Hey weirdos, it's Ash.
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bit more to the second part and i think it's just a lot of information to take in okay um this is the murder of denise huber um i don't know if you guys have heard about you guys have probably heard about this case i remember hearing about it briefly but i didn't know the details that's pretty much where i'm at when i got into the details of it i was like holy shit this family i just want to like wrap my arms around this family because my goodness this is so senseless and so fucked up i know like part of the end and i can't imagine what this family went through yeah i really can't yeah and i've
been in like this like i had to like step away from it and i didn't help myself because this will be coming out like weeks after this happened but like the whole submarine thing the missing submarine yes like we don't have to get too far into it but they just figured out that it was like a catastrophic implosion which which is just like wild.
And I've been super hyper fixated on every detail of this thing just because it's like fast. The ocean is terrifying to me and the Titanic is terrifying to me, but so fascinating.
And it just took me on this ride of suddenly like starting to, starting to research like free diving as a competitive sport, which I didn't know was a thing.
You're the randomest person.
Yeah. My brain goes into a lot of places.
it's like start one place i can't i can't even make fun of you though because my brain is very chaotic yours is just chaotic in such a different way it's chaotic in like a very linear way like yeah actually like it goes forth and then it's like but branch off and go to this one yeah it's kind of connected and then from there which free diving is like you take a breath and you go down like 600 feet how is that possible i take a breath and i go to the deep end of the fucking pool and And I'm not okay.
I just had to take a deep breath thinking about it.
I don't know if you just saw that.
I was like, I literally just had – and I couldn't.
My lung capacity could never – No, I feel like I also know what you're going to say next, and that makes me have to take a deeper breath.
Yeah, because then I got – so once I started looking at freediving and I started becoming an expert on scuba diving and freediving because now I know everything, I started rolling into – because suddenly I came across something that was like, Like, oh, have you heard of the Nutty Putty Cave incident?
And I was like, excuse me?
And I started looking into it.
I'm not going to explain it to you here because I'm going to cover it in an episode.
Because the Nutty Putty Cave incident and caves in general are a whole different set of nightmares to me.
Caves? No. Spelunking is not for me.
Spelunking is a no for me, dog.
But The Descent was a great movie.
I haven't seen it. did not help my aversion to spelunking i don't want anything to help your aversion to it i hope you stay averse i mean it's probably it's the easiest thing to avoid i feel like so i think i'm okay like i don't think i'll ever accidentally spelunk but like no this really pushed me further away from it uh but yeah we i will definitely be covering that but i just wanted to let you guys in on what i have been like obsessively telling ash and john about for days and mikey like he's also been privy to all of this i walked in the house this morning and john was like is she doing the same
thing to you and i was like oh yeah oh yeah i was like you were you were gone for a while yesterday yeah i i heard all of it yeah you're like oh i've heard everything he was like yeah i'm back now and here i heard all of it she doubled down on it so but i know you guys are the same way you've said that before that you i've heard people message they've messaged me before and been like i do the same thing like i go crazy on things but this was one of those cases that i'm i'm about to cover the first part of that i could not stop digging into because it's awful oh no and we always say like these
you know the the victims always you're like what the fuck like they would have done so much in this world and denise is one of those people that you were just like ah and it just makes it all the more like a light snuffed out yeah truly so i want to begin begin this whole thing by talking about Denise Huber.
Denise Huber was born November 22nd, 1967 in Modesto, California.
She was the oldest child of two children born to Dennis and Lone Huber.
Very quickly, she displayed a love of learning and real, real intelligence.
Like when she wanted to learn something, she absorbed it all.
It's kind of funny that you were just talking about that.
It kind of made me think of her because she seems like one of those people that just loved to learn and would just eat up any kind of knowledge she could get and it's she didn't just eat it up she was able to absorb it and use it like she's just a really intelligent person and she also loved making everyone around her laugh and was really like from a tiny age and she was like a tiny little stand -up comic for the adults in her life stop that reminds me of one of yeah and she loved watching i love lucy and the three stooges and she would act out sketches from From the show for her family and friends.
That's adorable. I love that.
And she was adventurous, too.
And in the early years together, the Hubers lived in Fair Oaks, which was a neighborhood in Sacramento.
And while living there, she would usually bring her younger brother, Jeff, along on her adventures around the neighborhood, you know, like things that kids do, like searching for buried treasure and all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. He later said, my sister was kind of a tomboy when she was a kid.
That included her clothing right up until she went to college.
She always wore jeans and a T -shirt.
And she was very athletic, really good at baseball.
