Dateline NBC - The Promise Kept

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

In this Dateline classic, Cathy Torrez was a beautiful, smart and responsible 20-year-old student. So why didn't she come home after work like she was supposed to? Josh Mankiewicz reports. Originally aired on NBC on April 24, 2015.

You're still holding on to the hope that she's going to come running in through that back door. You didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking. She was a mom full of pain, looking for her baby and her baby hadn't come home. My mom asked him, what happened? Did you find him? He looked at my mom and he said, I'm sorry. She'd been stabbed multiple times. There was blood within the interior of the car. She was a targeted victim. We had no witness. We had no confession. We had no DNA. They still had to keep looking for what I had lost. My first daughter was born and I remember going to Mary and I said, I know, I know now how you feel. I put a lot of faith in God. Darren was his tool. This was everything to her. I fulfilled my promise. In the wee small hours of the morning, while the whole wide world

is fast asleep, Mary Bennett is awake. Not because she wants to be, but because some things stay with you, whether you want them to or not. And for Mary Bennett, it's the time, 3.40 a.m. Every day I wake up around that time. It's embedded in my brain. For more than two decades, that particular time has stabbed her in the heart, pulled her awake. It's an internal clock permanently set to the worst day of her life. It began with a phone call, then a knock on the door, and news of something that should never have happened to this family, to this girl. When she would come inside the house, her favorite thing was, I'm home, what's for dinner? Even if somebody, we just finished cleaning the kitchen,

she'd still ask, what's for dinner? That was Kathy. Kathy Torres grew up in Placentia, a small town nestled amongst the sprawling cities of Southern California. Even as a baby, she was a good baby. Mary Bennett is Kathy's mother. She was always happy, always running, and always very very loud and always smiling. That radiant smile shined everywhere she went, says Kathy's sister, Tina. Kathy was energetic. She was happy.

She loved to laugh. Kathy was one of four siblings. There was younger brother, Marty, and the baby, Debbie. Tina was the eldest. She watched as Kathy excelled in school. Kathy was exceptional. Kathy made her own way. She didn't follow a role model. Nobody guiding her and nobody pushing her.

Exactly. She had her own drive. She used to tell her younger sister that she had to leave her mark. You had to leave your mark in this world so that people would remember you when you moved on. You have to leave your mark on the world. Did you teach her that? No, that was just her. Seems like an admirable thing for a kid to come up with.

Well, Kathy was different. Beautiful, smart, and social. And popular. You knew more about her dating life than maybe your mom and dad did. Yes, I believe to some extent, yes. Kathy dated a few guys in high school, but no one she was terribly stuck on. And then in 1994, out of high school and a young woman of 20, Kathy started to see a boy named Albert, a boy she'd played with as a child and was now interested in romantically. Were they boyfriend and girlfriend? She said that they were, you know, seeing each other, but it wasn't anything serious or formal that I knew of.

That's how she explained it to me, you know, he was a nice guy. Kathy's plate was full that February of 1994. She was an honors student at Cal State Fullerton, holding down two jobs, one at the local drugstore and another as a teacher's aide, all to pay for college. And now she was also seeing a new guy. Just a few days before February 14th, Kathy told Sister Tina what she wanted for Valentine's Day. She said, Tina, I would just like it if somebody gave me a dozen red roses for Valentine's Day. And I said, yeah, that's all you want? She said, I would just like a dozen red roses.

She had never received a dozen roses from anyone, but that year, she was hopeful. It was Saturday, February 12th, when Kathy went off to her job at the drugstore. How was she that morning? She was fine. Just routine. Nothing out of the ordinary. Tina was trying to catch up with Kathy that day before she went to work, but just missed her at home, only to see her moments later in traffic. We saw each other, and she gave me the biggest smile that I will always remember. She saw me. We looked at each other. It was a beautiful smile.

That smile, that moment, burned into her memory. Kathy's shift ended at about eight o'clock that night. She was supposed to come straight home, but Mary didn't see her. So nine o'clock, ten o'clock comes, you're not worried? No, I wasn't worried. Saturday night, she probably went out after work. Yeah. But then Sunday morning came, and still no Kathy. Kathy's family launches a search. When I drove into the parking lot, I said, let me just see her car. Let me just see her car. And the fear and the frustration grow. There was no days and no nights, and you didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking. Valentine's Day in 1994 was two days away, but Mary Bennett's heart was already racing, and for all the wrong reasons.

Her daughter Kathy Torres never came home after her shift at Savon ended. And the next morning, there was still no sign of her. Mary called Kathy's friends. No one had seen her. So Mary got in the car and scoured the streets of Placentia, searching for Kathy and her red Toyota Corolla. Kathy's sister Tina saw the wrenching worry in their mother's face. She was a mom full of pain. She was a mom who was hurting because she was looking for her baby. She would say, just find the car. If you find the car, it was like an equation.

Find the car, you'll find Kathy. You get any sleep Sunday night? No. Just waiting. You don't want to call the police because that makes it real. That's right. It makes it real because you're still holding on to the hope that she's going to come running in through that back door. By Monday, Kathy still wasn't home. Panic was setting in. And Mary called the police department to report her daughter missing.

And the police said? Well, you know, you don't know that. Maybe she went off. She could have met some guy and they're in Vegas right now. And you're saying 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 Kathy. The Torres family was not going to wait for police to catch up to what they already knew.

That Kathy was not someone who'd just disappear. They went to reporters. Mary spoke to KNBC in Los Angeles. They already knew that Kathy 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. And took the search into their own hands. The police department wasn't receptive, so I told my mom, okay, give me a picture. Tina was in charge of flyers.

Mary worked the phones at home. And younger brother Marty kept watch in front of Savon. Hi, did you ever receive a flyer? Soon, it wasn't just the Torres family searching for Kathy. You know God's there for you. Police did jump on the case, and it seemed as if all of Placentia did too. We had strangers, people coming to the house asking, what can we do? Where can we take the flyers? Can we have some flyers to pass out flyers? Tina drove to the school where Kathy worked. All the while, Mary's mantra echoed through her mind. Find the car and you'll find Kathy. When I drove into the parking lot, I said, let me just see her car. Let me just see her car. Because I knew a lot of things were going on in her life, you know, in that week prior.

A lot of things was an understatement. Kathy's family was very worried about her state of mind after a strange and terrifying series of events that had happened the week before she vanished. First, she'd come home the previous Saturday in a bizarre state, incoherent, unable to stand up. She couldn't get out of the car. My son went out to help her. That cannot have made you happy? No, it didn't. Because I had never seen her come home like that. And she couldn't tell me what had happened. Did she smell like alcohol?

