Larry Millete Trial: Spellcasters, Google Searches, and the Affair

The Larry Millete trial is a first-degree murder and assault-weapon-possession case being tried in San Diego County Superior Court over the January 2021 disappearance of his wife, May “Maya” Millete, whose body has never been found. Jury selection wrapped on May 12, 2026, before Judge Enrique Camarena, and the case is expected to run about three months. Millete has pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors concede they cannot prove how Maya died and are building an entirely circumstantial case around motive, behavior, and digital evidence.¹²

The Disappearance at the Center of the Case

Maya Millete, 39, was last seen on surveillance video arriving at the family’s home on Paseo Los Gatos in Chula Vista’s San Miguel Ranch neighborhood on the afternoon of January 7, 2021. Earlier that day, Larry had messaged his boss: “I’m not right” and “I’m about to lose it.”³ Maya’s phone last connected to a tower at 1:25 a.m. on January 8, and cell site data placed the phone in the San Miguel Ranch area at that time.⁴

Later that morning, surveillance footage showed Larry moving the family’s Lexus SUV closer to the house and driving off around 6:30 a.m. He was gone nearly twelve hours. During that entire stretch, his phone was manually powered off and disconnected from all cell towers. The SUV’s navigation system logged the Millete home address being entered at 3:29 p.m., suggesting the driver needed directions back.³⁵

Maya’s sister, Maricris Drouaillet, called 911 on January 9 to report her missing and told the dispatcher she had domestic violence concerns. When officers arrived after 1:00 a.m. on January 10, Maya’s car was still there, her phone went straight to voicemail, and the house was described as “in disarray.” Surveillance from January 9 also showed a freezer being wheeled out of the Millete home and loaded into an SUV belonging to Larry’s aunt.³

Investigators later focused on 444 unaccounted-for miles on the Lexus from January 8 and searched a remote area near Blythe, California, and Quartzsite, Arizona, roughly 222 miles from Chula Vista, three times. No remains were ever recovered. Two days after the disappearance, Larry asked a neighbor to repair scratches on the Lexus without explaining the damage.⁵

The Prosecution’s Theory

Prosecutors argue Larry killed Maya because she wanted a divorce. Text messages introduced at trial show Maya wrote to Larry on January 6, 2021: “I DONT WANT TO BE YOUR WIFE ANYMORE!!” and “I’m filing whether you like it or not.”⁶ The state’s roster runs to roughly 152 potential witnesses, and Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles has structured the presentation to build context slowly, since there is no body and no identifiable crime scene.²

Spellcasters

Lead investigator James Rhoades testified that search warrants for Larry’s phone, email, and payment accounts uncovered months of communication with online spellcasters. Larry initially paid for “powerful love spells” to bind Maya to him. By October 2020, the requests turned darker: voodoo hexes on Maya’s co-worker and affair partner Jamey Laird, wishes that Laird “would suffer tenfold” and that harm would come to Laird’s unborn child, and spells to make Maya a “sex slave” or leave her “physically incapacitated” so she would depend on him. Two days after Maya vanished, on January 9, 2021, Larry messaged spellcasters asking them to remove hexes from Maya and redirect them to Laird.⁷ At the preliminary hearing, prosecutors said Larry spent at least $1,154.05 on these spells.⁸

Google Searches

Investigators tied a Gmail account to Larry and pulled searches spanning March 2020 into early 2021.

March 2020: “Life insurance if you kill yourself,” “how much is too much sleeping pills,” “carbon monoxide death,” and “how to confuse iPhone Find My App.”
April 2020: “Painless way to die,” “painless suicide,” “shot in the heart instant death,” “how quickly do you die when shot in the heart,” and “do you die quicker shot in the heart or head.”
December 2020 through January 2021: date rape drugs (specifically Rohypnol), subliminal messages, and spellcasters.

After Maya disappeared, Larry searched for the Grand Canyon, “spotless car soap,” and a shower head.⁹ Digital forensic investigator Mathew Grindley testified that Larry’s Google account was set to auto-delete location history, with deletion events occurring up to three times a day after Maya vanished. An email address linked to Larry was deleted ten days after she was last seen, making its contents permanently unrecoverable.¹⁰

Phone and Vehicle Evidence

Peter Villaver, a crime analysis administrator for the District Attorney’s Office, testified as a cell tower expert. Using a test phone of the same model and carrier, he mapped connection profiles for neighborhoods around the Millete home and concluded Maya’s phone was most likely at the residence when it went dark at 1:25 a.m. on January 8. Larry’s phone lost all tower connectivity from roughly 6:33 a.m. to 6:35 p.m. that day. Larry told investigators he had been at the beach with his son during that window, an alibi investigators could not confirm.⁴ The 444 unaccounted-for miles on the Lexus fit the same window.⁵

