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>> reporter: 20 years went by. >> i still had to keep looking for what i had lost. >> reporter: but cathy had her. and she had him. >> i put a lot of faith in god. darren was his tool. >> and the killer? he never had a chance. >> this was everything to her. i fulfilled my promise. >> hello and welcome to "dateline" extra. i'm craig melvin. cathy torres, the honor student was working two jobs to put herself through college and still made time for friends and family. but in the blink of an eye cathy would disappear. her case grew cold but cathy's mother never gave up. and neither did the tenacio...

>> reporter: but for the time being, it seemed daron's hands were tied. after all, the case had been rejected by the d.a.'s office twice before. this case getting a lot of baggage over the years? >> yeah, it did. >> reporter: and so if you go ahead with it, you're not only going ahead with the case, you're also kind of insulting the d.a.? >> yeah. >> reporter: years went by. the cathy torrez case grew colder by the day. and so did the marriage between cathy's sister tina and sam's brother armando. you and armando got divorced. >> yes. >> reporter: this have something to do with that? >> defini...

>> 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 didn't have against sam. >> there was no murder weapon here. we had no witness. we had no confession. we had no dna. so you can look at it that way, in a conventional review. and yeah, it looked really tough. >>...

Shortly after that and looking her in the eye and saying, "i know -- i know now how you feel. i know it. i can feel it myself. i'm a dad now. you haven't given up. i won't give up." >> reporter: in 2003, nine years after the murder, daron once again approached a friend in the d.a.'s office. >> i said, "i've got a cold case that i need you to take a look at." and he physically stops walking and he says, "if it's the case i'm thinking about, i'm not going to touch it." >> reporter: but daron was persistent. eventually he persuaded his friend to take cathy's case back to the d.a.'s homicide unit....

>> reporter: not possible? >> at that point you want to yell and scream at them and tell them, "that's not true. you don't know, not my cathy." >> reporter: the torrez family was not going to wait for police to catch up to what they already knew -- that cathy was not someone who'd just disappear. they went to reporters. mary spoke to knbc in los angeles. >> this is one thing that nobody should have to go through. >> reporter: and took the search into their own hands. >> the police department wasn't receptive. so i told my mom, "okay, give me a picture." >> reporter: tina was in charge of flyer...