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a young woman stopped her car along a busy highway in California she was never seen
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again for 3 years the search for her whereabouts continued but the trail eventually turned cold so cold that
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forensic scientists needed new techniques to solve it [Music] [Applause] [Music]
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[Music] 23-year-old Denise Huber lived with her parents in Newport Beach col California an upscale suburb outside of
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Los Angeles she just got graduated from college and I think she just wanted to have have fun and uh before she'd
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settled down into a job Denise worked as a waitress and a part-time sales assistant at
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Bloomingdales she was very trusting she just say Dad don't worry I'm all right nobody's going to
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harm me at 5'9 the Striking blue-eyed brunette had no trouble attracting dates
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her most recent boyfriend was Steve horx he's a friendly outgoing person likes to have fun I know she that's what
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she would always say Steve was so much fun she he made her laugh on Sunday night June 2nd
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1991 Steve and Denise planned to see the morsy rock band perform in Englewood but at the last minute Steve
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couldn't get off from work disappointed but undeterred Denise asked a casual
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friend Robert Calbert to go with her she said I'll be home late and I remember
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saying well don't be too late you know cuz I always worry when you're not home
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on time oh you know we'll be fine the night she left she poked her head in the
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door and said Di and I we were watching television just that with that lovely smile uh you know bye I love you both
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after the concert Denise and Rob stopped at the El Paso Cantina for a drink where Denise met an old
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acquaintance whom we'll call Ross Ross had had a romantic feelings for her in
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the past he did ask her to go with him that night he wanted her to go home with him
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which she did not do Denise and Rob left the restaurant around 1:00 in the morning and Denise
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dropped Rob off at his home there was no kiss between the two of them she dropped
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him off and he went in the house and she left on her way home Rob was the last known person to
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see Denise Huber I think in the morning when she was there obviously was there was some
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concern but we didn't keep that close of tabs on her either I mean she was 23
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years old and and an adult and uh totally trustworthy her abandoned car was found along the
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Costa Mesa freeway 3 mil from home with a flat tire it didn't look like anything had
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occurred at the vehicle it was parked between two call boxes that were never used that night in my mind I just knew
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something horrible had happened because Denise wasn't the kind of person that
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would just disappear without telling us the Costa Mesa police dispatched in instigators to the
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scene inside of the car itself appeared to be clean there was no blood there there didn't appear to be any Windows
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broken there didn't appear to be any damage to the car her purse and shoes were gone like she'd gotten out of her
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car and left the flashers were on on the car like she the car had broken down and
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she was going to get out and go walk for help search dogs picked up a scent on the side of the freeway but soon lost it
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police then canvased the neighborhoods near the highway but no one had seen her it appeared
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Denise Huber had simply [Music] vanished it's worse than if I think I was afraid of for my own
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death cuz I was so afraid of what happened to Denise she was so precious police used search helicopters
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and all other means to look for 23-year-old Denise Huber after her abandoned car was found along a busy
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highway you could hear them from our house and you know what they're looking
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for and you you pray they don't find what they're looking for because it's
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got to be obviously got to be a body that they're looking for and uh it's it's horrible it's the
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most horrible feeling you could ever have it's like I couldn't breathe for I
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don't know how long police examined the interior of Denise's car and found no foreign
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fingerprints an analysis of the flat tire revealed it had not been tampered with it just blew out from being
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underinflated got too hot and the sidewall failed I just went flat wild the the physical evidence LED
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nowhere police interviewed the last known person to see Denise her date from the night before Robert
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Calbert Rob could have been infatuated with her and could have been upset because there was no romantic contact
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between the two of them police also looked into Denise's relationship with Steve horox the boyfriend who was
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supposed to accompany Denise to the concert but back out at the last minute Steve HX was again Cooperative any
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information we needed from him he was always willing to give it police also Tracked Down Ross the
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acquaintance Denise met at the El Cantina restaurant Ross was able to put himself
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in a alibi situation um to show that he did not go follow her after she dropped a Rob off I never gave up hope that
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she'd be found alive uh we did everything from thinking that she might have had a boyfriend that the
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folks didn't know about and maybe uh left the state left the city eloped desperate for leads investigators
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and Denise's family turned to the media all I knew was get a picture in front of
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people get the story out and the news media they were wonderful because every time we have anything going on they
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would be there and they'd show it so the community really it was like it was
