Page 15 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> 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 cathy's murder, he certainly didn't act like it. he stayed put. living with his wife and baby right down the street from cathy's 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 i'm sure she didn't want him to be happy if she thought that he had anything to do with what happened to ...

>> reporter: remember, cathy was seeing another guy. albert. 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 moti...

Loyalty to sam? >> no. i don't see that. if sam did it, would xavi help him just because they're close family? i don't 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 to get him to name sam? >> yes, absolutely. >> reporter: and now you really are back to square o...

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

>> 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 sam's demeanor while all that was happening? >> he was calm, you know. >> reporter: he wasn't worried? >> no. no. >> reporter: maybe he had no reason to be. police didn't find anything in the house linking sam to cathy's murder. they even sprayed his truck with luminol looking for signs of blood. >> we took the seats out, we did everything we could. and there was nothing. >> reporter: police briefly detained sam, but he was...