Hey Weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.
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Hey, weirdos. I'm Ash.
And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid.
hello hello over there how are y 'all 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 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 oh 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 things oh and i wrote a lot which is it always like just feeds my soul when i get to do that i swear like an author are you like
an author i still that's still wild you are i know it's still well that's selling even oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my gods uh but and i was also listening to an audiobook that was really good whenever i could oh what were you listening It is it's one that I've already like read the hard cover 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 audio book is narrated by him.
Oh, I always love that.
It's fun. And he reminded me that I need to be a little more.
I say like he reminded me like we're buds.
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 so she she shakes her coffee around sorry about it sorry it's just what shit okay so but he 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 um how you say shitty um it's been it's 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 yeah so you know steven 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 at least 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 gonna 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 can have your writing time there you go 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 um 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 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, Ash had a rough weekend.
Yeah, never fly 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.
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 so I apologize for that that's okay no you know what I 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 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 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 yeah 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 yeah you know it's You know?
You know? I know. You know?
I know. Well, you know, that was our weekends.
I hope you guys had more of a bi weekend, like a happy weekend, I suppose.
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 another ways.
No, we're going to do something with like the kids tomorrow that's going to be fun.
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 yeah i'm ready to just like hang out with your kids have my own kids just fucking bye 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 because we got to do part two here yeah 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 it involves a very gruesome attack and this guy's just a dick and okay you just start before i start start asking questions okay okay okay okay okay all right so in case you are just coming here we are on part two of the murder the kidnapping and murder of denise huber um 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, many months.
And they were like, oh, yeah, that is missing.
Yes. And when they had opened the freezer, they had found a body inside.
They were fairly certain that this was the body of missing Denise Huber.
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. Ann Buchholz, who was the medical examiner at the time.
Denise's head had been wrapped in three white kitchen garbage bags.
Oh, my God. That's gruesome.
When they removed all of those garbage bags, you could see that her entire head had been covered in gray tape.
What? Quote, from the mouth to the upper eyelids.
Jesus. Now, Dr. Buchholz noted that the head had many external injuries to it.
The skull was what they referred to as basically shattered.
Wow. 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 is a monster.
And Dr. Buchholz noted that there was probably many more than the 31 one 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 there would have been a lot of bleeding when this happened and the thing is outside of this there there didn't appear to be a lot of evidence of trauma anywhere else on the body.
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 they took and when they came back the and this is really graphic i'm sorry the anal swabs were positive for the presence of some degraded semen oh my 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 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 right 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 is also 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 yeah 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 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 can have some too this is a cool creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
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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 right 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.
Okay. So the search of his home was pretty tough and pretty intense because it was covered in trash and clutter.
Ew. Ew. 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.
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 torn around the left shoulder and the shoes had 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 blood -stained hammer a blood -stained pair
of men's jeans a blood -stained 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 like he even kept the surgical gloves i was just gonna 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 so many items to look back at it it also had a blood -stained 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 like construction nail puller what was 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 he's a fucking monster seriously this is another unfortunate instance where the guy named john is a shit bag 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 it all of them had 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 taped it on a videotape and had saved articles about her disappearance.
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 family and friends and the investigators missing her and trying to find her.
What? And articles about the disappearance with quotes from her parents, with quotes from her family and friends.
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 okay 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 police and pace
and the like wood framing yeah 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 in a corner in a corner of this warehouse in laguna beach california and nobody ever saw that and reported it like because i because this um stain was behind the drywall oh that's the thing they ripped out the drywall all now his defense lawyer larry katz maintained that his client was innocent uh yep uh and called the case against him entirely circumstantial her all of her belongings her her body everything yep was in his possession what is circumstantial
about him having a dead dead body on his property yeah why 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 and he also said that um familaro was quote appropriately depressed about the situation he oh yeah he's like super bummed that this happened yep but he He also insisted that his client not speak to anyone, which I bet is pretty bold.
I'm shocked by that.
Like, just hearing this man be like, and I understand that's his job.
I get it. But it is shocking to hear all of that evidence.
She was found there.
On his property. The receipt for the freezer that she was found in was found there.
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 about like that's why i'm like semen being found in her body he did he look up the definition of circumstantial like i'm a little confused 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 really rather than circumstantial but i think honestly you couldn't go for insanity sanity 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 truly 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 what the fuck he is so he was born 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 birthday, 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 from Alaro.
According to John, 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.
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 okay 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 she was very the mother was very very difficult, very confrontational.
And she was very controlling.
Uh, she was also a devout Catholic with, which in and of itself, I'm not saying is a, 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.
Um, Um, and that's, that's the bad part of that kind of devoutness.
Yeah. Um, 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.
Exactly. They were 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 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 yeah there and there wasn't very productive or very healthy discussions about sex in that household old um she even bathed them personally into their preteen years oh um she was a little strange with her behavior for bedtime according to the children um and years later
warren familaro want the brother would be convicted of sexually assaulting three children and serve a sentence in a facility for um mentally disordered sex offenders yeah so something was going on absolutely 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 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 oh 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 the 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 stopped before completing it you know those photos sitting in your phone the ones that make you smile every time you scroll past them well at smallwoodhome .com they believe that you deserve better than that smallwood home transforms your favorite memories
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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, And friends remember him being very funny, an intelligent guy, very, very polite is what he was described as.
But then 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.
No. 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, ooh, you know.
Yeah. 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 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 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 okay 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 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.
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.
So he's a fucking foul beast. He is an animal.