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their daughter we made buttons with Denise's picture that said pray for Denise we had
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bumper stickers that all of our police units carried and were available all over the community there was a large
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Banner that was placed along the 73 freeway here in Costa Mesa the media attention produced hundreds of tips most
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were well-intentioned some were not we' hear from psychics who never did know anything I
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mean that's that's baloney they they don't they did not know anything in that
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case we'd hear from crackpots we'd hear from people that would try and get money
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from us for three long years the Hubers lived in agony waiting to hear something
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anything about their daughter one thing I always remember Linda gisler our lead Detective I always remember she would
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call us cuz you sit there every time the phone would ring you jump 10 ft in the air because you think it's that that
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phone call and uh that's the one thing that I always appreciated from Linda she'd say
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we're going home now there won't be another phone call we'll talk to you
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tomorrow and they always she would always touch base with us 350 M away in Prescott Arizona a man
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living in a well-to-do neighborhood called local police to report something suspicious in his neighbor's
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driveway it was a rider truck with California license plates it had an extension cord coming
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out of the back of the truck the neighbor said it was plugged into an electrical socket on the side of
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the house whatever was inside the truck was running 24 hours a day a search of the truck revealed it had been stolen in
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[Music] California inside was an industrialized freezer in the cargo area and inside the
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freezer was a large black garbage bag uh and and they felt it and believed uh what they felt was was an arm of a of a
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person I recall seeing uh two arms coming back with the hands handcuffed and a ring I remember seeing jewelry and
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uh I was I was really shocked and for the medical examiner it would be the most difficult case she had
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ever [Music] encountered for the past year a stolen Rider Truck containing a freezer with a
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human body inside had been parked at the home of 39-year-old John famalaro a handyman and painter Mr famalaro was
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very calm he was very polite um and he just really didn't have much to say about it uh but he seemed
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kind of indifferent to the whole thing the contents of the freezer were sent to the Maricopa County coroner's
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office Dr Anne buckolz handled the case obviously it's a homicide or at least a
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hidden body for some reason and because if it's clandestine nature you're like
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okay so we got an evur thing here let's think homicide let's think the worst and
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I said yes it's a female she also had some female jewelry evidence and long fingernails the handcuffs were evident
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and we didn't see much in the way of clothing she appeared to be naked thawing the body would cause rapid
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decomposition so Dr buckolz needed to CCT evidence quickly or lose it forever I took a clean scalpel handle and
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actually scraped some of the watery fluid into jars and held it that way I thought well at least we can collect the
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specimens it was a sheer luck that we even got any sperm at all in a woman who's Frozen 3
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years Dr buckolz removed the handcuffs and defrosted the hands slowly when they're frozen the skin is
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fairly symmetrical and intact until she starts losing the fluids and then the skin will start shriveling even in the
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fingertips in fact that's where it starts one of the first we got all the prints that first
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day and they're actually rolled onto a fingerprint C just as if they were a person who's being arrested it's the
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same process on a dead person when they entered the prince into their computer database of missing
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persons they immediately found a match it was Denise Huber who had been missing for 3
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years they were able to do the fingerprints and that's something I never even thought of imag I never
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imagined that we would have that kind of evidence after 3 years you have this hole in you know
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that in your inside you through your heart or whatever and that hole will never go
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away it heals up around it the healing happens but there's no closure meanwhile John famalaro refused
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to explain why Denise's body was in his freezer 350 Mi away from where she disappeared so police searched falo's
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home and the the home of his mother who lived next door she was quite taken back
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that we uh had also secured what we found to be her home she knew nothing about John having girlfriends or who it
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might be and basically sat up a lawn chair across the street and just sat there and watched us for for
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days police found a box marked Christmas on a shelf in famalaro garage inside was Denise's bloody
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clothing her driver's license and her high heeled shoes the shoes were scuffed and damaged
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as if she had been dragged across Highway Paving and police found credit card receipts that showed famalaro had bought
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the freezer just days after Denise's disappearance they also discovered blood
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stained clothing belonging to John famalaro they didn't know whose blood it was they didn't know if it was Denise's
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some other persons a mixture Mr famalaro so they needed a sample of Denise's blood well we didn't have blood
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so we ended up sending them some bone marrow the DNA extracted from Denise Huber's bone marrow matched the DNA in
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the blood on falo's clothes in famalaro basement police found a police officer's
