Bloody Crowbar Found in Famalaro’s House : Evidence: Police consider tool a possible weapon in death of Denise Huber. Search expanded in Orange County.

A search of the country club home of John Joseph Famalaro--who has been charged with the murder of Denise A. Huber--turned up a bloodied crowbar that police consider a possible murder weapon as authorities expanded their search Tuesday in Orange County seeking further evidence.

Still fearing other victims, authorities were successful in tracking down at least five of nine women in Southern California and Phoenix whose names appeared on a list developed following a search at Famalaro’s home. Detectives planned to appeal for the public’s help Wednesday in locating the remaining people on the list, which included Huber’s.

Court documents filed Tuesday in Arizona indicated that police have seized numerous suspicious items from Famalaro’s home, including articles of women’s clothing, some of which appear to be stained with blood, a blood-tainted tarp and what police suspect might be the murder weapon.

At the request of the prosecution, a judge on Tuesday agreed to hold Famalaro, 37, without bond. He was previously held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

As the investigation continues, police are trying to determine whether the house painter is connected with two murders in Phoenix and one in Sedona.

“The more we have delved into it, the stranger and more likely the aggravating factors,” said Yavapai County Deputy Atty. Tom Lindberg.

Robert Shoults, whose wife, Gloria, was on the list, expressed surprise because their only connection with Famalaro was that they had sold him a van two years ago.

The police, who called to check on Gloria’s well-being, “said that her name had turned up on some papers they had found,” said Shoults, of Dewey, Ariz. “Having somebody like that in your neighborhood I guess does make your hair stand up a little bit, because this is generally a quiet area.”

The revelations came days after the body of Huber, 23 at the time of her disappearance, was found in a freezer in the back of a stolen rental truck parked in Famalaro’s driveway. The Newport Beach woman vanished three years ago after she became stranded on the Corona del Mar Freeway with a flat tire.

Huber was believed to have been bludgeoned to death, and a crowbar would be consistent with the type of weapon used, authorities said.

In other developments Tuesday:

* Authorities, who have not ruled out additional suspects, said they want to question Famalaro’s brother-in-law, Duane Thobe, and Famalaro’s brother, Warren, in connection with the case. Warren Famalaro is a convicted child molester. Two days before Huber’s body was discovered, Thobe went to the Arizona Public Service and asked that the power to John Famalaro’s home be shut off, according to court documents. The next day, Famalaro’s mother, Anne, requested that power be restored.

* Police concluded a comprehensive search of Famalaro’s home. Using axes, rakes and shovels, authorities Tuesday dug as far down as 10 feet below the surface in three areas of Famalaro’s home where cadaver-sniffing dogs had “alerted,” but no new bodies were discovered. Investigators also expanded the search to other locations, including Sedona, where Famalaro once ran a handyman business.

* In Orange County, police began visiting several storage lockers Famalaro had rented and had stored the deep freezer in before moving to Arizona. Police went to at least three local storage facilities Tuesday--Trabuco Self Storage and Lake Forest Storage, among them, and an office in an industrial park in Laguna Hills that Famalaro used for his painting business. Costa Mesa Detective Sgt. Jerry Holloway said investigators “are finding some items of evidence that we can use,” but he declined to elaborate. Investigators have also learned that people had been curious about the Ryder truck and the extension cord running to it, but that when neighbors and acquaintances of Famalaro asked what was in the the freezer, he would reply, “Meat.”

* Investigators are focusing on reconstructing how Famalaro and Huber may have come into contact the night of her disappearance, June 3, 1991, and his movements since. Although police said Tuesday they believe she was killed in Orange County shortly after her abduction and then transported via freezer, it may be difficult to fix a time and place of death because of the condition of her body.

The freezer was purchased June 10, 1991, a week after Huber disappeared, at a Montgomery Ward & Co. store in Orange County, according to documents filed by the Yavapai County attorney’s office.

Investigators also have not been able to explain why the corpse would have been carted around for years after the crime.

