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>> the clothing you were wearing saturday? >> i think it was a guess sweatshirt. >> reporter: sam readily gave those clothes to the police. he let them search his house too. and he willingly gave samples of his hair and blood. but something about sam's behavior the week cathy was missing bothered her family. mary said she'd repeatedly paged sam looking for cathy, but he was slow to respond. he call you back? >> not at first. >> reporter: but eventually he did? >> eventually, yes. >> reporter: and he said what, he hadn't seen her? >> he hadn't seen her. >> reporter: to all appearances, that was...

A prosecutor unfamiliar with the case agreed to take a fresh 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. ...

>> 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. but then, while combing the case file, detective daron wyatt learned something shocking. there were blood and hair samples t...

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 under her arms? >> ankles, arms, i think under the legs. sometimes, you know, in the -- >> reporter: daron wyatt send out the evidence for touch dna. you optimistic? or are ...

January 1997, his lieutenant suggested daron apply to the homicide unit. >> so i ended up putting in for that job and being selected. >> reporter: it wasn't long before he cracked open the doors that housed the homicide files. >> and i open the cabinet and i see the torrez case. and i remembered the incident with debbie from about a year earlier. so i pulled it out and i started reading just on free time, just reading it a little bit. >> reporter: by then, the cathy torrez case had been cold for a good three years. >> and essentially no work had been done on it for at least the last two years....