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An online spell caster, a secret Instagram account, and a trail of digital evidence that offers new insight
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into Maya Millete's life. She's not been seen since January 2021, and her husband Larry is now on trial
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for her murder in Chula Vista, [music] California. He pleaded not guilty to killing Maya.
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Welcome to 48 Hours Case by Case. I'm CBS News legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Caroline Polisi.
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The Larry Millete murder trial is now in its seventh week. The prosecution has rested its case. The defense did the
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same one day later. Since 48 Hours last checked in on this case, jurors heard from key witnesses
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like one of those spell casters Larry Millete emailed, as well as the man that Maya Millete had been seeing
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romantically. The question that needs to be answered in court, what happened to the
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39-year-old mother of three, Maya Millete, after she disappeared from her Chula Vista home in January 2021?
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Her body has never been found. Joining me today is 48 Hours consultant Herman Weisberg, a private investigator
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and managing director of Siege Intelligence Group, where among many responsibilities he oversees
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investigations and litigation. Herman, it's so exciting to have you here. In fact, our paths have crossed
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but way back when when I was a criminal defense attorney. >> Oh, first of all, thanks for having me.
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It's great to see you again and be working with you again, Caroline. Um before forming Siege, I spent 20
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years in the NYPD as a detective. My last 10, I was lucky enough to work uh in the Manhattan District Attorney's
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office. I led criminal and financial investigations. >> Yeah, as I as I told our producers,
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you're you're the real deal. So, we're lucky to have you today. >> Thanks. >> Before we get into the latest details, a
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reminder that we've covered the trial in two previous episodes. So, if you want that earlier background, check out our
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Case by Case podcast feed and 48 Hours YouTube channel. So, Herman, what makes this case so interesting to you?
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>> Mostly the challenge, you know, this is a very pretty rare to have a no body case, as they say.
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Uh you know, it's it's hard enough to prosecute a murder, uh but this it has significant challenges, you know,
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starting with there's no cause of death, for example. >> I mean, no body cases are notoriously
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difficult, right, for prosecutors to to handle. So, in our last episode on this case, there was a lot of discussion of
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Jamie Laird, the man who's admitted to having an affair with Maya at the time of her disappearance. Juries not only
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heard from Laird, but also his ex-wife Patricia, whose testimony we'll we'll get into in a little bit, but let's
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break down JB Laird's time on the stand, Herman. >> Jamie's testimony gave jurors a much
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more intimate look at Maya's life in the months before she disappeared. Uh Jamie
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testified that he met Maya while they were working together as civilian employees supporting the Navy. He said
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what started as a friendship eventually turned romantic, even though both were married. He said Maya confided him about
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problems in her marriage. He testified that she described Larry as controlling. Said she wasn't even allowed to drive to
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work alone, and she shared concerns that he was tracking her movements. He also told jurors that she was making
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plans for a future outside the marriage. >> On the stand, Jamie even shared that
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Maya's code name for Larry was V in their secret communications, which she says was in reference to the evil wizard
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Voldemort from Harry Potter. >> Yeah, I had to look that up. I never read or saw Harry Potter movies. But, in
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looking it up, it was interesting though. He was noted as you know who was one way to describe
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Voldemort, or the man who shall not be named, or the name that shall not be mentioned, or something. So, that that's
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a pretty cute uh nickname or code name they came up with there. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um and you know, by
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all accounts the prosecution's witnesses' testimonies allege that he was only growing more and more
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controlling in the months leading up to her disappearance. Jamie's testimony was really significant
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because jurors finally heard directly from someone who perhaps had a little more insight into Maya's private life
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than anyone really. >> Another detail that really stood out was where Jamie was when Maya was last seen
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alive. He testified that he was at a hospital while his wife was giving birth to their child. Though the judge said
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neither the prosecution nor the defense could dig into this, noting Laird could not be treated as a potential suspect
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given no direct evidence tying him to her alleged murder. >> Jurors also heard that Jamie wasn't
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initially truthful with investigators about the affair. Herman, can you talk about some of the cross-examination?