No, she didn't. That was the scary part to me, that she did not smell like alcohol, yet something was wrong with her. Even more alarming, Mary later realized Kathy's underwear was missing. What you're describing is what happens when people come home after they've been date raped. Well, yes. You know, they can't remember what happened. They're maybe not wearing all their clothes and they are clearly under the influence of something.

Well, yes, I was afraid that maybe that had happened to her, I didn't know for a fact and she had no memory and she had no memory you think about calling the police sadly no I didn't think about that it didn't end there the next morning Tina saw Kathy's car I remember looking at the tires and saying what happened? How could this be the way they were slashed? It was deliberate. And I just kept saying, what happened to your tires? Who slashed your tires? And she'd say? And she said she didn't know. The worst was yet to come. Two days after Kathy came home in that strange condition, her new boyfriend, Albert Rangel, apparently tried to take his own life. He even left a note that seemed to be in his own handwriting.

All of this just days before Kathy disappeared. Albert hanged himself at work, but he didn't die. He lingered in a coma at the hospital, and Kathy was devastated. She was so upset. She was was crying she couldn't believe that someone would do something like that and now the torres family was left to wonder if and how all of this connected to kathy's disappearance just felt like you were out in in this time warp you know there was no no days and no nights. And you didn't want it to be dark because you wanted to keep looking.

The next big search was planned for Saturday morning, February 19th, one week since Kathy had last been seen. We got all the maps ready, and we had just got another box donated of flyers. And everything was set. And then, around 3.40 a.m. Saturday, there was a knock on Mary's front door. Police find Kathy's car. Kathy's shoe was on the floorboard, and there was blood within the interior of the car.

What had happened to Kathy. The Torres family had planned a major search for Kathy on Saturday, a week after she disappeared. But at 3.40 that morning, Mary had a visitor. A police officer. He asked for Kathy's keys. I gave him the key and I asked him if it was Kathy's car. And he just looked straight. He didn't look at me.

And he said he didn't know that they had just told him to come and pick up the key. And he left. Find the car and you'll find Kathy. It had become practically a family motto. So when another officer arrived hours later, the Torres family was waiting for what they had dreaded all week. My mom asked him,

what happened? Did you find Kathy? And then he looked at my mom, he said I'm sorry and all I remember were the flyers that were on my mom's table in the living room and so much pain. I was yelling. Not my Kathy. Not Kathy. Mary Bennett had been right all along.

Kathy's Toyota Corolla had been spotted in a hospital parking lot. A plastic bag was peeking out of the trunk. Officers opened it, and Kathy Torres was missing no longer. She had been stabbed multiple times, all about the upper chest, the neck. Detective Sergeant Darren Wyatt. You know, there's no way to time the death, but I think it's pretty safe to assume that she had been dead since she disappeared on that Saturday night on the 12th. It was devastating not just for the Torres family, but for all those in Placentia who'd been searching so tirelessly for Kathy.

She was a vibrant, very intelligent young girl. This is truly a tragedy. Detectives went to work trying to find Kathy's killer. They set up a hotline. Do you have any information regarding the homicide of Kathy Torres? And scoured Placentia for clues. By studying her car and her body, investigators got a sense of what happened. First, Kathy was completely clothed. no sign of sexual assault. And one more thing also seemed clear. Most likely, the attacker started in the car. There were pieces of the gear shift that were broken, pieces of the center console that were broken, as if a struggle had occurred. And then there was blood within the interior of the car. Matt Murphy was the Orange

County prosecutor who later reviewed the case. He noted blood on everything the killer must have touched. The steering wheel, above the glove compartment, the driver's side armrest, and of course, the trunk release. But one noteworthy place where there was no blood? The driver's side seat lever. At 4'11", Kathy drove her car with the seat moved closest to the steering wheel. But when police found the car, the seat was racked all the way back. Suggesting that somebody taller than Kathy was operating the car. Not only operating the car, but did that before the murder itself took place. Because that was touched and that seat was moved without any transfer of blood at all.

So the seat was moved back before the killing started. And if so, perhaps it was because Kathy knew her killer and opened the door for him or her. Investigators also found Kathy's right shoe on the floorboard of her car and her sock covered in dirt. She got out of the car? Yes, absolutely.

Kathy had fled from the vehicle on foot, had most likely been caught and attacked again before she was ultimately placed in the trunk of the car and died. She fought pretty hard to get away. She did. She ran for her life. To detectives, this was not a sex crime or a robbery. More than 70 stab wounds suggested something else. There's nothing random about it.

She was a targeted victim. And perhaps the most chilling clue, a letter in Kathy's own handwriting, found tucked away on the passenger side of Kathy's car. She says in the letter it's a little after 8.15. Yeah, it's 8.15, just finished my shift. Today was crazy. Everybody was all buying the, and the V was for Valentine's Day.

And that's as far as she got. That's as far as she got. So she's interrupted mid-sentence. Just who had done that? Detectives weren't quite sure. Darren believed the letter was intended for Albert, who at the time of Kathy's murder was lying in a coma in the hospital after a suicide attempt.

He never woke up and died almost two years later. Obviously, you have to look at all of that, and you have to ask, is there something that's involved in that? It was almost too strange to imagine, except to police. There are rumors within the community that that may have been the motive for her disappearance and murder, was that, hey, you need to look at the Rangel family. Members of Albert's family, the rumors said, were angry with Kathy, thinking that she might have been the cause of his suicide attempt.

Because of his relationship with Kathy and the fact that she wasn't been the cause of his suicide attempt. Because of his relationship with Kathy and the fact that she wasn't as serious about him as he was with her. So that had to be examined. It had to be looked at. So the investigation continued as people in Placentia paid final respects to the friendly cashier they knew from Savon. More than a thousand people attended Kathy's funeral. Pretty impressive. The kind of person Kathy was. She touched a lot of people. They remembered her.

She left her mark. She did. Kathy had hoped for a dozen red roses that February. Instead, her family remembered her with a headstone. Your smile will shine forever. That wasn't the only promise Kathy's mother made. I didn't know how long I would have to wait. But I knew that we had to do everything that we could to get the answer. Because? Because she was my daughter. And someone had taken her away from me.

Someone had done something horrible to her, and someone needed to be accountable. No one could have imagined at the time just how long Mary's quest for justice would take. Detectives have a few questions for one of Kathy's closest friends. The minute I said no to her, she blew up.

