Famalaro’s Sister Wonders ‘Where It Started’ : Crime: Only questioning of accused killer of Denise Huber yielded few clues. He immediately asked for lawyer when the murder was mentioned.

Looking haggard but struggling to remain composed, John J. Famalaro’s voice quavered only once when an investigator asked him to explain why his freezer contained the corpse of a young Newport Beach woman who had been beaten, striped naked and handcuffed.

“After, after you’ve read me my rights I think I want to talk to an attorney,” Famalaro said softly. “I just want to go see my attorney, please.”

A videotape of that interview shortly after his July 13 arrest, released Thursday, shows the 37-year-old murder suspect fidgeted in his chair when faced with the evidence, and then requesting his attorney when the murder of 23-year-old Denise Huber was raised.

Lt. Scott Mascher of the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department abandoned his questioning of the house painter and handyman, who sat in the corner of a dimly lit interrogation room, his legs stretched out in front of him. The interview lasted only a few minutes.

It was the first and last time that Famalaro has talked to the detectives trying to unravel why someone might tote a frozen body across the west for more than three years. He remains in an Arizona jail cell, but may be extradited to Orange County for trial as soon as next week.

Taped interviews with Famalaro’s sister and former brother-in-law offered a few more clues, revealing the former Lake Forest resident’s troubled upbringing and adult life.

Famalaro’s sister, Marion Thobe, told investigators she has struggled to understand why both her brothers have been accused of such twisted acts. Warren Famalaro, a former chiropractor, served time in prison for molesting two young patients.

“I don’t know where it started,” Thobe, 40, of Prescott, told investigators.

She seemed to lay at least some of the blame on her mother, Anna Mae Famalaro.

She said she and her brothers were raised in an unhealthy, repressive environment where they were verbally abused, beaten with belts and forbidden to talk about sex, maturing or even pregnancy. “It wasn’t a normal household,” Thobe said. “She would go out to other people and say, ‘Look at my three wonderful children.’ But in the house we were (expletive),” she said.

She described her father as a kind “Christian” man but said her mother took religion to an extreme that bordered on fanaticism. Anna Famalaro was not tolerant of her children’s antics and would often react with violence.

“She’s an odd duck,” Thobe said. “She was pretty physical. My dad wasn’t. She would use a belt. . . . She had a short fuse, you know. The tolerance wasn’t there.”

When interviewed by detectives, Marion Thobe’s former husband, a one-time Iowa police officer, also talked about Anna Mae Famalaro:

“All I know, all I can say is what I experienced myself with the mother. In the 15 years I was part of that family, the mother is very controlling--very dominating and--you don’t do things her way, she gets mad,” said Duane Thobe. “The mother, I can just imagine how awful it must have been growing up with her.”

Duane Thobe described a telephone conversation Famalaro had with Marion shortly after his arrest.

“Marion said there wasn’t much of a conversation and all he did was cry. He said, ‘Do you hate me? Do you ever want to see me again?’ . . . He just cried the whole time.”

Those who knew the Famalaros report that Anna Famalaro would cover John Famalaro’s eyes in the movie theater if the actors so much as kissed, even when her son was in his late teens. Neighbors say Anna Famalaro tried to discourage her son from dating, and never seemed satisfied with any of his female friends.

“It’s amazing the impact one person can have on a family, just amazing,” Marion Thobe continued. “This isn’t a pretty story.”

“She followed (John) on a date once,” she later added. “ . . . To make sure he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Marion Thobe told investigators her mother also interfered with her marriage, telling her son-in-law that his wife could not be trusted. Her mother, she said, thought she was cheating on her husband because she attended exercise classes regularly and dressed fashionably when she went out.

Investigators asked Marion Thobe why she moved next door to her mother at the Prescott Country Club given their mother’s overbearing nature. Marion Thobe said she hoped her mother would have “mellowed” over the years, but upon returning found that she remained cold and aloof.

After the Thobes divorced and moved out, Famalaro moved into the home where Huber’s body would later be found.

In an interview last month, Anna Famalaro said she was hurt by the harsh portrait that others have painted of her. She described herself as a conservative Christian who was being unfairly blasted as a domineering mother.

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Famalaro’s upbringing could become key during the murder trial, especially if defense attorneys chart an “insanity” defense or argue that the bizarre upbringing manifested itself in violent acts.

Huber’s body was found in a freezer inside a stolen rental truck parked in the driveway of a home owned by Duane Thobe, Marion Thobe’s ex-husband. Famalaro was living in a home is in a country club community in Dewey, Ariz. Huber’s belongings were found in the garage in a box marked “Christmas.”

Investigators asked Duane Thobe his whereabouts when Denise Huber disappeared, and he told police he was dealing with his own failing marriage at the time.

Duane Thobe told investigators he helped Famalaro move several times, including into the Laguna Hills warehouse where authorities believe Huber was murdered. But Duane Thobe stressed he never saw the freezer.

“I never saw a freezer. Never saw a freezer,” he said. “I never moved a freezer. It wasn’t at the warehouse. . . . I’d swear to it.”

Famalaro faces the death penalty if convicted of kidnaping and murdering Huber, a young waitress who vanished in June, 1991, after tire blew out on her car on the Corona Del Mar Freeway as she was driving home from a rock concert.

Orange County investigators suspect that Famalaro abducted Huber from the freeway and then took her to a Laguna Hills warehouse where he was living and bludgeoned her to death. Even three years after her disappearance, detectives allege they have found traces of blood in the warehouse.

Medical tests are pending to determine whether Huber was sexually molested.

Famalaro is expected to waive extradition Monday and be transferred from Arizona to the Orange County Men’s Jail later in the week, Deputy Public Defender Leonard Gumlia said Thursday.

Times staff writer Greg Hernandez and correspondent Shelby Grad contributed to this report.