Oh, cool. She sounds like such a cool girl.
And in 1973, her father, Dennis Huber, accepted a new job as a mortgage officer with a bank in the San Fernando Valley.
So the family had to pack up and move.
They did this a lot because he would have to be moved a lot for his job.
Okay. So they moved five and a half hours south.
and that was to a neighborhood where they settled into a house in northfield which was a suburban community just outside of downtown la now the hubers were religious but not overly strict with their practice or beliefs and they just believed in the like you know the the practice of it and denise and jeff went to school at valley presbyterian school where their mother actually worked as a teacher.
And Jeff later described this saying, Denise did very well, and I got passing marks.
We couldn't get away with very much with mom teaching there.
So Denise continued to excel in her schoolwork, and she really took pride in it.
She took pride in being a good student.
And by the time junior high rolled around, she was actually really interested in literature.
And she just ate up books.
She loved to write, she loved to read, and she really fell fell in love with the work of james harriot in particular and one of his works was a book called all creatures great and small and it was about animals yeah um and it actually inspired denise to want to become a veterinarian veterinarian when she got older i love that now denise eventually transferred to los angeles baptist school in seventh grade and she stayed there until about the end of high school actually and according to her best friend in high school andrea luden i I believe it's pronounced.
Denise was still a tomboy through high school.
She never really got out of that phase.
Yeah. And really started expressing more of her passions like nature.
She loved being outside, hiking.
Hell yeah. And she loved sports especially.
It sounds like she was so multifaceted.
She was. That's the thing.
Because when like when you see her, she's like this cool tomboy girl.
Yeah. But she's like beautiful.
Right. And like she has this brilliant brilliant smile.
She's really smart.
She's really funny.
She loves the outdoors.
She's in the school, but she's also a bookworm.
Like, she hits everything on the list. She does.
And she's a Sagittarius.
So it makes sense that she's like an adventurer and like a wanderer.
Always wants to find new things.
There you go. I think Sagittarius people are really cool.
Yeah. And she was also a star on the basketball and softball teams at school.
Hell yeah. Star player.
it honestly felt like she could excel pretty effortless effortlessly at everything she tried but the reality is she also put in the hard work she sounds like mandy stavik yeah she really does i was thinking that too and it's like she made it look effortless but it was just she she had natural abilities of course but she really worked hard for stuff yeah like she put in the work yeah and outside of school denise also loved the ocean and swimming like speaking of the ocean which and And she was a very strong swimmer.
Yeah. She had, like, really practiced at home.
They had a pool at home and she made sure she was, like, I could swim across the ocean if I wanted to.
Hell, yeah. Now, shortly after she entered her senior year at high school at Los Angeles Baptist, her dad, Dennis, actually, his company wanted to transfer him to Richardson, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas.
The move didn't really seem to bother her brother, Jeff.
He was like, whatever, that's fine.
I'll move. but denise was devastated by the idea of moving away her senior year from her friends that sucks yeah and so the family discussed it amongst themselves and although they were not super comfortable with the idea or happy with it they eventually agreed to allow denise to remain in california for her final year of high school and stay with a family friend who was the claudia moreland and her family they knew them through with their church okay I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi it's mine not yours just kidding you
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So, and they agreed, like, we will absolutely take her for the year.
That's amazing. And, like, what good parents to, like, make that decision even though they weren't necessarily comfortable with it.
That's the thing. I'm sure it was really hard on both sides to be away from each other.
Yeah. But, like, they did what was best for the other person, and, like, that's cool that they were able to, like, come to that decision.
And have that kind kind of like love and respect for each other that's the thing it's a total that seems like a respect thing it is like the parent like her parents respected her enough to be like i understand where you're coming from yeah and they came up with a solution and although it was hard and not ideal they went with it yeah and it worked out that's great it worked out because after she graduated she went to texas and moved in with back with her family so like it all worked out um and so that just like kind of shows you what kind of family this is and what who these parents are and denise
then did two semesters at junior college and then applied and garnered acceptance to covenant college in chattanooga tennessee uh while there she met someone who would become a very close friend of hers debby datar and debbie later said about denise it was very easy becoming friends with denise because she had such a bubbly personality and everyone liked her and their closeness led them to become roommates as well they were rarely seen without the other And she said whenever I needed her, she would always be there.
Well, yeah, she just sounds like a really fucking awesome girl.
Right. It's just like, damn.
Like these are always the ones where you're just like, I want to know you.
Yeah. Like I want to know you more than like because of what happened to you.
Exactly. And like I'm pissed that the world is such a gross, disgusting place so that animals walk among us.