She started cussing me out. Kathy Torres had been murdered and stuffed into the trunk of her car. Police were considering what role her new boyfriend Albert and his attempted suicide may have played. But for now, they were left with unanswered questions and a town shaken by her murder. Kathy had so much to live for and was a very happy person, a people's person. That was Armando Lopez speaking back in 1994. Armando was Kathy's brother-in-law, Tina's then-husband. But that wasn't the only connection between the two families. It turned out Kathy had dated Armando's younger brother, Sam, off and on. And the families lived right down the street from

each other. You can see one house from the other. Exactly. And she's going out with Sam. You marry his older brother. So that house wasn't just another house on the street. It was family. Right. Right. Police spoke with members of the Lopez family. Sam knew Kathy the best. How long have you known Kathy? Geez, I've known her for over five years. They interviewed him down at the station. Yeah, I really had fun with her. Like I said, that person, I'm serious, would always have a smile, would always be laughing, making jokes. Given their friendship,

detectives were curious about what Kathy might have shared with Sam about Albert. Since Albert tried to commit suicide, she was taking it pretty hard. Was she confiding in you? The only thing she mentioned about him was that he hung himself and she was sorry for him doing that because she thought it was her fault. Okay, that's what she said.

We never really sat down and talked about it. Well, you know what? I think she was trying to hide from her problems by smoking out. Meaning she was smoking marijuana. Kathy's family said that for her, that would be out of character. Sam told detectives he had last seen Kathy the Thursday before she disappeared. He said she'd paged him several times that day. And when they finally met up.

She asked me for some weed, you know, and then she kept on asking me, so are you going to give it to me or what, this and that? And I go, you know, and then she kept on asking me, so are you going to give it to me or what? And I go, you know what? The minute I said no to her, she blew up. She started cussing me out, you know, and, you know, if I don't get it through, I'm going to get somebody else. And then, Sam said, Kathy got in her car and took off. So I'm like, you know, I mean, what could I do now? I mean, she's a girl because of the UI. I

mean, I can't go chasing after her, you know, because I never thought she was going to, I mean, this was going to happen. Sam shared his suspicions about what had happened to Kathy. The same rumors about Albert that were circulating around Placentia. But you know what? Hey, it's a possibility that, shoot, somebody else from his family. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not pointing the fingers at nobody, okay? But why the coincidence that after he hung himself, this happened? Why? Have you guys ever thought of that? Of course, police also asked Sam where he was the night Kathy disappeared.

Could you tell us where you were Saturday night? This last Saturday? Sure, we're asking everyone. No, that's fine, that's fine, I understand. I was up in Corona. I was helping my friend, a friend of mine move. Sam told police how he and his cousin Javier helped their friend move in the afternoon, and then he said he dropped Javier off at his home. Where'd you go from there? From there I went to my girlfriend's store. And I was there to shoot till they closed, which was around eight, a little bit after eight. Then you see what I do that day? Somebody paged me. I think, oh, I picked my cousin up again.

So if we had to contact everyone that you mentioned, you know, you could get their names and addresses, phone numbers. They could confirm where you were on Saturday night. And sure enough, they did. Police spoke with Javier, who corroborated Sam's story. Javier told investigators that he was with Sam, that Sam had picked him up at his house in Anaheim and driven him to another friend's house in Fullerton during the time that we believe Kathy was contacted and ultimately murdered.

So if you believe Sam's alibi, he couldn't have been the thing that interrupted Kathy when she was writing that note. Right. Nevertheless, they pressed Sam for more details. Yeah, the clothing you were wearing Saturday. Um, I think it was a guest sweatshirt. 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 Kathy was missing bothered her family. Mary said she'd repeatedly paged Sam looking for Kathy, but he was slow to respond. He call you back? Not at first. But eventually he did? Eventually, yes.

And he said what? He hadn't seen her? He hadn't seen her. To all appearances, that was true. And the physical evidence seemed to confirm it. Sam's DNA was not found anywhere on Kathy or her car. And his clothes, the ones he gave voluntarily to police, had no DNA of Kathy's on them. But that behavior of Sam's, which bothered Kathy's family,

also bothered police, and they focused on him. However, when investigators took their suspicions to the Orange County DA, the outcome was not what they expected. Sam has a new woman in his life, who soon discovers his old life. You were a little freaked out by that. Well, yeah. Police had their suspicions about Sam Lopez's involvement in the murder of his neighbor and former girlfriend, Kathy Torres. But there was no physical evidence tying him to the murder. And he had a solid alibi on the night Kathy was killed.

Sam was with his cousin, Javier. Which is why, when police took their case to the DA's office, the DA refused to file charges against Sam. Police pursued other leads too, like a possible connection to the suicide of Kathy's boyfriend, Albert. Did you think that Kathy's disappearance had anything to do with Albert? No. Coincidence? Yeah, just two tragedies happening at the same time. But not connected. But not connected, no. Even though that coincidence continued to bother them, police were forced to agree.

But that left the investigation with nowhere to go. Whoever had killed Kathy was still out there walking around. Yes. Still out there enjoying the sun. Breathing the same air you're breathing. Yes. You think about that a lot? I did, especially if it was a beautiful day. Those sunny days turned dark. Months passed, seasons changed, and still the Torres

family was left wondering who had killed Kathy. Something that never changed was Mary, steadfast in her resolve to get justice for her daughter. Early on, a friend gave her some advice. She said, remember Mary, the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Don't let anyone tell you different. You keep going. And that's what I did. Mary and her family sought the attention of the media. They marched in rallies, lobbied officials for greater victims' rights, and spoke

with then-California Governor Pete Wilson about Kathy's murder. And Mary did something else, too. I worked part-time for the city, and it just so happened that my desk was right at the door, the hallway that connected the police department with the city. And so they would see me sitting at my desk when they walked into city hall. Every new police chief would get a meeting with you. Yes. I would actually go into their office and talk to them and tell them, see what they could do. You were a pest. I was a squeaky wheel. Your mom was relentless with the police.

Yes, she was. I went with her a couple times to meet the new chief that would come in to the police department. We go in there. We just want to let you know that we represent Kathy Torres, and we have not forgotten, and we just want to make sure that, you know, her case is still being worked on. And that's all it basically is. We've not forgotten, and we want to make sure that you don't either. Right, right.

The city of Placentia didn't forget. The Community Learning Center was dedicated in Kathy's name. The Kathy Torres Learning Center. Yes. You've got to leave your mark on the world. She did, huh? And a tree was planted in Kathy's memory across the street. They planted it in a way where from my mom's kitchen she could see the tree. Sam Lopez could see it too. He was still living in the same home police had searched

after Kathy's murder. A search that had turned up nothing. And Sam was also moving on with his life. In May 1994, just months after Kathy's murder, Sam walked into a local restaurant. He walked in with his friend, and I just remember thinking that he was cute. Tina Matalanga was a hostess then. So I offered him some free food and then we started talking. 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.

