Missing CSUF Honor Student Is Found Dead

Cal State Fullerton honor student Cathy Torrez, whose baffling disappearance a week ago prompted her family to launch a communitywide search, was found dead in her car early Saturday two miles from the shopping center parking lot where she was last seen alive.

Police released scant information Saturday, saying only that they had found the 20-year-old Placentia woman’s body in her car and were investigating her death as a homicide. Officers patrolling the parking lot at Placentia-Linda Community Hospital early Saturday recognized Torrez’s burgundy Toyota Corolla, police said.

City Administrator Robert D’Amato said the missing woman’s body was found in the locked trunk of the car. The victim’s arms showed signs of a struggle, according to D’Amato, who said he had been briefed by police.

Investigators refused to say how Torrez died or whether they had any suspects. An autopsy is scheduled for today, according to the Orange County coroner’s office.

“You expect the worst, but you hope,” said Albert Gonzales, a friend acting as a spokesman for family members, who remained inside their home and declined comment when reached by telephone Saturday. “There’s just a lot of emotion. A lot of pain. Everyone is real distraught.”

Torrez was last seen leaving a part-time job at the Sav-On Drugs on East Yorba Linda Boulevard at 8 p.m. Feb. 12. She walked out to her car with a female co-worker, said “see you in the morning,” and drove out of the lot, heading south on Bradford Avenue.

About 10 minutes earlier, Torrez had called her mother from the store--located about a mile from her home--and indicated she would be home shortly, police and family have said.

The diminutive woman, a junior sociology major who had made Cal State Fullerton’s honor roll last semester while holding down two part-time jobs, had wanted to become a social worker or a probation officer, family members said Friday.

“She worked hard for everything she had,” said Tracy Comer, a 20-year-old Fullerton sophomore who met Torrez in a Spanish class.

In a strange aside to the case, Torrez may have been dating an 18-year-old Orange man who has been in a coma since he apparently attempted suicide Feb. 7, the man’s relatives said Saturday.

Albert Rangel’s mother and grandmother said in interviews that Torrez had visited Rangel at UCI Medical Center in Orange every night since he was found hanging by the neck in a warehouse where he worked. The night Torrez disappeared was the first night she had failed to show up at the hospital, they said.

Rose Orosco, Rangel’s maternal grandmother, said that on the first night her grandson was in the hospital, Torrez introduced herself, saying, “I’m his girlfriend. I’m Cathy.”

“For the first couple of nights she was crying very badly,” Orosco said. The family said Torrez told them that the night before Rangel allegedly hanged himself, leaving behind a suicide note, he spoke on the telephone with Torrez for three hours, until 3 a.m.

Placentia Police Sgt. David M. Taylor confirmed that investigators spoke with Albert Rangel’s family Saturday, but said police have no reason to believe there is any link between the two cases.

“It just seems to be a tragic coincidence that these terrible things have happened to these two kids who knew each other,” Taylor said.

And in an interview Friday, members of Torrez’s family said that she had gone out with Rangel only a few times.

Friends and family had held out hope that Torrez would return safely since her mother reported her missing Feb 12. They had papered north Orange County with flyers seeking information on her whereabouts.

Unaware that police already had found Torrez’s body, her friends passed out dozens of flyers Saturday morning at a Chicano Youth and Community Conference held at Cal State Fullerton.

But those who knew Torrez conceded that the hard-working, responsible woman was not the type to go anywhere without informing her family. In fact, family and friends have said, the 4-foot, 10-inch woman hated to be alone almost anywhere--during trips to the store or even at home.

News of Torrez’s death shocked residents of the close-knit neighborhood off Chapman Avenue where Torrez lived with her mother and stepfather, Mary and Ron Bennet, her brother and one of her two sisters.

“I’m numb right now,” said Ken Luna, a next-door neighbor who was helping Torrez’s family Saturday. “We’re waiting for answers. That’s all I can say.”

Jorge Bernal, a neighbor whose daughter used to walk to nearby Valencia High School with Torrez, said he held out hope to the end. “Everyone is surprised,” Bernal said. “Even this morning when I heard it on the news, I was hoping it wasn’t her.”

Orosco, Rangel’s grandmother, said Torrez was at the hospital the night before she disappeared. ‘As she left, she said, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ ” Orosco recalled.

“When she didn’t show up (Saturday), we didn’t know what to think,” Orosco said, adding that their puzzlement grew until Monday, when Torrez’s mother called to tell them she was missing.

Police Sgt. Taylor said patrol officers discovered Torrez’s car sometime before 1:30 a.m. Saturday in a parking lot in front of medical offices at the Placentia-Linda Community Hospital medical complex, located in the 1300 block of North Rose Drive.

“After searching the vehicle, the patrol officers located the body of Cathy Torrez,” Placentia Sgt. Ken Gardner said. “The case is being treated as a homicide investigation.”

D’Amato said there are conflicting reports about how long the car was in the hospital parking lot.

“At this point, not only do we not have a lot of information ourselves yet, what information we do have we are not willing to release,” Taylor said. “All of what we know now is potentially relevant to our investigation.”

The mood was somber at the Sav-On drugstore where Torrez had worked as a part-time cashier for nearly four years.

“We’re all shocked and grieving and working with the Police Department to help them in any way to solve this horrible, horrible crime,” said Peter Bartholomew, a regional manager for Sav-On. “We’re a family. This is very traumatizing for us.”

Outside the store, a lone flyer bearing Torrez’s smiling, friendly face lay in a shopping cart. Just a day earlier, on Friday, Torrez’s 19-year-old brother, Martin, stood in front of the store passing out the flyers as he had done every day since her disappearance.

Mayor Norman Z. Eckenrode said that he plans to suggest at the next City Council meeting, scheduled for March 1, that the city offer a reward for information leading to the capture of the person responsible for Torrez’s death.

Times staff writers Leslie Berkman, Lynn Franey, Rene Lynch and Rebecca Trounson and Times correspondent Terry Spencer contributed to this report.

* RELATED STORY: A38