A flat tire on the side of a California freeway. That's all it took.
Denise Huber was 23 when she disappeared in the early hours of June 3, 1991, after a night out in Newport Beach, California. Three years passed before anyone learned what had happened to her — and when the truth came out, it turned out to be almost too strange to believe.
A Night Out, Then Nothing
Denise had gone to a concert with a friend, stopped for drinks afterward, and dropped him off around 2 a.m. She never made it home. Her mother started calling around the next morning. By that evening, a friend spotted Denise's blue Honda abandoned on the shoulder of Highway 73, flat tire, keys gone, doors unlocked. The road was well-lit. There were emergency call boxes nearby. None of it made sense for someone to just vanish from.
Her parents didn't just wait by the phone. They put a giant banner on a building overlooking the spot where her car was found. They went on television. Her father drove around for years afterward, he later said, scanning the face of every woman with long brown hair he passed. Nothing came of any of it. Eventually, the case went cold, the way most do.
A Strange Truck at a Swap Meet
Three years later, in July 1994, a retired couple running a paint booth at a swap meet in Arizona sold some supplies to a man who introduced himself as a fellow painter. His name was John Famalaro. When they visited his house to pick up more product, they noticed a Ryder truck parked in the overgrown backyard — the kind of detail that shouldn't mean anything, except it nagged at them enough that they wrote down the license plate and mentioned it to a police officer who happened to be at the same swap meet. That should have been the end of a strange afternoon. It wasn't. The plate came back stolen. An officer went out to Famalaro's house to check, found chemicals and an extension cord running to the back of the truck, and figured he'd stumbled onto a drug lab.
What Was in the Freezer
It wasn't drugs. Inside the truck was a freezer, plugged in and running, and inside the freezer was Denise Huber — bound, wrapped in trash bags, frozen solid, three years after she'd gone missing six hundred miles away in California.
Famalaro arrived at the property while police were still processing the scene and was arrested on-site. Investigators searching his house found more than they expected: a bloodstained hammer, handcuffs, an LA County Sheriff's patrol shirt he'd apparently used to gain Denise's trust that night, and — almost unbelievably — boxes labeled "Christmas Decorations" that actually held her wallet, clothes, and personal belongings, alongside newspaper clippings he'd saved tracking his own case in the press.
DNA and forensic evidence eventually placed the actual killing at a warehouse Famalaro rented for his painting business in Orange County, not far from where Denise's car had been abandoned. Investigators believe he moved the body — and kept it — because he simply couldn't bring himself to get rid of it.
Trial and Sentencing
Famalaro pleaded not guilty. His 1997 trial in Orange County drew heavy media coverage; prospective jurors reportedly said openly that he deserved to be executed, which his defense later cited, unsuccessfully, as grounds for a mistrial. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder with special circumstances, including kidnapping and sexual assault, and recommended the death penalty. California's Supreme Court upheld both the conviction and the sentence in 2011.
Where Things Stand Now
Famalaro remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison. California has maintained an informal moratorium on executions for years amid ongoing legal challenges to its lethal injection protocol, so his sentence hasn't been carried out and isn't likely to be anytime soon. Denise's parents, now in their 80s, have said they've made peace with that reality — less interested in an execution than in the fact that he can never do this to anyone else. Her mother has said she still sometimes wonders why he chose her daughter that night. There's no answer coming for that one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is John Famalaro still alive?
Yes. He remains on death row at San Quentin, though California's ongoing moratorium on executions means his sentence hasn't been carried out.
How was Denise Huber's body eventually found?
Almost by accident — a couple who'd sold Famalaro paint supplies grew suspicious of an abandoned-looking truck at his house and reported it to police, leading officers to discover a stolen vehicle with a freezer inside.
Was there ever a book or documentary about the case?
Yes. Author Dan Lasseter wrote a true-crime book, "Cold Storage," and the case has since been covered on Investigation Discovery and other true-crime programs.