Episode 475: Denise Huber- Part 2

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. What's the answer, and what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head?

Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free on Wondery. Plus. Hey Weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Elena.

And this is morbid.

Hello, hello over there. How are you? You know, I'm doing okay. I had a very nice weekend and I'm sorry to say that to you because Ash did not have a nice weekend. I had the worst weekend of my life, I had a here we'll get mine over with.

Yeah, yours was beautiful and I should have stayed with you. I had a very nice weekend with John and the little gals. We just had fun, we played board games, we watched movies, we played outside. It was just like a very nice. We did some fun things. And I wrote a lot, which is it always like, just feeds my soul when I get to do that, I swear.

Are you like an author or something? I still, that's still wild you are, I know it's still wild. Best selling even.

Oh my god, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my Gods.

But and I was also listening to an audiobook that was really good whenever I could. Oh, what were you listening to? It is it's one that I've already, like, read the hardcover of, but I'm just revisiting. It's Stephen King's on writing, and it's him talking about, like, the writing process, and talks about his life and how he became a writer. And like, his do's and don'ts. And it's just like, And it's the audiobook is narrated by him. Oh, I always loved that.

Which is fun. And he reminded me that I need to be a little more. I say, like, he reminded me, like, we're more buds. Yeah, you and Stephen talking, Hey, I'm vibing.

I'm manifesting here, I'm manifesting being friends with Stephen King. I'm shaking my coffee, and I'm sorry if you hear it. that's part of the manifestation process. She shakes her coffee around. Sorry about it.

Sorry, it's just witch shit, okay, but he reminded me that I need. I've been trying to get into routines better because I thrive in a routine me too. But like this, last year has been a tough year, it hasn't been a great year.

It's been how you say, shitty.

Honestly, to put it lightly, it's been very shitty, but it's been, you know, things have been. Yeah, and things have been like, you know, we've been vibing a lot better lately, like everywhere and every part of our lives. Yeah, reclaiming our power. Yeah, exactly. And so I've been trying to get back.

I fell out of a lot of routines during all of that. Yeah, I am no good without a routine or a deadline. I know you little cappy over there, so you know, Stephen, Mr.

King, If you will. He reminded me that you need to be strict on yourself when it comes to writing, and you need to write every single day. Probably around the same time, in the right, in the same place, that makes sense. I mean, that's what works for him. Well, that's how you got your first book done, that's the thing.

And I and I was doing that and I was really rolling and so I got myself back in that routine. And I was like, I'm going to do this. And it feels so fucking good, I feel like alive well. I want to start working out more in the morning before we start, so I feel like I can have my little workout time.

You can have your writing time and we'll just meet and then record a cool episode. We'll meet with beautiful, thriving minds, yes, and bodies and souls. My therapist told me. The three most important things to like maintain a healthy mind are getting enough sleep at night, cooking like at home, like cooking for yourself, and exercising.

And she was like, and not like, going like crazy, but just like 30 minutes of exercise a day. Like, go for a walk, just fucking climb some stairs. I don't know so far, I've got like one out of those three, so I'm getting there.

I don't even know if I have one out of those three right now. I'm like, take out, sit on the couch, don't do anything good for your mind because I'm in a state of sad. Yeah, I've had a rough weekend, yeah.

I flew across the country. For someone you think is your friend when they're not your friend, that's all. I'll say, Yeah, don't do that.

Yeah, not great. Yeah, I flew across the country, was going to, like, celebrate.

Somebody put a whole lot of shit into it and didn't get a whole lot of shit out of it. But you know, you live, you learn. Yeah, I think the universe was just like, Hey, maybe you don't need certain people in your life anymore. She's always, she's always, uh, teaching.

She is, and I feel bad maybe I just accidentally took all of your happy weekend vibes, so I apologize for that. That's okay.

No, you know what, I, I'll share the wealth. I kept thinking, like, is this a decision I should make? like, should I do this?

And whenever you're second guessing yourself, you always trust your gut. Yeah, I'm not good, I'm not good at that.

So I'm I'm preaching something that I don't always do, but I always want to do afterwards because I always regret not listening to my tummy. You and I were saying it this morning. It's like we're both kind of introverts, like I've. I've used to be such an extrovert. But over the past couple of years, I feel like I've become a little more introverted. I think, because I'm like, happy with my home life.

Yeah, so I was like, maybe I need to, like, get out there and like, do things and like, show myself I can have fun. And then I was like, whoa, and you're like, wait, this isn't fun.

I am having fun, just a different kind of fun. Yeah, I came home and I was, I said to Drew, I was like, You're my fun, Oh, Drew.

Drew's my fun too. Yeah, he's so fun. I love Drew. I love it.

I like our little bubble that we have. Like you, John drew a couple other friends out there on the outskirts. But, like, you know what, I learned in, like, the first couple weeks of 27, keep your motherfucking circle small, you know, you know?

You know, I know, you know, I know. Well, you know, that was our weekends.

