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Us and talking." >> reporter: they brought him down to the station and listened patiently as he distanced himself from cathy torrez. >> he'd never been shopping with her, never changed a tire on her car, never carried groceries. we went through the whole litany 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 exact...

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...

>> there was a loud pounding on our door. >> 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. >...

Suspect -- javier's cousin sam lopez. tina montelongo, sam's then-wife and javier's friend, wasn't buying it. can you conceive of javier going through with a murder or being involved in it because of his 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 exact...

Look. his name is matt murphy, and he noticed one thing right away. >> the first thing you see when you look at the file is a big rejection from really good lawyers who reviewed it individually and as a group. >> reporter: which means they tried very hard to make a case and they couldn't do it? >> they tried very hard. that's right. and they figured, based on their review, that they couldn't do it. >> reporter: and some of the reasons were apparent from the get-go -- >> when you look at it on its face, this case is a real tough one. >> reporter: for one thing, there was so much evidence they d...