“That’s what makes this case bizarre--the way he moves a body around like this,” said Costa Mesa Police Lt. Ron Smith. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

* Law enforcement sources alternately discounted and were intrigued by the theory that Famalaro may have lured Huber to her death by posing as a law enforcement officer. Two phony Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department shirts were among the numerous items seized from his home. Both shirts had handmade replicas of the Los Angeles County sheriff’s official patches sewn on them.

Costa Mesa’s Lt. Smith said he thought Huber was “too smart to fall for such a thing.”

“One thing that weighs against that theory is that it’s very unusual to have a uniformed officer with long hair and a beard,” Smith said, adding that everyone police have interviewed said Famalaro has sported a beard and mustache for years.

Other law enforcement sources found the bogus-police theory credible, as did Huber’s family.

“I couldn’t believe that Denise would get in a car with a stranger,” Ione Huber, Denise’s mother, said. “This makes sense. She would trust someone in a uniform.”

Discovery of the list of names initially fueled speculation that the murder of Huber could be one in a string of multiple killings.

“This case is far from over,” said Yavapai County sheriff’s spokeswoman Laurie Berra. “We have to make sure we don’t have additional victims.”

Famalaro’s attorney, Lawrence William Katz, attacked the strength of the case against his client and the media coverage.

“We don’t have a serial killer here,” Katz said. “This coverage has been completely overdone.”

Katz said he fully expects a grand jury to indict Famalaro by Thursday. He vowed that he would immediately seek to overturn the indictment on the basis that excessive publicity has compromised the grand jury--the same tactic used by O.J. Simpson’s lawyers in his murder case.

If a grand jury does not issue an indictment Thursday, as expected, Famalaro is scheduled to appear at a preliminary hearing on Friday.

Search warrant papers filed in Arizona on Tuesday revealed that police confiscated an extensive array of potentially incriminating items from Famalaro’s home during an exhaustive search last week.

Besides the bloody crowbar, a number of seized items had crimson stains, including strips of white cloth, a tarp, tissue, a “yellow paper bodysuit,” a sweatshirt and articles of women’s clothing. Authorities are awaiting the results of blood and fingerprint tests.

Also found were purses, handcuffs, keys to handcuffs, numerous rolls of duct tape and masking tape, drug paraphernalia and other items of women’s clothing that were not soiled with blood. They included a white blouse, a “teddy” and pantyhose, along with feminine napkins.

Police also seized videotapes and photographs, which they declined to describe the content of, as well as directions on how to use the freezer Huber’s body was found in; two Rolodexes; an answering machine; hair samples; numerous spent .38-caliber cartridges; and plastic bags.

At least initially, the list of names--including that of one man--caused a scare, because police feared that Huber, whose name was on the list, might have been just one victim.

In the case of one woman, Susan Rose Baylard, police found her credit cards and identification. They also found credit cards belonging to Deborah Clark.

Both women, as have others on the list, have since been contacted by authorities and appear to be alive and well, authorities said. Police would not say what relationship, if any, the women had with Famalaro.

In a few cases, police have only a first name--”Donna” and “Mary’--and are planning to solicit the public’s help in identifying and locating the women.

Robert Shoults, whose wife, Gloria, was on the list, said in an interview Tuesday evening that they had had no contact with Famalaro since they sold him a van in 1992.

“We didn’t know him,” Shoults said. “When he bought the van from me he was new in town.”

When news broke of Famalaro’s arrest, Shoults said “it didn’t ring a bell at all.” But shortly thereafter, someone from the sheriff’s department telephoned to check on his wife’s well-being.

As more details emerged about Famalaro, court documents released Tuesday also spelled out how investigators made the grisly discovery last Wednesday.

According to court records, a suspicious Elaine Canalia alerted authorities about the Ryder rental truck parked at Famalaro’s home last Wednesday. Canalia told Phoenix police that on the afternoon of July 9 she was at the Prescott Valley Flea Market where she met Famalaro, who was peddling paint. When Famalaro took her to his house, she became suspicious of the truck, in part, because it was covered with a tarp.

