Page 25 - Linking Sam News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Friends, because technology changes. >> reporter: at the time of the murder, dna tests could only be done on big samples like blood spatter. but in the years since, analysis became possible for touch-dna, the microscopic calling cards many of us leave behind just by putting our hands on something. if sam and javier did place cathy's body in the car's trunk, maybe, thought larry, there would be touch-dna on her clothes. >> search for dna in the areas that might be grabbed. especially areas that might be grabbed that don't have blood on them, from cathy. >> so you looked, what, on the ankles and...

And i just remember thinking that he was cute. >> reporter: tina montelongo was a hostess then. >> so, i offered him some free food. and then we started talking. >> reporter: she felt the spark right away. >> i did think i would marry him when i first saw him. that was, like, the words that came out of my mouth. "i'm going to marry that guy." >> reporter: you were taken with him right away? >> i was. uh-huh. >> reporter: sam and tina started dating. but in a small town like placentia, it wasn't long before tina heard the whispered rumors. >> i found out that my sister went to school with him a...

>> 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. >> we know that cathy's mom paged him 20 or 25 times in a matter of at least a couple of days, trying to get him to contact her because he's so close to cathy and she's missing. >> reporter: montgomery noted a key detail about those pages. mary's home phone and cathy's home phone are the same number. >> they're the same numbers. >> reporter: so, seeing that number on his pager, how did sam kno...

Murder. and he had a solid alibi on the night cathy was killed. sam was with his cousin, javier. which is why when police took their case to the d.a.'s office, the d.a. refused to file charges against sam. police pursued other leads too, like a possible connection to the suicide of cathy's boyfriend, albert. did you think that cathy's disappearance had anything to do with albert? >> no. >> reporter: coincidence. >> yeah, just two tragedies happening at the same time. >> reporter: but not connected. >> but not connected, no. >> reporter: even though that coincidence continued to bother them, po...

Armpit." >> reporter: "did we tell you?" no, we didn't tell you. how long had they known that? >> a couple of months, at least. >> and they, what, forgot to call? >> i think the examiner who had been doing it was waiting for additional results and didn't realize that she hadn't notified us. >> so the idea of touch-dna paid off? >> it did. >> reporter: but not quite the way they had all hoped. unbelievable that you would get touch-dna evidence back that long after the fact. >> right. >> but bad news, it doesn't have sam lopez's name on it. >> right. that's right. >> reporter: so the strongest p...