I hope you guys, I hope you guys had more of a a my weekend, if like, a happy weekend, I suppose. Um, and you know what, we're going to get ash right the fuck out of that shitty weekend and into a great week. Fantastic, not with this case, but, like, we're going to do it in other ways.

No, we're going to, we're going to do something with, like the kids tomorrow, that's going to be fun. Yeah, that honestly feeds my soul. I think I've just really moved on to a different part of life.

They will feed your soul all day, every day. I'm ready to just like, hang out with your kids, have my own kids. Just fucking vibe, Oh, it's the best. Yeah, it's so much fun.

Built-in friends. They make you feel great, they do make me feel great. This morning. The hugs I got, I was like, Oh bitch, why did I leave? Oh bitch?

Well, I guess, um, yeah. So I hope you guys had a great weekend. And um, here we go because we got to do part two here. And it's going to get a little rough. And I know this case is really, really sad. Yeah, I think I should tell you right off the bat, it's going to get a little, a little tough to listen to. But there is, you know, this case involves sexual assault and involves a very gruesome attack. And this guy's just a dick.

And okay, you just start before I start asking questions, Okay, okay.

Okay, okay, all right. So in case you are just coming here, we are in part two of the murder, the kidnapping and murder of Denise Huber. When we last left you, police investigators had found that. Um, chest freezer.

Yes, in John Famolaro's rented rider truck that he had stolen, yep, and had kept for for months and months.

Many, many, many months. And they were like, Oh yeah, that is missing, yes. And when they had opened the freezer, they'd found a body inside. They were fairly certain that this was the body of missing Denise Huber.

Um, so that is where we left you. We're going to move right on to where the investigation began. Okay, so the body was transported to the medical examiner's office, and that's where, at first, an external examination was conducted. This was done by Dr.

Anne Buck Uh, Buchholz, who, um, was the medical examiner. At the time, Denise's head had been wrapped in three white kitchen garbage bags. Oh my god, yeah, that's gruesome.

When they removed all of those garbage bags, um, you could see that her entire head had been covered in gray tape. What quote? From the mouth to the upper eyelids? Jesus, What is this?

Now, Dr Buchholz noted that the head had many external injuries to it. The skull was what she what they referred to as basically shattered. Yeah, wow.

Uh, horrifically. There was also noted to be a number of curved and oval shaped lacerations, and through these lacerations, brain tissue was visible. Oh my god, that's how bad this was. There were also fragments of the white plastic bags that were embedded in these fractures in the skull, which indicated that the bags had been put over Denise's head. Before the injuries were inflicted. What?

Because they had gone into the wounds. Oh, they ended up reconstructing her skull, and they showed that there was at least 31 separate injuries to her skull. Holy shit, 31 separate injuries.

This guy's a monster. And Dr Buchholz noted that there was probably many more than the 31 because there was fractions, fractures on top of fractures. What it was a frenzied, horrific, horrifically brutal assault.

And I think you said last time that he didn't even know her, yeah, now. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head. I would think, um, there would have been a lot of bleeding when this happened.

And the thing is, outside of this, there didn't appear to be a lot of evidence of trauma anywhere else on the body. Okay, it seemed like it was very focused on her head, which is horrifying. At first, there didn't seem to be evidence of sexual assault, and they were hoping that there wasn't what they said was. Although Dr.

Buchholz stated that a sexual assault can occur without trauma to the vaginal region. They didn't see any initially, so they had to allow Denise's body to basically thaw out before they could do all the tests they needed to. Because, remember, she's been frozen for years at this point. So when that time came, they did do additional swabs. Um, they took, and when they came back, um, the and this is really graphic, I'm sorry.

The anal swabs were positive for the presence of some degraded semen. Oh my, um, so she was raped, yeah, now. The medical examiner also took prints from the body and they submitted them for processing.

They came back two days later indicating that the body was that of missing Newport Beach woman Denise Huber. So it was officially confirmed, right? They were pretty sure, right off the bat. But the discovery came back as so heartbreaking and shocking for Denise's family, her friends, Lone Huber, her mother, told reporters. It's not the answer we wanted, but at least we got it. Because, remember, they've been going through years for this of nothing, of absolutely nothing, no leads.

They didn't even get a chance to run down anything and like, and hit a brick wall. They had nothing. It was just brick wall after brick wall. Right off the bat. Just like random tips coming in that were going nowhere, yeah.

So obviously this is not what they want to hear, this is not the outcome they're looking for. Of course, you're always hoping your daughter or son or child is going to be found alive. But they were trying to prepare themselves for the worst. And at least now, they know, at least now, they know that she is not out there, still waiting to be found, and she can be laid to rest.

Now, Costa Mesa. Detectives were also very, very dismayed by this news, Sergeant Jerry Holloway said. This may be the end to one of this department's biggest frustrations ever. I would think, because again, it's not like. This was one of those things where they just had lead after lead and they didn't pan out. They got nothing, so this is for it.

To end this way is like a slap in the face, like it really is. It's just like all of it came crashing down at once.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act. And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia or a corrupt police coverup?