Now, after two years at Covenant College, Denise went back to live with her family, who by then had actually moved back to Newport Beach, California, california because of another transfer for dennis's company oh man that must have been really stressful i know and denise had no trouble like falling right back into southern california life sweet um but once settled there she didn't really know she she had wanted to be a veterinarian but right now she was kind of like i don't know on the fence i don't know if that's what i want to do she had a passion for animals still in nature like still loved
all that yeah but she was like i don't know if i want to like make that my job yeah i think it's hard when you're 18 and people are like hey what do you want to be for the rest of your fucking life?
You're like I have no idea.
Yeah. And so she was just kind of trying to figure out what her purpose was.
So she had also been dating a young man named Stephen Horrocks and was just settling in.
So she enrolled at the University of California in Irvine to finish out her degree and she got a job as a waitress at the old spaghetti factory.
Oh I think that place is haunted.
I think it is. Didn't we talk about that with Em?
We did. Yeah. And that's why we drink.
Go listen in that's why we drink.
I think we talked We talked about the one in Canada.
I think we did. You're right.
It was like an old train car or something.
Yeah, you're right.
This one is in Irvine.
And she continued working there until the summer of 1991.
1991 was the year that the Hubers would find their lives turned upside down.
Oh. On Sunday, June 2, 1991, Denise had tickets to see Morrissey perform.
Oh, so she's the coolest ever is what you're saying.
And he was performing at the Forum in Inglewood.
and she had gotten two tickets weeks earlier for her and steven her boyfriend and unfortunately steven couldn't get out of work to go at the last second and although denise was bummed of course she offered that because he was like give the ticket to someone else like yeah like i want you to go so she offered the second ticket to a co -worker of hers named rob calvert she was friends with him like they got along really well and he was psyched to go with her and later actually said about her she was everyone's dream date and he said he knew they were just friends and that was fine with him but he
was just happy they could hang out together what a compliment right like she was everyone's dream date what a nice thing to say and denise picked rob up at his apartment in huntington beach and they drove to the theater and they didn't want to pay for all the stuff inside of the venue because it's crazy expensive yeah so they just drank vodka and orange juice in the parking lot before going inside my god the amount of time it's called pre -gaming it's called pre -gaming and during the show Rob went and bought a 20 ounce beer for the two of them to share and now they had a fun like dancing singing
having a great time yeah um and they didn't want the night to end after the concert was over they were like this is too much fun and now we gotta like download and like debrief about the concert you know you always have to do that oh absolutely because you're on such like a high yeah like we have to talk about everything like Like the ghost concert, poor John.
After that, I just debriefed him the entire way home.
And he was like, I was there.
I was driving home by myself after that.
And I was just, it was a wild experience.
It was a wild experience.
You drove home very quiet.
You did. And I was like, turn it on again.
I was like, I think I'm going to queue up some Harry.
Yeah. But Denise found a restaurant in Long Beach and they stopped in for a couple more beers, ended up staying till closing time, just chatting, hanging out, eating some food, Just reliving a Probably a Great Show.
And after the bar had closed, Denise drove Rob back home, dropped him outside his apartment a little after 2 a .m. Okay.
The next day, Lone Huber, her mom, discovered that Denise had not returned home.
No. So she was concerned, and she called her friend Tammy Brown to ask if she knew where she was.
And Tammy called around to their friends, including Rob Calvert, and none of them had seen or spoken to her since the night before.
um obviously this was very distressing to her parents and now to her friends too right so later that evening tammy actually decided her friend decided to retrace the route that denise and rob would have taken to get to and from the forum and englewood wow what a good friend yeah and as she's doing this around 10 p .m tammy came across denise's 1984 honda accord oh yeah it was pulled off to the side of the road on the corona del mar freeway just before the newport beach exit oh i really hate that that's always so haunting just the car oh i hate it the car's tire was flat and there were skid marks
where it appeared denise had likely come to a sudden stop after kind of blowing a tire sure but there was no sign of denise still being there at all so she was nowhere around and tanny went right to the huber home told them what she had found and they immediately called the police yeah so costa mesa police officers were dispatched to the scene where Denise's car was located.
And there wasn't really a lot to tell them what happened.
Right. The keys weren't there.
Denise's belongings weren't there in the car.
There was no sign of a struggle or anything of that nature that they could tell.
And looking around, they saw that the area was well lit.
There was several emergency call boxes around, like within walking distance.
Oh, wow. So if an emergency had occurred, there was really no reason Denise wouldn't have been able to like quickly and easily call for help.
