Has Maya Millete Been Found? Verdict, Body Search, and Defense

Maya Millete has not been found. Nearly five and a half years after the 39-year-old Chula Vista mother of three vanished from her home on January 7, 2021, her body has never been recovered, and no crime scene has been identified. Her husband, Larry Millete, was arrested in October 2021 and charged with her murder. His trial began in San Diego County Superior Court in May 2026 and is ongoing.

The Night She Disappeared

Surveillance video captured Maya entering the family’s home in the San Miguel Ranch community on the evening of January 7, 2021. She was never seen leaving. Her car stayed in the driveway. Calls went to voicemail. She vanished two days before a planned family trip to Big Bear for her daughter’s birthday.¹

Her sister Maricris Drouaillet reported her missing to Chula Vista police on the night of January 9. During the 911 call, she told the dispatcher her brother-in-law “has a tendency to be violent.”² When officers arrived early the next morning, they found no visible signs of a struggle, though the home was described as being in disarray.¹

Why Her Body Has Never Been Recovered

Investigators from the Chula Vista Police Department, the FBI, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service spent nine months searching for Maya before Larry’s arrest. They executed more than 67 search warrants, conducted 87 interviews, and followed over 130 tips.³

Three separate searches of the Millete home over those nine months produced thousands of photographs and seized computers and electronics. None of it turned up an obvious crime scene inside the residence, and no visible forensic evidence of blood or foul play was found.⁴ A .40 caliber handgun registered to Larry also remained unaccounted for at the time of his arrest; District Attorney Summer Stephan publicly urged anyone holding it to turn it over to police.⁵

Because there is no body and no crime scene, prosecutors are trying the case entirely on circumstantial evidence, which they described in opening statements as a “collage.”⁶

What Prosecutors Say Happened

Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles told jurors that Larry killed Maya because he would not “let her leave” the marriage, then loaded her body into the family SUV, drove to a remote location, and disposed of it.⁷

A Marriage Maya Wanted Out Of

Former co-worker Claudia Julao testified that in late 2020, Maya discussed estate planning with her and said, “God forbid anything happens to me, that my children are taken care of.” Maya told her Larry “controlled it all” financially and that she planned to gather information about their finances after the new year.⁸

Journals recovered from the home described physical abuse and fear. A September 2012 entry read, “Your dad and I had a huge fight tonight. It’s the breaking point for me.” Other entries: “He abuses me physically… I want to be strong so he never puts his hands on me again,” and “I’m literally afraid of your dad sometimes. He’s capable of hurting me.”⁸

Maya had moved out during mid-2020. In June of that year, Larry sent 473 of 587 messages in a family group chat, most of them pleading for her to come back. Prosecutors told jurors that on the day Maya disappeared, she had reached out to a law firm about the divorce process.⁷

Spellcasters

Prosecutors introduced more than 500 pages of messages between Larry and an online spellcaster named Frank Peavey, who used the aliases “Mystic Lunar” and “Tess.” What began as love-spell requests escalated. “I wish she would get sick and stay sick until she realized how much she loves me and needed me,” Larry wrote in one message. “Please banish everyone from her life with the exception of family,” he wrote in another.⁹

The month before Maya vanished, he wrote: “Please punish May and incapacitate her enough so she can’t leave the house. It’s time to take the gloves off.”⁹ Peavey testified that Larry sought “instant gratification,” grew frustrated when the spells didn’t work, and was eventually blocked because of the volume of messages.¹⁰

The Search History

District Attorney’s Office investigator James Rhoades testified about internet searches tied to a “whistleblower” Gmail account that prosecutors linked to Larry through financial records, location data, and a distinctive misspelling. The searches were made in March and April 2020:

March 18, 2020: “life insurance if you kill yourself,” “how much is too much sleeping pills,” “carbon monoxide death,” “spouse left suicide.”
March 24, 2020: “how to confuse iPhone Find My App.”
April 9, 2020: “painless way to die,” “wife is fed up,” “my wife doesn’t trust me.”
April 10, 2020: “painless suicide,” “shot in the heart instant death,” “how quickly do you die when shot in the heart,” “do you die quicker shot in the heart or head.”
April 30, 2020: “painless death from plant.”

The same account was used to message the executive director of Maya’s workplace, accusing her of “fraternization.”¹¹¹²

January 7 Through 9, 2021

Around noon on January 7, Larry texted his boss, “I’m not right” and “I’m about to lose it.” Other messages that day, disclosed by the district attorney, included “I think she wants me to snap” and “I’m shaking inside ready to snap.”⁵

That night, a neighbor’s home security system captured a loud bang around 8:45 p.m. Just before 10:00 p.m., the system recorded five loud bangs, followed by dogs barking through the neighborhood, then three more bangs. The neighbor testified she hadn’t heard them in real time but remembered her own dog barking. Both the Chula Vista police and the FBI analyzed the audio but could not determine the source.¹³ The same neighbor’s footage showed the Millete children playing in the backyard around 10:30 p.m., which she described as unusual on a school night in roughly 40-degree weather.¹⁴