If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a coverup to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion, and after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision to end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is. Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like, at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop around, she's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast, like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, no, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating.

Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem, or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline, and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.

The discovery of Denise's body may have brought the search to a very, very tragic conclusion. But it did open up a whole new part of the case. Because everyone involved wanted to know who the fuck is this guy, who did this to her, who is this man? And how did she wind up nearly 400 miles away from where she was last seen? Like, what happened here?

That's exactly all of my questions, yeah. Sergeant Holloway told reporters We could not link him to the investigation before today. That's so strange to me. And investigators in Arizona, luckily obtained a search warrant and they'd begun digging through Farmilaro's house in Dewey, which had belonged to his father until his death.

So the search of his home was pretty tough and pretty intense because it was covered in trash and clutter. By the time they were done, they had collected over 100,000 items from the home. What the fuck, yep. And many of them were crucial to the investigation.

Like in the garage, they discovered two boxes labeled Christmas. In those boxes, they found several black garbage bags. Like the one Denise's body had been wrapped in. Several of Denise's belongings. personal belongings were in boxes labeled Christmas. Her wallet, her checkbook, her car keys, her purse, her lipstick, her ID, everything she had on her. Several of the items appeared to be bloodstained as well.

Another box had the clothing she had been wearing the night she disappeared in it her jacket, her dress, her underwear, her high heels. The dress appeared to have been torn around the left shoulder, and the shoes had, quote, severe scrapes on the back of both heels. As if she was dragged, perhaps, and the tip of one heel had been broken off.

Now, also in the box with Denise's clothing was a bloodstained hammer, a bloodstained pair of men's jeans, a bloodstained sweatshirt, dried blood soaked rags and a pair of surgical gloves. Turned inside out, Who the fuck is this guy? And the fact that he kept all of that, he even kept the surgical gloves, I was just going to say, even the gloves.

Like, just took them off how you would normally, like inside out and threw them in a box. And like, just kept that in his house. For it's been three years at this point, yeah, he had kept it like he had kept these for years at this point, that is so disturbing. And a third box was found in the garage as well, and these contained the empty box for the handcuffs that were used to secure Denise's hands behind her back.

He kept the box, so he kept, like, I think you had said it last time, he kept, like, multiple, multiple trophies, so many items to look back at it. It also had a bloodstained nail puller. Which if you look that up, what?

More bloody rags, a roll of duct tape and white plastic garbage bags, like the ones that were wrapped around Denise's head. When you say nail puller, you mean, like, like, construction nail puller. What was that used for? It's like a giant like crowbar looking thing, with like a slit in it to, like, yank the nails out.

Oh my God, it sounds like he used many things to kill her with. He's a fucking monster. Who is this man? He's a fucking monster.

This is another unfortunate instance where the guy named John is a shipwreck. Damn it. Now. Inside the house, they found more of what they needed to tie him to Denise and her body. In the house, they found the receipt for the freezer, which showed that it had been purchased in June 10th, 1991, which was a week after Denise had disappeared. Wow.

They also found the handcuff keys inside a desk drawer. And what is even more horrific is the fact that they found a ton of issues of the Orange County Register, which was a newspaper. And all of them had featured stories about Denise's disappearance. They also found a videotape of the episode of Inside Edition that featured a segment of Denise's disappearance. He taped it and this one had, like, a whole segment about the search that had gone undergone to find her. Like, with her family on it, her parents upset.

What a fucking animal had. The Fu had taped it on a videotape and had saved articles about her disappearance. What happened to this man to like, like, what like?

This isn't one of those things where you're like, Oh, like, you know, like he needs, of course, he needs to be locked away. But like this seemed like it was like a snap or something like that. You know what I mean, like, nothing's ever, you know, validating it, but like, you're like, Wow. This is just one of those instances where someone, like, lost it, right? He saved everything.

And then had a videotape where he could watch her family and friends and the investigators missing her and trying to find her. And articles about the disappearance, with quotes from her parents, with quotes from her family and friends like this is so disturbing. He's a fucking demon, truly.

And just found her by happenstance. Yeah, oh, that's so upsetting. And so back in Costa Mesa. Investigators began digging into his history, and they started paying particular attention to his life around the time that Denise disappeared in 1991. And that year, he was working as a commercial painter and had been living and working out of a warehouse space in Laguna Beach, California.

So, of course, they went straight to that warehouse space, yeah. Crime scene technicians found evidence of blood spatter on the wall and floor in the corner of the warehouse. So he did this in his place of work.

Mm hmm. When technicians removed the piece of drywall of that piece and the like wood framing, they found a huge blood stain behind the wall. That was described as quote a thick, deep maroon color. Oh my God, and nobody had ever discovered that before. In a corner.

In a corner of this warehouse in Laguna Beach, California. And nobody ever saw that and reported it because this stain was behind the drywall. Oh, okay, that's the thing.

That's the stain behind the drywall now. His defense lawyer, Larry Katz, maintained that his client was innocent.

Was in his possession. Yep, what is circumstantial about him having a dead body on his property? Yeah, why?