Right. Right. Officers also noticed a large opening in like a chain link fence.
And it was bordering the freeway.
But it was behind, like there was like a gravel slope that led down to the street.
Okay. Inside of this hole.
And basically you could have gone down there and gotten to several gas stations, hotels, restaurants, like somewhere to get help.
Oh, wow. Okay. So they looked at the whole scene and they were like, something just feels off here.
Like where is she? What happened?
Right. Right. So, they were concerned that she didn't take any of these obvious avenues available for help and then like just sat back at her car.
And so, days later, police captain Tom Lazar actually told reporters, we have feelings about these things and this one doesn't feel good.
Oh, no. So, that night they brought sniffer dogs like bloodhounds and they were able to track Denise's scent several yards beyond where her car stopped.
But then it just stopped.
Suddenly. Okay. Okay.
To them, this indicated that she most likely got into another vehicle and was taken away.
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Now as it turns out, Denise was not the only woman to go missing in the area that day.
So shortly before Denise disappeared, another woman had dropped her children off with her her ex -husband and then just disappeared so the next idea was that denise maybe ran away but almost immediately that idea was dismissed as highly unlikely and yeah it just seemed very unlikely that she would have run away there was really no reason there was no reason she didn't show that was like a pattern of behavior at all she wasn't fighting with her parents she wasn't you know like she had a boyfriend she had a life and clearly like she and her parents could talk about things if she didn't want to do
something or go somewhere exactly we have evidence of that that's the thing and i think it's showcased really well with what happened in her senior year of high school it's like she obviously has a very open line of communication with them exactly and they respect her her thoughts and feelings so exactly detective ron smith also agreed he told reporters later i guess it's possible but we don't see any despondency she seemed to be by all accounts a very reliable young woman steady in her employment like nobody was worried and detectives began investigating Denise's disappearance as a missing persons
case but there was very little evidence to work with and almost no leads it was just the car with nothing really to tell you about anything they were able to trace her movements up until she pulled off the freeway but after that it was like she just went poof like vanished vanished without so scary yeah that's the thing it's like because usually you'll see something you know Blood evidence, evidence of a struggle, something, just anything, but it's just her car.
Something left behind even, like, why did she leave that behind?
Yeah, and it's like she had just dropped her friend off, like, he was like, I didn't see anything wrong, like, nothing was awry.
And without anything else to go on, investigators tried to actually post a car near the area where Denise's car was discovered.
And the officer in this posted car just sat and wrote down license plate numbers of commuters.
Okay. that they saw, and then they later contacted these people to see if they had seen anything the day that Denise went missing because they take that road.
So if they saw anything of note.
Meanwhile, Denise's parents started their own search campaign from their house in Newport Beach. They were calling Denise's friends, people she had known before, people in different, everywhere, states to try to talk to them and see if they knew anything.
Just try to, and also just to try to get the word out.
that like this is going on yeah denise is missing be on the lookout for her i apologize if you can hear um a lawnmower in the background it will it will stop in a second but our neighbor is mowing their lawn they were just trying to get the word out that denise was missing right just get eyes on what was happening so from the moment that denise was officially considered missing the The investigators were very honest and upfront with the Hubers about the likelihood of finding her.
Well, that's so awful to have to hear that and to have to deliver that news.
Exactly. But they refused to accept that any odds were against them.
In fact, her dad, Dennis Huber, told reporters, We have put the pressure on.
And in the three weeks since Denise had disappeared, her parents were working 24 -7 to keep everyone aware of this case.
calling television and radio shows raising remote reward money making and distributing thousands of flyers they were talking to people they were calling people they were like everything they could do and after all their hard work they did make stuff happen okay their commitment to their daughter and her case got them featured on america's most wanted oh and that's exactly where they needed to be the program started generating tips immediately and they actually as far away as like pennsylvania and new hampshire but none of them really produced any leads uh the family also got a lot of psychics
calling them and claiming to know where denise was um dennis is not was not super into that part of it but he said i don't put too much stock in that but even though he didn't necessarily believe them he always passed their information to the costa mesa police for follow -up because he was like although i don't put stock in it who knows What if I didn't?
What if I don't pass it on?
Exactly. So any information could potentially be valuable, and they recognize that.
The Huber's were very aware of that.
And the Huber's even convinced, and this was really impressive, they convinced the local chapter of the Adam Walsh Resource Center to aid in the search for Denise.
Holy shit. And the thing is, this organization typically works on cases of missing children.
Right. But in the case of Denise, they were willing to make an exception.
And Denise was 23 years old.
Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah.
