Cathy Torrez was found wounded on various occasions in the storage compartment of her vehicle only days after she was first announced missing in February 1994. Sources expressed that the 20-year-old was going to California State Fullerton College while maintaining two sources of income at that point, one of them being at the nearby pharmacy, Sav-On.
On the day she vanished, she supposedly planned to meet her on-and-off sweetheart Sam Lopez after her work day at the pharmacy. Albeit the sweetheart was a superb suspect for the situation, because of an absence of strong actual proof, the case went cold until 2007, when DNA found on the casualty associated Sam’s cousin Xavier Lopez to the homicide.
Trigger Admonition: This article contains portrayals of a brutal wrongdoing, which might be upsetting to certain perusers. Circumspection is encouraged.
The story disentangled gradually, and it was in the end uncovered that Lopez went after Torrez during a contention and cut her multiple times. He then discarded the body with his cousin’s assistance. Both were captured and accused in association of the homicide case.
Cathy Torrez’s homicide case was investigated finally in Dateline: Mysteries Revealed’s most recent episode, named The Commitment, which circulated on January 3. Cathy Torrez and Sam Lopez used to be secondary school darlings. They reconnected in September 1993 at Cathy’s sister Tina’s wedding to Sam’s more seasoned brother, Armando Lopez.
The two would frequently much of the time hang out at Cathy’s work environment, Sav-On, alongside Sam’s cousin Xavier Lopez. Months into their on-and-off relationship, the 20-year-old disappeared.
Cathy, who disappeared on February 12, 1994, was found dead a couple of days after the fact, on February 19, inside the storage compartment of her neglected vehicle, a red 1990 Toyota Corolla, which was seen in a medical clinic parking garage by a watching official.
As per reports, the front seat and guard of the vehicle were absorbed blood, and her body was found in the storage compartment with somewhere around 74 cut injuries. A post-mortem later uncovered that she was cut in the face, head, and middle, with deadly slices on her wrists and neck. Specialists accepted Cathy was as yet alive when she was placed in the storage compartment, in view of the noticeable impression found inside.
At the point when the crime scene investigation group inspected Cathy Torrez’s vehicle subsequent to making the awful revelation, they distinguished fingerprints that didn’t have a place with the person in question and showed no matches at that point. In 1997, specialists were in the long run ready to charge Sam’s cousin, Xavier Lopez, with murder. The charges were in any case excused because of an absence of actual proof interfacing him to the homicide.
Analysts rethought Cathy’s case a couple of years after the fact and in 2007, using present day DNA testing, laid out that Xavier Lopez’s DNA was tracked down on the casualty’s garments. Sam and his cousin Xavier were both captured and accused of homicide, with the previous being attempted first.
Sam Lopez and his cousin Xavier purportedly met Cathy Torrez in the parking garage of a Baskin Robbins on February 12, 1994. Cathy, prior to going home, even educated all her associates that she planned to meet Sam after her shift. The threesome then, at that point, headed to an alternate area from that point.
Sam and Cathy got into a battle at a certain point, during which the previous went after the 20-year-old and more than once wounded her in the head, face, and chest. He then, at that point, put her in the vehicle trunk with his cousin’s help while she was as yet alive and cut her neck and wrists.
Sam Lopez got a 26-year jail term for the homicide of Cathy Torrez in 1994, in the wake of being viewed as at fault for one crime count of homicide with the utilization of a deadly weapon as a condemning improvement. Before accepting his sentence in May 2015, he conceded to killing her and apologized to the Torrez family.
Xavier Lopez, then again, got a four-year and eight-month jail sentence subsequent to conceding to compulsory murder. Armando Lopez likewise owned up to assisting his brother and cousin with carrying out the wrongdoing. He confessed to deterring an observer from detailing a wrongdoing and was condemned to a year waiting on the post trial process.