A Chula Vista jury convicted Millete in July 2026 of the first-degree murder of his wife, May "Maya" Millete, who has not been seen since January 2021 and whose body has never been found. He is awaiting sentencing, and his lawyers have asked for a new trial.
Millete's lawyers filed a 69-page motion for a new trial on Oct. 20, 2026; it is sealed, and its grounds have not been made public.3 NBC 7 reported that the judge will consider the motion at the Nov. 2 sentencing hearing.3 Sentencing had been set for Sept. 29; that day Judge Enrique Camarena granted a defense request for more time, over the prosecution's objection, while the defense waited for returns on several subpoenas.4 The prosecutor said she had seen media reports that the subpoenas sought full video of jurors' post-verdict interviews from local television stations.4
May “Maya” Millete disappeared from the family’s Chula Vista home on Jan. 7, 2021, and family members reported her missing on Jan. 9 after they could not reach her, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office.1 Surveillance video recorded her entering the home at about 4:45 p.m. that day, and none shows her leaving; her last known contact was a text message to one of her sisters at about 8:15 p.m., Times of San Diego reported.8 Her phone lost its cellular connection at about 1:25 a.m. on Jan. 8.12 Police and prosecutors have said there is “no evidence to suggest she is still alive.”8 Her body has not been found.1
After what the District Attorney’s Office described as a nine-month investigation led by the Chula Vista Police Department with the FBI and NCIS, police arrested Larry Millete on Oct. 19, 2021, and prosecutors charged him with murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon.2 He was held without bail.2 The office noted that California law allows a murder prosecution without a body.2 The weapon had been seized on May 7, 2021, along with other guns, when Chula Vista police served him with a gun violence restraining order during the investigation.96
At a preliminary hearing in January 2023, witnesses testified that he had sought help from relatives and online “spell casters” to keep his wife in the marriage, spending $1,154.05 on spells, and relatives testified that he once planted a cell phone in her vehicle to track her, KPBS reported.22 Prosecutors said he told investigators he had spent Jan. 8 at Solana Beach with one of the children, and that police found no evidence of that.22 On Jan. 25, 2023, Superior Court Judge Dwayne Moring ordered him to stand trial for murder, saying, “There is a marked contrast in the defendant’s actions before Ms. Millete’s disappearance and afterward.”22
Before trial, the defense moved to remove the District Attorney’s Office from the case, alleging that the prosecutor had elicited false testimony at the preliminary hearing; on April 30, 2026, Judge Enrique Camarena found no misconduct and no untruthful witnesses, denied that motion and denied a motion to dismiss.21 The weapons count was bifurcated, or separated, from the murder trial at the defense’s request, so jurors did not hear about it.69
The case was circumstantial.111 In her opening statement in May 2026, Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles called the marriage “unhealthy, toxic,” said May Millete had been confiding her unhappiness to friends for a year and planned to leave, and told jurors, “She would not and could not leave her children.”20 Prosecutors presented evidence that she had told her husband on Jan. 7, 2021, that she would file for divorce, and that he wrote that day, “I’m shaking inside and ready to snap,” NBC 7 reported.11 Emails shown at trial reflected plans for graduate school and an appointment with a divorce attorney on Jan. 12, 2021, which prosecutors cited against the theory that she ran away.17 Diary entries she addressed to herself were also shown; in one from late August 2020 she wrote, “I can’t wait to get away from this toxicity that you create.”17
The spellcasters. Prosecutors said Millete tracked his wife’s whereabouts and controlled the couple’s finances, and that he asked online “spell casters” to make her obey him, fall in love with him again, or become sick or incapacitated, requests that stopped after she disappeared.12 Spellcasters testified that he hired them to make her “get sick and stay sick,” Court TV reported.13 In messages from Jan. 5 to 7, 2021, an investigator testified, he wrote that she was determined to divorce him and asked, “Make her miserable without me.”15 Jurors were shown voodoo dolls, books on spells and small vials of plant matter that prosecutors said were seized from the home on the day of his arrest.18
The hemlock evidence. An FBI forensic chemist testified that one of two vials seized from the home contained coniine, a toxin found in poison hemlock.16 A district attorney’s investigator testified that Millete’s internet searches in 2020 included sites on poison and water hemlock.16 The director of the San Diego division of the California Poison Control System testified that coniine can paralyze the muscles used in breathing, and when asked whether it could sicken or incapacitate a person of May Millete’s size, he said, “It could.”16 On cross-examination he said he had never handled a coniine poisoning case and that poison hemlock can grow next to hairy fleabane, a nontoxic plant an FBI biologist testified was identified by DNA in the same vial.17 The defense noted that the amount of toxin in the vial was never measured.18 Prosecutors did not say how they believed she died.168
Jan. 8, 2021. Millete’s supervisor at the Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park testified that Millete texted him on Jan. 5 that his wife was “asking for divorce again,” and on Jan. 7 that he was “not right” and “about to lose it.”19 Surveillance video showed an SUV leaving the home around 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 8 and returning that evening, and police and prosecutors said they could not account for his whereabouts for about 12 hours.19 A district attorney’s investigator testified that vehicle data, cell phone locations, financial transactions and toll records left about 444 miles unaccounted for that day, and that about half that distance matched a trip to the area of the Colorado River Reservation, a desert area the family knew, where prosecutors believe her body was left; searches there found nothing.15 The investigator testified that on Jan. 9 Millete told a neighbor the SUV had scratches that needed repair, and that small shrubs in that area could have caused them.15 On cross-examination, defense attorney Colby Ryan noted that other family members could have driven the SUV and that cash purchases and trips without a phone would not appear in the analysis.15
