Slain Woman’s Family Posting Flyers Seeking Clues to Her Death

PLACENTIA —  The family of slain college student Cathy Torrez distributed flyers Saturday in the hopes of finding someone who may have seen her assailant.

“We can’t sit home twiddling our thumbs and not do anything,” said Mary Bennett, Torrez’s mother. “We have to do something.”

Bennett said she and her children copied and distributed about 400 flyers Saturday morning. The flyers featured a photograph of Torrez’s 1990 burgundy Toyota Corolla with license plate number 2RMC785.

Family members and friends posted the flyers, in Spanish and English, at the shopping center where she worked and along the route Torrez typically drove home, Bennett said.

Torrez, 20, was last seen driving the car on Feb. 12 at 8 p.m., leaving the Sav-On parking lot at 150 E. Yorba Linda Blvd. in Placentia.

The college student’s body was discovered Feb. 19 in the trunk of her car in the parking lot of Placentia-Linda Community Hospital. She was stabbed to death. Hospital employees first noticed the car in the parking lot Feb. 14, but did not call police because they did not know it had been reported missing, police said.

A reward of $30,000 has been offered for any information leading to the arrest and conviction of Torrez’s assailant.

Bennett said she spoke to Placentia Police Chief Manuel Ortega on Friday, and he provided a photograph of the car for use on the family’s flyer. Placentia police said there are no new leads in the case.

Torrez’s family asked that anyone who saw someone approaching or driving the car the night of Feb. 12 contact Placentia police at (714) 993-8164.