You were taken with him right away. I was. 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 and I asked her what she knew about him, what she thought about him. And that's when she told me that he was the one that they suspected. In the murder of Kathy Tora?

Yes. Sam emphatically denied any involvement in Kathy's murder. But just the idea spooked Tina, so she made up a lie. I met him and I told him that I was dating somebody else. Which was not true. Which was not true. You were a little freaked out by that. Well, yeah.

But the spark that first drew her to Sam was too strong. And though Tina had only known him a few short weeks, something in her heart said Sam was innocent. So I gave him a call and I started dating him again. Okay. I mean, you're an attractive woman. I have trouble believing that there were not guys available who weren't already suspects in a murder investigation. I'm sure there probably were, but they didn't have my attention. They dated for a year and then married. A year later came a baby girl, and Sam embraced his role as dad.

He was like Mr. Mom. You know, he stayed home and took care of the baby while I worked. If Sam had anything to do with Kathy's murder, he certainly didn't act like it. He stayed put, living with his wife and baby right down the street from Kathy's mom, Mary. She would sit outside and stare at us. And I felt like she was doing it to make me uncomfortable and probably him too, but I'm sure she didn't want him to be happy

if she thought that he had anything to do with what happened to her daughter. Sam say anything about Mary? No, no. He would try to tell me to ignore it. Was this like the Hatfields and the McCoys? I mean, what happened? There was no communication, no associations with them. You know, that was basically it. They became estranged.

Which made it difficult for Tina, who was still married to Sam's older brother, Armando. Police continued to work the case, but the fact was, they had no solid leads, and they weren't even close to arresting anyone. But then, two years after Kathy Torres was murdered, an unexpected meeting put this investigation in the fast lane. An Explorer Scout with a familiar last name inspires a renewed search for a killer. That is a weird coincidence. We don't believe in coincidences. It was 1996.

Two years had passed since the gruesome murder of Kathy Torres in Placentia, California. I had been to several places, had knocked on many doors, and all I ever wanted was the truth to come out as to what had happened to Kathy. The case had gone cold, but its memory still clung to the breeze in this small town. Darren Wyatt was a patrol officer back then, and one afternoon, his shift brought him to this park, just across the street from where Kathy had grown up. Darren was about to bust a drug suspect when the guy started talking. He's playing the game of, you know, I'll tell you whatever you want to know, just, you know, ask the right questions and I'll tell you,

and then you won't take me to jail. So, you know, just almost as a flippant remark, I tell him, okay, so tell me who killed Kathy Torres. It was a shot in the dark, a tactic he'd picked up at a seminar for cultivating informants. And the patrol officer that is next to me starts kind of kicking my foot, and he's got an explorer scout who's riding with him, a young Hispanic female.

And I look at her name tag, and it was Dee Torres. Turned out it was Debbie Torres, Kathy's youngest sister. That is a weird coincidence. We don't believe in coincidences. To Darren Wyatt, it felt more like fate. And just months later, in January 1997, his lieutenant suggested Darren apply to the homicide unit. So I ended up putting in for that job and being selected. It wasn't long before he cracked open the doors that housed the homicide files. I opened the cabinet and I see the Torres 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. From the beginning, police had suspected Kathy's one-time boyfriend, Sam Lopez, had something to do with her murder. But they had nothing connecting him to the crime. No witnesses, no DNA. And Sam had that solid alibi. Tina was still married to Sam's brother, Armando. The two families intertwined as Kathy's family continued to search for answers. And then in April of 1997, I got a phone call from Mary Bennett. Kathy's mom. It would be their first conversation of many. Mary told Darren how she'd seen reports about a new program in Orange County centered around investigating cold cases.

Kathy's case had specifically been mentioned. And Mary says, if they're going to use my daughter's murder as publicity for their program, by all means, they're going to work it. And it's your job to make sure that that happens. Darren poured through the files and hunted down new leads. And then a tip came in, seemingly out of nowhere. So a guy from a repossession company calls the police and says, hey, I repoed this car earlier today, and there's a folio in the trunk of

the car. And as I'm going through the folio, there are articles in there about this murder in Placentia from 1994, and there are receipts from Savon. Savon, the drugstore chain where Kathy was working at the time she was stabbed to death. That had to make everybody sit up straight. It did. There was more. The guy whose car had been repossessed had recently been released from state prison and was now in custody for threatening someone with a knife. And what you wanted to know first was, where were you on the night Kathy Torres disappeared? Correct. And where was he?

He was in state prison. So whatever's going on with this guy, he's not your guy. Well, he's not personally, but is he related to, does he know, what's the connection? Why is this stuff in the trunk of his car? When you say to him, why would you have articles about Kathy Torres' murder and receipts from Savon in the trunk of your car, his answer is what? That's all my wife's stuff. He disowns it. He separates himself from it, which now raises a little bit more suspicion. Could you tell if he was connected to anyone in the case?

Not initially. I really had to dig a little bit deeper to see what the connection was. Darren finally located the convict's wife. She was uncooperative at first, which, again, now this is raising suspicions again. Ultimately, she did come in and talk to us, and her explanation was that she went to Valencia High School with Kathy, and then upon closer examination, we were able to see that the receipts from Savon were from a different Savon than the one that Kathy worked at, and this is basically like her keepsake file. She'd saved those articles just because she knew someone who got murdered. Correct. So this had nothing to do with her husband who was in prison at all.

Absolutely nothing. So you're back to basically no suspects? No, we're back to Sam. But there was one big problem with Sam. He didn't act like a killer. He voluntarily gave hair samples, he gave a blood sample, he gave fingerprints. Would a killer do all that homicide cop Darren Wyatt was deep in the Kathy Torres murder case if her mother Mary wasn't giving up, neither would he.

I knew that it wasn't over yet, that I still had to keep looking for answers, looking for what I had lost. Darren chased some leads that went nowhere and ultimately ended up right where detectives were in 1994. Back to Sam Lopez, Kathy's neighbor and ex-boyfriend, a man suspected but never charged. But at the same time, Darren had to admit that Sam certainly did not fit anyone's profile of a murder suspect. No criminal history. There was no indicators that he was anything other than,

you know, a normal 22-year-old kid. He didn't sound like a killer. No, absolutely not. Detectives then interviewed Sam on two separate days. First on audio tape when Kathy went missing. We're here about Kathy. And later, this time on video, after her body was found. A whole week I haven't hardly slept

because all I do is think about Kathy, where the heck she should be. He had always been cooperative. He voluntarily gave head hair samples, he gave a blood sample, he gave fingerprints, and at the end of that he ultimately said, you know, whatever I can do, I'll do. But as he read the file, Darren learned there were other things Sam didn't do.

