Updated at 10:25 a.m., May 1, 2015
The former boyfriend of a 20-year-old Cal State Fullerton student murdered more than two decades ago apologized Friday to her family as he was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison.
Samuel Agustin Lopez, now 43, was convicted March 3 of the 1994 stabbing death of Cathy Torrez, whose brother told City News Service that the defendant’s apology did not change how he felt.
“I think he was just looking for leniency,” Marty Torrez said. “And it just shows the public that he really is a murderer. He’s a murderer and the District Attorney did his job and so did all of the investigators.”
The victim’s sister, Tina Mora, said she was “shocked” by the defendant’s apology, adding “it’s painful beyond belief the words from him after all these years.” And, she said, the apology still doesn’t answer the most important question — why?
Orange County Superior Court Judge David Hoffer, who handed down the maximum punishment, said he was surprised by the defendant’s apology and found it “refreshing.”
Lopez told the judge, “I would like to apologize to the Torrez family for all the harm and grief I caused them… This was a horrible act that never should have happened… I am truly, truly sorry.”
“I do pray and hope this brings a small amount of relief for their pain,” he said.
Lopez admitted that “everything Mr. (Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt) Murphy said was the truth” during the trial.
When Hoffer was advising Lopez of his appellate rights, the defendant’s attorney, Lew Rosenblum, said his client would “waive” his appeals in the future.
The apology came after family members extolled the virtues of the victim and condemned the defendant as a “monster” and “cold-blooded murderer.”
Mary Bennett said her daughter was a “beautiful woman with a promising future.”
Debbie Torrez told the judge her sibling “worked extremely hard and excelled at everything she did.”
In her statement to the judge, Mora said Lopez should confess.
“Sam, if you believe only God can judge you then you must come forward with the truth,” Mora said.
She also recalled how her father struggled through chemotherapy to hang on long enough to see justice for his daughter, but died before the trial.
“His last words were that he wanted justice for his Cathy,” Mora said.
Rosenblum argued during the trial that Lopez had alibi witnesses accounting for his movements the night prosecutors said she was killed, and also argued there was no DNA or fingerprint evidence tying him to the crime.
Murphy argued that Lopez killed his on-again, off-again girlfriend on Feb. 12, 1994, after she rejected his proposal to elope.
A now-retired Orange County forensic scientist testified that the victim was still alive when she was forced into the trunk of her car, where her body was found a week later in Placentia.
Torrez, who was stabbed about 70 times, had wounds to her neck, upper chest, head, chin, forearm, back and right thigh, along with cuts on her hands.
Mora and Marty Torrez testified about the defendant’s apparent indifference to their sibling’s disappearance.
On the night she went missing after leaving work for a date with Lopez, the defendant’s sisters repeatedly tried to page him on his beeper but he did not respond, according to Mora, who was married at the time to Lopez’s older brother, Armando, and living with the Lopez family across the street from the Torrez residence.
Mora has since divorced Aramando Lopez, who is charged with being an accessory after the fact and is awaiting trial.
Murphy told jurors that Samuel Lopez’s movements the night of the killing show he had the opportunity to commit the crime while with his cousin, Xavier “Javier” Lopez, who is awaiting trial on a murder charge. Murphy is expected to work out a plea deal with him.
Rosenblum alleged that Javier Lopez killed the victim and acted alone to rob her for money for cocaine.
—Staff and wire reports