Huber Clothes Found in Murder Suspect’s Home : Investigation: Costa Mesa police say she wore black miniskirt when she vanished. Evidence could link Famalaro to crime.

Building their case against murder suspect John Joseph Famalaro, Arizona and Costa Mesa authorities have recovered clothing believed worn by Denise Huber the night she vanished from Orange County three years ago.

The clothing, a black miniskirt and other articles, was discovered Monday in a box inside Famalaro’s cluttered Prescott Country Club home. They were identified by Costa Mesa police and could be key evidence linking the suspect with the Newport Beach woman, whose nude body was found frozen in the back of a stolen rental truck parked in his driveway.

Costa Mesa Police Lt. Ron Smith also said searchers recovered two Los Angeles County deputy sheriff uniform shirts. Famalaro once applied for jobs with both the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Irvine Police Department, Smith said, but was turned down.

Investigators in Orange County also interviewed employees of a San Clemente self-storage facility where Famalaro rented seven units from July, 1992--a year after Huber disappeared--to February of this year. Famalaro contracted to have constant power supplied to the locker where he kept his personal belongings, including a freezer that may have been the one in which Huber’s body was discovered last week, said Harry Tosado, facility manager of Allsize Self-Storage.

“The whole time the freezer was here, he wanted 24-hour electricity, which people here thought was very odd,” Tosado said. “It’s written right on the contract ’24 hours.’ ”

When Famalaro moved the last of his belongings out of the facility in February, he asked the employees to help load the freezer onto his truck without delay.

“He said he had a generator on his truck that would keep the freezer running while he was driving, but the main thing was, he wanted it loaded real quick,” Tosado said.

The discovery of the clothing and other personal effects, meanwhile, has led authorities to consider filing an additional charge of kidnaping against Famalaro, said Smith, which would elevate the murder charge to a capital crime.

“This guy deserves the death penalty for what he did,” said Smith, one of three Costa Mesa police officials assigned to the Arizona investigation.

There were these other developments Monday:

* Authorities are investigating the source of the chest freezer, and believe it may have been bought at a Montgomery Ward store in the Orange County area shortly after Huber’s disappearance.

* Fingerprints have been lifted from the freezer and officials are comparing them with Famalaro’s.

* A Yavapai County Grand Jury will consider an indictment in the case as early as Thursday.

Meanwhile, Famalaro’s defense attorney, Lawrence W. Katz, said he is disturbed by the frenzied attention to his client and the assumption of guilt being made by many.

“This is a total circumstance case,” Katz said, adding that the stakes are especially high because his client could face the death penalty. “I’m not sure how you go from a frozen body in a freezer to murder.”

Katz said hate calls have poured in from Orange County to Arizona.

“(The calls) are stacking up,” he said. “One woman called to say ‘He should fry’. Another woman said only the death penalty would do.”

Katz said he has yet to see any evidence linking Famalaro to the death.

“There’s no murder (case) here at all,” he said.

Famalaro, who is being held in lieu of $250,000 bond in Yavapai County Jail, is “depressed,” said Katz.

In discussing the evidence accumulating in their investigation, Yavapai County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Laurie Berra said there did not appear to be any effort to conceal the clothing.

New details about the condition of Huber’s frozen body also emerged Monday. She was found face down inside the Signature brand, 23-cubic-foot freezer with her hands handcuffed behind her, said Yavapai County Sheriff G.C. Buck Buchanan.

Authorities said Huber appeared to have received about 10 to 12 blows and lacerations on the head and that these could have been made by a hammer or crow bar. As a result, several tools and other construction equipment have been seized from the home of Famalaro, who has been making his living as a house painter, contract handyman and real estate agent.

Smith said there were no signs of sexual abuse, but the frozen condition of the body may prove helpful for medical examiners in their review of body fluids.

But even with all of the ongoing forensic investigations, Smith said that the circumstances of Huber’s disappearance on June 3, 1991, might forever remain a mystery.

“We might never know,” Smith said, adding that it is still unclear whether Huber was taken by force or was somehow enticed to accompany her assailant. Her car was found abandoned with a flat tire on the Corona del Mar Freeway.

