Arrest Made in ’94 Slaying of Student

Placentia police arrested a suspect Wednesday morning in the 1994 slaying of Cal State Fullerton honor student Cathy Torrez, found stabbed to death in the trunk of her car after she had been missing a week.

Police confirmed the arrest but would not identify the suspect, saying that to do so could harm their investigation.

“We’ve worked this case for four years, and this is new evidence that came to light in the past month,” department spokesman Matt Reynolds said.

Longtime suspect Sam Lopez, who had been Torrez’s boyfriend and was detained and questioned after her killing, is not the person arrested, said his attorney, Roland G. Rubalcava.

Police have not ended their scrutiny of Lopez, though. Rubalcava said officers searched his client’s home Tuesday and took “a couple of old knives and a pay stub of where he used to work,” as well as “the same damn, stupid pickup [truck] they took the last time.”

They also brought him to the police station and took hair samples, the lawyer said.

“He’s always been available. He’s given everything they’ve ever asked,” Rubalcava said. “Evidently they still feel he’s a suspect.”

Lopez, now 27, and Torrez, 20, had dated off and on since they attended Valencia High School in Placentia. Torrez broke off the relationship after Lopez dropped out of school, but they lived in the same neighborhood and dated occasionally.

The day she disappeared, Torrez told her sister she was considering eloping with Lopez.

He was never charged in her killing, and officials said there was not enough evidence to implicate him.

Now that another person has been arrested in connection with the slaying, Mayor Norman Z. Eckenrode said, the close-knit community can start to get over the killing that affected so many and inspired candlelight vigils and packed church services in Torrez’s name.

“It was devastating,” Eckenrode said. “Cathy was a person . . . real involved in the community.”

A junior majoring in sociology at Cal State Fullerton, Torrez worked as a bilingual aide at two Placentia high schools and held a second part-time job. Family members and friends said she hoped to become a social worker or probation officer.

In the wake of her death, the Cathy Torrez Learning Center was named for her in the Placita Santa Fe neighborhood of Placentia, and Cal State Fullerton established the Cathy Torrez Memorial Scholarship fund.

A $36,000 reward for information leading to her killer’s capture went unclaimed.

Torrez’s mother, Mary Bennett, said Wednesday night that she knew police had identified a suspect who had not been implicated earlier, but she would not discuss the arrest. She spoke from her Placentia home, which is surrounded by a high security fence and has two guard dogs.

Torrez called her mother the night of Feb. 12, 1994, to let her know she was on her way home after finishing her 8 p.m. shift at Sav-On Drugs on Yorba Linda Boulevard. The young woman never arrived at her family’s home on Chapman Avenue, just one mile away.

Seven days after Torrez vanished, police patrolling the area of Placentia Linda Community Hospital found her burgundy Toyota in the parking lot. Her body was in the trunk; she had been stabbed repeatedly.

At the time, investigators revealed few details of the case, including exactly how many times she had been stabbed, saying only that the killer was “seriously disturbed.”

Torrez had walked in mud outside the car before she was killed, police said, and fought her attacker in a ferocious struggle inside the Toyota. The interior was in disarray, investigators said, with some parts broken. They also reported finding hair and fibers that did not belong to Torrez.

From the beginning, investigators suspected she was killed by someone she knew. She had not been sexually assaulted or robbed, and her family said she never would have stopped for a stranger.

“It really did have an impact on this community,” said Placentia Councilwoman Maria Moreno, who lives just a couple of blocks from Torrez’s family. “We kind of felt we were all going through it together.”

For Claudia Cervantes, Torrez’s cousin and lifelong friend, the news Wednesday night of an arrest brought an avalanche of emotions and memories. Her voice breaking, Cervantes said she was overwhelmed by images of family Christmas dinners, high school moments and the dark days in February 1994 when she lost her cousin.

“Everything comes back now,” Cervantes said, “from the day she was missing to the day of the burial. . . . And it’s not over yet.”

“I am happy there’s been an arrest,” she said. “There’s closure, but only some. . . . It brings back a lot of pain. It seems like it’s been forever since it happened, but it still hurts.”

City Councilman Michael L. Maertzweiler said he hopes the arrest will give the city some closure.

“People have been concerned in the community,” he said. “We try to tell them we haven’t forgotten it.”

Another cousin of Torrez, Maria Alvarado of Anaheim, wept when she heard the news Wednesday night. She said she has prayed “every day, every night” for an arrest, and when she thinks of her slain family member she remembers her bright smile. Alvarado said the memories are always with her, but they become sharpest when she joins family and friends every year at Torrez’s grave to mark the day she died.

“We don’t really talk when we go,” Alvarado said. “I don’t know what to say. What can you say? So we just cry, that’s all. There’s been no peace in our hearts since this happened. But maybe this will bring some peace to her and to us.”

Times staff writer Esther Schrader contributed to this report.