What to Know
- May "Maya" Millete, a Chula Vista mother of three, was last seen alive on Jan. 7, 2021
- In October 2021, police arrested her husband, Larry Millete on a first-degree murder charge
- Her body was never recovered
A San Diego County judge on Tuesday agreed to a defense request to reschedule the beginning of the trial of Larry Millete, a South Bay man accused of murdering his wife, the mother of their three children.
Larry, who has pleaded not guilty, is accused of killing his 39-year-old wife, Maya Millete, in January 2021. Her body has never been found.
In court on Tuesday, the accused killer appeared alongside his attorney Colby Ryan when Judge Enrique Camarena granted the defense's request to further delay the start of the trial, which had been set Aug. 5 but is now slated to begin on Jan. 6, 2025, almost four years to the day that she was last seen alive. A motions hearing, which is expected to last up to four days, is on the court's calendar for Dec. 2, with a status conference scheduled for Aug. 5.
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Maya Millete Case
Larry's trial was first scheduled, following his preliminary hearing in the case last year during which he was bound over, for Sept. 14, 2023.
The Chula Vista man has been in custody since October 2021, approximately nine months after Maya disappeared. Prior to the time she was last seen, the couple had marital problems; she wanted out, but testimony in the preliminary hearing showed that Larry would have none of it. He tried everything to keep her from leaving him, including hiring so-called "spell-casters" in the hopes that they could use magic to get her to stay with him.
Last July, Larry and his then-attorney, Bonita Martinez, pleaded for a delay in the court proceeding, arguing that he didn't have enough money on hand to fund his defense. Since that time, a conservator for her estate was named and granted permission to sell her home, as well as her vehicles and other property.
The conservatorship ruling was an attempt by Maya's family to preserve the value of her estate, presumably to aid her children in the future or, potentially, provide financial assistance to their current caregivers, Larry's parents. Martinez wanted the court to appoint a conservator to handle the couple's shared assets, a ruling that could have resulted in her client getting funding for his defense, but the court ruled that all "funds from the sales proceeds shall be placed into a blocked account given the uncertainty as to what portion of the funds belong to the conservatee," with Maya being the conservatee.
Maya was last seen in the couple's home on Paseo Los Gatos at around 5 p.m. home on Jan. 7, 2021. Her disappearance occurred two days before the family was set to travel on a planned trip to Big Bear for her daughter’s birthday. Two days later, her sister called Chula Vista police to report that she was missing. Maya’s car was still at her home but phone calls went straight to her voicemail after her disappearance.
Since then, the residence was visited by police on multiple occasions, dozens of search parties have been held to locate Maya, and, in October 2021, Larry was arrested and charged with murder in the first degree as well as a weapons charge connected to a gun found during one of the searches.
In addition to pleading not guilty in court, Larry denied murdering his wife in an exclusive on-camera interview with NBC 7 Investigates. You can watch the entire jailhouse interview here — Ed.
