Page 12 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

But they had nothing connecting him to the crime. no witnesses. no dna. and sam had that solid alibi. tina was still married to sam's brother, armando. the two families intertwined, as cathy's family continued to search for answers. >> and then in april of 1997, i got a phone call from mary bennett. >> reporter: cathy's mom. it would be their first conversation of many. mary told daron how she'd seen reports about a new program in orange county centered around investigating cold cases. cathy's case had specifically been mentioned. >> and mary said, "if they're going to use my daughter's murder...

Asked her what she knew about him, what she thought about him. and that's when she told me that he -- they were -- he was the one that they suspected. >> reporter: in the murder of cathy torrez? >> yes. >> reporter: he hadn't told you that? >> he hadn't told me that. that was in the first couple of weeks that i was dating him. >> reporter: sam emphatically denied any involvement in cathy's murder. but just the idea spooked tina. so she made up a lie. >> i met him and i told him that i was dating somebody else. >> reporter: which was not true? >> which was not true. >> reporter: you were a litt...

Parking lot. the other for failing to stop at a stop sign. the cop who pulled sam over for not stopping said sam flew through the intersection, and when he approached the car, the cop said it looked as if sam and cathy had been arguing. but he did say cathy looked fine. nobody was quite sure what happened after that, except they apparently parted company. sam in his car, cathy in hers. then cathy arrived home, too out of it to realize she'd been driving on slashed tires. tina saw the tires the next day. >> i just kept saying, "who -- what happened to your tires? who slashed your tires?" >> rep...

>> it's -- it's an off-and-on thing. on-and-off thing. >> okay. >> reporter: tell number one, how sam talked about his relationship with cathy. >> see, i was going out with somebody. and then she would call me up. and we would just, like -- calling each other, going out to eat, places like that. nothing serious at the time. >> sam definitely was trying to limit his connection with cathy, give the impression that it's not that big of a deal. >> reporter: remember cathy's sister tina had told detectives sam had proposed to cathy just days before she disappeared. but when police asked sam about t...

Who, only days later tried to kill himself. tina says cathy thought about sam's 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. >> she's crying, and then she said, "i'm going to tell him this saturday that i'm not gonna take off with him, that i will not elope." that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came home. >> reporter: sam's admitted jealousy, cathy's doting on albert, a rejected proposal. all of it seemed to add up to motive. but motives don't prove murder. there was still no physic...