Judge pushes start of murder trial for Maya Millete's husband, Larry, to next summer

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 judge granted the defense's request to further delay the start of the trial. The judge in the case has set the new start for the trial to July 7 of next year, almost two years later than the original date that had been set.

Larry's trial was first scheduled, following his preliminary hearing in the case last year during which he was bound over trial, for Sept. 14, 2023. It was then pushed back to Aug. 5 of this year, then extended a third time, to Jan. 6, 2025, almost four years to the day that she was last seen alive.

Defense attorneys asked on Tuesday for more time to review evidence, while prosecutors opposed any further delays. They also accused Larry of circumventing court orders and communicating with his children, all in an effort to manipulate the children, who are both victims and witnesses in the case.

In the end, though, the judge granted the defense's request and said anyone helping Larry communicate inappropriately could be taken into custody.

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.