Page 21 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> and essentially no work had been done on it for at least the last two years. >> reporter: from the beginning, police had suspected cathy's one-time boyfriend sam lopez had something to do with her murder. 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...

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?" >> reporter: and she'd say? >> and she'd say she didn't know. she...

Guilty people have tells, just like in a poker game? >> absolutely. they don't have that innocent mindset, and they -- they have other fears. they fear being caught. they can't get their stories straight because there's too many details. >> reporter: montgomery spent months carefully listening and re-listening, watching and re-watching, hours of sam's interviews. looking for the tells. >> how long have you guys been dating? >> 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...

Either way, larry thought sam knew more than he was telling. >> the guilty person knows a lot. cannot forget all that he knows. so when he's talking, all that information is in -- is in his brain, and it can slip out. >> reporter: another reason to think sam knew much more than he was saying? in his second interview after cathy's body was found, police spoke with sam for 90 minutes before he asked them a single question. and when he finally did -- >> so did you -- do you guys know how she was killed? >> uh, yeah, we do. >> reporter: larry noticed a telling statement. >> thought you were never ...

Started dating albert and sam had another girlfriend, too, they continued to see each other. and daron found evidence that in sam's mind, his relationship with cathy was far from casual. >> mary gave me a shoe box full of letters that were written between sam and cathy, and the content of these letters showed a very jealous guy. a guy who would get angry any time somebody flirted with cathy. >> reporter: sam didn't try to hide the fact that he was prone to jealousy. >> she knows, every time she mentions some guy's name, i get pissed off, okay? >> reporter: that led the detective to take a fres...