Case file 0028

Denise Huber: The Missing Car’s Driver Was Found Three Years Later

A disabled car in California and a stolen-truck inquiry in Arizona became parts of one prosecution.

Denise Huber did not return home after a night out in June 1991. She was twenty-three. A friend searching for her found her Honda on the shoulder of Highway 73 with a flat tire. The California Supreme Court's account records that discovery on the evening of June 3. ^[S1]

The second location

More than three years later, an Arizona deputy responded to a possible stolen truck in Dewey. Its vehicle-identification number matched a California theft report. An inventory of the truck led officers to a freezer containing a woman's body. The victim was Denise. ^[S1]

The discovery changed the case from a search for a missing driver into the investigation of a recovered homicide victim. The two places were connected by evidence, rather than by their proximity: the car had been found in California, the remains in Arizona.

The judgment

A jury convicted John Joseph Famalaro of first-degree murder and found special circumstances involving kidnapping and a sexual offense. It returned a death verdict. In July 2011, California's Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on automatic appeal. ^[S1]

That dated appellate outcome is the legal endpoint recorded here. It does not establish a present-day execution date or require speculation about later unexamined filings.

The account begins with a small roadside emergency and years of uncertainty for a family. It ends with a recovered daughter and a murder judgment, while preserving the difference between the original disappearance and the later evidence that made prosecution possible.