She jotted down the truck’s license plate number and vehicle identification number and gave it to the Phoenix police, who turned the information over to the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

When sheriff’s officials responded to his house, they noticed a number of paint cans around the truck and suspected that the location might be a “clandestine drug laboratory.”

After narcotics officers searched, they concluded it wasn’t a drug lab, but planned to seize the truck because it had been reported stolen from a Ryder outlet in San Clemente.

Attempts to contact Famalaro at the house were unsuccessful, so authorities contacted a locksmith to open the truck and the trailer. When they saw the 23-cubic-foot freezer, which was locked and taped shut, they decided it should be opened to make sure nothing valuable would perish when the power was turned off.

“When the lid was opened,” court documents say, “a strong odor of a decomposed body struck Detective Mark Garcia. He then noticed in the freezer what was a large bundle of black plastic. Garcia then felt that plastic and felt what he determined was an arm to a body.”

Huber’s body lay frozen in a semi-fetal position with the hands handcuffed behind her back.

Detectives immediately quizzed neighbors, who said Famalaro had moved into the house 1 1/2 years ago and that the Ryder truck had first appeared in January.

At 3:30 p.m. that afternoon, Famalaro was stopped in a red 1994 Jeep Cherokee and was taken into custody for possession of the stolen truck. That day, police also recovered a white van with a bullet hole that belongs to Famalaro.

According to investigators, the Ryder truck was rented Jan. 28 for one-day service. Ironically, it was reported stolen to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on July 12, the day before Huber’s body was discovered, due to a “foul-up” in paperwork by Ryder.

Piecing together what little they have, police suspect that Huber was killed, stored in the freezer in a Laguna Hills storage bin for a year, then moved to a San Clemente storage facility, where it was kept in about a year and a half before being transported to Famalaro’s Prescott Country Club home.

It remains unclear whether a trial, should there be one, would be held in Orange County or Arizona. As prosecutors prepared for a secret grand jury proceeding or a possible preliminary hearing, they too expressed concern about the amount of attention the case had garnered, and possible tainting of the jury pool in this county of 120,000 people.

Also unclear is how soon the family will be able to bury Huber in South Dakota next to her grandfather.

Her parents, Ione and Dennis Huber, said medical examiners in Arizona told them Tuesday that they cannot release their daughter’s body until they complete tested on two items believed to be the murder weapons, one of which is believed to be the bloody crowbar.

“Our funeral plans are up in the air, but we don’t want to pressure them,” Ione Huber said.

Throughout the day, the Hubers granted interviews to several television stations, saying they were still trying keep their daughter’s case, which has attracted national attention from the beginning, alive, and encouraging people with possible information about the suspect to come forward.

Famalaro’s parents, meanwhile, paid a visit to their son in jail late Tuesday. Also listed as visiting him was a local bail bondsman. But late Tuesday he was still incarcerated.

A jail official said Famalaro attended a religious “rap session” Saturday night along with about two dozen other inmates. The official said he did not talk about himself but participated in the program by singing songs and hymns, which included “Rock of Ages.” He also asked for a Catholic Bible. The official said he did not seem depressed, as he has been described by his attorney.

Nick Faicchio Sr., Famalaro’s former roommate in Lake Forest, said Tuesday, “I really think he just flipped. . . .

“One never knows anybody really,” he said. “How could you truly? Be a mind reader or something?”

Times staff writers Anna Cekola, Leslie Berkman, Michael Granberry, Greg Hernandez, Matt Lait, Mark Landsbaum, David Reyes, Rebecca Trounson and Jodi Wilgoren, and correspondents Bob Elston, Shelby Grad and Jeffrey Bean contributed to this report.

* MOMENT OF INTUITION: A decision to note a license number was crucial to case. A3

* SUSPECT’S PAST: Famalaro sought police work in L.A., O.C. and Irvine. A3