And the center director, Lynn Day, said she's still their daughter.
She's still their child.
Oh, that's true. Absolutely.
Now, the search continued throughout the summer, and by September, nothing was really coming up.
No, investigators were not close to finding Denise.
God, that must have been the longest summer of their entire lives.
And even after all they had done, like the America's Most Wanted, the Adam Walsh Resource Center, like, they did all the right.
Right. They put out all the flyers.
They did the searches and they weren't finding anything.
It's like she just disappeared.
It's so scary that that can happen.
It's so scary. And the attempt to contact commuters on the Corona Del Mar freeway that produced several tips.
But according to Detective Jack Archer, quote, all the ones we've got in, they've either been the wrong week or the wrong location because it's hard. Yeah.
I don't remember any days that I'm driving.
I won't be able to help.
We've said that before.
And the lack of new leads, any information, anything moving forward was really discouraging for investigators who were becoming less and less hopeful of finding Denise alive at this point.
Detective Archer told reporters, unfortunately, that's what history has shown, but you can't give up hope.
We've got to keep working on everything.
If we're fortunate, we'll find her.
Now, the Huber's really kept hope alive that they would find Denise, but they were also really disappointed with the lack of progress that was happening.
I would think so. alone her mother actually told the la times i know the police are still working on things but nothing really solid has come up they are never really very specific about anything but they do say they're working on leads and that's hard too because the hubers aren't getting a lot of information or communication because a lot of times victims families get shut out of these things yeah a lot of times and by the fall the hubers had actually managed to raise ten thousand dollars as as a reward fund from private donations wow the fact that they did that just like themselves it's incredible
and i mean her the story was in the news it was on national programs like inside edition it was everywhere and even despite their best efforts leads were nowhere to be found nowhere in early september dennis actually had to return his job at the bank too but he found it incredibly difficult how do you go back and just just had to go back and do like just had to go back to regular life and loan actually said she was nowhere ready to return back to work she told one reporter that she was quote just kind of existing taking one day at a time and surviving i exactly that's the thing it's like how do
you put your mind elsewhere and be able to perform like you did before yeah your job exactly like nothing's important anymore no like nothing would would feel important at all no everything would feel actually so much less important and once it became october and the investigation had pretty much stalled at this point just hit a wall yeah the huber's hired a private detective named logan clark who they were hoping that maybe just a different set of eyes could look at it from a different angle yeah fresh set and the so the theory that had developed from the investigators in the case was that denise
had pulled off the road when her tire blew out and she was abducted by a stranger as she walked possibly to the call boxes.
Now, this would account for why the dogs lost her scent right near her car, but Logan Clark, the private investigator, he thought something totally different.
He said that Denise was not a victim of random circumstance.
He said that she was abducted by someone she knew, in his opinion.
And why did he think that?
He said she was abducted somewhere other than where her car was found, and he believed that she had been murdered and that her abductor abandoned the car on the side of the road on the side of Corona Del Mar Freeway to throw investigators off the trail.
And, like, slashed the tire.
Yeah, had, like, made it look like she had pulled off so that they, he said, he thinks that they were making it look like this was the crime scene so they would only focus on this scene and never look somewhere else.
I mean, it does kind of seem that way now that you say that.
He was quoted as saying, if it happens to be the wrong scene of the crime, they'll never solve it.
Right. Now, Logan Clark's theory was based on something that was a little tenuous.
He was based on a gap in time between when Denise dropped Rob Calvert off at 2 .05 a .m. and the earliest report of her car being seen by commuters on the freeway, which is a little after 5 a .m. That's like a gap.
Oh, that's a big window.
It was during that time gap that he thought that Denise was abducted and murdered, and then the car was dumped on the freeway, later to be found by Tammy Brown.
Detectives said that they welcomed his cooperation in the search, but they stopped a little short of confirming any of his assertions.
Sergeant Ron Smith told reporters, my approach is to not go chase theories, but to concentrate on facts and keep an open mind to all possibilities.
I mean, yeah, that's the best thing you can do.
Exactly. Now, as the months went by, leads were becoming fewer and fewer at this point.
It was like this happened and then nothing.
After this theory, there was nothing to back either one up.
And it was starting to look less and less like they were going to find Denise alive.
And at the one year anniversary of Denise's disappearance, Lone Huber said, you want to keep that hope, although I feel realistically the chances are pretty slim.
them well and after a year of constant endless searching media appearances family and friends like helping everything they were still rallying around the hubers and they were still as determined as ever to find their they were not resting it's not like they were just resting and being like well we haven't found her so we have to like just go back to our lives because you can never go back to your life they were going back to their responsibilities as best as they could but they They were dead set on this.