Millete did not testify.11 His lawyers argued that his wife may have left on her own, by climbing the backyard fence and leaving by a drainage ditch and a mountain trail out of view of the home’s cameras, NBC 7 reported; the defense presented no testimony about where he was on Jan. 8.11 In opening, Ryan told jurors there was no crime scene and no direct evidence, and said investigators had not fully looked into her relationship with a man she worked with.20 The judge did not allow the defense to present that man as a suspect, NBC 7 reported.5
In closing on July 8, 2026, attorney Liann Sabatini argued that Millete was caught off guard by his wife’s affair, that he too had suffered “psychological and emotional abuse,” and that his messages to spellcasters were a way to vent: “This was his diary.”14 She told jurors the case required speculation because there was no body, crime scene, murder weapon or eyewitness, called the poison theory “silly,” and suggested he had searched for hemlock as a means of suicide.12 In rebuttal, Bowles told jurors the law does not require proof of a cause of death and said, “The only reasonable conclusion is that May Millete is dead and that the defendant killed her.”14
The jury began deliberating on the afternoon of July 8 and on July 9, 2026, after about five hours, found Millete guilty of first-degree murder, rejecting second-degree murder and manslaughter.14111 Jurors who spoke with NBC 7 afterward said they did not agree on exactly how she was killed but agreed the evidence showed a premeditated murder, and they cited the hours on Jan. 8 he could not account for and his messages to spellcasters.5 “We could see what Larry did,” one juror told Court TV.13 District Attorney Summer Stephan said after the verdict that her office would “never stop hoping that Maya can be brought home.”1
On July 20, 2026, instead of having the judge try the separated weapons count, Millete pleaded guilty to possessing an assault weapon.68 Sentencing on both counts was set for Sept. 29 and later moved to Nov. 2, 2026.84 On Oct. 20, 2026, his lawyers filed a sealed, 69-page motion for a new trial.3
According to his lawyer’s closing argument, Millete was born in the Philippines, was raised in Hawaii and met his wife in high school, and the two served in the Navy.14 She graduated from Radford High School in Hawaii, Hawaii News Now reported.10 He was 18 and she was 19 when they married, according to ABC 10News, and they were married for 20 years and had three children.2012 She worked as a civilian employee of the Department of Defense, according to the District Attorney’s Office.1
Millete worked at the Naval Medical Center in Balboa Park, where his supervisor, who testified that he had known him for about 20 years through the Navy and the hospital, called him “a stellar employee.”19
In June 2022 his lawyer at the time declared a doubt about his competency to stand trial, halting the case; on Sept. 26, 2022, after the lawyer stipulated to a psychiatrist’s report, a judge found him competent and proceedings resumed.23 The sources reviewed report no diagnosis. In a declaration in a separate court case, he wrote that he believed his wife had left voluntarily.23
He has been in custody since his arrest in October 2021, nearly five years as of his scheduled sentencing.24
Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles told jurors that Millete killed his wife at their home as she was preparing to leave him, loaded her body into the family SUV and disposed of it on Jan. 8, 2021, while conceding she could not say how May Millete died.820 "Rather than let her leave, he killed her," she said in her opening statement.20 In rebuttal she told jurors, "He's either the unluckiest person in the world, or he's guilty of murder."14 The prosecution objected to delaying the sentencing.4
Millete has denied killing his wife.15 His lawyers argued that the case asked jurors to speculate because there was no body, crime scene, murder weapon or eyewitness, that she may have left on her own, and that investigators did not fully examine her relationship with a man she worked with.122011 Attorney Liann Sabatini called his messages to spellcasters "his diary," said he "never wanted to wish death on May," and called the poison theory "silly."1412 The defense has filed a sealed motion for a new trial.3
May Millete is recorded entering the family home at about 4:45 p.m.; no footage shows her leaving. Her last known contact is a text to a sister at about 8:15 p.m.8
The family SUV leaves the home around 6:45 a.m. and returns that evening; prosecutors say Millete's whereabouts for about 12 hours cannot be accounted for.1912
Family members report her missing.1
Police seize guns, including an unregistered assault weapon, when serving Millete with a gun violence restraining order.9
Millete is arrested and charged with murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon.2
After his lawyer declared a doubt about his competency in June, a judge finds him competent and the case resumes.23
After a preliminary hearing, Judge Dwayne Moring orders him to stand trial for murder.22
Judge Camarena denies defense motions to remove the District Attorney's Office from the case and to dismiss it.21
Opening statements are given in Chula Vista.20
He pleads guilty to the assault-weapon count; sentencing is set for Sept. 29.68
At the defense's request, the judge postpones sentencing to Nov. 2.4
The defense files a sealed motion for a new trial.3
Sentencing on both counts is set for Nov. 2, 2026, before Judge Camarena, who is to consider the new-trial motion at that hearing; NBC 7 reported it was unclear whether sentencing would be delayed again.3 First-degree murder carries 25 years to life, and the weapons count up to three more years; it has not been reported whether the terms would run concurrently or consecutively.6 Nearly five years in custody will count toward his sentence.4 No notice of appeal has been reported in the sources reviewed; an appeal would follow sentencing.