A state panel has denied parole for convicted killer Sam Lopez, who stabbed a Cal State Fullerton coed in 1994 and stuffed her body into the trunk of her Toyota Corolla.
Lopez’s appearance last week was his first before the state Parole Board in the cold-case murder of Cathy Torrez, the subject of a 2019 podcast by the Orange County Register. Lopez was sentenced in 2015 to 26 years to life for the killing that went unsolved for 13 years.
Related: Listen to the podcast delving into the investigation of Cathy Torrez’s killing.
State records show he can again seek parole in March 2026.
The death of the 20-year-old student who aspired to be a social worker sparked a murder mystery that didn’t fully end until Lopez confessed and apologized in open court moments before he was sentenced.
“It was all my fault,” Lopez, then 43, said, sending a message to Torrez’s family. “I do hope and pray this brings at least a small amount of relief from the pain I have caused them.”
Lopez’s confession brought little consolation to the grief-stricken family, which had pushed police for years to make an arrest. Both Torrez and Lopez lived in the same Placentia neighborhood and secretly dated. At the time of Torrez’s death, she had agreed to meet him.
Prosecutors argued that Lopez grew jealous with rage after he discovered a hickey that another man had left near Torrez’s clavicle a week before her disappearance.
Lopez had suggested several days earlier that they elope to Mexico, but Torrez turned him down.
Prosecutors said Torrez picked Lopez up after work on the night in February 1994 that she died. Lopez climbed into the driver’s seat and drove Torrez to an unknown area, where an argument broke out. Torrez tried to run, but Lopez chased her down and stabbed her more than 70 times, prosecutors said. He stuffed her into the trunk of her red car and made three final cuts — to her wrists and neck, ending her life.
When Torrez didn’t make it home, her mother…
Read the full article here
