Town Store’s Special Is Grisly News : Media: Residents of hamlet with no newspaper keep abreast of the Huber case by word of mouth.

At the Humboldt Market, where the uniform is billed caps and well-worn work clothes, the “Septic Tank News” is working overtime, and everyone seems to have an opinion about their neighbor up the road who was busted with a woman’s body stashed in a freezer.

Bill Canning is the self-proclaimed “editor” of the community grapevine that serves regulars at the hamlet’s general store, where flyers offer deals on laying hens and a “really pretty” stud colt. Canning offers verbal dispatches to town folk--who have no local newspaper--from a battered outdoor table while his overweight mut, Azula, wheezes away the hot Southwestern afternoons.

The murder case against house painter John J. Famalaro is dissected point by grisly point with each day’s developments.

“They must think we are stupid or something,” Canning remarks to pal Tim Cavanaugh, a reserve officer for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department. “You don’t keep a body in a freezer plugged into your house unless you know something about it. That’s crazy.”

“Yeah, boy,” says Cavanaugh. “You just don’t do that.”

Cavanaugh and the chain-smoking Canning, a reddish-gray beard falling to his narrow chest, pick at the case like country prosecutors as customers drop by for the latest scoop.

During breaks from the cash register, the market’s owner, Leo Bennett, ambles outside to join the conversation, leaning against the front post. “A little crazy if you ask me,” he says. “Why would anybody want to keep a body that long? I think they got a pretty good case.”

Earlier, resident Cindy Spires was in, saying she couldn’t believe Famalaro might be the same man who wanted to sell some paint to her uncle.

“I think it shook her up,” Canning says.

The discussion turns to the recent invasion of CNN and out-of-state newspaper reporters, television satellite trucks and the news helicopters buzzing the skies overhead.

“I’ll tell you, it’s amazing,” says Cavanaugh, who helped secure the scene around Famalaro’s Prescott Country Club home. “There was a fella up there living near (Famalaro’s) home, who on Sunday didn’t seem to know anything about the family. Then, on Monday, I see him on the 10 o’clock news and he claimed to know everything.”

The Septic Tank News regulars are surprised at the sudden attention to violence in their sparsely populated corner of the world. They concede that the circumstances surrounding the murder of Denise Huber--the freezer and the dig for possible other victims--are as sensational as they come. But killings around here are more common than people think, they said.

“It’s been going on a long time out here,” Canning says. “They bring (murder victims) out of Phoenix and dump ‘em on the side of the road up here all the time.”

“Not too far from here, they found a woman’s head with a bullet hole in it a year ago Halloween.”