Suspect May Have Had Help Hiding Corpse

Investigators believe that John J. Famalaro acted alone when he allegedly abducted and killed Denise Huber, yet authorities said Saturday that they have not dismissed the likelihood that Famalaro had help hiding her body for more than three years.

“Right now there are no signs of an accomplice, but we can’t rule out the possibility that someone may have knowingly helped him hide the body afterward,” Costa Mesa Police Lt. Ron Smith said.

Smith declined to say who might have helped Famalaro conceal Huber’s body after she vanished on June 3, 1991. Authorities suspect her corpse was stored most of the time in a freezer that Famalaro bought in Orange County about a week after Huber’s disappearance.

The large deep freezer was moved several times around the county until it was finally taken to Arizona earlier this year. Police say that Famalaro, 37, formerly of Lake Forest, had enlisted the help of friends and acquaintances to do so.

Arizona authorities discovered the freezer on July 13 inside a Ryder rental truck parked outside Famalaro’s home at the Prescott Country Club. It contained Huber’s body. An extension cord ran from the truck to his mother’s house next door.

Huber, 23, of Newport Beach, was last seen alive after attending a rock concert at the Forum in Inglewood. Her abandoned Honda Accord was later found on the Corona del Mar Freeway, with its right rear tire shredded.

Among those questioned by police during the past week was Famalaro’s brother, Warren, of Mission Viejo--a former chiropractor convicted in 1980 of sexually assaulting two of his patients. But Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden said Saturday that Warren Famalaro has been “ruled out as a suspect at this time.”

Authorities also said Saturday that Arizona officials turned over a sample of Huber’s blood so the Orange County Sheriff’s Department crime lab can complete critical tests that might determine where Huber was killed.

Local authorities want to determine whether the sample matches a substance that appears to be blood taken from a Laguna Hills storage facility that John Famalaro was renting when Huber disappeared.

If the samples match, it could further implicate John Famalaro, and place Huber’s death in Orange County, clearing the way for the case to be moved to California for prosecution. Snowden said the test results might be available as early as Monday.

So far, Smith said, an autopsy has revealed that Huber was hit at least 12 times in the head with a blunt object, but there is no indication that she was sexually assaulted before her death.

Meanwhile, investigators say that John Famalaro’s arrest and the evidence seized by Arizona authorities from his country club home have provided few answers to the many questions raised by Huber’s disappearance.

“The arrest has added more questions to the long list of questions we already had,” Smith said. “I’ve always thought that she was killed in Orange County. From what I’ve learned about Denise and her habits, I still think it was an abduction on the freeway and the murder happened a little later.”

A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said Orange County authorities are looking at several theories to determine whether Huber was alive before the freezer was purchased, including the dreadful possibility that the young woman was in a coma or unconscious for a few days after she was bludgeoned in the head.

Despite evidence recovered from John Famalaro’s house that links him to the victim, investigators may not be able to tie him to Huber’s car. The Honda was released to her family in 1991, Snowden said, after detectives could not find any fingerprints or other evidence such as hair, blood or remnants of fabric.

To help investigators in Arizona and ease the transition should the prosecution of John Famalaro be transferred to Orange County, Snowden sent a pathology team to Phoenix on Friday, including Dr. Richard Fukumoto, a forensic specialist for the Orange County coroner. The Maricopa County medical examiner’s office, however, would not let Fukumoto view Huber’s body. He returned home Friday afternoon after waiting almost four hours, raising questions from Orange County authorities who were concerned about cooperation.

Arizona officials said they turned Fukumoto down because they have jurisdiction in the case, and the medical examination of Huber’s body, as well as other forensic work, was virtually complete.

Snowden said Saturday he was disappointed that Fukumoto was not allowed to see Huber’s body, but he did not interpret the incident as a sign that a rift was developing between Orange County and Arizona law enforcement.

“I applaud the Arizona authorities,” Snowden said. “They have been operating as if this is one big department. It’s like there are no state boundaries. It could not have been any more professional. But I’m in a quandary. I’m sure we will have a logical explanation on Monday.”

Deputy Yavapai County Attorney Thomas B. Lindberg, the prosecutor handling the Famalaro case, said that because of a misunderstanding or a lack of communication between agencies, the Maricopa County medical examiner was unaware of Fukumoto’s plans to visit or his desire to see the body.

When Fukumoto arrived in Phoenix, Maricopa County investigators were examining the corpse and did not want to disrupt their work, Lindberg said. “I don’t think anybody wanted to create any ill feelings between medical examiners.”

Both Orange County and Arizona officials deny there is a jurisdictional dispute in the case, but several Orange County law enforcement authorities interviewed late last week said privately that they prefer that John Famalaro be tried in Prescott. It would be easier to convict him and sentence him to death under Arizona law, they said.

One official told The Times that it might be difficult to prove special circumstances--the burden of proof required to qualify a defendant for the death penalty under California law--during a trial in Orange County.

The official said prosecutors have discussed five special-circumstance options if the case is tried in California, including charging John Famalaro with kidnaping, torture, rape, attempted rape and robbery, along with the murder. But he added that the evidence needed to uphold each of the options “is still very weak.”

Lindberg said the Maricopa County officials--who brought in outside experts, including an anthropologist--completed their tests on Friday, and are now holding the body so that an Arizona pathologist can conduct an independent examination for John Famalaro’s defense team.

Although the autopsy was conducted a week ago, investigators on Friday reconstructed Huber’s skull, “trying to piece bone on bone back together to determine the number of blows and the type of weapon used,” Lindberg said.

Among the items seized by homicide investigators at John Famalaro’s home were a crowbar with bloodstains and hammers, according to a search warrant filed in court.

John Famalaro’s attorney, Thomas K. Kelly, has hired a private pathologist, who is scheduled to examine Huber’s corpse on Tuesday. It will enable the body to be released to the family in time for a funeral Thursday in South Dakota, where Huber’s grandfather is buried.

Dr. H. H. Karnitschnig, who retired as the Maricopa County medical examiner two years ago, said he will look at Huber’s skull fractures to see if they are consistent with the type of weapon police say was used. He said he will also try to determine whether the autopsy and forensic tests have been done correctly.

The cause and time of Huber’s death might be “a crucial issue in the case,” Kelly has stated in his court papers, and Karnitschnig said Saturday that it is “essentially impossible” to determine when she died, which might make the prosecution’s job harder.

“I have had a number or bodies that have been dead for weeks or for months,” he said. “But I have never had one that was frozen.”

After more than a week of investigation, law enforcement authorities have not officially linked John Famalaro to any other unsolved homicide cases in the area.

Detectives, however, are still trying to determine whether he might be responsible for the unsolved 1992 slaying of a Sedona, Ariz., woman, whose skull was pierced by a .45-caliber bullet.

Police said he was in Sedona at the time 50-year-old Marjorie Anne Hope vanished along a local roadway, and officials say he owned a .45-caliber handgun.

The roof of a white Chevrolet truck in John Famalaro’s possession at the time of his arrest had a bullet hole in it, although he obtained that vehicle last January.

In Sedona, authorities were asking residents to report any information about John Famalaro’s whereabouts in Sedona in late 1992.

No detail or chance meeting is too insignificant because it will help create a timeline about John Famalaro’s comings and goings, Sedona Police Chief Bob Irish said.

“People might think it’s not much if he cleaned their rugs one day, but it could be a critical piece of evidence,” Irish said. “Something might click--there could be a connection.”

Times staff writer Rene Lynch contributed to this report from Dewey, Ariz., and Times staff writer Lee Romney contributed from Orange County.