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uniform and a dungeon I think that all showed me he was just that type of person not the
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mild mannered person he was when I spoke to him he had that very dark violent other side and uh it was becoming more
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and more parent as as the case progressed on one of his girlfriends that we talked to said that yeah he had
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some weird sexual fantasies one of the girls had been handcuffed um and left exposed uh naked in handcuff
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left exposed to an open window the evidence implicated famalaro in The Disappearance and death of Denise Huber
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but it did not explain how she died we took off two or three black plastic bags that had encased the whole body and
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inside that were some smaller white plastic bags which covered the head and when we removed that and we started
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defrosting her we actually found a a gag type device over her face and over her mouth area uh was a piece of duct tape
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that had been taped over her upper mouth nose area Dr buckholtz discovered that Denise's skull had been severely
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damaged Dr Laura ful Genetti a forensic anthropologist was asked to reconstruct the skull for further analysis you look
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for parts that go together naturally and you start with the Vault or the top round part of the head and then you
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proceed towards the face and the reason I do it that way is because the face typically has the smallest most
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complicated pieces and you want to have your framework built so that when you get to the face you have something to
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put the face back onto the forensic analysis would reveal not only how Denise Huber died but
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[Music] where after a three-year search Denise Huber's body was found in a freezer in
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Arizona forensic investigators reconstructed her skull in an effort to understand how she
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died you can see pattern injuries of two different varieties indicating two different weapons were used and you can
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also see little pieces of plastic that are caught in those fractures that told us that the bags were in place when she
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received the blows to the head and Dr F janetti discovered Denise had been hit 31
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times it's horrifying and if I stopped too long to think about what how she felt when she was by the freeway I'm
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paralyzed and I can't do my job so I don't I don't think about that until it's all over and done with for me
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it's a matter of here's the puzzle my job is to put the puzzle together and
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interpret the puzzle and then I can go home and and cry in the shower the Seaman found on Denise's
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clothing matched John fero's DNA profile she was innocent an innocent victim and
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it could have been anybody's sister it could have been you it could have been
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your sister your friend and and that's scary it really hurts you emotionally at that point when you
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realize that I'll be honest I won't drive on the interstate and and allow anyone to help
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me because of this police also discovered that John famalaro was working in Newport Beach
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California at the time Denise disappeared he had rented the front portion of this warehouse for his
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painting business bu they talked to people who rented the unit after he had uh moved out and abandoned it about what
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the unit what condition the unit was in and uh they pointed us to this area in the corner where they found a a large
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brown stain that washed out with the hose and we thought well we know dried blood is very solof and water it could
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be washed away initial tests revealed nothing investigators decided to wait until dark
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and use luminol which flues or glows when it comes into contact with the iron component in blood we sprayed it out of
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a little hand sprayer eventually we checked the whole warehouse and the only thing we ever found was just that blood
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in the corner of the warehouse the DNA from those blood stains matched Denise Huber's
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DNA and the nail gun found in the warehouse matched the indent ations in Denise's
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skull based on the forensic evidence prosecutors believe that when Denise's tire went flat famalaro stopped and
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offered to help what happened there I don't know I I think I have a flat tire I don't know
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see if I can [Music] help at some point he over powered her and took her to his Warehouse a few
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miles away there he killed her he stored the body in a freezer he bought a few days after he killed
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Denise 2 years later he stole the ryer truck and took the freezer with Denise's
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body in it with him when he moved to Arizona he kept the truck in his driveway with the freezer running
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running constantly he's kind of a sick guy that's his that's his thing John has uh
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been violent to other people and it's it's escalated up to the point of murder
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but uh I don't think Denise has been the only one on June 20th 1997 6 years after Denise disappeared
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John famalaro was tried and convicted of first deegree murder he was sentenced to
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death forensics were it was challenged every step of the way here in court even before court I think a lot of it went to
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the state supreme court but every challenge was beat back because of great forensics and great police work I wanted
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to know the truth and some of it was horrible but I'd rather have the answers
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than just be wondering in my mind because sometimes you imagine things as bad or worse than what they
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were this really is the way it's supposed to be done and then it makes you work harder on the next one and when
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you're about to throw your hands up in despair you think Denise Huber you did
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that case you got it reconstructed keep at it there is an answer here [Music] [Music]
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w [Music] [Music]