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Police had their suspicions about sam lopez's involvement in the murder of his neighbor and former girlfriend, cathy torrez. but there was no physical evidence tying him to the 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...

>> 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 know it wasn't cathy? >> if he knew she was alive, he would know he got 20 or 25 pages from cathy, or at...

He wasn't alone the night he stabbed cathy to death. 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 migh...

Ultimately, cathy decided, says tina, that she was so broken up about albert she was going to tell sam the answer was no. >> she's crying, and then she said, "i'm going to tell him this saturday that i'm not gonna take off with him, that i will not elope." that was wednesday. and then saturday she never came home. >> reporter: sam's admitted jealousy, cathy's doting on albert, a rejected proposal. all of it seemed to add up to motive. but motives don't prove murder. there was still no physical evidence tying sam to the crime. all the blood on the car had been tested, and it was all cathy's. bu...

Sleeping in the same -- essentially the same room. >> reporter: eventually, daron wyatt felt he had enough new information to get a search warrant. >> 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 t...