Maya and Larry Millete

0:00 Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina. If there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years of marriage. It's some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and. Some days you'll feel like killing your wife. Welcome to love, Mary Kill. Hey, Hey, Rich, how are you today? I am fabulous? How are you? I'm doing fabulous as well. What am I wearing right now? You're wearing a snuggie? Well, I have a blanket with arms, and I'm so excited to have a chilly day here and.

0:41 Michelle, Oh, it's been a while. Our nature is treating us. Yeah, it feels really good. We've got the windows open for the first time in quite a while. The air quality is a little bit better, it's. A lot better. So yeah, it's going our way. Yeah. Do you like my shirt? Well? I bought it for you, so yes, yeah. I think I'm not. I can't guarantee it, but I don't think I've spilled anything on it yet. Okay, Yeah, you. Went to the outlet mall and you bought me a few new T shirts. They did, yes, and I've been wearing them and they weren't like the cheapest T shirts. I went to the polo outlet. So you're wearing a little pony. How much do you think that shirt costs? I have no earthly idea. This is kind of funny, but a couple of weeks ago we would not that. We've been going shopping a lot.

1:24 Some of these excursions are without you, but this one was with you. And you bought a new pair of birken stocks that your old ones were pretty worn right and beat up. And when we went to pay for them, you said, is. This so much burgenstocks cost? I think he just said, is it so much shoes cost? And it made me laugh. I had no idea. You really have no idea how much. I really am out of touch with the cost of things, even when I buy things, like if I go to the grocery store and you don't, sometimes I don't really look. How much do you think a gallon of milk is right now? I don't know. Four dollars. That's actually a very very guess. I think that's about right. Put me on the prices.

2:04 You still loved that show so much. This was a really good show, Like if. You got to stay home from school? That was the best part. I know, it was so good. My favorite part was the big wheel that they spun. I was always fun. I think I always liked the pricing games, like you know, how much is rice a roni or whatever? And you ended up working in grocery stores, so it really must have impacted your life. Prices have changed a lot over the last year. The things are definitely more expensive. Yeah, so I noticed what you're drinking. It always surprises me that you choose to drink carbonated beverages before we record the podcast. Sometimes, Yeah, you right now are drinking diet burners. I love a diet burners. Not everyone does. It's a it's a Detroit thing. It's not very common outside of Detroit.

2:49 We've talked about it before, and we actually one of our listeners, d from Kansas City. You owe her, you should Venmodi. She left us a voice a message on our website and she said she tried. She ordered a case of it and tried it and she didn't like it compared to Canada Dry. Which you know, you're you're wrong, but that's okay. You're entitled to be wrong about a certain that's rude. I think that she is correct, But I was not born here in Michigan, so I don't really like Berners either, but they have changed their formula throughout the years. Yeah, years ago ginger because it's a ginger ale, and I guess it's no longer continued. It used to when you opened up a can or a bottle of ginger ale, that the fumes would get in your nose and you couldn't like you had to start coughing immediately when you open.

3:36 It, and you thought that was delicious. It was amazing. It was so it's still good, but it was so so good back then. It's just not quite the. Sat around your house growing up. It was a tonic for everybody in the in Michigan. It is. It's something that like, oh, I have a stomach ache, have a Werner's. I have a headache, I have a burners whatever ails you of Werner's was allegedly supposed to help with I don't know if it really did, but it's delicious. Okay, Well that is your opinion. You should have this segment. You should end it every time with you and that's my opinion. We should all Right, Well, I did bring you a snack. Would you like to try this? I hope it's a cheeseburger. It's not a cheeseburger, but milkshake. This what I bought.

4:19 This like a month ago. I was in the grocery store and I happened across this. I'd never heard of this brand of snack. It's called Lesser Evil. Apparently they make a lot of different snacks and they're supposed to be a healthy alternative. I think it looks good though. I bought two flavors. One is base balls, which is like a cheddar cheddar byte type of thing, okay, and then the other is sorry, it's making a lot. Of noise here. The other is crunchy cheety cheese miss so okay. It looks like cheese cheese ites or Cheeto's cheetos. Yes, all right, give my truck. I don't have a choice, do I know?

5:06 What did you think of the Lesser Evil snacks? I like snacks that are greater Evil. If you're gonna have a snack of Yeah. Because they're clean snacks, and it's not like they're that that much healthier. There's so they're just made with like more natural ingredients. They're made with avocado and coconut oil. They weren't bad, but the packaging is super cute. I'm gonna give them a lot of points for cute packaging. Yeah, but I don't think I would eat them again. Yeah, the Spaceballs ones I felt like had very little flavor. The cheesemast ones I thought were pretty good. But yeah, overall, but the packaging in the name's both really cute. And I guess if I was packing lunches for my kids, yeah, I would maybe put them, you know, put them in their lunch. But really, I mean there's still six grams of fat, two and a half grams of saturated fat, one hundred and thirty calories per serving.

5:52 So you know, if I want a lesser evil snack, I'm going to go for fruit. Yeah. I was reading a little bit about the company. I think they got sued for like false advertising a few years ago because I think they were advertising it as a really healthy snack and it's like, yeah, they're not really that healthy. But again, like it's this no alien ingredients. I mean it, you know, keep packaging, but that's how they get you. Yep. Let's get to the story of Maya and Larry Miliette. This case was a recommendation from my friend Erwin, who recommended it probably three and a half years ago. Yeah, I remember Erwin. It was a very fresh case at that time, and there wasn't a lot of information out there, so I looked into it. At the time, there just wasn't that much. There was a recent trial that ended related to this case, so I decided to pick it back up again. On the afternoon of Thursday, January seventh, twenty twenty one, a home surveillance camera in Chula Vista, California captured footage of a woman walking up to her front door carrying grocery bags.