For example, Sam lived right down the street. Yet Kathy's family says he never stopped by during that whole frantic week when they were searching. He did speak extensively with police. I don't think anybody thought that Sam was telling the truth. Remember how Sam told detectives Kathy came to him looking for weed? First thing she said is, uh, could you get me any weed? But there was absolutely no indication that any of that was true. Which calls into question Sam's story. It does. And Darren noticed another inconsistency in Sam's account of the days right before Kathy disappeared.

How long ago was she visiting me? Eight times in a row. Mary, however, says Sam was the one calling her home, looking for Kathy. He called how many times? Quite a few times, looking for her. Mary says Sam sounded okay at first, until she told him where Kathy was. I said she was at the hospital and she wasn't back yet. At the hospital, visiting Albert, her boyfriend who'd attempted suicide. Sam okay with that?

No, he got upset. Sam told police he was just worried about Kathy, especially after he spoke with her that week. She was fine. Kathy was still missing. Sam seemed to be implying she might have hurt herself. Or that another boyfriend might be involved. I mean, look, I know she's had a lot of problems in the past with boyfriends. Then there was the second interview, the day Kathy's body was found. Detective Wyatt studied that tape too.

There was one thing that was important that Sam didn't display that you would expect to see in a case like this. Which is? Emotion. He showed more emotion over the contents of a Coke can.

He picked it up when they left the room and he was reading the Coke can and the ingredients and the number of calories. And then at one point he puts that down

and he picks up a baseball hat that he had been wearing and you see some dirt on it and he brushes it off and he starts swearing about the fact that there's dirt on his hat. Oh, f***. But he never shows any emotion about the fact that his gal has been brutally murdered.

No emotion whatsoever. And that's a big red flag. It's huge. Darren went deeper into Sam and Kathy's relationship. There were a lot of things that brought them together. They did it in high school. They lived across the street. to Sam and Kathy's relationship. There were a lot of things that brought them together. They did it in high school. They lived across the street.

Kathy's older sister was married to Sam's older brother. They had this long on-again, off-again relationship in which, what, he couldn't let go of her or she couldn't let go of him? I think a lot of it was mutual. Even after Kathy started dating Albert and Sam had another girlfriend too, they continued to see each other. And Darren found evidence that, in Sam's mind, his relationship with Kathy was far from casual.

Mary gave me a shoebox full of letters that were written between Sam and Kathy, and the content of these letters showed a very jealous guy, a guy who would get angry any time somebody flirted with Kathy. Sam didn't try to hide the fact that he was prone to jealousy. She knows every time she mentions some guy's name, I get pissed off, okay? That led the detective to take a fresh look at those bizarre events the week before Kathy disappeared, when she came home impaired and then had her tires slashed.

She never regained full memory of what had happened, but she was able to tell everybody who she had been with that night. The person Kathy had been with that night? Sam Lopez. When police asked Sam about that night, he remembered something very specific. The hickey. On her neck? On her right here, covering her with her bra.

You mean way down here on her shoulder? Right here, right here. Sam claimed it was no big deal. I didn't want to hit her up. Like tell her, hey, who were you with last night? Whatever. But that night, police records showed Sam received two traffic citations, both while driving Kathy's car. One was an open container ticket for drinking alcohol in a parking lot, the other for failing to

stop at a stop sign. The cop who pulled Sam over for not stopping said Sam flew through the intersection, and when flew through the intersection, and when he approached the car, the cop said it looked as if Sam and Kathy had been arguing, but he did say Kathy looked fine. Nobody was quite sure what happened after that, except they apparently parted company, Sam in his car, Kathy in hers. And then Kathy arrived home, too out of it to realize she'd been driving on slashed tires. Tina saw the tires the next day. I just kept saying, what happened to your tires? Who slashed your tires? And she'd say? And she'd say she didn't know. She just knew that she had

gone out with Sam that night. Darren Wyatt now believed Sam drugged Kathy, possibly assaulted her, and slashed her tires. The next day, Kathy called Tina with more details about her strange night with Sam. He had told her, let's run off, let's get married, let's run off and let's elope. And she told him, you're joking, you're, you know, this is not, you know, what are you talking about? Are you serious? Remember, Kathy was seeing another guy, Albert, who only days later tried to kill himself. Tina says Kathy thought about Sam's proposal all that week. Ultimately, Kathy 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 gonna tell him this Saturday and that I'm not gonna take off with him that I will not elope that was Wednesday and then Saturday she never came home Sam's admitted jealousy Kathy's doting on Albert a rejected proposal all of it seemed to add up to motive but motives 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 Kathy's. But then, while combing the case file, Detective Darren Wyatt learned something shocking. There were blood and hair samples that had never been sent to the crime lab.

And when those samples were analyzed, they pointed to a whole new suspect. New DNA and a new man in the hot seat. He sat there and he put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself from talking. Back in 1994, police suspected Sam Lopez of killing his sometime girlfriend, Kathy Torres. 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. That's why, as Detective Darren Wyatt now discovered, even though investigators in 1994 took blood, hair, and fingerprint samples from Javier, they'd never had those tested. They had sent all of the evidence related to Sam Lopez to the crime lab, his fingerprints, his hair, his blood, but they hadn't sent anything related to Javier Lopez to the crime lab. Darren sent Javier's samples, now three years old, to the crime lab. Two months later,

the phone rang. They had positively identified a fingerprint on the trunk of Kathy's car, left there by somebody closing the lid of the trunk. Javier's print was on the trunk of Kathy's car, left there by somebody closing the lid of the trunk. Javier's print was on the trunk of Kathy's car? Yes. Weeks later, another call from the lab. A bloodstain on the car had tested positive for both Kathy's DNA and Javier's. And the detective found there was something else, another major piece of evidence investigators had initially overlooked. When you look at the crime scene photos in the trunk of the car,

something jumped out at me, and it just hit me like I got punched in the face, was there was arterial spurt on the sidewall of the trunk panel. Meaning only one thing. Kathy was still alive when she was placed in the trunk of the trunk panel. Meaning only one thing, Kathy was still alive when she was placed in the trunk of the car. So if Javier put her there, he could be charged with murder. Why not grab Javier up that day and say, okay, your DNA and fingerprints were at the scene. We didn't know that until just now that you're going away for murder unless you start talking. Well, let's say that we did that and we bring him in and he says,

well, yes, my fingerprint was there because I helped her push her car out of the street a week before. When I was helping her change a tire, I cut my finger and I bled on it. So instead of approaching Javier, Darren Wyatt spent nearly five months carefully watching him and Sam. He learned the two cousins were unusually close. Sam lived in a one-bedroom little bungalow with his wife and his baby at the time, yet Javier was there all the time, sleeping in the same, essentially the same room. Eventually, Darren Wyatt felt he had enough new information to get a search warrant. There was a loud pounding on her door. 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. What was Sam's demeanor while all that was happening? He was calm. You know, he really was. I was freaking out. He wasn't worried?

