >> reporter: tell number three. and then larry caught something else in the interview sam did before cathy's body was found. listen carefully. >> so you went out with her the saturday before the thursday? >> right. >> okay on, and where did you go? >> in other words a week before she was -- she disappeared. >> reporter: did you hear that? >>...

But at the same time, daron had to admit that sam certainly did not fit anyone's profile of a murder suspect. >> no criminal history. there was no indicators that he was anything other than, you know, a normal 22-year-old kid. >> he didn't sound like a killer. >> no, absolutely not. >> reporter: detectives had interviewed sam on two separate days, first on audiotape when cathy went missing. >> he voluntarily gave head hair samples, he gave a blood sample, he gave fingerprints. and at the end of that, he ultimately said, you know, "whatever i can do, i'll do." >> reporter: but as he read the fi...