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>> Yeah, we we saw the defense pointed out Jamie's initial lies to his wife, his
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bosses, and the multiple law enforcement agencies. Uh, Jamie acknowledged he lied because
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he was afraid of the consequences for his marriage. And he didn't want their affair to
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coming out. >> Yeah, and and that's a common fact pattern we see sometimes in cases like
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this. Um, Herman, as a former detective, how do investigators and and ultimately
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jurors evaluate a witness who admits they weren't truthful at first? And how often do you come across witnesses like
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this who initially lie? >> In my experience, it's not unusual at all for witnesses to withhold
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embarrassing or deeply personal information when they're first interviewed. Uh, you know, as investigators we don't
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automatically dismiss somebody just because they were they weren't forthcoming initially. You know, there's
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a process to this. The next question becomes once they begin cooperating, is their account
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corroborated by other evidence? It can certainly be a barrier in a trial for a jury to get around. Um, and
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defense counsel may try to poke holes and prosecutors may try to use that to villainize.
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It's pretty common, though. >> Yeah, and as we often say, as defense attorneys, you know, you
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can't choose your facts and you can't choose your witnesses. So, you just, you know, use what what you've got and hope
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that the jury chooses your side. So, prosecutors had already established the affair through Jamie's testimony, but
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they called Patricia Laird, Jamie's ex-wife, as a witness a few days after his testimony. What did Patricia's
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testimony add? >> Well, Patricia corroborated parts of Jamie's testimony, including that he was
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at the hospital with Patricia as she gave birth when Maya went missing. But, Patricia added another twist to this
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case. After Larry learned about Maya's affair, but before she went missing, Patricia testified she started getting
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repeated phone calls from Larry. >> Yeah, what do we know about those calls? >> Well, she said Larry first contacted her
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at work, identifying himself as somebody from the Naval Hospital, which initially, of course, made Patricia
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think something had happened to Jamie. So, from an investigative standpoint, testimony like that helps establish
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another piece of the timeline and Larry's reaction after discovering their relationship.
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Interestingly, according to reports of the defense cross-examination of Patricia Laird, they asked about Larry's
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demeanor during the calls and if he was threatening. She noted that he was polite, never
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menacing, and would repeatedly apologize for disturbing her. >> Yeah, but but still, Patricia noted the
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the frequency of his calls, which the prosecution may want to show sort of as a window into his state of mind.
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>> She also noted that the calls from Larry ceased after Maya went missing. >> Yeah. Overall, Patricia's testimony
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wasn't really about proving the affair. It seemed to be more about helping jurors understand how Larry reacted once
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he believed Maya was involved with someone else. Patricia said that Larry told her Jamie was cheating on her with
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his wife, and that by early 2020, it felt like he was calling her weekly, so much so that she actually blocked his
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number. Uh but Larry would actually find other numbers to reach her, and on the stand, according to our San Diego
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station, she listed phone numbers linked with Larry that included his children's
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cell phones and even the phone number of his aunt. >> Yeah, this testimony definitely suggests
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a pattern of behavior betraying him not as a guy who takes hints very well. I've seen it in other
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cases where it could be seen you know, as really harassment. Just repeated calling like this.
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>> So, through Jamie and Patricia, jurors heard about the affair and the impact it
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had on Maya's marriage. But in their case, prosecutors also introduced digital evidence they say corroborates
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much of that testimony. Before Jamie and Patricia Laird took the stand, investigator Matthew Greenley with the
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San Diego County District Attorney's Office testified on how they uncovered a private Instagram account connected to
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Maya. Prosecutors say Maya used it to communicate secretly with Jamie. According to the reports, Greenley said
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that the messages between them were sexual, and quote, that they were very emotional.
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In Jamie's testimony on their correspondence within the Instagram account, he said,
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quote, we were always working together to cover up the affair. There was no topic off-limits.
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>> Yeah, this is this is very important information here. It's contemporaneous. It's unfiltered. And investigators can
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can use this to compare against text, phone records, and witness testimony. >> Here, the prosecution wasn't just asking
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jurors to believe what Jamie said Maya told him, but they were also pointing jurors to Maya's own words, including
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screenshots of text conversations with Larry that she'd screenshot into her private Instagram DMs. Like this one
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from August 2020, where Maya said to Larry, quote, I can't wait to get away from this toxicity that you create.