Because he told reporters, I have every confidence in my client's innocence. Somebody should have said, Look me in the eyes and say that, yeah, like, look me in the eyes, are you kidding me?

Yeah, and yeah, it's what and he. He also said that, um, Famolaro was, quote appropriately depressed about the situation.

He, Oh, yeah, he's like, super bummed that this happened. Yep, oh. But he also insisted that his client not speak to anyone, which I bet.

That's pretty bold. Um, I'm shocked by that, like, just hearing this man be like, and I, I understand that's his job, I get it.

But it is shocking to hear all of that. Evidence, including she was found there on his property. The receipt for the freezer that she was found in was found there.

Well, the box for the handcuffs that are on her body currently when they found her, is in his house. And I'm sorry, but all of her belongings, that's why I'm like.

His semen being found in her body, can he? Did he look up the definition of circumstantial? Like, I'm a little confused. Don't you think that with a case like as narrow, like the way that she was found, wouldn't you go for, like, insanity, at the very least, rather than circumstantial?

But I think, honestly, you couldn't go for insanity because it would be hard because of that taped inside edition thing. All the newspapers like. That shows that he, he didn't find what he did wrong, he liked it. He sat there and watched, he sat there and watched her family cry about it. Oh my God.

On a videotape. But I'm like, circumstantial is not the way to go, my guy, like, there's no way to go here. Now. I suppose we have to tell you about John Famolaro, well, I just want to know what the fuck he is.

So he was born June 10th, 1957, in Long Island, New York, so he bought the freezer on his birthday. What the fuck? It gets more and more horrifying the more you go into it, yeah.

What? and killed her a week before her birth? His birthday and then went on his birthday, purchased the freezer and that was his birthday. That is unreal, yeah.

He was the youngest of three children. His parents were Anne and Angela Famolaro, according to John. We always have to take their thing. His mother was, quote, the dominant force in the family, while his father was pretty passive and tolerated her demands and verbal abuse. Which could absolutely be true. But this is just coming from him.

A year after John was born, the family moved from Long Island to Santa Ana because his father had been sent to establish a manufacturing plant in Garden Grove, California. The children, which included his brother Warren and sister Marion, were really, really close to their father. They had a very loving relationship, by all accounts.

They really got along, Their relationship with their mother was a different story, according to them. They said it was a very erratic. It was a very tense relationship, not a good one, not a loving one. According to all the children, including his siblings, the mother was very difficult, very confrontational, and she was very controlling. She was also a devout Catholic, which in and of itself, I'm not saying, is a bad trait.

But she was because of that, she was very, and she was, like, very devout. So she was very preoccupied with saving their souls and would use that as justification for abusing them physically and emotionally.

And that's the bad part of that kind of devoutness. And the children also said that they got isolated a lot from, you know, from other children, really, like they didn't get to play with other children a lot. They were isolated from kids at church. But then those who knew them around this time said that the children seemed very focused and very well behaved.

Which I say, sure, I'm sure they were very focused and very well behaved. They had an abusive mother. Usually those kind of kids are trying to keep it together so they don't get hurt exactly now. Apparently, the outside of the home looked very neat and clean and tidy.

No one would have ever thought that something was going on inside. Totally different story. According to the children, the inside was cluttered trash, food, magazines, everything, newspapers, just things stacked everywhere. And they acknowledged that this was also something that their maternal grandmother had done, so it seemed like this was just something that came down the family line.

Kind of thing, it's like a mental illness, kind of thing. They also said that Anne was their mother, was very paranoid, like, very paranoid. And she also had this like, obsessive, like, kind of doomsday thing. Where she thought they had to like, hoard things. Because, like, the end was coming.

Now, when the children became adolescents, she also got very preoccupied with sex. Oh no, I had a feeling it was over there, yeah, and there wasn't very productive or very healthy discussions about sex in that household. She even bathed them personally into their preteen years. Oh.

She was a little strange with her behavior for bedtime, according to the children. And years later, Warren Famolaro, the brother, would be convicted of sexually assaulting three children and serve a sentence in a facility for mentally disordered sex offenders. So something was going on in that house. That's really sad. That did not help them become healthy adults.

Now, as a teen and young adult, John Famolaro developed a lot of unhealthy coping skills. He liked everything to be very symmetrical, and it was like an obsessive kind of, like everything needs to be symmetrical. And he would also go into bursts of energy and hyperactivity and then depression. So he seemed like he had unhealthy coping skills because he was not diagnosed with. Whatever was clearly going on here.

He was like, I'm not going to diagnose him, I don't know, but there's clearly something going on. That should have been diagnosed and treated so that he could form healthy coping skills, and he didn't get that. This is a lot.

So he got when he was like, you know, in his teen years and stuff. He was bullied a lot because of these kind of things, right? And he would get in trouble a lot at school because of that. So, after graduating from high school, he attended a Catholic liberal arts college. And now that he was away from his mother, it did seem like he was getting better at his social skills.

Makes sense starting to, you know, I think that she was really keeping him at that level. Unfortunately, he did find college to not be super easy or tolerable for him. Retweet. And after enrolling in and dropping out of several schools and classes, he just stopped before completing it.