This was their main focus.
And Denise's coworker actually said, as long as you don't know, you can't say that a person is dead.
But it's like giving up if we say Denise isn't alive.
So Costa Mesa detectives kept pursuing any of the now fewer and fewer leads that were just trickling in at this point.
But it was really getting tough because they were hitting a lot of dead ends each time.
And in disappearances like Denise's, there's usually some evidence if there is a homicide or like sometimes there's an attempt to extort the family for money or just anything there was just virtually no evidence in this it's like banished and that must have been maddening for her parents truly you just want one thing just something anything but sergeant ron smith remained committed to finding denise and remain committed to the idea that she didn't disappear voluntarily he was like that because people kept going back to that.
That must have been so frustrating, especially when you know your child and you know your family member.
That's the thing. And luckily this guy, Sergeant Ron Smith, said everyone pretty much sees her as an innocent victim in this.
There's a high emotional involvement on the part of detectives.
Yeah. So for his part, the private investigator, Logan Clark, and his team of private investigators kind of gave up at this point.
Oh, so they weren't on this for very long.
Their theory that Denise was abducted and probably killed by acquaintances.
was um was also connected to them saying that he she was probably killed by acquaintances in the rock music industry okay so it's giving like the devil made me do it it's giving the like rock music made someone murder her yeah i don't think so i don't usually think that's the case strangely they were never able to bring any supporting evidence for this theory so he just turned the case back over to detectives and was like i'm good that's the thing because i was like well well, what makes him think it was someone she knew?
Like, what is telling you that?
I think it was, to be honest, and this is just me speculating, I think it was like he was looking at what the police were doing and saying what is the exact opposite because we haven't looked at that side yet.
Which I guess can be a good tactic.
I think it's a good, hey, you might as well look at it.
Exactly. And I guess he's doing the right thing by saying I have no evidence to support this, I should just hand it back over.
Yeah, you know? But later during the trial, his theory, which again relied very heavily on that time gap of two to 5 a .m it was further undermined because a newspaper delivery person testified that she saw denise's car on the side of the road at 2 25 a .m oh wow so she went missing very closely 20 minutes after dropping him off yeah and you made him sound like he was good so so as one year turned into two the leads had become basically nothing they weren't even coming in at this point no tips nothing it was really becoming inactive and that's the sad thing like these cases take up so much like
media attention right away and then like fizzle out and then it's like everybody just forgets and that's like but the family doesn't that's the thing the family lives with it every day right and to make matters worse in the fall of 1992 lone huber was diagnosed with breast cancer oh my god and had to undergo very aggressive treatment for it she told the la times whatever whatever's going to happen to me is going to happen.
And she said of the breast cancer, in comparison to what we've been through, it's no major thing.
She must've just felt like life was just knocking her over and over again.
And it was, it was a tough journey and she found herself, it was an emotional toll that was a very harsh reminder that their beloved daughter, Denise, was not there for this, like was not there to be an emotional support, a comfort, you know?
And her kind and loving voice was silent And something like this made it even more apparent.
Because they said she made people feel better.
Like, I wanted her there to make me feel better.
I mean, she was a caretaker.
She wanted to be a veterinarian.
And Lone said, as time goes on, I realize Denise is probably not alive.
Just to know and not have to constantly wonder what happened would be easier to handle than this mystery.
Yeah, because your mind fills in the blanks.
With the worst. I was just going to say our minds are the scariest thing we have. Unfortunately, in this case, the reality is probably worse.
and what her mind could come up with.
Oh, God. Now, more than a year after this would pass, before the mystery of Denise's disappearance would be brought to light.
And the story was more heartbreaking and bizarre than anyone could have imagined.
On November 13th, 2022, four University of Idaho students were murdered.
Today, finally, The True Story.
Based on over 300 interviews, in their own words, family members talk about their heartbreak and grief.
Students and townspeople describe that terrifying night.
Police detail the dramatic investigation and arrest of Brian Koberger.
You've never read a true crime like James Patterson and Vicki Ward's The Idaho Four.
The True Story. It's finally here.
Now, on a hot afternoon in early July, Elaine Canalia and Jack Court had an appointment with a man named John, who was supposed to be selling them some paint colorant that they had hoped to resell through their paint manufacturing business.