Apparently later when they had talked about this because they broke up but they had talked about it and i guess he said to her that she just obviously didn't know mature sex games uh and i'm like honey get a grip seriously get a grip like i don't think you know about mature and consensual 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 and those kind of relationships those parent child relationships when they are like that sometimes they just cling continue you know what i mean like the person will continue it exactly now that is john famolaro wow what a story yeah and on july 20th 1994 after he had been arrested john famolaro appeared before 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 cats there he argued that the evidence was entirely circumstantial 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 yeah um did you read this case yeah he was like did you just walk in here like just wake up come in here not knowing in 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 familaro waived extradition and was transported from arizona to orange county california and he was then put in 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 now he was no longer being represented by larry katz at this point i wonder why because larry was like oh this isn't circumstantial at all and i have to go and now we had a public defender named leonard gumlia and he acknowledged that the case was uh complicated a little bit uh particularly because of the semen found in denise huber's body right right but he maintained the position that it was completely circumstantial which i'm a little confused about y 'all uh he said
anybody who thinks they know what happened that night is only guessing i don't know i think all the evidence points to your client he said there is 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 but 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 it's just hard to hear somebody say that like
something along the lines of like this was a frenzy killing and then like yeah i mean you got the rest of forever he just had because it's just like oof because you're really sticking with with that yeah i don't i don't i don't think this was the way to come at it i don't think this was the way to come at it no i don't know what the right way to come out 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 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 right a little bit if that's what you're you know because that's their job uh -huh but this 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 right 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 case 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 yeah um 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 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 Familaro's home in Arizona, which I'm like, circumstantial evidence, you mean?
Yeah. Is that what you're noting as 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.
Stop. The trial would be delayed for another full year as the defense entered motion after motion after motion, asking for all this time to review additional evidence, interview witnesses.
The defense needed way more time because they knew they had a shit case.
So Denise and Lonehuber, or excuse me, Dennis and Lonehuber, Dennis and Loner, her parents, they waited more than three years to even learn what happened to denise and then to hear that 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 yeah in orange county superior court um 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 elliot 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 denise the defense held it up with objections to certain jury members and they said there was a death in the family why are you just trying to keep this ongoing for the family just let this family rest man so you don't don't have a good case send them to jail 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 familaro telling the jury how denise had denise had been pulled from her car by him then sexually assaulted and brutally 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 now according to the district attorney familaro 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 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 thank you 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 in the wrong direction too exactly like it wouldn't have happened no no it's so sad that her car broke down that close to home that's the thing it's like if her car hadn't broken down it's like oh on november 13th 2022 four university of idaho students were murdered today finally Finally, The True Story.
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now among the first witnesses called by the prosecution was rob calvert who was the friend she went to the concert with um he testified the events of the evening and he included the fact that they did they definitely had several drinks over the course of the evening but he was like it wasn't a big deal yeah under cross -examination leonard gumlia the defense attorney honed in on 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 uh victim blaming so it's like that wasn't a good look on your part and it's like okay so she's not allowed a grown woman of age is not allowed to drink at a concert right 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 isn't it interesting how these things like don't really get brought up unless it's like female female 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 no and again it doesn't make sense that you would go willingly with some strange guy and it's not like john familaro 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 you mean mean killed but there's no evidence that she got there forcefully uh i'm sorry did
you see her shoes yeah or 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 indirect are you kidding me yeah her heel literally literally broke yeah on may 19th the defense tried to change the tactic now and the defense didn't deny that familaro 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 that 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 drunk that's why so now they're trying to back track it a bit and saying people if they're 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 them yeah and consented to sex yeah and now they're saying well 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 It shouldn't result in you getting murdered.
And speaking on those scuffs and things to her shoes, the defense said that 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 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 her feet?
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 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 much closer to meeting his justice yeah 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 percent true yeah he almost got away with it and he would have done this again there's not a doubt out 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 would 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 How close you were?
Seriously. Especially.
Yeah. One of them, it was like a couple of weeks before he murdered Denise.
Yes. Like, like, had he like, I don't, I don't even want to say snapped because that's not what happened.
But had he decided to 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 um at times i guess the jury and several members of the court were in tears i bet 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 familaro's behalf including his mother who told the court yeah told the court that her son had had truly and she was actually right here she said her son had truly never received the help he needed yeah which yeah 100 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 yeah 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 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 it is reasonably likely that a fair trial was 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 familaro had been portrayed in negative terms that's probably because nobody ever found a dead body on denise's property and 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 most likely it's i love that it's like oh yeah they portrayed denise in a favorable light and it's like no baby 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 Fuck you.
Like what? John Fomular is a piece of shit.
And a woman beater and abuser.
Who has abused and like traumatized several women.
So maybe 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 famolaro's 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 lone whatever happens to john famolaro from this point they don't give a shit at this point i don't blame denis 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 It doesn't go away.
It doesn't dull. Nothing makes it better.
But they have managed to find at least some peace.
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. 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.
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 that 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 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 bloodstained.
Yeah. He kept the boxes for the handcuffs.
I mean like Christmas.
Everything. Everything.
Yeah. He's a sick fuck.
Yeah. He truly is. This is 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 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 but because they have truly
been through going through the 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 so I'm working on a haunted case right now we need that yeah we need that you you know spooky season is upon us yeah i say that it's june um i was like to me sure to me it's upon me it's only a few months away 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 But it's mostly spooky ooky ooky.
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 and light.
Bye. Bye. so if you like morbid you can listen early and ad free right now by joining wondering plus in the wonder 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 wonder .com 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 gonna 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.
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