Mm hmm.

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Now, as an adult, there seemed like there was like two sides of him. Yeah, like John Famolaro, like people knew two different things on one hand. Friends remember him being very funny, an intelligent guy, very, very polite, is what he was described as. On the other people saw him as very secretive, a little manipulative. He could be like, too charming, like a smooth talker kind of thing, like a snake oil salesman kind of vibe.

So it seems like he had two very distinct sides of himself that he would show at any given moment, whatever helped him at the time. He is a Gemini. Yeah, there you go now. There was also a dark side to his personality that investigators found while interviewing his former girlfriends. Oh, no.

Because, according to one former girlfriend, I'm not going to say her name. She and John had taken a trip to New York City in 1987. And they were like, play fighting one morning, like as couples do, like, just woo, you know? But then John took it, like, too far. And he stripped her of her clothes and handcuffed her to a window in the hotel room, then left her there for several hours alone, handcuffed.

When he came back later, he was laughing, being like, this is hilarious. Like thought this was a funny game. And she was, like, clearly terrified and traumatized. That is so insane, I guess. After they left this trip and went back to California, they immediately broke up.

She was like, Bye, yeah. They did reconcile in 1991, which is the year that Denise went missing, but they didn't reconcile as a couple. They just like, talked it out.

Yeah, and they became, they, like, remained friends after he moved to Arizona in 1992. OK, but court records indicate that John also took photographs of her during this whole thing. She said she doesn't remember this at all because she was so traumatized that I think she just blocked it out.

Yeah, like PTSD. But in another incident that occurred in March of 1989, John was dating another woman. And, according to court records, she stopped by his house one afternoon just to visit, and she tried to leave his house once the visit was over. And John Quote pushed her onto the bed, causing her back, shoulder and head to hit a bookcase.

Once she was down, he forced her hands above her head and handcuffed her to the bed frame. Oh, no. Then he removed her clothing against her wishes, forcibly, and indicated his intent to rape her. Oh, it was only after she had started screaming as loud as she could and saying that she was going to report him, that he released the handcuffs and let her leave.

But when he when she left, he called her a bitch and said, You're the one that brought this on. Oh yeah, because that's how that works. Yeah, so he's a fucking foul beast, he's an animal.

Apparently later, when they had talked about this because they broke up, but they had talked about it. And I guess he'd said to her that she just obviously didn't know. Mature sex games, Uh, what? And I'm like, Honey, get a grip, seriously.

Get a grip. Like, I don't think you know about mature and consensual sex, I don't think you know what being a human is. No now. In late 1992, John moved to Arizona to help his mom because which, like Whoa, because she was caring for his ailing father.

Okay, and remember, he did have a good relationship with his father, right? And he actually kept living in the house with his mother after his father died. Oh, I can't imagine that was good for his health.

Which those kind of things and those kind of relationships, those parent-child relationships. When they are like that, sometimes they just cling, you know what I mean? Like, the person will continue it.

Now that is John Famolaro. Wow, what a story, yeah. And on July 20, 1994, after he had been arrested, John Famolaro appeared before a judge for the first time.

At the hearing, authorities testified that the extent of Denise's wounds were just unmentionable. And they called the repeated blows to the head heinous and depraved. And they said, all of this means that it warrants the death penalty agreed, which would automatically disqualify him from receiving bail.

Now his defense attorney, Lawyery Katz, there, he argued that the evidence was entirely circumstantial. And since he had no history of violence, uh what, he was not a flight risk. I disagree.

The judge was like, No, the judge was like, Hey, did you read this case? Yeah, he was like, Did you just walk in here? like, just wake up, come in here not knowing anything, like, Did you talk to your client?

But he was denied bail and returned back to jail, thankfully so his bail hearing began. A series of hearings and delays that dragged this case on for several years, before it even reached the criminal trial phase. So, in late August, Famolaro waived extradition and was transported from Arizona to Orange County, California, and he was then put in the Orange County Jail to await his arraignment.

Okay. On September 26, 1994, he appeared before an Orange County grand jury. It was during this hearing that the prosecution announced the attachment of special circumstances to the murder trial, right? They said that Denise Huber's death occurred during her kidnapping, which would make him eligible for the death penalty.

In total, he was indicted on one charge of kidnapping, one charge of murder with special circumstances, and one count of sodomy. Ooh, now he was no longer being represented by Larry Katz. At this point, I wonder why.

Because Larry was like, Ooh, this isn't circumstantial at all, and I have to go. And now. We had a public defender named Leonard Gomlia, and he acknowledged that the case was complicated a little bit. Particularly because of the semen found in Denise Huber's body, right. But he maintained the position that it was completely circumstantial, which I'm a little confused about.

Y'all, he said. Anybody who thinks they know what happened that night is only guessing. I don't know about that, I don't know. I think all the evidence points to your client.

