In one of the most high-profile and closely watched cases in Chula Vista history, a jury on Thursday convicted Larry Millete of first-degree murder for killing his wife and the mother of his three children, May “Maya” Millete, who has not been seen or heard from since she disappeared from the couple’s home in January 2021.
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The Chula Vista jury needed just a single day — about five hours — to deliberate after a trial that lasted seven weeks and featured testimony from more than 60 witnesses.
The 44-year-old Millete, who has been in custody since October 2021, did not appear to react to the verdict as it was announced in a crowded third-floor courtroom at the Chula Vista Superior Court.
“Finally, justice has been served for Maya and for everyone who has carried the weight of her absence for more than five years,” District Attorney Summer Stephan said in a statement Thursday.
May Millete, who worked as a civilian contract specialist at the Naval Information Warfare Center, was last seen alive Jan. 7, 2021, at the family’s home in the San Miguel Ranch neighborhood near Eastlake.
She was 39 years old when she went missing without a trace in a case that drew national headlines — it was featured on television shows such as “Dr. Phil” and “48 Hours,” and in People Magazine. Her disappearance prompted hundreds of volunteers to search for her both in the rugged foothills near her eastern Chula Vista home and in remote desert and mountain regions across Southern California, where she enjoyed off-roading in her Jeep.
Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles told the jury during the trial that May would have never willingly abandoned her children. The prosecutor told the jury the only reasonable explanation for her disappearance was that Millete killed her and successfully disposed of her body, which has never been found.
Bowles alleged at trial that Millete killed his wife on the same day she’d made an appointment with a divorce lawyer to end their 20-year marriage. Bowles told jurors Millete was angry at May over her yearlong affair with another man and likely poisoned her with the toxic plant hemlock. And she alleged that Millete disposed of May’s body on Jan. 8, when he powered down his phone and left for more than 11 hours to an unknown location.
Defense attorneys had argued that there were other plausible explanations for May’s disappearance, and that prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that she was dead or that her husband killed her.
Family members from both sides of the case attended much of the trial, and during opening statements and closing arguments, court officials opened an overflow room for dozens of reporters and interested members of the public who couldn’t fit in the main courtroom.
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South San Diego resident Sylvia Villa, who did not know May but had been following the case since its early stages, said she attended nearly every day of the trial.
When the verdict was read, she and several other women — supporters of the family who met through their following of the case — quietly celebrated in the overflow courtroom, then moved outside the main courtroom to cheer for May’s family.
“I thought it was just for Maya. I hope her soul can finally rest,” Villa said.
Villa is holding out hope that one day soon, either through luck or Millete having a change of heart, May’s family will find her body and be able to give it a final resting place.
Because there was no body, the case was built on circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors alleged that Millete’s desire to harm his wife was spelled out in hundreds of messages that he sent to online spell-casters in his search for a magical solution to his marital problems.
But likely the strongest pieces of evidence had to do with Millete’s unusual actions the day after his wife was last seen or heard from.
Millete powered down his phone most of that day, something that he rarely did for more than a few minutes, and then took off to an unknown location in the family’s Lexus SUV for more than 11 hours. Early in the investigation, he told detectives that he’d taken the couple’s youngest son to the beach for the day and that his phone was dead. Prosecutors at trial prevented evidence that the phone didn’t die, but had been shut down with nearly a full battery.
Millete’s defense team never conceded during trial that May was dead, instead suggesting that she might still be alive somewhere, or that she might have left her home willingly and then been killed by someone else.
But in the end, the jury sided with Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles, who told the jurors during closing arguments Tuesday that “the only reasonable conclusion is that May Millete is dead and the defendant killed her.”
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