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>> And and investigator Greenley also shared contents of Maya's emails that they obtained that through a search
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warrant where she also she was writing herself almost like a journal like messages where she described her plans
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for the future without Larry. Plans that included graduate school and they also found that she had been making
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appointments with a divorce attorney. For the prosecutors this this painted a consistent picture of where Maya
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believed her life was headed. >> Yeah. Prosecutors questioned Courtney Nixon, one of Maya's closest friends
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from work, who described hearing Maya in their Facebook messages become increasingly anxious over the impact on
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their children of leaving Larry. >> Courtney testified that Larry went onto [clears throat] Maya's Facebook, found
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those messages between them and then blocked Courtney's ability to to communicate with Maya on Facebook. You
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know, we know this was early 2020, the height of the pandemic. People were really relying on social media back then
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as like a lifeline to their friends and family. Courtney and and Maya eventually got
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around this moving their conversation to Instagram, but Larry somehow also accessed Maya's account there according
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to the prosecution and messaged Courtney, you know, on Instagram urging her to speak in his favor.
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>> Yeah, you know, and again like this testimony just suggests to me this increasingly escalating behavior, this
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controlling behavior. Um and then of course Herman, there was the spell caster that Larry had been
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emailing perhaps what this case is most well known for because it it it just seems so unbelievable. Um how often have
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you come across spell casters in your work, Herman? >> I remember I took the homicide course in
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the NYPD and there was a couple of hours dedicated to the occult. It was called occult training.
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>> Wow, I I certainly have never come across it in any of my work. Um but you know, it's one of the things about this
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case that is so sort of eye-popping and and and catching for really everybody. Um,
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so we heard from Frank Peavy, and while much of the media has referred to him as
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a spell caster, on the stand he described his work as a spiritual assistance. Uh, prosecutors say Larry
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sought him out online in October of 2020 in the hopes of repairing the relationship with Maya. Herman, what
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else did we learn? >> So, interesting, uh, jurors heard that Larry Millete sent Peavy a flood of
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messages. There were days when he was sending more than two dozen brief messages in quick succession.
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And Peavy described Larry as, when he used the exact words, "Manic, desperate, and obsessive."
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And eventually, Peavy blocked Larry because of the volume of communication. >> Yeah.
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>> So, you're seeing, uh, you know, definitely a a recurring theme here. >> Yeah, sounds sounds familiar. Um,
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obviously, you can't help but draw those parallels to Patricia Laird's testimony,
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where she described blocking those calls from Larry as they escalated. It is important to note that in the defense's
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cross-examination of Peavy, he acknowledged that Larry Millete had never asked for Maya to be killed or
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have her vanish. >> Yeah, that's right. But because this is a no body case, these little behavioral details hold a
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lot of weight. They They help the jury understand the relationship between this couple, and also to reconstruct events.
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Investigators begin looking at every piece of physical, digital, forensic evidence that they can gather to either
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support or challenge their theory of what happened. >> Yeah, and you know, one recurring theme
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we've seen throughout this trial has been Maya's phone. Investigators testified that they never recovered it,
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but they spent years trying to reconstruct her movements through the digital evidence that she left behind.
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Herman, how significant is a missing phone in a homicide investigation? >> Oh, it's it's huge. Uh, I mean, a phone
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they tell investigators an incredible amount of what's going on in our lives. And when a phone can't be recovered,
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investigators have to work backwards. They have to like reverse engineer other digital evidence, phone records,
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surveillance, and witness testimony to try to fill in these gaps. >> And and just this week, a cell phone
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record specialist took the stand to present a timeline of Maya's last phone activity.
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Turns out that on the night she disappeared, he testified that she texted her family about a trailer and a
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motorcycle before all communications suddenly ceased at 1:25 a.m. >> The data specialist timeline also
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revealed Larry's phone activity on the day Maya disappeared, including the 12 hours that he was unreachable.
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>> Yeah, and digital evidence wasn't the only way prosecutors tried to reconstruct Maya's final days. This
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week, jurors also heard testimony about the family's Lexus SUV as prosecutors worked to reconstruct what happened the
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day after Maya disappeared. A district attorney's investigator testified that by analyzing the SUV's service history,
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odometer readings, and cell phone records, he identified approximately 444 miles of travel that couldn't be fully
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accounted for. His analysis led him to focus on a remote area near the California-Arizona
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border, which is an area that the Millete family had visited before. He testified investigators searched that
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region three different times for Maya, but never found her body. Jurors also heard that the search
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vehicles returned with scratches after driving through that rugged terrain. Testimony that really echoed earlier
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evidence that Larry asked a neighbor to repair scratches on his Lexus a couple days after Maya disappeared.