He said There's no evidence of any trauma that something forcible happened. There may be something consensual happening. Some of the questions remain unanswered, and you can read the physical evidence in many ways. There's no evidence that any trauma happened. Like, I'm sorry.

I know he's doing his job, I get it well. Like, is he, though? Because there is evidence that there's trauma, what the fuck?

Like, it's just hard to hear, that's all you have to say. It's just hard to hear somebody say that. Like, something along the lines of like, this was a frenzy killing. And then, like the rest of forever, he just had.

Because it's just like, Oof, you're really sticking with that. Yeah, I don't think this was the way to come at it, I don't think this was the way to come at it.

Oh, no, I don't know what the right way to come at it is, I'll say that, but this isn't it. Now he stayed. The defense attorney stayed very vague in terms of what they said here, but they were definitely laying the groundwork for a defense. Where Denise went with John Famolaro willingly and consented to sex. Yeah, I could see that.

Which is a bold move to take. Like, her car was found abandoned on the side of the road. You guys, I don't know if you remember that. This is one of those where I think you should, just like, you should just go at it and be like, Yeah, he did it. But let's try to minimize this a little bit. If that's what you're, you know, because that's their job.

But this, and this is the problem with this defense that they were laying groundwork for. Because it's like, how does it explain the exceedingly violent death that she suffered? How are you telling me? And just the fact that her car was abandoned, she clearly didn't go anywhere willingly.

Exactly that's the thing it undermines the kidnapping and sexual assault charges. That, and this is the thing like, we're sitting here, looking at it from this point of view, being like, what the fuck?

But they're doing it because if they do somehow plant a seed like that in somebody in the jury's minds, then it undermines the sexual assault and kidnapping charges that you need for those special circumstances to elevate it to a death penalty. So they're trying to remove it from that wild now. Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen O'Leary set the trial date for October 2nd, 1995. So she was missing in 1991..

So the prosecution and defense had a lot of time to prepare. But complicating matters for both sides were the introduction of DNA evidence, which at this point was pretty new. It was a pretty new science. As far as you know, the public knew. Yeah, and by April of 1995, the defense petitioned the court for a delay. They noted the extraordinary amount of evidence seemed from Famolaro's home in Arizona, which, I'm, like, circumstantial evidence, you mean?

Is that what you're noting is you need to go through the circumstantial evidence? Okie, dokie, he said. We have to go through 65 boxes of documents, and he said he documented his whole life.

So Judge O'Leary approved the request and set the new trial date for April 29th, 1996.

Yeah, and then they waited even more time to see him even begin to face justice. Finally, on April 21st 1997, Oh my God. Jury selection began.

Six years in Orange County Superior Court, and it was the people of the State of California versus John Famolaro. Denise's former boyfriend, Stephen, the one who couldn't go to the concert that night, told the L.A. Times Everyone I know still wants to know what's happening in the case. But unfortunately, Denise's friends and family would just have to wait several more weeks for the trial to even begin.

Because once again, the defense held it up with objections to certain jury members and they said there was a death in the family. It's like, why are you just trying to keep this ongoing for the family? Just let this family rest, man, so you don't have a good case.

Send them to jail at the end. Now. After a long and very tense jury selection, the trial finally started on May 8th, 1997. In his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Evans laid out the state's case against John Famolaro. Telling the jury how Denise had been pulled from her car by him, then sexually assaulted and brutally and gruesomely killed. He told the jury Denise did not go easily. And then he detailed the extent of her injuries and assault.

And according, because she fought back. Yeah, absolutely, I'm sure now. According to the district attorney, Famolaro had gone out of his way to purchase a freezer and steal a rider truck in order to keep Huber's body. And he said, Keep it as quote, a perverse trophy to remind himself of the success he had that night.

And it's true. He'd gone out of his way to keep this stuff. And like, he just would go in there and like, Look, that's the thing. It's like, what did you? what were you doing?

Right, like, Oh, it's unthinkable, it really is. It is now, anticipating the defense's argument that Denise went willingly with John Famolaro. Evans made sure to remind the jury that Huber's car had broken down. In a well-lit area, surrounded by several options for assistance and just a short walk from her parents house.

Oh, no. Under those circumstances, it makes absolutely zero sense that she would, instead of going to get help in these several avenues laid out to her. She would get in a car with a sketchy guy, no, who would have definitely immediately driven her in the wrong direction, too, exactly.

Like, it wouldn't have happened, no? And it's so sad that her car broke down that close to home. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, if her car hadn't broken down, it's like, Oh.

Now, among the first witnesses called by the prosecution was Rob Calvert, who was the friend she went to the concert with. He testified the events of the evening, and he included the fact that they definitely had several drinks over the course of the evening. But he was like, it wasn't a big deal. Under cross-examination, Leonard Gumlia, the defense attorney, honed in on that fact. But it definitely backfired on him because following his cross-examination of Calvert, he had to make it clear that he didn't mean to imply, quote that Huber was drunk, but to suggest that she had drunk enough. To not want to summon help from authorities and to take a little more risk than you might otherwise do in that situation. Oh so victim-blaming. So it's like, that wasn't a good look on your part, and it's like, Oh okay, so she's not allowed.

