Police in Huber Case Wade Through a Flood of ‘Tips’ : Crime: Some leads helped assemble a profile of the suspect and track his movements. Others prove useless.

When an Arizona house painter was arrested for the murder of Denise A. Huber, Patricia Alexander of Detroit immediately telephoned authorities to report disturbing “psychic dreams” she had experienced days before.

Alexander told authorities that one of the nighttime visions placed her in a young woman’s body while she, like Huber, was being bludgeoned to death.

“I felt like I was really going through what that poor woman was going through,” Alexander said. “I’m not kidding.”

Hattie Berry picked up her phone too. When authorities were digging around suspect John J. Famalaro’s country club home for other possible victims, Berry urged police to dig up the rectangular-shaped planters outside the suspect’s house, “because on television it looked like the dirt had been freshly turned and watered.”

“That’s where I would have looked,” Berry said, not knowing that the “dirt” in those planters was actually earth-toned lava rocks.

The calls from Alexander and Berry were among the dozens that have poured in to law enforcement agencies in Arizona and California during the investigation of Huber’s murder.

While some callers provided detectives with substantial leads in the case, many more came from wanna-be cops, self-styled gumshoes or people simply startled by memories of chance encounters with Famalaro--weeks, months or years before Huber’s frozen body was found in a freezer stashed in a rental truck in Famalaro’s driveway.

Information flowed from every imaginable source--from a shaken Dana Point neighborhood where the defendant had painted about a dozen homes to Prescott Valley, Ariz., where residents encountered the lean, bearded man at flea markets or at the local car dealership.

“We had some leads from wackos and others who turned out to have some pretty nice information,” said Costa Mesa Police Chief David L. Snowden.

He said Thursday his department continues to field telephone calls and letters, all containing potential “tips” in the case of Huber, a 23-year-old Newport Beach woman who mysteriously vanished along the Corona del Mar Freeway after her Honda Accord blew a tire.

“We treat every piece of information the same way and follow up every lead,” the chief said. “We don’t throw anything away. Sure, it’s time-consuming, but you never know what you’re going to turn up.”

The most valuable tips, Snowden and other officials said, came from people who were able to help officers piece together a “profile” of Famalaro and track his movements between California and Arizona.

But there were plenty of other tipsters, like those whose calls are now choking the O.J. Simpson hot line, recently created to attract information that could help free the football legend from double murder charges.

And as in the Simpson case, Snowden said the amount of media attention devoted to the Huber case--first chronicling her disappearance three years ago and continuing through Famalaro’s arrest last month--has easily generated more calls than any other investigation handled by the department.

Because of that coverage, Snowden said callers seemed to have formed a strange bond with Huber and her family and felt compelled to contribute any tidbit of information.

“People saw information about the case on nationwide television,” the chief said. “In the case of Denise Huber, I don’t know of anybody of sound mind who was not touched.”

Prescott’s Paula Slaughter said news that Huber’s body had been discovered near her hometown triggered memories of an encounter with Famalaro more than a year ago.

After the house painter’s arrest, Slaughter felt compelled to call the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department and report that she attended a garage sale at the defendant’s home and considered buying a brown jacket for $10.

The woman also said she noticed a woman at Famalaro’s house, who appeared to have a “timid and scared look on her face.”

Although police believe Huber was killed shortly after her disappearance June 3, 1991, Slaughter continues to wonder whether she “could have made a difference” in the case had she reported the sighting at some earlier point.

“Now, I won’t ever forget the look on that woman’s face,” Slaughter said in an interview this week.

Jan Moynihan of neighboring Prescott Valley called the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department to report she saw two men driving erratically in a Ryder rental truck shortly before Huber’s body was discovered.

“I said to myself, ‘They must be involved with drugs,’ ” said Moynihan, who drives a school bus and is always on the alert for bad drivers. Moynihan said she called authorities after Famalaro’s arrest because she thought the sighting might indicate that more than one person could be responsible for Huber’s killing.

“I wouldn’t want anyone to get away with this so I called just in case,” she said. “I don’t know if they can use it but these guys were weird. But I didn’t see the freezer or anything.”

Orange County Assistant Dist. Atty. John Conley speculated that many people have been motivated to call by watching television shows that seek viewer participation, such as “America’s Most Wanted.” A videotape of the show was found among Famalaro’s belongings.

“I think the feeling is, ‘I might have one little detail that can help crack this. I, the citizen, can help,’ ” Conley said.

While many of the tips go nowhere, law enforcement officials do not dismiss the barrage of phone calls and letters that follow in the wake of high-profile cases.

“It’s not unusual in a major case for lots and lots of people to call in,” Conley said. “Any police officer will tell you we cannot solve a crime problem without citizen involvement.”

Garden Grove Police Sgt. Douglas Morrill said higher-profile cases typically tug at the public’s heartstrings, causing average people to want to help in some way.

Since Garden Grove Police Officer Howard E. Dallies Jr. was shot and killed in March, 1993, police have received more than 3,500 tips.

The average murder investigation generates about 50 tips, Morrill said.

“There is a real likelihood that the tips you receive will be beneficial, especially early in the case,” Morrill said. “As the case gets older, however, your chances diminish. But you can’t dismiss any lead.”

Morrill said law enforcement agents also get sinister, unsettling leads from people who claim to be the killer, or who claim to know the location of a murder weapon.

UC Irvine psychiatry professor Louis Gottschalk said people who make such malicious claims are usually hostile toward law enforcement and seeking a small amount of revenge.

“There are just people out there who want to make trouble,” Gottschalk said.

Both Morrill and Gottschalk said they attribute the outpouring of well-meaning tips to good-hearted citizens who want to help.

“I still think there are a lot of people who still have a moral conscience and they feel want to help the police department and society in general,” Morrill said.

Gottschalk agreed, adding that many people feel the need to get involved instead of just being passive about crimes.

“It may seem a bit corny, but there are deep, altruistic genetic traits among many of us and what they read about in the news touches them. It’s another issue why everyone isn’t like that,” he said.

In many criminal cases, people who might not have witnessed the crime can still be critical to its prosecution or defense, officials said. The testimony of a neighbor who noted a suspicious car, or a clerk who can place the defendant 50 miles from the crime scene, can be key during a trial.

In the O.J. Simpson case, for example, police canvassed the neighborhood around Nicole Simpson’s home for witnesses who might have seen or heard anything unusual. Those findings have been critical in helping police narrow down the time of the attack, which could help determine whether Simpson could have been in the area when his ex-wife and a friend were killed.

Orange County Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia, who is representing Famalaro, said he isn’t finished doing his job until he follows up on tips that might help prove a defendant was someplace else when the crime was committed. Sometimes, even experienced defense attorneys, prosecutors and law enforcement officers can overlook the obvious.

“Some of the calls can be weird, but you can’t dismiss everyone as a crackpot,” Gumlia said. “You just never know what might turn up.”