Maya’s phone last connected to the network at 1:25 a.m. on January 8. Prosecution witness Peter Villaver testified that its last recorded connections were consistent with the phone being in the San Miguel Ranch community, not somewhere distant.¹⁵ Larry’s phone was manually powered off at 6:33 a.m. with a nearly full battery and did not come back on until 6:35 p.m. that evening.²

Neighbors’ surveillance footage showed the family’s black Lexus SUV being repositioned just before 6:00 a.m. on January 8. It pulled into the street, backed up to the garage, and left the neighborhood about 45 minutes later. It returned roughly 12 hours later. The vehicle’s navigation system logged no GPS coordinates for that stretch.¹⁶

Lead investigator Jesse Vicente testified about footage from January 9 showing a freezer being removed from the Millete property and loaded into a white SUV belonging to Larry’s aunt, Katherine Fredericks, then driven away. That same day, Larry repositioned Maya’s Jeep. Vicente called the freezer activity “odd.”¹⁷

How the Defense Is Fighting Back

Defense attorney Colby Ryan told jurors in opening statements that the investigation contained “gaps in evidence” and urged them to “remove your preconceived notions.” The defense has emphasized that no crime scene and no direct physical evidence of a homicide exist, and that responding officers found no signs of a struggle.⁷

Attorneys Liann Sabatini and Colby Ryan have also argued that investigators had “blinders on,” focusing on Larry while failing to fully investigate Maya’s alleged affair with a supervisor named Jamey Laird. They sought a jury instruction allowing them to question investigators about Laird’s alibi to impeach the investigation itself.¹⁸ Judge Enrique Camarena ruled that the defense cannot argue third-party culpability, barring them from suggesting another person was responsible for Maya’s disappearance or death.

The defense has also pointed to text messages Larry sent Maya between January 9 and 27, 2021, arguing they show he did not know where she was, and it has challenged the reliability of the prosecution’s cell tower analysis on cross-examination.¹⁹¹⁵

Where the Trial Stands

Larry Millete has been in custody without bail since his arrest on October 19, 2021. He pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon and has repeatedly maintained his innocence.³

The trial was pushed back multiple times, most recently in April 2025 when Judge Camarena granted a continuance because of defense counsel’s health circumstances.²⁰²¹²²

Where the Children Are

After Larry’s arrest, the couple’s three children were placed with his parents at the family’s Chula Vista home. Maya’s sister Maricris Drouaillet sought guardianship, but a judge denied the request in November 2021, finding insufficient evidence to move the children. The court did grant Drouaillet and other family members weekly visitation and ordered therapy for all three children.²³ In August 2024, after a guardianship trial, a probate judge granted legal guardianship of the three children to Drouaillet.²⁴

1
NBC San Diego. Timeline: The Disappearance of Chula Vista Mom May Maya Millete
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FOX 5 San Diego. Larry Millete Trial Recap: One Month
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FOX 5 San Diego. Larry Millete Arrested on Suspicion of Murder in Wife’s Disappearance
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NBC San Diego. Expert Says Missing Crime Scene Could Help Prosecution in Millete Trial
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FOX 5 San Diego. What Led to the Arrest of Larry Millete: DA Shares Evidence From 9-Month Investigation
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10News. Larry Millete Murder Trial Faces No Body Challenge as Opening Statements Set to Begin
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10News. Opening Statements in the Maya Millete Murder Trial
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NBC San Diego. Maya Millete’s Journal Entries Claim Her Husband Larry Was Physically Abusive
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CBS News. Maya Millete Missing: Larry Millete Spellcasters Hex
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Court TV. Spellcaster Shares Messages With Larry Millete Before Wife’s Disappearance
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FOX 5 San Diego. Millete Murder Trial: Spellcasters, Search History
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Patch. DA’s Investigator Testifies About Larry Millete’s Internet Search History
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FOX 5 San Diego. Loud Bangs Night Maya Disappeared
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Yahoo News. Millete Trial Day 9: Neighbor Testimony
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NBC San Diego. Cell Phone Evidence Back on the Stand in the Millete Murder Trial
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NBC San Diego. Lead Detective in Maya Millete’s Disappearance Testifies in Larry’s Murder Trial
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New York Post. Video Shows Freezer Being Loaded Into Van a Day After Maya Millete Vanished
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NBC San Diego. Larry Millete’s Attorneys Battle to Question Investigators About Maya’s Alleged Lover
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FOX 5 San Diego. Millete Trial: Request to Remove Maya’s Brother-in-Law
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NBC San Diego. Larry Millete Murder Trial Delayed to January 2026
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FOX 5 San Diego. Day 2 Begins in Jury Selection for Millete Trial
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NBC San Diego. Day 15 of Millete Trial
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10News. Custody Hearing to Be Held for Maya Millete’s Children
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Yahoo News. Court Grants Custody of Maya Millete’s Children