Maya Millete Case Update: Trial, Evidence, and Verdict

The Maya Millete case is a San Diego no-body murder prosecution in which Larry Millete is standing trial for killing his wife, a 39-year-old Chula Vista mother of three who vanished from their home on January 7, 2021, and has never been found. He was arrested nine months after she disappeared, pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon, and after years of delays his trial opened on May 18, 2026, at the South Bay Courthouse in San Diego County. Prosecutors have no body, no confirmed crime scene, and no proven cause of death; their case is built on circumstantial evidence, including Larry’s messages with online spellcasters, disturbing internet searches, and his movements in the hours after Maya was last seen.¹

How Maya Millete Disappeared

Maya “May” Millete worked as a civilian contract specialist for the U.S. Navy at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center in San Diego. She and Larry married as teenagers after meeting in Hawaii and had three children together, ages 4, 9, and 11 when she went missing. By late 2020 the marriage was breaking down. Maya had consulted a divorce attorney, told friends she wanted out, and had started an extramarital relationship with a co-worker, Jamey Laird.²

On January 7, 2021, Maya messaged a group chat of work friends that she had argued with Larry that morning and that he wanted “100% custody of the kids.” A family photo shoot the day before had been canceled after what Maya described as an “accident” that left her bruised. Surveillance video caught her arriving home on Paseo Los Gatos in Chula Vista around 5:00 p.m. She was never seen leaving.³

Her sister, Maricris Drouaillet, reported her missing to Chula Vista police late on January 9. Officers arrived at the house shortly after 1:00 a.m. on January 10.²

Why Investigators Focused on Larry Millete

The Chula Vista Police Department led the investigation with help from the FBI, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Three search warrants at the Millete home over nine months yielded thousands of photographs and seized electronics, but no visible blood and no obvious crime scene inside the house.¹

Larry’s activity in the hours around Maya’s disappearance drew scrutiny. A neighbor’s home security system captured nine “loud bangs” outside the Millete home at 9:57 p.m. on January 7; the FBI could not confirm whether they were gunshots. The same neighbor noted the couple’s children playing in the backyard at 10:30 p.m. in cold weather.⁴ Maya’s phone last registered activity near the home at 1:25 a.m. on January 8.

Surveillance footage that morning showed Larry moving the family’s black 2015 Lexus GX460 closer to the house at 5:59 a.m. He left around 6:30 a.m. and did not return for roughly 11 hours. His own phone had been manually powered off for nearly 12 hours despite a nearly full battery.⁵ Data pulled from the Lexus’s infotainment system showed a navigation event at 3:29 p.m. on January 8 routing the vehicle back to Chula Vista, which prosecutors argue points to a drop-off location roughly two and a half hours away.⁶ An officer who searched the Lexus with Larry’s permission that night testified it was “exceptionally clean,” with no dust or dirt, despite three young children in the household.⁷

A .40 caliber firearm registered to Larry was never handed over during the search warrants and remained missing as of his arrest.⁶

The Charges and the Road to Trial

On October 19, 2021, Larry Millete was arrested at the family home and charged with murder under California Penal Code section 187 and illegal possession of an assault weapon. San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan announced the charges; the arrest warrant had been filed the day before by Chula Vista homicide detective Jesse Vicente.⁶ Larry pleaded not guilty and has been held without bail. Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles is trying the case.

The trial date slipped repeatedly, from an initial setting through January 2025, July 2025, January 2026, and finally March 2026, with continuances tied at various points to defense attorney Liann Sabatini’s health and to defense requests to work through the volume of evidence.⁸⁹ Testimony ultimately began on May 18, 2026, at the South Bay Courthouse in front of Judge Enrique Camarena. The trial is expected to run about three months, with 152 potential witnesses. The judge barred cameras from the courtroom.¹⁰

What Prosecutors Are Showing the Jury

Prosecutors have acknowledged they cannot prove exactly how Maya died. Their theory is that Larry killed her to stop her from leaving him, and they have built the case around behavior, digital evidence, and motive.

Spellcasters and “Dark Magic Hexes”

A central strand of the prosecution’s case is Larry’s extensive contact with online spellcasters. Investigator James Rhoades presented an escalating pattern pulled from Larry’s phone, email, and payment accounts: early “positive charm love spells” meant to bind Maya to him gave way to requests for spells to make her his “sex slave,” to leave her “physically incapacitated in some way” and dependent on him, and for voodoo hexes on Jamey Laird so he would “suffer tenfold.”¹¹

One spellcaster, Frank Peavey of Maine, who used the name “Mystic Lunar” among others, testified that Larry sent him more than 1,000 messages and spent over $1,000 in late 2020 and early 2021. On Christmas morning 2020, Larry wrote that he wished Maya would “get sick and stay sick until she realized how much she loves me and needs me.” Peavey said he eventually blocked Larry because the messages were excessive.¹² On January 9, 2021, two days after Maya vanished, Larry contacted spellcasters asking them to remove any hexes on Maya and redirect them to Laird. After that date, prosecutors say, he stopped asking for help with the marriage entirely.¹¹