No. No. Maybe he had no reason to be. Police didn't find anything in the house linking Sam to Kathy's murder. They even sprayed his truck with luminol, looking for signs of blood. We took the seats out. We did everything we could. And there was nothing. Police briefly detained Sand, but he was back home by morning.

Now, Darren Wyatt focused on Javier. We really approached it very low key. We think that you can really provide some great information for us. Would you mind coming down with us and talking? They brought him down to the station and listened patiently as he distanced himself from Kathy Torres. He had never been shopping with her, never changed a tire on her car, never carried groceries. We went through the whole litany of things that would. No, no, no, that's all true. I'm a million miles away from her.

Right, right. Separated himself. 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 exactly what they had found... It was like vapor lock. And then all of a sudden he said, well, you know, this one time I was at the video store and I saw Sam and Kathy there together. And I went and I sat in Kathy's car and sat in the back seat and waited for them. And they came out and then I left.

And that was really his only contact that he could give us with Kathy's car. But it doesn't fold up like a house of cards and say, all right, fine, you got me. You're right. But Josh, you've watched probably thousands of these interviews, and sometimes what people don't say is just as important as what they do say. What Javier either would not or could not say were these words. I did not kill Kathy Torres. He says, I don't know who did. That's not what I asked, Javier. Did you kill Kathy Torres? I don't know who did. That's not what I asked, Javier. Did you kill Kathy Torres?

I don't know who did. And we'd play that several times to where he'd finally say, I didn't do it. You didn't do what, Javier? I didn't do what you say I did. Can't say the words killed Kathy. Correct. Then it moved to, did you put Kathy's body in the trunk of the car? I don't know who did. Finally, he sat there and he put his fist in front of his mouth to keep himself from talking. But Javier had already managed to talk his way into an arrest for murder. Nearly four years after Kathy's death, he was booked into the Orange County Jail. Kathy's family was stunned when they heard the news, Tina included. Remember, she was still married to Armando, who was Sam's brother and Javier's cousin.

Yes, that was a shock. That was a shock to us. You didn't see that coming and police didn't tell you? Right. That was part of their investigation and we had no knowledge of that. But they were relieved. At last, the case was moving forward. Darren Wyatt was confident he had enough evidence to prove Javier Lopez had killed Kathy Torres. But once again, the Orange County District Attorney did not agree. The DA decided not to charge. Correct. And so Javier is set free.

Javier walks. A detective who refuses to quit. I said, I've got a cold case that I need you to take a look at. Now has another good reason not to. My first daughter was born. And I remember going to Mary shortly after that and looking her in the eye and saying, I know, I know now how you feel. Detective Darren Wyatt never believed Javier Lopez acted alone.

Even when he arrested Javier in 1997 for the murder of Kathy Torres. He thought Javier's real role was helping the prime suspect, Javier's cousin, Sam Lopez. Tina Matalongo, 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 Javier help him just because they're a close family? I don't see that. Neither did the DA, 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. Darren knew exactly what releasing Javier really meant. What walks out of the jail along with Javier is any leverage you had to get him to name Sam. Yeah, absolutely. And now you really are back to square one. Yes. Is that the end? To some people.

But not to him. And not to Mary. You put a lot of faith in Darren. I put a lot of faith in Darren. I put a lot of faith in God. Darren was his tool. But for the time being, it seemed Darren's hands were tied. After all, the case had been rejected

by the DA's office twice before. This case got a lot of baggage over the years. Yeah, it did. And so if you go ahead with it, you're not only going ahead with the case, you're also kind of insulting the DA. Yeah. Years went by. The Kathy Torres case grew colder by the day. And so did the marriage between Kathy's sister, Tina, and Sam's brother, Armando. You and Armando got divorced. Yes.

Does this have something to do with that? No, definitely. It was all intermixed. Darren Wyatt was promoted to detective sergeant, and his caseload shifted to other types of crime. But he never forgot his promise to Mary, in part because of a milestone in his own life. My first daughter was born, and I remember going to Mary shortly after that

and looking at 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. In 2003, nine years after the murder, Darren once again approached a friend in the DA'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 a case I'm thinking about, I'm not going to touch it. But Darren was persistent. Eventually, he persuaded his friend to take Kathy's case back to the DA's homicide unit, the same unit that had rejected it twice before. This time, though, something different happened. A prosecutor unfamiliar with the case agreed to take a fresh look.

His name is Matt Murphy, and he noticed one thing right away. And 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. 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. 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. 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. But what really made this case a prosecutor's nightmare was the fact that all the physical evidence pointed away from the man they thought was the killer. Any defense attorney would ask, if police found Javier's DNA and fingerprint,

why would they charge Sam? Were you surprised you didn't find Sam's DNA there? Yes. He thought newer, better tests might find Sam's DNA. But it was too late for that. Kathy's family had sold the car. The case against Sam would have to be entirely circumstantial. Murphy felt the key to that was somewhere in those interviews Sam gave to police. But here too, there was a problem. When you look at the interview, everything that Sam Lopez said seemed logical at the time and everything seemed to make sense. Picking apart those interviews

would be critical. This is one of those cases where you have to look at the details, and it's truly one that you have to look at each detail in light of every other detail. And when you rearrange the letters in little tiny details, it spells Larry Montgomery. Absolutely. Larry Montgomery, or as he's known here at Dateline, the Evidence Whisperer.

You didn't ask her to marry you then? No! A human lie detector goes to work. The guilty person knows a lot. All that information is in his brain, and it can slip out. Music Prosecutor Matt Murphy thought Darren Wyatt's investigation of Kathy Torres' murder was compelling. But he knew that making the case against San Lopez wouldn't be easy. The DA's office had declined to try it twice before. So Murphy called for help from a detective whose legendary skill with cold cases has earned him a reverential nickname.

Larry Montgomery is the real deal. I mean, the guy is evidence whisperer. Another nickname for him is St. Larry. Larry sees things other people don't see? Larry sees things that many people don't see. Yeah, and he looks at it from a different perspective. They both felt the key to the case lay in Sam Lopez's own words, his taped interviews with the original detectives. And they thought the perfect man to listen to those interviews was the evidence whisperer. Guilty people have tells, just like in a poker game. Absolutely. They don't have that innocent mindset, and they have other fears. They fear being caught. They can't get their stories straight because there's too many details.

Montgomery spent months carefully listening and re-listening, watching and re-watching hours of Sam's interviews. Looking for the tells. How long have you guys been dating? It's an on and on thing. On and on thing. Okay. Tell number one.

