Huber’s Killer Deserves Death Penalty, Jury Says

SANTA ANA — John Joseph Famalaro should die for kidnapping, sodomizing and killing 23-year-old Denise Anette Huber before hiding her nude body in a freezer for three years, a jury recommended Wednesday in one of Orange County’s most notorious murder cases.

Famalaro showed no reaction to the death penalty verdict reached by the jury of nine women and three men. Some of the jurors, who rejected a sentence of life in prison without parole, wept as their unanimous decision was read following a day and a half of deliberations.

Sitting in front-row seats near the defendant, Huber’s parents, Dennis and Ione Huber, hugged each other and shed tears of relief as they were surrounded by photographers.

“He has to pay for what he did, for the horrible thing he did to Denise and that was what this was all about,” said Dennis Huber, 58. “People just saw things that were so terrible. That man did terrible, terrible things, and he needs to pay.”

After the proceedings, jurors said the decision was one of the hardest of their lives, but they believed it was the right one. Several said that an autopsy photo of Denise Huber, nude, handcuffed and bludgeoned to death, was tacked to the wall of the jury room to remind the panel of the viciousness of the crime.

“The photos were so brutal,” said juror David Reyno of Aliso Viejo. “The thought of such a nice girl having to go through what she did. Many of us thought about what she must have gone through and put ourselves in that position.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans, who prosecuted the case, said he was grateful to the panel.

“I’m pleased that the jury saw the case the way we saw it,” Evans said. “It’s certainly not a happy occasion. But it’s certainly satisfying to see that justice was done. It’s not always done. It was done in this case and that’s important.”

Famalaro, who spoke quietly with his attorneys after the verdict, will be formally sentenced by Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan on Sept. 5.

Defense attorney Leonard Gumlia said his client took the news relatively well. Famalaro thanked Gumlia and co-defense attorney Denise Gragg, Gumlia said.

“It wasn’t terribly emotional,” he said. “He’s been working on some spiritual things that take him well beyond this courtroom. He hasn’t been involved in this trial really at all in terms of the defense. It was probably harder on us than it was on him.”

Gumlia said he believed that his client had a fighting chance during the trial but said the extensive pretrial publicity about Huber’s disappearance and the discovery of her body was always a concern.

“I did not expect death,” Gumlia said. “I was fearful of the case being [tried] in this county with the knowledge and the pressures. I still believe in my heart if this case had been tried somewhere else that we might have had a different result.”

In the end, jurors rejected pleas to spare Famalaro’s life because of what Gragg described as his “dark and frightening childhood” at the hands of a “crazy” and “destructive” mother who emotionally abused her children.

Jurors said they took into consideration the viciousness of the crime, during which Huber was kidnapped, sodomized and killed by at least 31 blows to the head with a roofer’s nail puller. The victim--a recent UC Irvine graduate who worked as a waitress and cashier while she was deciding on a career--was also handcuffed, blindfolded and gagged.

Another factor was the impact the crime had on the victim’s parents, who were kept desperately wondering for three years what happened to their only daughter after she disappeared, jurors said.

Reyno said the parents’ tearful testimony at the start of the penalty phase was among the most powerful the jury heard--and he never forgot it. He was impressed by how the Hubers conducted themselves inside the courtroom, where they did not look toward the jury.

“I think it would be easy for a victim’s family to try and sway us,” he said. “I never noticed them looking in our direction. It was almost like they knew it was best that they didn’t.”

Jury forewoman Bonnie Snethen said the jury felt sorry for Famalaro because of his childhood and that the decision to recommend a death sentence had many jurors in tears during the deliberations.

“We cried for most of the morning,” Snethen said. “It was a wonderful group of responsible people to work with. . . . It was an awesome, awesome experience.”

The jury reached its decision on the first ballot vote, taken after a lunch break Wednesday.

Huber encountered Famalaro, now 40, on the Corona del Mar Freeway on June 3, 1991, when her car tire went flat in the middle of the night as she was returning home from a rock concert. She was never seen alive again and became one of the county’s most famous missing persons, due to a highly publicized search effort spearheaded by her parents.

The parents, who attended each day of the six-week trial, were pleased by the jury’s decision.

“I feel relieved,” Ione Huber said. “I feel it was just. It’s a long time coming.”

Still, the 53-year-old former resident of Newport Beach said there will never be closure for the family.

“Denise’s life is gone and we’ll never have it back and there’s nothing we can do to change that,” she said. “[The verdict] is the only real, just thing that we have.”