Internet Searches and Text Messages

Prosecutors introduced Google searches Larry ran in March and April 2020, including “how much is too much sleeping pills,” “carbon monoxide death,” “painless way to die,” “shot in the heart instant death,” and “how quickly do you die when shot in the heart.” He also searched for “how to confuse iPhone Find My App,” “flunitrazepam, rohypnol and diphenhydramine,” “11 deadly plants you should never eat,” and “water hemlock.”³ Investigator Rhoades pointed to a gap in Larry’s search history between December 30, 2020, and January 10, 2021, and noted that on January 11 he searched for “May Millete.”¹³

Text records showed Larry sent 473 messages to Maya in June 2020 while she sent 114 back, a lopsided pattern prosecutors described as obsession and control. On the day Maya disappeared, Larry texted, “I think she wants me to snap,” and separately, “I’m shaking inside, ready to snap.”⁶

Maya’s Journal and Witnesses Close to Her

Investigators searching the home in October 2021 recovered a notebook with handwritten entries by Maya going back to 2011. In a September 2012 letter to her daughters, Maya described Larry as physically abusive and wrote, “I am literally afraid of your dad sometimes, he is capable of hurting me” and “Nothing stops him from forcing himself on me.” Judge Camarena instructed jurors that the entries could be used only to show Maya’s state of mind and her plans, not as proof that the events she described happened.¹⁴¹⁵

Maya’s father, Pablito Tabalanza, testified on May 19, 2026, that Larry had once shown him a gun tucked in his waistband at a family gathering in Moreno Valley and said, “Papa, I have a gun. I want to kill someone.” During his testimony, Tabalanza collapsed into his chair, stood back up, and accused Larry across the courtroom of murdering his daughter. Judge Camarena dismissed the jury for the day and later instructed them to disregard the accusations while allowing them to weigh the emotion they observed.¹⁶

Co-workers and friends testified that Maya feared Larry, was exhausted by his constant contact, and had begun looking into divorce and estate planning in October 2020 without following through.¹³¹⁷¹⁸

What the Defense Is Arguing

Larry’s defense team, Liann Sabatini, Colby Ryan, and Eugene Iredale, has argued that the investigation was biased and locked onto Larry while failing to properly examine other leads. A key defense strategy has been to attack how thoroughly police looked at Jamey Laird. Judge Camarena, though, ruled before trial that the defense cannot argue “third-party culpability” against Laird, finding no evidence linking him to Maya’s disappearance. Iredale publicly called that restriction unconstitutional and unfair given the lack of a body, a crime scene, or direct evidence.¹⁸

The defense has recast its approach as an effort to “impeach the investigation” rather than accuse anyone. Attorneys have pointed to Larry’s cooperation: consenting to searches of the home and vehicles, surrendering digital devices, and submitting to a physical examination to show he had no injuries. Ryan has also argued that Larry was trying to save his marriage, citing messages in which Larry blamed himself for being “clingy” and referenced Maya asking for an “open relationship.”¹³

Where the Millete Children Are Now

After Larry’s arrest in October 2021, the three children were initially placed with his parents. A contested custody dispute followed between the paternal grandparents and Maya’s sister, Maricris Drouaillet. On August 13, 2024, a judge awarded custody to Drouaillet and denied the grandparents’ competing petition.¹⁹

Where the Case Stands

Maya’s remains have not been found. Prosecutors have said they believe her body may be somewhere near Arizona, and her family has followed leads into desert areas.²⁰ As of late June 2026, the trial was ongoing, with about 23 days of testimony completed and dozens of the listed 152 witnesses still to be heard. Larry Millete faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder.¹⁰

1
NBC San Diego. Expert Says Missing Crime Scene Could Help Prosecution in Millete Trial
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NBC San Diego. Timeline: The Disappearance of Chula Vista Mom May “Maya” Millete
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Fox 5 San Diego. Millete Murder Trial: Spellcasters, Search History
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Fox 5 San Diego. What Led to the Arrest of Larry Millete: DA Shares Evidence
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Fox 5 San Diego. Larry Millete Trial Recap: One Month
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NBC San Diego. The People vs. Larry Millete: What the DA Said About the Murder Case
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10News. Larry Millete Murder Trial Day 6: Law Enforcement Testifies About Millete Vehicles and Computer Search History
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NBC San Diego. Larry Millete Murder Trial Delayed to January 2026
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Fox 5 San Diego. Trial for Larry Millete in Wife’s Murder Case Delayed to March 2026
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Biography. Larry Millete Case and Murder Trial
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NBC San Diego. Spellcasting Evidence Takes Center Stage in Millete Murder Trial
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Court TV. Spellcaster Shares Messages With Larry Millete Before Wife’s Disappearance
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10News. Co-Worker, Photographer, and Family Testify in Week 4 of Larry Millete Murder Trial
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New York Post. Maya Millete’s Journal Read Aloud in San Diego Murder Case Against Husband
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Fox 5 San Diego. Millete Trial Day 12
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Courthouse News Service. Maya Millete’s Father Shouts at Defendant in Chula Vista Murder Trial
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Fox 5 San Diego. Larry Millete Murder Trial Week 6: Affair Partner, Ex-Wife
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NBC San Diego. Millete Murder Trial Day 23
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10News. Maya Millete’s Sister Wins Custody of Kids Ahead of Larry Millete’s Murder Trial
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Fox 5 San Diego. South Bay Community Holds Vigil for Maya Millete Three Years After Disappearance