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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...

Families. it turned out cathy had dated armando's younger brother, sam, off and on. and the families lived right down the street from each other. you can see one house from the other. >> exactly. >> reporter: and she's going out with sam. >> uh-huh. >> reporter: you marry his older brother. >> uh-huh. >> reporter: so that house wasn't just another house on the street. >> right. >> reporter: it was family. >> right. right. >> reporter: police spoke with members of the lopez family. sam knew cathy the best. >> how long have you known cathy? >> jeez, i've known her for over five years. >> reporte...

>> reporter: tina montelongo remembers it clearly. >> 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. he really was. i was freaking out. >> 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...

>> 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 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 disappe...

Sam's cousin javier was also arrested and charged with murder. police also arrested sam's older brother, armando, who was once married to cathy's sister tina, and had helped search for cathy. >> it's just a tragic loss. it hurts. everybody loved cathy. >> reporter: armando was charged with being an accessory after the fact for allegedly helping cover up the murder. >> we believe that he was telling people who had information that could help convict sam not to cooperate with the police. >> reporter: cathy's sister had to ponder what that might mean about her former husband. >> betrayal of the w...