Mother Cancels Memorial for Slain Daughter : Crime: Cathy Torrez was killed a year ago. Her sister’s brother-in-law has been named as a suspect by police, who say they lack evidence for an arrest.

Mary Bennett had planned to mark the anniversary of her daughter’s brutal death by leading a candlelight vigil through the streets of this city, a memorial ceremony designed to remind authorities and the public that the slaying of Cathy Torrez was still unsolved.

But six days after police for the first time named Torrez’s former boyfriend as a suspect in the murder, Bennett canceled last night’s vigil and will spend today--one year after her daughter’s body was found--secluded with family and friends.

There was little relief for Bennett and her family when police named 24-year-old Sam Lopez--who has not been arrested or charged--as the suspect in Torrez’s slaying. Sam Lopez is the brother-in-law of Bennett’s oldest daughter, Tina Lopez, and the families had been close until Torrez was slain.

“The pressure on (Tina Lopez) and her husband (Sam Lopez’s brother, Armando) has been great,” Bennett said. “All the attention focused on whether Sam did it has been hard on them.”

Bennett also feels torn over her loyalties to her daughters.

“Cathy can’t speak for herself. I have to be her voice,” Bennett said. “But I am in the position where I have to think about Tina and how this affects her marriage.”

In their tightly knit community, the Bennett and Lopez homes are just a few doors apart. The families had been joined by Tina Lopez’s marriage to Armando just several months before Cathy Torrez was killed.

“The families were just beginning to get together and develop an in-law relationship,” said the Rev. Nick Saucedo, pastor of the Placentia First Church of the Nazarene, which the Bennetts attended. “They were starting to develop that relationship when the unfortunate death occurred and put a stop to it.”

Bennett adds: “I know some people think it’s me that’s somehow getting police to consider Sam a suspect, but it’s not. I’m not the law.

“I’ve seen what this has done to Tina. For my own peace of mind, I’m giving him (Sam Lopez) the benefit of doubt.”

Police say they do not have enough evidence to arrest Sam Lopez, a cabinetmaker. They hope that by confirming he is a suspect, someone will step forward with information.

“We realize now that there is little evidence that could be destroyed by putting out this information,” said Placentia Police Chief Manuel Ortega. “We hope to generate interest and prompt someone to provide the vital missing link.”

But Sam Lopez’s attorney, Roland G. Rubalcava, has said police should either arrest his client or leave him alone. Rubalcava said last week that police have been “harassing (Sam Lopez) for months.”

Cathy Torrez finished her shift at the Sav-On Drugs store on Yorba Linda Boulevard at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 12, 1994. Just before she got off work, Bennett said, Torrez called to say she was on her way home.

A co-worker walked Torrez to her car and watched her get in and drive away alone, headed toward home.

But Torrez never finished the one-mile trip to her family’s house on Chapman Avenue. For seven frantic days, her family and friends searched everywhere for the dark, petite woman, a Cal State Fullerton honors student they called “Cat.”

Their worst fears were realized when, early on the morning of Feb. 19, police patrolling the area spotted Torrez’s burgundy Toyota parked at Placentia Linda Community Hospital and found her stabbed to death inside the car’s trunk.

From the beginning, police speculated that Torrez was abducted and stabbed to death by someone she knew. Some of the evidence and statements from her family and friends seemed to support that theory: Torrez was neither sexually assaulted nor robbed, and those who knew her insisted she would never stop to pick up a stranger.

As they began looking at Torrez’s acquaintances, Lopez emerged as a possible suspect, police said.

“His name came up in a variety of angles,” Ortega said. “There were a number of people we looked at and eliminated (as suspects) through alibis. (Lopez) was not one we eliminated.”

Tina Lopez said last week that her sister had told her shortly before she disappeared that she was trying to decide whether to elope with Sam Lopez.

Police have combed Torrez’s car and searched Sam Lopez’s house and truck and interviewed him extensively. Ortega acknowledged they do not have evidence linking Lopez, or anyone else, to the murder.

The short list of what they do have is intriguing--one mud-caked shoe found on Torrez, evidence of a struggle inside her car and traces of hair and fiber found in the car that did not belong there.

The evidence begins to create a picture of what happened, police said, but there are too many gaps.

“We don’t have a crime scene, don’t have a weapon,” Ortega said. “What we need is a witness that put her with someone that night” after she left work.

For weeks, Bennett had planned to mark the anniversary of Torrez’s death with the candlelight vigil. A group of about 100 people was expected to gather at sundown Saturday in Kraemer Park, before a tree planted last spring in Torrez’s memory. After walking to the Cathy Torrez Learning Center in Placita Santa Fe, they would conclude the vigil at the police station.

The last stop was planned to call attention to the fact that Cathy Torrez’s killer still walks free. Even if police have taken the unusual step of identifying a suspect they say they can’t arrest, Bennett is no closer to receiving her one last wish for her daughter.

“There needs to be an ending to this,” Bennett said. “We need to have this closed, for someone to get justice for what they did to Cathy.”

Will that bring her satisfaction?

“Satisfaction? No, I’m not going to be satisfied,” Bennett said. “It won’t change what happened. . . . There is nothing that’s going to bring Cathy back. That would bring me satisfaction, to have her back.”