Page 18 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Of things that -- >> reporter: and he's all, "oh no, no, that's --" >> would -- >> reporter: that's all true. "i'm a million miles away from her"? >> right, right separated himself. >> reporter: but in so doing, javier ruled out any innocent explanation for finding his dna and fingerprint on her car. so when police told him that's exactly what they had found -- >> it was like vapor lock. and then all of a sudden he said, "well, you know, this one time i was at the video store, and i saw sam and cathy there together. and i went and i sat in cathy's car and sat in the backseat and waited for the...

Back in 1994, police suspected sam lopez of killing his sometime girlfriend, cathy torrez, but they couldn't make the case. one big reason -- sam's cousin, javier, who told detectives he was with sam the night of the murder. javier was sam's alibi. so he wasn't suspected of being part of the murder, or even being at the crime scene. >> that's right, yeah. they were looking at javier solely as an alibi witness who was lying to cover for sam. >> reporter: that's why, as detective daron wyatt now discovered, even though investigators in 1994 took blood, hair and fingerprint samples from javier, t...

But when police asked sam about that, he denied it. >> you didn't ask her to marry you, then? >> no. >> reporter: later he changed his story but seemed to say getting married was cathy's idea. >> a lot of people hit me up already. they said that -- that -- that we were supposed to elope, okay? this is what she -- okay, but look. she had a crazy idea to go to mexico, okay? just the two of us. >> reporter: then there was sam's claim that cathy never tried to contact him after she disappeared. >> i thought she was going to page me on friday. she goes somewhere, and she never paged me on friday. >...

>> he didn't sound like a killer. >> we're here about kathy. >> later on video. after her body was found. he had always been cooperative. >> he voluntary gave hair samples. blood sample. and fingerprints. and said whatever i can do, i'll do. >> as he read the file, he learned there were other things sam didn't do. >> for example. sam lived right down the street. he never stopped by during the whole frantic week when they were searching. he did speak with police. >> i don't think anybody thought he was telling lt truth. >> remember he told detective ts kathy came to him looking for

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. >> reporter: that was tell number two. then montgomery noticed how, in his second interview, sam referred to cathy's murder. >> you know? 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 ca...