A grown woman of age is not allowed to drink at a concert, and if she does so, then she doesn't like. You know, what do you think happened? Of course, she was going to get brutally assaulted and murdered and kidnapped. No, not a good look. Isn't it interesting how these things, like, don't really get brought up unless it's a female victim, exactly?

Are you going to do that with a guy if this was the other way around, right? No, the defense's line of questioning was definitely aimed at supporting their ultimate defense, which was she went willingly. And they hadn't presented that to the jury yet. Because they were trying to lead up to it and kind of lay groundwork to get that in the jury, to get the jury thinking. They came up with it kind of thing, so they thought they were doing that, but it kept backfiring on them. I was going to say, this is a hot mess on their side.

Yeah, it just kept making them look shitty, to be honest, and they had no proof of it, right? Because how do you even prove that, I don't know. And again, it doesn't make sense that you would go willingly with some strange guy. And it's not like John Famolaro looked like a wholesome guy that you wanted to get in the car with, like, he just didn't.

Really so. The prosecution rested its case on May 14th, and the defense requested that the judge drop the kidnapping charge. What they said quote I understand that she ended up in a place she didn't want to be and ended up in a condition she didn't want to be in dead.

What do you mean killed? But there's no evidence that she got there forcefully.

I'm sorry, what did you see? Her shoes? Yeah, there were drag marks.

Oh, thank you. Because the prosecution strongly objected, they argued that they believed Denise was blindfolded, which they said had a ton of implication. And Judge John Ryan agreed with Evans, saying there are too many reasonable inferences to show kidnapping. And they were trying to argue that those scuff marks came from something else, they weren't from being dragged. Are you kidding me?

Her heel literally broke. Yeah, on May 19th, the defense tried to change the tactic. Now y'all.

And the defense didn't deny that Famolaro had killed Denise Huber. Instead, they were arguing that because she was a little intoxicated, she made a poor decision to not seek help from authorities. And got in the car with the stranger. So now she's trying to say, they're trying to say, okay, she did get willingly in that car, but she was drunk. That's why. So now they're trying to backtrack it a bit.

So it's okay to kill people if they're drunk, okay? Initially, I was saying that she got in there willingly, like, weren't mentioning the drunk thing. Just she wanted to get in the car with him, yup, and consented to sex, yup.

And now they're saying, well, no, no, no, she's drunk. So she made a dumb decision. That's what. Now they're trying to be like, Wow, what a dumb decision that was. And also, even if it was the case, and it was like a silly choice, yeah.

It shouldn't result in you getting murdered.

Right? The defense said that, um, the shoes Denise was wearing that night had the scuffs on them. Hadn't happened when she was dragged as the prosecution was trying to. When did they have a wildly claim? They said it happened when Denise was, quote, walking up and down the freeway embankment where the car was found.

Oh, she was dragging, dragging her heels, right? That makes a lot of sense, which I want to be like, Okay, did anyone in that courtroom go? Can you show me physically how you do that? Yeah, how would that happen?

Just show me, put on a pair of heels. yeah, show me how you scuff the back of your heels, because that's the thing to me, how that happens. So the jury deliberated for just five hours before returning a verdict of guilty on the charges of first-degree murder. Good, also kidnapping, yeah.

And also Sodomy, yeah. Dennis Huber told reporters after the verdict. It's a step in justice. The man who did that is that much closer to meeting his justice, the death penalty. Good.

So her parents wanted it. And although the verdict came as a relief to a lot of people, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Evans was quick to remind everyone This is not a case of great law enforcement cracking a crime. It was a fluke, it fell into their hands. He almost got away with it.

It's true, and unfortunately, that is 100 true. Yeah, he almost got away with it and he would have done this again, there's not a doubt in my personal mind. It was honestly because of Elaine and her husband that Elaine trusted her gut and wrote down the information. She was a bad bee.

Without Elaine, this might have never been caught. Yeah, he could have kept on living that way and other people could have fallen victim. So it's it's really upsetting when you think about it that this was a complete fluke. Absolutely, that he was found. It's also I can't imagine being one of those ex-girlfriends and being like, How close you were? seriously, especially, yeah, one of them.

It was like a couple weeks before he murdered. Yes, like, like, had, he's like, I don't. I don't even want to say snapped, because that's not what happened. But had he decided right open up that part of him, that was clearly there. It's very upsetting now.

John Famolaro returned to court in late May for the sentencing phase. Um, over two weeks, friends and family got to testify on the impact of Denise's murder on their lives. With him in the room at times, I guess the jury and several members of the court were in tears with all of these testimonials. It was a really emotional, um, emotional sentencing phase, you would think so. And the defense called several character witnesses to testify on Famolaro's behalf, including his mother, who told the court. Yeah, told the court that her son had truly, and she was actually right here, she said her son had truly never received the help he needed.

Yeah, which, yeah, 100 percent, um. After several more delays, Famolaro finally came back into court on September 5th, 1997. I remember the sending sentencing phase was two weeks in May, and this was in September. Judge Ryan John Ryan sentenced him to death, he said. Just imagine what was going through her mind.

