On the evening of January 7, 2021, a security camera recorded May “Maya” Millete, a 39-year-old mother of three, walking into her own house in Chula Vista, California. No camera ever recorded her walking out. She has never been found.
A marriage coming apart
By late 2020 the Milletes’ sixteen-year marriage was in trouble. Prosecutors told a San Diego jury that Maya had told friends and family she wanted a divorce, and that her husband, Larry Millete, did not accept it. In the months before she disappeared, according to trial testimony, he was messaging online “spell casters” — paying strangers on the internet to intervene in his marriage. The requests escalated over time, from asking that Maya love him again, to asking that she obey him, to asking that she be made sick. After January 7, 2021, they stopped.
The last day
The family had planned a trip to Big Bear that weekend. Maya never went. Her car stayed in the driveway. Her phone went dark in the early hours of January 8. Her sister reported her missing two days later, and Chula Vista police began what would become one of the longest missing-person investigations in the department’s history.
Five years of searching
Investigators served 67 search warrants and conducted 87 interviews. Volunteers and search teams combed the Imperial Sand Dunes, the desert outside Glamis, and the shoreline of the Salton Sea. Drones went up. Divers went in. Nothing was ever recovered. Inside the Millete home, investigators found a vial of poison hemlock and an unregistered assault weapon — the latter would eventually draw a separate guilty plea.
A conviction with no body
Larry Millete was arrested on October 19, 2021. His six-week trial in San Diego Superior Court was built entirely on circumstantial evidence: there was no body, no crime scene, no murder weapon, and no cause of death. Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles told the jury plainly that the prosecution could not say how Maya died — only that Larry was the one person with the motive and the opportunity. On July 9, 2026, after roughly five hours of deliberation, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder.
Where the case stands
Larry Millete faces 25 years to life on the murder count, plus up to three years on the weapons plea he entered on July 20, 2026. Sentencing is scheduled for September 29, 2026. Maya Millete has still never been found.
Watch the full case file
The complete 13-minute breakdown — the timeline, the searches, the trial, and the verdict — is on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XikQKEVHrlc
Related reading
No well-reviewed book has been written about this case specifically yet. The only title currently listed carries no ratings and is not something we’re willing to recommend. If you want to read further, here is an honest search rather than a recommendation: Maya Millete / Chula Vista true crime on Amazon
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Sources & credits
- KPBS Public Media / City News Service — verdict coverage and trial testimony, July 9–10, 2026.
- Times of San Diego / City News Service — arrest coverage (October 2021), verdict and sentencing-date coverage (July 2026). Maya Millete identification photograph via the family’s @HelpFindMay campaign.
- NBC 7 San Diego, CBS 8 San Diego, FOX 5 San Diego, ABC 10News (KGTV) — case timeline, arrest, trial and post-verdict coverage, 2021–2026.
- San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan — public statement following the verdict, July 9, 2026.
- Chula Vista Police Department — public case updates and the October 19, 2021 arrest announcement.
- Wikipedia, “Murder of Maya Millete” — timeline cross-reference for search dates, court dates and procedural history.
- Courtroom still of Larry Millete: public San Diego Superior Court proceedings, April 2026.
- Photographs: Diamond Head and Waikiki, Honolulu (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0); Naval Base San Diego (official U.S. Navy imagery, public domain); Chula Vista, California (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0); Southern California suburb (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0); Imperial Sand Dunes, Glamis, CA (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0); Salton Sea Beach (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0); BLM drone training (public domain); volunteer search-and-rescue team (public domain); Conium maculatum / poison hemlock, photo by Matt Lavin (CC BY-SA 2.0); San Diego County Courthouse (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0); smartphone stock photograph (Wikimedia Commons, CC0). All remaining imagery is clearly-credited illustrative licensed stock reused from this series and does not depict this case.
Narration in the accompanying video is AI-generated. No re-used broadcast news footage appears in it.