Random. So they drove out to a new housing development in Dewey, Arizona, to meet him for this paint.
elaine had actually met john several weeks earlier at an outdoor market and that's when they like got to talking and he told them that he had some product back at his house that he wanted to get rid of and if they were interested in coming by to see it he had it for sale this is just what they did like you know it's so sketchy and when they reached john's house elaine immediately questioned her decision to come out that far to buy something from this man yeah there wasn't anything specific she said that made her like a little uneasy just a gut feeling she said it was just a weird feeling that something
about the situation was off but always listen to your gut but they carried on and when they got there john led the couple back to the back of the house where he had a large rider truck rent like a rider rental truck parked out back and it was covered a little bit by a blue tarp creepy and around it were unlabeled paint cans and they noticed that that there was also an extension cord running from the back of the truck into the house.
What? So immediately they were freaked out.
They were like, this is just a little fucking weird. But Elaine was like, you know what?
Let's get these fucking paint cans.
Let's get them in the truck.
Let's leave. Right.
So they do. And as they're pulling out of the driveway, Elaine noticed that the Ryder truck had what she originally thought were Massachusetts plates.
Oh, shit. it and although it was you know it was common that a that a moving truck would have plates from out of state yeah renters have to return the vehicle to the company when they're done with it that truck looked as though it had been there for several months huh she's like that was not a new truck like that was sitting in that spot for a long time so like she's like did he steal and i guess when they got in there jack her husband said i'll bet the doggone thing is stolen ones and i guess he said it like very like off the cuff right and apparently they had dealt with some theft recently so elaine
was like sensitive she was like that causes a lot of stress and aggravation being a victim of theft so like i'm gonna help these people out so she grabbed a piece of scrap paper and she jotted down the license plate number of the truck and any words that were on the sides any numbers that's my fucking girl right there and she took she took charge and she was like i'm gonna mention this to the authorities like i just want to make sure now once they were were back at the warehouse in phoenix she dropped the paper on a desk and kind of forgot about it a little bit because she went back to like working
and all that but a few days later a friend of theirs who happened to be a detective with the phoenix police oh shit came in the store to buy some paint and suddenly she was like oh and she gave the scrap paper to him and was like here's the license plate i think it might be stolen if this is what breaks the fucking case elaine forever forever elaine forever and just like how kismet and insane and she trusted that gut she said something's not right about this i'm gonna write down the information maybe it's nothing but maybe it's something proof and evidence that you should always trust your fucking
gut yeah so elaine passed the information to detective steve gregory who later followed up with the local rider agency to see what was up with this now at first the agent at rider was like yeah i don't have any information about that like i don't know what you're talking about so detective gregory was like can you just double check if this is one of yours so a few hours later the agent called back and said actually that vehicle had gone missing it was stolen from orange county california okay california uh -huh now for some reason he said the agent was like this it apparently went unnoticed by rider
at first like it wasn't reported stolen they just didn't know it was gone that's kind of wild like Like a whole ass truck rider?
Like, what the fuck?
You guys must have a lot of trucks.
But Detective Gregory reported the stolen vehicles to deputies at the county sheriff's office and Deputy Joe DiGiacomo, I believe it's how you say it, was dispatched to investigate the truck and speak to the man named John, who was the homeowner.
Yeah. So Deputy DiGiacomo drove around the neighborhood where the truck had been seen and eventually he saw one in the driveway, but the vehicle had Maryland plates.
okay and he was like huh i thought they were supposed to be massachusetts so he was like i don't want to like unnecessarily disturb a family if i don't need to so he called detective gregory and like reiterated the information and he was like and gregory asked what we all probably are asking right now wasn't it possible that whoever stole the truck had switched the plates like that could also be possible yeah or she got it wrong like maryland massachusetts yeah similar So, DiGiacomo was like, yeah, that's probably a pretty decent possibility because he was like, should I bother these people?
They were like, yeah.
So, he went to the property and he checked the VIN number on the truck and it did match for the vehicle stolen in Orange County.
There you go. Now, with another sheriff's deputy by his side, DiGiacomo came up to the house and knocked on the door, but no one came to the door.
Okay. Now he looked around the property and he was like, huh, they both thought that this could maybe be some kind of like drug lab or some other like hub of illegal activity because it was very rundown and covered in empty paint cans and a lot of debris.
It just, to them, it looked like there was something weird going on here.
It's giving meth lab.
Because they also didn't know like that he had anything to do with painting or professional painting.
So they're like, what is all this paint can and like paint thinner and shit?
Right. Like, so what are all these chemicals?
doing on your property so the deputies got backup from the dewey area narcotics team which is called pant who arrived at the house around 1 15 in the afternoon and they found no evidence of drug related chemicals or paraphernalia when they went but the truck appeared as though it was there for months okay and the extension cord coming from the back of it suggested that there was something weird going on in there yeah like what the fuck is that about unfortunately the back of the truck had a padlock on it as well so they needed to wait for a warrant to get into it.
