Crime
Husband Convicted of Killing Wife After Turning to Online ‘Spellcasters’ to Stop Her From Leaving
More than five years after Maya Millete vanished from her Chula Vista, California, home, a jury has answered the question her family never stopped asking.
On July 9, jurors convicted her husband, Larry Millete, of first-degree murder, finding him guilty despite the fact that Maya’s body has never been found, according to CBS News. The case leaned entirely on circumstantial evidence, since prosecutors could point to no crime scene, weapon or eyewitnesses.
Central to that evidence was Larry’s increasingly desperate attempt to save the marriage before Maya disappeared on January 7, 2021.
Investigator Billy Little, who joined the search for Maya within days of her vanishing, told CBS News‘ 48 Hours that Larry had reached out to online spellcasters hoping to influence Maya’s feelings.
“There are people on the internet that’ll sell you for five bucks, you know, how to make a spell that will get her to be attracted to you,” Little said, as per the official press release by Paramount.
According to NBC affiliate News4SA, in one message to a spellcaster, Larry reportedly wrote, “Please punish [Maya] and incapacitate her enough so she can’t leave the house. It’s time to take the gloves off.”
Maya’s last known call was to a divorce attorney the day she disappeared, something authorities believe triggered her killing.
Maya’s sister, Maricris Drouaillet, who organized years of searches through the desert terrain near the Arizona border, said the verdict brought only partial peace.
“Justice has been served today,” she said in a press conference shared by NBC7, “but we still have to bring my sister home.”
In 2022, Drouaillet also launched a GoFundMe called “Maya Millete’s Search Fund” to support the ongoing effort to find her remains.
Larry entered a guilty plea to a felony charge of possession of an unregistered assault weapon during a hearing Monday, July 20, according to CBS8.He is scheduled for sentencing on September 29 and faces 25 years to life in prison.