Journal Entries and Family Testimony

A notebook recovered from the Millete home in October 2021 contained journal entries dating to 2011. On the twelfth day of testimony, Rhoades read entries aloud. In a September 2012 passage addressed to her daughters, Maya wrote: “He abuses me physically…I want to be strong so he never puts his hands on me again. I’m literally afraid of your dad sometimes. He’s capable of hurting me.”¹¹ Judge Camarena instructed the jury the entries could be considered only as evidence of Maya’s state of mind, not as proof the described abuse actually occurred.¹²

Maya’s father, Pablito Tabalanza, testified on the second day of trial that Larry once lifted his shirt to reveal a gun and said, “Papa, I have a gun. I want to kill someone.” Tabalanza collapsed on the stand and shouted at Larry across the courtroom; the judge ordered the jury to disregard the outburst but noted jurors could consider the “strong emotions” present during the testimony.¹³ Former co-worker Claudia Julao and photographer Camille Camacho testified Maya was making concrete plans for her future in late 2020 and early 2021. Sister-in-law Genesis Tabalanza told jurors, “She would not abandon her kids.”¹¹

The Affair

In the trial’s sixth week, James “Jamey” Laird testified he and Maya were co-workers at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center and began an affair in January 2020. He said he fell in love with her, describing the relationship as “us against the world.” He acknowledged lying repeatedly to police, his wife, family, and co-workers, and admitted he and Maya frequently deleted their communications.¹⁴

Laird’s ex-wife, Patricia Laird, a San Diego sheriff’s deputy, testified Larry contacted her in early 2020 to tell her about the affair and kept reaching out every few weeks, prompting her to block multiple numbers linked to the Millete family. Patricia also provided Jamey’s alibi, testifying he was with her at the hospital for the birth of their child between January 7 and January 10, 2021.⁶

The Defense’s Response

Larry Millete has maintained his innocence throughout and has publicly stated he believes Maya may still be alive.¹³ His attorneys, Liann Sabatini and Colby Ryan, have pursued two main lines.

The first targets Jamey Laird. The defense pointed out that Laird admitted lying under penalty of perjury and that 76% of his messages to Maya were sexual in nature. They argued investigators failed to obtain search warrants for platforms Laird and Maya used, including Microsoft Teams and “FusionChat,” and never visited the hospital to independently verify his alibi. Judge Camarena has limited how far this can go, ruling the defense cannot suggest anyone other than Larry was responsible for Maya’s disappearance. The defense has therefore framed the Laird questions as investigative shortcomings rather than pointing to an alternative suspect.¹⁵

The second line attacks the reliability of the state’s technical evidence. Cross-examining the cell tower expert, Colby Ryan noted the analyst did not know the operating system of Maya’s phone, could not account for antenna hardware differences between the test phone and her actual device, and did not adjust for changes to cell towers, terrain, and surrounding buildings in the seven months between the disappearance and the testing.⁴ Ryan argued the phone-tracking experiments relied on “limited historical data” and a confidence margin of plus or minus 300 meters.¹⁵ At the preliminary hearing stage, prior counsel had also argued Maya may have chosen to disappear to escape professional fallout from the workplace affair, and that no direct evidence or eyewitness testimony linked Larry to a crime.⁸

Investigators executed three search warrants at the Millete home over nine months, took thousands of photographs, and seized electronics and samples. They reported no obvious crime scene and no visible forensic evidence of blood or foul play.²

Charges and Getting to Trial

Larry Millete was arrested in October 2021 and charged with one count of first-degree murder and one count of possession of an assault weapon. The weapon charge stems from a semi-automatic rifle seized from his home that was not registered in California; a California Department of Justice firearms agent testified at the preliminary hearing that the rifle qualified as an assault weapon because of a pistol grip, collapsible stock, and magazine release. The charges are being tried together.¹⁶¹⁷

Following a two-week preliminary hearing in January 2023, Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring ordered Millete to stand trial, citing established case law permitting murder prosecutions when no body has been recovered.⁸¹⁸¹

Where the Trial Stands

As of late June 2026, testimony has reached its 21st day and Larry Millete remains in custody. The prosecution is still working through its long witness list, and testimony is expected to continue for weeks before the defense presents its case and jurors begin deliberations.¹⁵

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NBC San Diego. Maya Millete’s Journal Entries Claim Her Husband Larry Was Physically Abusive
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Courthouse News Service. Maya Millete’s Father Shouts at Defendant in Chula Vista Murder Trial
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10News. Maya Millete’s Affair Partner Testifies He Was in Love With Her
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