How Sam talked about his relationship with Kathy. Sam was going out with somebody, and then she would call me up, and we would just, like, call each other going out to eat, places like that. Nothing serious at the time. Sam definitely was trying to limit his connection with Kathy, give the impression that it's not that big of a deal. Remember, Kathy's sister Tina had told detectives Sam had proposed to Kathy just days before she disappeared. But when police asked Sam about that, he denied it.

You didn't ask her to marry you then? No. Later, he changed his story, but seemed to say getting married was Kathy's idea. A lot of people hit me up already. They said that we were supposed to elope. Okay. This is what she, okay, but look, she had a crazy idea to go to Mexico. Okay, just the two of us. Then there was Sam's claim that Kathy never tried to contact him after she disappeared. I thought she was going to page me on Friday. And she goes somewhere and she never paged me on Friday. We know that Kathy'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 Kathy and she's missing. Montgomery noted a key detail about those pages. Mary's home phone and Kathy's home phone are the same number. They're the same numbers. So, seeing that number on his pager, how did Sam know it wasn't Kathy? If he knew she was alive, he would know he got 20 or 25 pages from Kathy, or at least think that. If he's guilty and he killed Kathy, he knows those 20 or 25 pages were not from Kathy. That was tell number two. Then Montgomery noticed how in his second interview, Sam referred to Kathy's murder.

You know, but then this happened and shoot. He doesn't use the word murder. Doesn't say anything like that. It's like this happened as if it's small. It's not that big of a deal. It's not horrendous. He doesn't want it to be horrendous because he did it. Tell number three.

Another reason to think Sam knew much more than he was saying? In his second interview after Kathy's body was found, police spoke with Sam for 90 minutes before he asked them a single question. And when he finally did. So, so, did you guys know how she was killed? Uh, yeah, we do. Larry noticed a telling statement. I thought you were never going to ask. Why do you want to, because I don't want memories to come back, you know. Well, that's an interesting statement. I don't want memories to come back.

What memories does he have that he doesn't want to remember? If he's innocent, he has memories of Kathy, good times, what they did. People would want those memories to come back. Yeah. If he had a memory that he killed her, that certainly is a memory he doesn't want to relive. After listening to the interviews time and again, the evidence whisperer had no doubt Sam killed Kathy. But could the team prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? Ultimately, in cold case murders, time becomes one of our friends because technology changes. 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 Kathy's body in the car's trunk, maybe, thought Larry, there would be touch DNA on her clothes. You'd search for DNA in the areas that might be grabbed, especially areas that might be grabbed that don't have blood on them from Kathy. So you looked what, on the ankles and under her arms? Ankles, arms, I think under the legs. Darren Wyatt sends out the evidence for touch DNA. You optimistic or are you thinking shot in the dark? No, I was not optimistic. I was not optimistic. Because what? Because on this

particular case, it seemed like for the beginning phases, everything that could go wrong pretty much went wrong. But he also knew he was working with a cop on a mission. Darren Wyatt was not going to quit until I filed this case or I died, or he died, I guess. Darren was absolutely dedicated to this. The truth was, if Murphy declined the case a third time, the Kathy Torres file would almost certainly go from cold to dead. What would he decide? No one understood the stakes better than Kathy's mom. Darren had told me that we were going to meet

with the DA. My interpretation of it was that he was going to tell me that there was nothing they could do. A key piece of evidence arrives, better late than never. How long had they known that? A couple of months at least. And they, what, forgot the call? But is it the smoking gun? It was an early morning in 2007, 13 years after Kathy Torres had breathed her last. I was having coffee at a McDonald's before work, and I was reading my Bible.

It was a little bit after 7 when I saw that I had a call from him. From Darren Wyatt. Mary knew he was scheduled to meet with the DA. My first thought was he was going to tell me that the meeting was canceled again. But that was not the message. Not at all. He said, I'm standing here in front of Sam's house and we are making an arrest right now. They're making an arrest. Yes. And you saw it? And I got up and I think I screamed there at the McDonald's. Years before, Darren Wyatt had made a promise.

Now he felt he was keeping it. That had to feel pretty good. Yeah, there were tears of joy this time. Sam Lopez was arrested and charged with Kathy's murder. But he wasn't alone, just as prosecutors now believed he wasn't alone the night he stabbed Kathy to death. Sam's cousin J Javier, was also arrested and charged with murder. Police also arrested Sam's older brother, Armando, who was once married to Kathy's sister, Tina, and had helped search for Kathy. It's just a tragic loss.

It hurts. Everybody loved Kathy. 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. Kathy's sister had to ponder what that might mean about her former husband. Betrayal of the worst kind. Betrayal of her, betrayal of you. Kathy's sister had to ponder what that might mean about her former husband. Betrayal of the worst kind. Betrayal of her, betrayal of you. Exactly, everything. Your family.

My family, trust, betrayal, everything's broken beyond belief. Sam and his wife had also separated by this point. She was at work when her sister called and told her police had once again come for Sam. What did you think when you heard Sam was arrested? The same that I always had. Like, here we go again. Nothing to it. And he'll be out soon. Yeah.

After all, they'd detained Sam once before and had to release him. But as Darren Wyatt now explained to Sam Lopez, this time was different. I've told you before that we wouldn't give up until we were able to bring resolution to this case, and that's where we're at now. But just when it seemed the case was buttoned up, Darren got a surprising call. Remember the request for touch DNA Darren had submitted months earlier? The crime lab finally called back. And the crime lab says what?

Hey, did we tell you that we found Javier's DNA on Kathy's body? What? Yeah, we found Javier's profile on her sock, on the back of her knee, and under her right armpit. 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 the 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 TouchDNA paid off. It did. 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. So the strongest physical evidence was still against Javier. But it was Sam who had the motive. And he was the first one going on trial, even without a trace of his DNA anywhere. It had taken 13 years to arrest Sam Lopez. It would take another eight to bring him to trial. And just months before that trial began, Matt Murphy learned that Sam had a new defense attorney, someone Matt knew very well. He is so good, and I would be lying if I said my heart was not in my throat.

Sam's defense attorney, Lou Rosenblum, was the former assistant DA who supervised the homicide unit. In fact, he was the original prosecutor who, back in 1994, didn't think there was enough evidence to charge Sam. Not only that, Lou was the man who brought Matt into the homicide unit. Lou took me under his wing and trained me how to do homicides. What's it like to go up against your mentor? Well, it's terrifying to go up against your mentor. Neither one of them had ever lost a murder case.

