Suspect Denies Guilt in Death of Woman Found in Freezer

A handyman accused of killing a young Newport Beach woman and keeping her nude body in a freezer for three years pleaded not guilty Monday to the charges against him, including allegations that could make him subject to the death penalty.

John J. Famalaro stood behind a glass courtroom partition during the brief hearing in Harbor Municipal Court as his lawyer entered a plea of not guilty to charges of murder and kidnaping.

Municipal Judge Craig E. Robison scheduled a preliminary hearing for Oct. 17 to determine if there is sufficient evidence to order the 37-year-old former Lake Forest man bound over for trial in Superior Court for the murder of Denise Huber, whose baffling disappearance in 1991 sparked a massive search that made her name a household word in Orange County.

The district attorney’s office, however, could circumvent the public hearing process by obtaining a grand jury indictment, which would preclude the need for a preliminary hearing.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher J. Evans would not comment on the possibility that a grand jury indictment would be sought. Deputy Public Defender Brian Ducker, one of two lawyers representing Famalaro, said he had been notified that the district attorney might use the grand jury, but did not know for sure if that would happen.

Famalaro has been held without bail in protective custody in the Orange County Jail since his extradition earlier this month from Arizona, where he was living when Huber’s body was discovered in a freezer that Famalaro kept running in a rental truck parked in the driveway of his Prescott Country Club home.