Now smartly Deputy DiGiacomo had planned ahead.
I just had a feeling he was a smart guy I just kind of felt that way.
So by the time the warrant arrived on the scene he already had a locksmith ready to remove the lock from the door like sitting there with a thing of bolt cutters just waiting for the warrant to come through and then he was like snip let's go inside the truck investigators found a large number of paint cans other contracting materials materials.
They followed that extension accord and they found a large chest freezer pushed all the way back to the back of the cab and it was on.
The freezer also had a padlock on it and there were tons of pieces of heavy tape placed at the point where the lid met the top of the free at the bottom of the freezer.
That's fucking weird. That's not suspicious at all.
And sorry is the chest one it's like the long one like horizontal one.
Yeah. Gotcha. So they carefully removed the the tape and detective mike garcia opened the freezer immediately they were hit with the very recognizable odor of decay coming from something that had been wrapped in black garbage bags and placed in the freezer oh my god the bags were covered in frost and had kind of obscured whatever was in there so detective garcia gently reached inside and felt along the outside of the bag before pulling his hand away and saying it feels like a human arm oh god now immediately additional Officers and a forensic team were called to the scene to help with this whole
thing. And while officers were trying to get anybody from inside the home because they felt like somebody was in there.
And clearly not answering on purpose.
Others were removing the contents of the freezer and cutting away the black garbage bags.
After opening the bags, they unfortunately revealed the nude body of Denise Huber.
No. Her hands were secured behind her back with metal handcuffs.
Oh my God. With the body removed from the freezer, they could also see what was, quote, apparently frozen blood body fluids and ice crystals on the floor of the freezer the frozen fluids and lack of any blood spatter anywhere else they could see suggested that whatever happened here happened somewhere else and she was placed in here right kind of later after she was killed okay also denise's body did show some signs of decomposition which indicated that she had been dead for at least a few hours before she was placed in the the freezer and the truck and all of its contents were towed to a forensic
lab in phoenix and denise's body was taken to the medical examiner's office for autopsy and she'd been missing for years at this point she was in that freezer this was three years at this point what the fuck is this person keeping her in a freezer for for three years so they did come to the conclusion that no one was inside the house at the time and so they went next door to talk to to the neighbors and they confirmed that the truck had shown up about six months earlier okay and while they had seen a man going in and outside of the house they didn't know his name so officers ran the plates on the white
dodge parked alongside the rider truck and it belonged to john familaro okay just as they received that information john pulled into the house and was probably shitting himself oh yeah and a jeep driven by By his mother.
What? And he was immediately placed under arrest for felony theft of the truck, which would be enough to hold him while they investigated the unidentified at this point body found in the freezer.
Oh, my God. And that's where we're going to leave you for part one.
You're fucked up. I would like to tell you that part two is, I mean, this is very disturbing anyways, but we're going to go into the autopsy stuff and what happened to Denise is fucking awful.
so and it doesn't seem like she knows this person no what the fuck so we will be getting to that and stay tuned for part two and yeah this is a devastating story wow real tough one i knew about the freezer but i didn't know all the strange logistics nope like why did it just show up there six months that's what i uh the whole thing is like so upsetting and when you find out more about about, you know, there's a lot of things that were found in his house.
Like, he kept a lot of connections to this.
Really? Like, a lot of trophies, a lot of, yeah.
And do we know, can I ask, is this the only person that we know that he's killed?
I think, yeah, I believe so.
Wow. Yeah. What the fuck?
Okay, well. Yeah. We hope that you keep listening.
And we hope you. Keep.
It. Weird. Bye. Yeah.
Not that weird. No. Nope.
that's beyond weird oh my god if you like morbid you can listen early and ad free right now by joining wondery plus in the app or on apple podcasts prime members can listen ad free on amazon music before you go tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery .com slash survey hey weirdos you know ash and i have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong oh yeah there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that Well, get ready for a love story that's going to blow your minds because this one is happening right now.
And get this, it's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed.
Meet Travis. He falls head over heels for Lily Rose.
She's gorgeous, she's understanding, and she's literally perfect.
And she's not human.
That's right. Lily Rose is an AI companion, a computer program designed to be Travis's dream woman.
And at first, it seems like a perfect relationship.
But when Lily Rose's behavior starts getting strange, this love story takes a dark and twisted turn that no one saw coming.
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