But someone's winning streak was about to end. February 10, 2015. 20 years after Kathy Torres' murder, Sam Lopez went on trial. At the end of this case, you were going to hold that man accountable for exactly what he did. The very first witness Matt Murphy put on the stand was Kathy's mom, Mary. It seemed a safe way to start. There's a cardinal rule that you don't ever do a hard cross-examination on a mother. But Matt's mentor broke that rule.

He really pressed her on some of the details. And scored some points. Scored big points. I mean, scored big-time points. Mary initially told the jury Sam only responded to one of her pages. But under cross-examination, Mary revealed he'd actually returned three pages. They were trying to paint a picture of Sam that he did absolutely nothing, and that is not true. It's one of the only cases I've done in my career where I realized he understands his case as well as I do. It was mentor against pupil, and the stakes couldn't be higher. It's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. Where is the evidence?

A 20-year search for a killer draws to a close. But as always, the jury gets the last word. When the clerk took the folder, I started my prayer. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Matt Murphy was facing the biggest battle of his career against his former mentor, famed prosecutor turned defense attorney Lou Rosenblum. But you've only heard one side. The same man who back in 1994 felt there was not enough evidence to charge Sam Lopez was now defending him. It was an epic showdown in a packed courtroom. Two of the best attorneys in the nation battling one another over a high-stakes

murder with absolutely zero physical evidence on the defendant who's being tried. And it was teacher versus student. Sam had been a suspect for 20 years. And during that entire time, his attorney said, police had it all wrong. The detectives made up their mind about who did this murder. Within hours, we had a bad feeling about you, they said. We're going to prove it. And he spent the next 21 years over and over trying. The defense argued Sam's behavior didn't prove anything. Not only was Sam in touch with Kathy's family the week she disappeared, he also participated in the search, putting up a flyer at his girlfriend's store. And that business about him not showing any emotion in the interview with police? It is very easy to sit back and say, he should have done that.

He should have answered this way. Look, he's stretching. He's yawning. He's reading a Coke can. Obviously he's a sociopath. Where is the evidence? Step back from those supposed tells, the defense said, and you'd see the man sitting in that chair was not lying to cover up a murder. He voluntarily gives hair, blood, prints, shoes, clothes, everything they want. Not a man who's hiding.

That's a man who wants to prove his innocence. And the defense said, after 14 years of tests, not a single forensic link, not his fingerprints, not his DNA, had ever been found tying Sam to Kathy's brutal murder. Everything that they expected to find of my client, everything, none of it was there. Why? Because they're wrong. The fingerprint and DNA at the crime scene made it obvious. The wrong man was on trial. Javier Lopez is all over this. Prints, DNA, because he was the one that did it, not my client. But Prosecutor Matt Murphy argued that Javier's DNA and fingerprint were really evidence against Sam. Remember, from the

beginning, Javier had been Sam's alibi. He paged me saying, you know what, I need a ride. The prosecutor argued that if they were together and Javier's DNA put him at the scene of the crime, then Sam had to be there too. His alibi is at the murder scene. And for Sam Lopez, I think that's just devastating evidence. And he told the jury it was the first of many instances where the most powerful evidence of guilt came from Sam's own words. It's Sam's actions and it's Sam's statements. So he gave you the case against him. The best evidence that we have in this case and that we had was Sam's statements. So he gave you the case against him? The best evidence that we have in

this case and that we had was Sam Lopez himself. Sam was the one who told police he had a jealous streak. Every time she mentioned some guy's name, I get pissed off, okay? Kathy was seeing another guy, Albert. The prosecution said Sam's jealousy was triggered the night he took Kathy out and saw that hickey. What effect is that going to have on a guy who gets pissed, his own word, pissed, if she even mentions another guy, what is he going to do when he sees a hickey? What he did, Matt said, was slash Kathy's tires. Obviously, somebody would have to be very angry at her to slash her tires. If those tires were slashed, ladies and gentlemen, there's only one suspect.

There's only one person that did it. Murphy said Sam's anger continued to build as Kathy's attention turned to Albert, the same week when Sam asked her to elope. A proposal she told her sister Tina she was going to reject on Saturday, the day she was killed. So now it's not just a hickey, it's a denial of a proposal, and it's all because of another guy. The result, the prosecutor said, was an attack so savage, Kathy stabbed more than 70 times, that it could only be the work of a jealous lover. Every one of those cuts meant something.

Every one of those stab wounds meant something. And the finishing blow. She was alive, and Sam Lopez cut her throat. It's as cold-blooded as you can possibly get. The 21st anniversary of Kathy's murder fell during the middle of trial, a day that reminded Kathy's family once again of all they had lost. What did your family do that day? We went to the cemetery as we go every year in February. We take her red roses that she wanted for Valentine's Day that year. For 21 years, the Torres family had demanded answers.

Two days after deliberations began, the jury reached a verdict. I couldn't breathe. I felt just tightness inside. And when the clerk took the folder, I started my prayer. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. We, the jury, find the defendant, Samuel Agustin Lopez, guilty of murder in the first degree. Once I heard that, then I just, all I remember is that I held my hands up to my chin like this,

and I just thanked God. Darren Wyatt was watching Mary in that moment. This was everything to her. And I wanted to look in her eyes when I came back and see that she knew that I fulfilled my promise. For Sam's ex-wife, the news was devastating. I cried. For your daughter? For Sam? ex-wife, the news was devastating. I cried. For your daughter? For Sam?

For both. Doesn't sound like it shook your faith at all in him. It didn't. I still don't believe that he did it. After the verdict, people in Placentia strung little white hearts on the tree that was planted in Kathy's memory. Did she leave the mark on the world that she always wanted to leave? Yes, she did. We have letters of co-workers, of students she worked with.

People you didn't even know. People we didn't even know that were able to come back and tell my mom or tell one of us, you know, we miss her at Savon. She was always smiling. She'd always help us. So what they did to her, all those stab wounds that she got, multiply those. And those are her marks. For 21 years, Sam denied he inflicted those stab wounds, denied he killed Kathy. But at his sentencing, Sam did something unexpected.

I would like to apologize to the Torres family and to everyone for all of the harm and the grief that I have caused them. This was a horrible act that never should have happened. It is entirely my fault. I take full responsibility. Sam Lopez was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. Javier pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact. He served eight years. Sam's brother Armando pleaded guilty to dissuading

a witness and was sentenced to a year's probation. And Mary Bennett is still facing the rest of her life without Kathy. In 1994, I was given a sentence and there was no parole from it to live my life without ever seeing Kathy again without ever seeing her beautiful smile or having her come running in through the door saying what's for dinner and there's no I will never have any kind of parole from that that is my license. She's serving it one night at a time because the wee small hours of the morning still call to Mary Bennett, reading the Bible and waiting for dawn

while the whole wide world is fast asleep.