Student’s Slaying Recalls Unsolved Cases : Murders: Like Cathy Torrez, Wendy Osborn and Denise Huber vanished and were never seen alive again.

The details are painfully familiar: The life of a sweet-natured young woman with a vibrant smile and seemingly limitless future is cut short violently, mysteriously.

The grisly discovery of Cathy Torrez’s body in the trunk of her car early Saturday has left her friends and family devastated, wondering how it happened and why. The tragedy also revives memories of the still-unsolved cases of two missing Orange County girls and a young woman.

When Placentia Mayor Norman Z. Eckenrode learned about 20-year-old Torrez on Saturday, he was shocked.

“This is devastating to everyone. I can’t believe this happened in our little Placentia,” he said, adding that the last similar killing took place in 1987.

Wendy Osborn, the 14-year-old daughter of Jack and Carol Osborn of Placentia, was last seen alive Jan. 20, 1987, toting a pink book bag and red purse as she walked to Tuffree Junior High School.

Wendy was a bright, loving girl who earned A’s and Bs in school, wore glasses and braces and had a talent for writing. Her hobbies were reading and sewing.

Her purse was found in an Anaheim dumpster shortly after she vanished. Two weeks later, horseback riders found Wendy’s clothed, partially decomposed body in the Chino Hills of San Bernardino County. She had been dead just two days--raising the possibility she had been held captive--and had been strangled and sexually assaulted.

No one has been charged in the slaying, although authorities at one point believed they had a key suspect, but insufficient evidence to prove their case.

After a funeral attended by about 500 people, Wendy was buried in a small white coffin covered with carnations and rosebuds.

The case remains open. The city’s $10,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Wendy’s killer stands unclaimed.

Authorities also are no closer to solving the disappearance of Denise A. Huber than when the 23-year-old Newport Beach woman was reported missing June 3, 1991, while driving home from a rock concert in Inglewood.

Her car was found on the Corona del Mar Freeway--just 2 1/2 miles from home--with a flat tire. Police dogs that searched the area followed her scent but it abruptly ended, indicating she may have entered another car.

A 1990 UC Irvine graduate in social sciences, Huber was working two jobs as a waitress and department store clerk while trying to decide on a career.

An extensive police investigation has failed to turn up any clues, but the Huber family did not stop there. They called on the services of a private detective, psychics and an extensive ground search by friends and relatives armed with flyers and bumper stickers. They put up billboards and banners asking for help. Friends and relatives raised a $10,000 reward. The case was publicized nationwide on television shows “Inside Edition” and “America’s Most Wanted.”

Dennis and Ione Huber appealed to the conscience of anyone who might have the least bit of information.

But the anniversaries of Huber’s disappearance--as well as the holidays and her birthdays--have come and gone and approach again without any sign of the missing woman. In interviews, the Hubers said they were tormented by not knowing what happened and feared the worst.

When 12-year-old Polly Klaas was abducted in October from her Petaluma home, her parents, friends and even concerned strangers unleashed a nationwide campaign to help find the little girl. Her body was later found off a busy highway.

Some say such well-orchestrated efforts to get the word out about a missing person is part of the legacy that 3-year-old Laura Bradbury of Huntington Beach left when she vanished from Joshua Tree National Monument near a family campsite on Oct. 18, 1984.

Her disappearance is credited as a catalyst for a national movement to organize agencies, resources and laws to help find missing children.

The Bradbury family set up a nonprofit organization that distributed millions of flyers and T-shirts with the picture of the little girl.

Her parents appeared on radio and television talk shows seeking information, and Laura became one of the first missing children whose photographs appeared on milk cartons.

Despite their efforts, the Laura Bradbury case came to a tragic close. Two years after she was reported missing, hikers found bone fragments near the campsite where she disappeared. They were positively linked to the girl.