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>> Cars can become almost as important as phones in a case like this. By itself,
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the mileage really doesn't prove anything, but when you combine it with digital evidence, witness testimony, and
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timelines, it can help investigators support or eliminate possible scenarios, I think.
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>> Jury's also heard prosecutors introduce border crossing records and and passport
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evidence. A border patrol officer testified that Maya's passport had expired in November of 2020 and was
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never renewed. In fact, there's no record of her leaving the country since 2019. So, this really challenges the
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idea that Maya abandoned her family to live elsewhere or went off the grid out of the US.
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>> Yeah, that that's pretty much a standard part of of a missing person's investigation. Detectives really don't
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begin with a conclusion. They test different possibilities. It'd be bad if if you started with one conclusion and
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tried to work it from there. You you really have to keep an open mind. You know, did the person leave
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voluntarily? Did they travel off and did they use their passport? You work to eliminate reasonable alternative
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explanations before settling on a theory of the case. >> Right. And and you know, because this is
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a no body case, we still don't necessarily know if the prosecutors are going to put forth their own theory of
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just how Maya was killed or where her remains may be in their closing statements. And they don't have to,
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right? So, as long as the jury unanimously agrees on guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, they don't have to
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agree on the cause of death. Um which is which is interesting. Jury's also heard
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testimony from an FBI scientist about evidence recovered during searches of the Millete home, including this file
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containing plant material that was tested. The scientist confirmed it was a type of
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weed called hairy fleabane, but not poisonous hemlock. Herman, some jurors may hear testimony
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like that and wonder why prosecutors spend time on evidence that may not ultimately prove anything.
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>> I think that's the tough part. That's the tedious part of homicide investigations cuz investigators don't
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know at the outset what's going to matter and what's not going to matter. Every single item
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recovered gets examined, you know, bag it and tag it as as you've seen on TV and and I've you and I have seen in real
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life, Caroline. Uh some evidence becomes central to the case, other evidence simply helps
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investigators rule things out and that goes into some closet somewhere in a safe or in a property room. Um
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but it's part of building a thorough homicide investigation, especially in a case where there's no body and no single
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piece of evidence tells the entire story, you know, you you're really you're throwing a lot of stuff up
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against the wall here and hoping it sticks. >> Yeah, this is this is a big circumstantial case. Not to say that uh
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circumstantial evidence can't be incredibly powerful. The prosecution rested their case on
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Tuesday. The defense rested theirs on Wednesday. Herman, what were you watching for?
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>> During opening statements, the the defense brought up the fact that Jamie Laird was not thoroughly investigated,
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but as you know and as we mentioned earlier, the judge banned the defense from suggesting any other suspects.
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In opening statements, the defense also stated that there's no clear evidence that a murder even occurred. I was
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curious how they negate the evidence that the prosecution has brought forward. You know, all they really need
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is reasonable doubt here. >> Yeah, um but of course, one of the big questions, would Larry Millete testify
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in his own defense? Obviously, legally, he had an absolute right not to testify and if he chose not to, uh jurors
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couldn't hold that against him. He didn't testify in this case. I mean, the conventional wisdom is you don't put
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your client up there, opens the door to a whole can of worms, the prosecution can then cross-examine
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the defendant, uh you know, potentially getting him or her to really trip up or, you know, not be
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consistent in their prior statements. Um while the prosecution called witnesses for weeks, the defense just took one day
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before resting its case ahead of the holiday weekend. And all signs point to closing arguments next week followed by
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jury deliberations. >> Uh you know, I want to tell you about that, Caroline, anyway. How often does
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that happen? That the defense just taking one day? Like, what's the strategy behind that?
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>> Yeah, all the time. It happen It happens all the time. You know, as a defense
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attorney, you want to, you know, definitely let the prosecution know and let the judge know that you have a
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potential case you may put on. You got your witnesses lined up. You do that fullsome research. But, really, this is
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a game-day decision. I think people don't really understand that, you know, new issues are coming up all the time in
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trial. And so, as a defense attorney, you're you're looking at what the prosecution presents. And in closings,
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[music] you know, you want to point to all of those those doubts there. And we'll
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obviously be staying tuned to see what happens next. Herman, thank you so much for joining me today.
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>> Thank you. Thanks for having me. Felt like the old days there. >> So, make sure to rate and review 48
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Hours case by case and let us know which cases you're following in your podcast reviews and comments.
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>> [music]