“The mystery to be solved now is: Who is Famalaro?” Smith said. “Denise was the mystery for three years, but he’s the mystery now. He had the body frozen and kept moving it around. Bizarre.”

The description seemed an apt one to the many law enforcement officials who converged on Famalaro’s house Monday. Said Sheriff Buchanan: “I’ve been involved in some bizarre cases, but this has got to be one of the most bizarre.”

Throughout the day, Costa Mesa and Arizona officials searched for other possible victims on Famalaro’s hilltop property. Officials have called for an excavation team that will begin digging at three sites there.

For the second time in as many days, search dogs from Utah found three “areas of interest,” two in the suspect’s dirt-floor basement and another under a back-yard shed.

“I don’t know what we will find in there,” Berra said. “But we want to leave this house knowing that there is nothing left to be found.”

Buchanan said the search will continue Tuesday and was partly prompted by the discovery of the names of 10 women during the search of Famalaro’s home.

By late Monday afternoon, authorities had contacted five of the 10--some in Phoenix and Southern California. The remaining five were still being sought.

“We found the names, and we feel the need to check them out,” Berra said.

Authorities also are concerned with the largely circumstantial nature of the case. It has led them to cart away file cabinets full of Famalaro’s personal documents and possessions for further examination.

“Right now, all we have is a man in custody, a body found in a rental truck in his driveway and some of the victim’s personal effects,” Berra said. “That’s not enough to prove guilt.”

“We need to know where he’s been and what he’s been doing the past three years. We need to know much more about this man.”

At the San Clemente self-storage company, Tosado said workers at the company searched their files Monday morning and found documentation showing that Famalaro corresponded with managers of the facility on several occasions over the past year from both Sedona and Prescott, Ariz. Tosado took over management of the facility about two weeks after Famalaro removed his belongings, he said.

Another employee, Teresa Perez, 20, who was a manager of the facility when Famalaro was a customer, said she often saw the freezer unit, which did not appear to be locked and was not taped shut.

She described Famalaro as usually cordial but not overly friendly.

“Sometimes he came alone; sometimes he came with helpers. He’d say ‘Hi, how you doing,’ things like that,” Perez said.

Prosecutors, who are deciding whether Yavapai or Orange County officials will handle the case, have not indicated whether they will seek the death penalty.

Katz said he is not pleased that law enforcement officials have openly speculated that Famalaro’s white, split-level home might contain the remains of additional victims.

“I just think it’s an overreaction,” he said. “I believe in my client’s innocence.”

The attorney urged the public not to prejudge his client and said that Famalaro has not been accurately portrayed in recent news reports. Katz declined to elaborate on his client’s background.

But according to documents filed with Justice Court in the nearby town of Mayer, where Famalaro was charged with murder and felony theft, the defendant characterized himself as nearly broke.

Famalaro lost his contracting license earlier this year after several clients complained about shoddy work. One employee filed suit, alleging that he was not properly paid. The suspect also indicated in court records that he would need help paying his attorney’s fees since he earns only about $1,500 a month and still owes about $100,000 on his $160,000 home.

“My monthly expenses exceed my income. I am unable to meet all my obligations,” Famalaro stated in court records.

The suspect also told authorities that he helps support his parents and is their primary caretaker.

“If released, I would only do those things directly related to caring for (my parents),” he said in court documents.

The suspect’s father, Angelo Famalaro, has Parkinson’s disease, law enforcement officials said.

His mother, Anne, remains active in local politics. She recently took up a petition in a successful fight to keep gambling out of the area. Neighbors near her Dewey home complained Monday of numerous confrontations with her over the years, including an incident when she hired a 24-hour guard to keep people from watching the progress of her home as it was being built.

Born in Port Jefferson, N.Y., Famalaro told authorities that he is not married and drives a 1977 Dodge pickup. He has lived in Dewey for two years, moving there from Lake Forest.

Marion Thobe, the defendant’s sister, said Monday the family is distraught over the allegations.

“I think anyone can imagine what type of crisis we are in right now,” she said, adding that only time will separate the “truth from fiction” in this case.

* TRIAL LOCATION: Arizona prosecutors say they likely will take the lead in trying John Famalaro. A3

* EMOTIONAL REACTION: Costa Mesa detective tries to deal with ‘gnawing’ case. A3