Famalaro Doesn’t Take the Stand as Defense Rests

SANTA ANA —  Defense attorneys rested their case Thursday in the death penalty phase of John J. Famalaro’s murder trial without the former handyman ever taking the witness stand to ask jurors to spare his life.

Ending speculation about whether Famalaro, 40, would plead for mercy, the last witness called was the defendant’s niece who testified that she still loves her uncle and described him as being “just like a best friend. Kind of like the brother I never had.”

Angela Thobe, 20, spoke of the particularly close bond she enjoyed with Famalaro most of her life and left the stand wiping away tears.

She was one of several witnesses called by the defense in a bid to save their client from an execution. Jurors last month convicted the former Lake Forest man of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and killing 23-year-old Denise Huber in 1991. The victim’s nude and handcuffed body was stored inside of a freezer for three years before it was discovered in July 1994 and Famalaro was arrested.

Closing arguments will take place Monday and jurors could begin deliberating that same day. The panel must recommend whether Famalaro should be executed or spend his life in prison without parole.

Famalaro appeared emotional during parts of Thobe’s testimony. She recalled him as an uncle who assisted her with her homework, bought her books and helped her through a traumatic move to another state and with her parents’ divorce, and took time to teach her sister how to ride a horse.

“He just liked spending time with us,” the niece said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Christopher Evans pointed out during a brief cross-examination that the same year Famalaro served as a sponsor for the young woman’s Confirmation in the Catholic Church and attended her high school championship basketball game, he was arrested for Huber’s murder.

On Thursday, the defense submitted as evidence a journal that Famalaro kept in 1983 to show his state of mind during part of his relationship with a woman named Ruth, who put Famalaro’s child up for adoption against his will in the early 1980s. The relationship has repeatedly been pointed to by the defense as a turning point in his life.

One entry read: “Ruth, sometimes I just want to scream and slap some sense into you! Can’t you see clearly that I love you and want to spend my life building a happy, holy family with you?”

A later entry details his “desolation” when he discovered Ruth was having an affair with another man, which the then-25-year-old Famalaro described as the “ultimate betrayal” and wrote that Ruth had “become my Judas.”

“Oh God, please help me,” he wrote. “I feel so much agony. My anxiety level is so high. I need the help of your good graces to see me through. Right now, I don’t even feel like I’m going to get through it. I feel like I’m going to die. I want to die. I want to die.”

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A priest who counseled Famalaro at that time spoke of the defendant’s strong Catholic faith and said Thursday that despite Famalaro’s obsessive nature, he did not feel the need to refer him to a psychiatrist.

Under cross-examination, Father Vincent Young said that he did not know how strong Famalaro’s religious beliefs were at the time he murdered Huber in 1991.

The jury also learned that Famalaro once helped save a woman from a knife-wielding robber in 1981 during a class break at chiropractic school in Los Angeles.

“[He] pulled the knife back and wrestled the knife away,” testified Marc Murphy, a former classmate of Famalaro’s who also witnessed the attack.