Impasse in Search for Woman Doesn’t Shake Faith

It’s been three months since 23-year-old Denise Anette Huber vanished.

In the interim, the story of her disappearance has been televised coast to coast. Thousands of flyers have been distributed. Newspaper stories have trumpeted her family’s plea for help. Police have followed scores of leads.

But to date, all of this has been for naught.

The trail of Denise Huber led to the Corona del Mar Freeway shortly after 2 a.m. on June 2 when her car’s tire blew out and she pulled onto the road’s shoulder. But that is where the trail ended.

“I think someone saw something that night--saw her on the freeway--but we haven’t reached that person yet,” Costa Mesa Police Detective Jack Archer said.

“We get phone calls from people who think they have seen something,” Archer said. “They’ve seen someone broken down on the freeway or someone who looks like her. But all the ones we’ve got in, they’ve either been the wrong week (or) the wrong location.”

The night she disappeared, Huber, a 1990 UC Irvine graduate, had attended a concert at the Forum in Inglewood with her boyfriend. Afterward, she dropped him at his Huntington Beach residence and was headed home when a tire blew out on the freeway, just south of the Bear Street off-ramp.

Officially, Huber’s disappearance is being handled as a “missing person with suspicious circumstances.” Personally, Archer suspects foul play.

Moreover, he concedes that as more time passes, it is less likely that Huber will be found.

“Unfortunately, that’s what history has shown,” Archer said. “But you can’t give up hope. We’ve got to keep working on everything. If we’re fortunate, we’ll find her.”

Huber’s parents, Dennis and Ione Huber of Newport Beach, also have not given up hope of finding their only daughter.

“We have contacted newspapers all over the country and we’ve gotten a pretty good response,” Ione Huber said. A number of out-of-state newspapers have contacted the family about the story or sent copies of their own stories on the disappearance.

With the aid of donations raised from family and friends, the Hubers have offered a $10,000 reward.

“I know the police are still working on things, but nothing really solid has come up,” Ione Huber said. “They are never very specific about anything, but they do say they are working on leads.”

So far, according to Archer, police have followed up 50 to 60 telephone tips without luck. Investigators have even received the unsolicited help of psychics.

“None of the psychics have come across information that led us to Denise, nothing at all,” Archer said.

The Hubers have recently redistributed flyers at shopping centers where some of the original 30,000 leaflets were posted in June.

And although a spot on the nationally televised “America’s Most Wanted” yielded no fruitful leads, Huber’s parents hope another upcoming spot on the ABC program “Inside Edition” will help them find their daughter.

Meanwhile, Dennis Huber is “trying to get back into his business” as a mortgage banker, “but it’s really difficult,” his wife said.

Ione Huber, a substitute teacher, plans to hold off a while longer before returning to work.

“I’m not really quite ready yet,” said said. She and her husband are “just kind of existing; taking one day at time and surviving.”