And Judge Ryan said that the brutality, the crime, was the reason that he was imposing the death penalty. He said nothing, he couldn't think of something that matched the brutality of this. I can't either now, as you know, it's a death penalty case.

So his verdict was set for automatic appeal, and the first appeal was heard in 2007. Oh, wow. And it argued that the publicity surrounding the case in Orange County basically ensured that he wasn't going to receive a fair trial. It said both that the court erred on denying the change of uh, venue motion. I..e. That at the time of the motion, it was reasonably likely that a fair trial could not be had, and that the error was prejudicial. I...e. That is reasonable, it is reasonably likely that a fair trial was not, in fact, had police.

The appeal motion also argued that the outcome of the case case was very influenced by the media coverage. In which, I can't believe this, in which quote? Denise Huber had been portrayed in a very favorable light, while Famolaro had been portrayed in negative terms. That's probably because nobody ever found a dead body on Denise's property. And um, they found a dead body and multiple other horrific, horrific, heinous things on that man's property. Yeah, I'd say, that's why, probably, most likely. It's like, I love that. It's like, Oh, yeah. They portrayed Denise in a favorable light.

And it's like, No, maybe she was just an awesome person, you pieces of shit, she was, clearly, maybe that was it. Like, I don't think they were like taking out giant black marks on her record, like she was a good person, exactly.

She was a decent human being with her friend that night, yeah, and she was close to her family. She was a good friend. People liked her, she liked animals, like she was okay, like, fuck you, like what? John Familar is a piece of shit and a woman who has abused and, like, traumatized several women, so okay.

That's why, if that's the media influencing people, then, like, I don't understand this, apparently, nor do I, yeah, now. Ultimately, the appeals court rejected both of these things and upheld the lower court's original verdict and sentence of death. In 2006, a United States district Court judge ruled that California's capital punishment laws were unconstitutional. Since then, all death row sentences have remained in place, but are essentially sitting in like a purgatory here.

Yeah, like a limbo. They're on indefinite hold, basically, including John Familaros. He remains on death row in San Quentin prison, and he will likely stay there for the rest of his life. For Denise's parents, Dennis and Loan, whatever happens to John Familaro from this point, they don't give a shit. At this point, I don't blame, Dennis, told a reporter from the Los Angeles Times in 2006. It's done, it's done.

I feel there's nothing more that can be done. It's up to the state to do something with them. Now. They're basically like, Fuck you guys, yeah. And they said, after more than 30 years, which wow, the pain of losing their daughter is with them daily. It doesn't go away, it doesn't dull, nothing makes it better.

But they have managed to find at least some peace. Uh, Dennis said. The wound never heals, you just learn how to deal with it, and it doesn't hurt quite as much as it did at first. Oh, but that is the horrific case of the kidnapping and murder and assault of Denise Huber. That's a tragic, tragic case and just so brutal.

John Familaro is a I. It's hard to even describe him, I don't think he, I don't think there's words on this planet. I could, possibly because there's no remorse, either, there's no remorse.

There's no never apologized apology, there's no real thing. Like he didn't give any insight as to what, like. He just stumbled upon her, yeah, and like, what, he just drove by her, and that was it. You have to wonder if he'd killed before that, right? Because that is like, I mean, maybe who knows, some people do just do something like this.

That's the thing like, you want to say like, there's no way that this can be his first, because it's so brutal, brutal. But like that happens, it does. Sometimes they start like this, but it's just it's horrifying. And it's it's the trophies. Yeah, and the amount of trophies that he kept. It seems like it was blood-stained, like he kept the boxes for the handcuffs. I mean, like, on Christmas, everything, everything. Yeah, he's a sick. fuck yeah, he truly is.

This is a a doozy. Yeah, it's awful, but wow, I I mean, it sounds like at least her family was able to find peace in the closure of it. But obviously nothing takes away. And honestly, they had to sit in that courtroom and hear what happened and look at this piece of shit that stole their daughter away. I know I hope nothing but the best for them going forward. I know they seem like very kind, very sweet, yeah, like a really good family, like.

I really hope that, yeah, at least some good things happen to them after this that they could enjoy. Like, Oh, I don't know how you would ever be able to again. Because they have truly been through something that none of us can even fathom conjure up in our head, at least here in this room. Yeah, oh my, well, I feel like we've had a lot of back-to-back, like very, very brutal cases. Yes, so I'm working on a haunted case right now. We need that. Yeah, we need that.

You know, spooky season is upon us. Yeah, I say that, um, I was like, to me, sure, to me, it's upon me, that's what I mean.

It's like, I can smell it. Oh so, bring me the spooky cases, spooky scary skeletons and pumpkins and other shit and other shit, that's the song. But yeah, but yeah, my my haunting has like some murder in it, which is like, very tragic, but it's mostly spooky. Ookie, Ookie, I like it.

So hope you keep listening and hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't tune in next week for something haunted in the light. Bye, bye.