The father said he thought of his daughter on this day and felt that “Denise is maybe looking down and saying, ‘Yeah, something good happened.’ ”

The jury’s decision ends the trial of a man who was finally arrested as a suspect in Huber’s murder in July 1994. Although he is believed to have killed Huber shortly after encountering her, Famalaro’s crime remained unsolved for more than three years.

A break in the case came when a woman doing business with the former house painter contacted authorities about a suspicious Ryder rental truck parked in the driveway of Famalaro’s home near Dewey, Ariz., where he moved after living in Lake Forest and working as a handyman.

Sheriff’s deputies, suspecting an illegal drug lab, searched the vehicle, which had been reported stolen in San Clemente, and discovered Huber’s body inside a freezer stored in the truck.

Jurors quickly convicted Famalaro of kidnapping, sodomy and murder charges last month, taking about five hours to reach a decision.

But deliberations took considerably longer in the penalty phase, during which emotionally wrenching testimony from the victim’s parents contrasted with defense witnesses who testified to the horror of Famalaro’s childhood in an effort to cast the defendant in a more sympathetic light.

Evans told the jury that while Famalaro had a bad childhood, he clearly had enough positive influences in his life to overcome his troubles. He noted the defendant’s close relationship with his maternal grandmother and his sister.

“He had a difficult life in some respects, no question about it,” Evans said during this week’s closing arguments. “There’s a whole world out there with bad lives.”

Besides the victim’s parents, the prosecution also called two former girlfriends to the stand to testify that Famalaro handcuffed them against their will during sexually violent episodes.

While the prosecution quickly won a conviction in the criminal portion of the trial, the penalty phase was harder.

“This issue can be tougher, but I think that the defendant made it a lot easier by what he did to an innocent victim,” Evans said. “He didn’t have to do what he did to Denise Huber and this jury reflects the outrage of the community.”

Defense attorneys abruptly changed strategy in the middle of presenting their case, eliminating 15 witnesses, including experts they had lined up to testify about Famalaro’s psychological problems. Famalaro’s attorneys said he had bouts of manic depression and thought of suicide.

The defense said that Famalaro suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder that prompted him to keep Huber’s body in the freezer for three years. The prosecution contended that he did so to preserve the victim as a sick kind of trophy.

Famalaro’s mother, Anne Famalaro, 71, testified about her son’s childhood and said she never sought professional help for him even though he appeared quite troubled as a boy.

While Anne Famalaro admitted her family had problems, her perception of how she raised her children was disputed in testimony offered by her son, Warren Famalaro, and daughter, Marion Thobe.

They said their mother exhibited bizarre behavior, such as examining each piece of garbage they threw away and washing piles of laundry by hand, one item at a time. The siblings said their cluttered home had unsightly piles of newspaper and laundry and that their mother rarely cooked, often taking to her bed in the early afternoon.

Famalaro’s real psychological descent, the defense said, came in the early ‘80s when his then-girlfriend, who was pregnant with their child, left him and gave the baby up for adoption against his will. Warren Famalaro testified that it was their mother who contributed to that breakup.

His mother, siblings, priest and others were called to testify about the impact the situation had on Famalaro, who tried to fight the adoption in court and lost.

The case will be appealed, as is automatic with death penalty verdicts. Famalaro’s attorneys said they will focus on the issues of venue and victim impact testimony. Gumlia said Famalaro “has an excellent chance on appeal.”

The defense team believes the case should not have been tried in Orange County because of extensive pretrial publicity and an outpouring of sympathy for the victim’s family. They also believe Huber’s parents should not have been allowed to testify about the impact of their loss because the murder occurred in 1991, before such testimony was allowed in death penalty trials.

No members of Famalaro’s family were present for the verdict, but Diane Tirotta, a former neighbor of Famalaro in Arizona, attended the last part of the penalty phase and visited him in jail several times.

“He has a serenity about him, and he’s a deeply spiritual man,” she said by telephone Wednesday after the verdict. “He’s not a cold-blooded killer. He is remorseful.”

Tirotta, 37, said she was the only friend to be there for Famalaro during the past week and wanted to be present for the penalty verdict but had to return to care for her ill mother.

“I believe Mr. Famalaro will accept the verdict with grace, because he has a great belief in God,” Tirotta said. “Vengeance has won out over mercy and compassion. I’m sorry the cycle of violence is continuing. Of course, Denise Huber should be alive and, of course, Mr. Famalaro shouldn’t be walking the streets, but this is a person who never had a chance in life.”

Also contributing to this story were Times staff writers Davan Maharaj and Thao Hua and correspondent Jean O. Pasco.