Investigators Back With Load of Evidence

Investigators in the Denise Huber murder case Tuesday unloaded a rental truck packed with evidence and embarked on the painstaking process of examining “every shred” of suspect John J. Famalaro’s personal effects seized from the Arizona home where Huber’s body was found in a freezer.

Among other things, investigators hope to determine whether the 37-year-old house painter had ever met the 23-year-old waitress before she was abducted from the side of the Corona del Mar Freeway on June 3, 1991. Authorities also are seeking evidence that would confirm that Famalaro, a former Lake Forest resident, was in the Orange County area at the time Huber vanished.

“We’re pretty confident that he was in the Orange County area during the 2nd and 3rd of June (in 1991), which is when she disappeared,” said Costa Mesa police Lt. Ron Smith.

“But we’re looking for any kind of receipt, phone bill, letter, canceled check, anything that would give us a time and a date and a location, and anything that would somehow connect him with Denise before the disappearance that would explain their encounter,” Smith said.

“Is it just chance that her tire goes flat and he happens to be driving by? Or had he been following her?”

Huber’s friends and family, and some police investigators have speculated that the former UC Irvine student may have known her assailant, or mistaken him for a law enforcement officer. Bogus Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy shirts were found during a search of Famalaro’s home in Arizona, authorities said.

Famalaro is being held without bail in the Yavapai County, Ariz., Jail pending his extradition to Orange County. Arrested July 13 after Huber’s body was discovered inside a freezer inside a stolen rental truck at his Arizona house, Famalaro faces first-degree murder charges in connection with the kidnaping and slaying of the Newport Beach woman. He could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Orange County prosecutors also filed murder charges against Famalaro last week after preliminary DNA testing indicated bloodstains at a Laguna Hills warehouse facility rented by Famalaro matched Huber’s blood.

Famalaro has not yet entered a plea to the latter charges, but he has pleaded not guilty to the Arizona charges.

Using a rental truck of their own, police detectives over the weekend packed up reams of evidence taken from Famalaro’s home and drove to Orange County.

While Huber was buried next to her grandfather in South Dakota Tuesday, police here peeled open the truck and began sorting through evidence, much of which they already looked through once in Arizona.

Among other items, the 17-foot truck was filled with hundreds of boxes of documents, papers and personal effects. Police also unloaded the suspected murder weapon--a nail-puller that was previously described as a crowbar--the freezer in which Huber’s body was found, Huber’s clothes and other belongings, as well as a refrigerator found inside Famalaro’s house.

Authorities predicted it would take weeks to pore through it all.

“We’re looking through every shred of paper to see if there’s any significance to it at all,” Smith said.

Of the refrigerator, Smith said detectives are looking for clues that would indicate whether Huber’s body was stored there while Famalaro awaited delivery of a freezer he had ordered from an Orange County Montgomery Wards store shortly after Huber’s disappearance.

“There’s about a nine-day gap,” Smith said.

Orange County Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley said Tuesday the extradition process is underway, but that it could take weeks before completion. “The paperwork’s being prepared for the governor’s office,” Conley said.

Famalaro’s lawyers said they haven’t decided whether to fight extradition. A hearing on the matter is scheduled to take place in Arizona on Aug. 29.

Conley said prosecutors have not yet decided whether to take the case to the Orange County Grand Jury for a possible indictment, which would speed up matters.

Conley acknowledged that culling the evidence could take some time.

“The image we have of him (Famalaro) is that he was a pack rat. He kept everything,” Conley said. “It’s a tedious process.”

Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia said Tuesday his office is gearing up for the Famalaro case and is prepared to begin poring over the evidence and volumes of documents in the case as soon as possible.

“There is a lot there,” Gumlia said. “It could take weeks, more likely months.”

Gumlia said it is too soon to begin discussing defense strategies but said he anticipates asking to move the trial from Orange County.

“We will be looking at a change-of-venue motion in this case,” Gumlia said. “It’s gotten to the point where (Denise Huber) is referred to in headlines as ‘Denise.’ It’s in all the papers. It’s everywhere.”

Gumlia said he is concerned that the media storm surrounding the story could unfairly sway potential jurors. He said he would also be concerned if prosecutors seek a grand jury indictment against Famalaro, because it is possible that grand jurors have also been following the case in the media.