Famalaro’s Fate Hinges on Jury Seeing His ‘Other Side’

SANTA ANA — Is John J. Famalaro an unremorseful, cold-blooded killer or a caring person whose slaying of Denise Huber was an aberration in an otherwise normal, law-abiding life?

That will be the question posed to the jury during the penalty phase of Famalaro’s murder trial, which begins Thursday in Orange County Superior Court. The same jury took about five hours last week to convict Famalaro of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering the 23-year-old Newport Beach woman.

Famalaro, 39, encountered Huber after she pulled over to the side of the Corona del Mar Freeway in the middle of the night on June 3, 1991, with a flat tire. The stranded motorist, who was on her way home from a rock concert, then disappeared. She was the focus of a well-publicized search that ended when her body was discovered in Famalaro’s freezer in July 1994.

The jury ultimately believed the prosecution’s assertion that Huber was kidnapped by Famalaro, who planned to sodomize and brutally kill her. Jurors rejected a defense contention that Huber went willingly with the former Lake Forest resident and was killed in a “spontaneous attack” after he tried--and failed--to seduce her.

While the guilt phase of the trial focused on only 24 hours of Famalaro’s life, his defense attorneys have said that the penalty phase will focus on his entire life.

Deputy Public Defenders Denise Gragg and Leonard Gumlia have declined to comment on the penalty phase since the guilty verdict was reached last week. But in an interview before the start of the trial, Gragg said the goal is to make the jury “aware that there is another side of John.”

“The only public image of him now is one that is linking him to everyone from Jeffrey Dahmer to Son of Sam,” Gragg said before trial, referring to famous serial killers. “That’s not who he is.”

The defense plans to call 30 to 40 people to the witness stand to testify on Famalaro’s behalf, including family members, friends, former teachers, psychological and medical experts, and old girlfriends.

Anne Famalaro, the defendant’s 71-year-old mother, is likely to testify, as are his brother and sister, Warren Famalaro and Marion Thobe. His mother attended most of the two-week trial and has steadfastly stood by her son since he was charged with the crime.

During the guilt phase of the trial, Gumlia and Gragg began to plant the seeds of a defense that will show a remorseful killer. They said that after the murder, their client became physically ill, slipping into a “malaise” so severe that he sought medical attention.

To bolster this contention, a Dana Point man who had a business dealing with Famalaro the morning after Huber is believed to have been killed testified that while the former house painter appeared normal that morning, he disappeared for several days afterward. The man said that when Famalaro finally resurfaced, he looked “too sick to talk.”

Outside court last week, Gragg said that her client “feels bad” when he sees the victim’s family in court and added that his discomfort is “due to knowing the things he has done and the pain he has caused.”

Robert A. Pugsley, a professor at Southwestern School of Law, said prosecutors will have to convince the jury of nine women and three men that Huber’s murder was among the “worst of the worst” and that Famalaro should pay for it with his life rather than serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

“They would look at all of those kinds of circumstances that point at making this particular murder worse than other murders,” Pugsley said. “The aggravating circumstances have to outweigh the mitigating in order for the jury to recommend death.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans, who is prosecuting the case, would not discuss the upcoming penalty phase. But Evans will likely focus on the brutality of the murder, which included at least 31 blows to the victim’s head with a roofer’s nail puller.

The prosecutor said Huber was blindfolded, gagged and handcuffed by Famalaro prior to being sodomized and bludgeoned to death.

Evans also said in court that the crimes were premeditated and that Famalaro displayed a “consciousness of guilt” by keeping Huber’s body and her personal items including her purse and clothes in addition to the murder weapons and news accounts of her disappearance.

The impact the murder had on the victim’s family will also be taken into consideration by the jury. Her parents, Dennis and Ione Huber, both expect to testify on that impact.

Ione Huber said that the fact that Famalaro kept their daughter’s remains inside a freezer for three years while her parents searched for her is further evidence that he deserves to be executed.

“Three years is a long time to be concealing evidence,” she said last week. “He knew that we were so desperate to find answers. If it was just one act and an aberration, he would have come forward right away. Then maybe I could be a little more forgiving.”

The Hubers are incensed that among the evidence found inside Famalaro’s Arizona home were news articles and a tape of a television program detailing their daughter’s disappearance and the parents’ well-publicized search for her.

“The murder makes me the most bitter, but the fact that he just compounded it over and over again by not letting us know--that’s why I don’t have a lot of sympathy for him,” Ione Huber said.

Pugsley said that the defense team has “a fighting chance” of saving Famalaro from a death sentence.

“If they could show this was an isolated episode in his life and the effects of some deep degree of emotional disturbance that was at variance with the rest of his life, it may be they could persuade the jury that as heinous the crime he committed, it was such a one-time aberrational act, that they should spare his life,” Pugsley said.

He added: “The prosecutor in return would probably say to the jury: ‘You found him guilty. He took the life of an innocent person and kept her family wondering and grieving for three years. He represents the sort of heinous individual we need to execute.’ ”