On January 7th, 2021, Maya Millete was at home in Chula Vista, California with her husband Larry and their three children. By the next morning, she was gone. Five years later, she has never been found.
What investigators discovered instead was something unexpected. Not blood spatter analysis. Not DNA evidence. Seventeen hundred pages of messages — to spellcasters. Seventy transactions totaling $1,154.05. And a digital timeline that prosecutors believe documents a husband's descent from desperation to violence.
The Digital Paper Trail Nobody Expected
Larry Millete's communications began in September 2020. That timing matters. Friends would later tell investigators that Maya had confided something to them around this period — she was planning to file for divorce.
According to District Attorney Investigator James Rhoades, Larry reached out to online services offering hexes, love spells, and rituals rooted in various spiritual traditions. The initial requests were what you might expect — love spells, requests to keep Maya faithful and committed to the marriage.
Prosecutors have been careful to note that they're not arguing spellcasting itself constitutes evidence of a crime. Filipino traditions, like many cultures, incorporate spiritual practices. The prosecution's focus is on something more specific: the content of what Larry was requesting, and how those requests changed over time.
As the months progressed from September through January, the messages shifted. The tone grew darker. More controlling. More desperate.
According to Fox 5 San Diego, Larry began requesting spells to "incapacitate Maya, break her bones, or have her get into an accident so she would depend on Larry."
These weren't vague wishes whispered into the void. These were specific requests for physical harm — documented in writing — sent to third parties who preserved every message.
The Silence That Speaks
After months of near-constant communication with spellcasters — dozens of messages, seventy separate transactions — the messages stopped on January 7th, 2021.
The same day Maya was last seen.
January 8th passed. Silence. The spellcasters who had been receiving Larry's money and requests for months heard nothing.
Then, at 5:55 AM on January 9th, Larry reached back out. But his request had changed. According to CBS News, he asked the spellcasters to remove the hexes from Maya — and redirect them toward a man she had allegedly been seeing.
Prosecutors see this as consciousness of guilt. A man redirecting his anger because the original target was no longer there to receive it. Why remove hexes from someone unless you believed they could no longer work?
What Investigators Found at the House
Two days after Maya vanished, an investigator visited the Millete home. According to 10 News, they observed Larry airing out the house — windows open, doors propped, the smell of cleaning products hanging in the air.
More significantly, the investigator noticed recently repaired holes in a bedroom door and wall. Fresh patches. New paint that didn't quite match the surrounding surface.
What caused those holes? Why were they being repaired within days of Maya's disappearance? These questions have no answers — only implications that hang over the case like unfinished sentences.
A Prosecution Built on Patterns
Larry Millete was arrested in October 2021, nine months after Maya vanished. He was charged with her murder and has been held without bail ever since. He has pleaded not guilty and maintains his innocence.
His defense team argues what many would expect — no body has ever been found. No murder weapon. No definitive crime scene. The case is built entirely on circumstantial evidence.
They're not wrong about the circumstantial nature. "No body" murder cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute. Juries want physical proof. They want certainty.
But prosecutors believe the spellcaster messages accomplish something crucial — they establish a documented pattern of escalating violence in Larry's mind, written in his own words and preserved by third parties he never imagined would become witnesses.
From love spells to control spells to specific requests for physical injury to sudden silence. The arc, prosecutors argue, tells its own story.
Larry even left online reviews for the spellcasters. According to CBS News, investigators found his feedback posts, creating yet another link in the evidence chain. A man trying to use supernatural forces to control his wife while leaving a perfectly natural digital trail that may convict him of her murder.
A Family Waiting for Answers
Maya Millete was forty years old when she disappeared. A mother of three. An employee at Naval Base San Diego. A woman who, by all accounts, was well-liked by colleagues and neighbors.
Her family has spent five years in limbo — her sisters, her mother, organizing community searches across hillsides and drainage areas, appearing at every court hearing, holding vigils. Waiting for answers. Waiting for Maya.
Larry Millete's murder trial is scheduled to begin in March 2026, expected to last approximately three months. If convicted, he faces up to twenty-five years to life in prison.
The trial will test something fundamental about American justice — whether digital evidence alone can establish what happened to someone who has never been found.
Even a conviction won't give Maya's family what they truly need: Maya herself. Or at least the ability to bring her home and lay her to rest with dignity.
Seventy spells. Seventeen hundred pages. $1,154.05 spent trying to control someone who wanted to be free. And in the end, the only thing those spells accomplished was creating a paper trail — straight to the defendant's doorstep.
Maya Millete deserves to be remembered as more than a case file. She was a mother who wanted to start her life over. Whether twelve jurors can be convinced of what happened to her without her remains — that question belongs to March 2026.
If you or someone you know is in a concerning domestic situation, the National Domestic Violence Hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233. Patterns of escalating control often precede violence. Tell someone. Documentation matters — even conversations matter.