6:50 It was four forty two pm. That was the last time anyone ever saw Maya Miliate. Maya was thirty nine years old and petite five foot two, one hundred and ten pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles. But everyone who knew her says she had a big personality. She was vibrant, witty, and always quick with a joke. She had built a successful career as a civilian contract specialist for the US Navy, but her world revolved around her three young children. Maya was also incredibly adventurous. She practiced martial arts, loved camping, and just weeks before she disappeared, she had bought a brand new jeep wrangler, throwing herself headfirst into a local desert off roading group, and making a whole new circle of friends. When she wasn't outdoors, she was musical. She played acoustic guitar and piano, and she loved family karaoke nights. Her go to tracks were Jewels, You Were Meant For Me and Elvis's Can't Help Falling in Love. She even uploaded some of her performances to YouTube.

7:53 Here's a short clip, Seyool. Screw good. Fal it was beautiful, yeah, beautiful voice. Because Maya was so close with her family and so active on social media, she was in near constant communication with the people in her life. So when her phone went completely dark after that Thursday afternoon, her inner circle knew instantly that something was terribly wrong. Those closest to her also knew that Maya was quietly preparing for a major change. Earlier that day, she had scheduled a call with a divorce attorney. She was planning a road trip with her kids, looking forward to packing up her new jeep and actively building a future independent of her husband of twenty years, Larry Milliette. But by the next morning, she was gone. No goodbye. Note, no footprints, no trace of her anywhere. What happened inside that Chula Vista home between four forty two that Thursday afternoon and sunrise the next day would become the center of one of the most agonizing, closely watched investigations in southern California history. It turned into a case built on circumstantial evidence, a massive

9:24 digital trail, and a husband whose story didn't hold up. Neighbors would later report hearing strange noises coming from the direction of the house that night. Investigators would uncover months of frantic, desperate messages related to Maya, messages that stopped entirely the next day, and for years, Maya's family would spend their weekends combing the most remote, brutal stretches of the California Desert, doing everything in their power to find her. This is the story of Maya and Larry Miliette. Maya was born May Tablanza in the Philippines in nineteen eighty one. Her mother gave her the new nicknamed Maya, after the small sparrows common across the islands. She grew up in a big family, one of six children. When she was thirteen, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Honolulu.

10:12 Maya's sister later recalled that Maya was always known as the smart one of the family. She took her education seriously, graduating from Radford High School before attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Larry Milliete's path to Hawaii started with trouble in San Diego. In April nineteen ninety seven, when Larry was fifteen, he was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon after a seventeen year old was stabbed near a shopping center in the Bay Terraces neighborhood. Police sources at the time described the incident as gang related. Because the case was handled in juvenile court, the records were sealed, and the final outcome of those charges was never made public. Shortly after the arrest, Larry's family relocated to Hawaii, where his father, a career Navy veterans, and had been reassigned to Pearl Harbor. This is where Larry and Maya met. They attended the same high school in Honolulu and worked shifts together at a local fast food restaurant, eventually starting to date. During Maya's senior year in two thousand Not long after Larry turned eighteen and Maya was nineteen, they decided to get married. The news came as a shock to both of their families. They were still teenagers and hadn't been together for very long. Around the same time, Larry enlisted in the US Navy, serving as a hospital corman and an optician for the next six years. The military eventually brought the young couple to southern California, where they both transitioned into careers as civilian Navy employees. Larry

11:44 worked as an optician at the Naval Medical Center San Diego, while Maya built a reputation as a highly capable contract specialist, eventually working at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. Around the office, Maya was known for having a photographic memory. Her colleagues described her as a mentor and a sharp, confident leader who other women looked up to. One coworker later noted that Maya was the kind of person who proved you could achieve anything through hard work, regardless of where you started out. If there is one attribute that I wish I had, it is a photographic memory. Oh me too. I have the worst memory, and I admire people that have such clear memories.

12:25 Have you known people that have a photographic m Yeah, it really is a handy thing to have. Though they married young, Maya and Larry waited a decade before starting their family. Their first daughter was born in twenty ten, followed by a second daughter a year later, and finally a son in twenty sixteen. By twenty thirteen, the family had settled into a thirty seven hundred square foot five bedroom home on Peso los Gatos in the San Miguel Branch neighborhood of Chula Vista. For Maya, the location was a perfect fit. It put her right next to the rural trails that she liked to hike. To their neighbors and co workers, the Milieatees seemed to have built a nice life. Maya balanced a high pressure career with the needs of her three young children. By January twenty twenty one, the girls were eleven and nine and their son was four. Friends knew that Maya's kids were the center of her life. She filled their schedules with piano lessons and karate, took them hiking, and shared her love of music with them, often recording videos of herself singing alongside them on the service They appeared to be the perfect family, the epitome of an American success story, but by early twenty twenty, the dynamic inside the home had shifted. Maya, now thirty eight, was changing. Her family later described it as her growing into a more independent, confident version of herself, but to Larry, it felt like she was pulling away. He told family members she was

13:56 having a midlife crisis, complaining that she was spending too much time I'm out with friends, particularly single friends. I don't know how far back their marital troubles went, but I did read one place that they actually separated for a period of time in twenty nineteen. Maybe so, I think the troubles even started before that, but a lot of it is really well documented. Starting in twenty twenty, as. The distance between them grew, Larry began actively monitoring her. Once he secretly followed Maya and a male coworker, taxting his sister a running update of their movements, before ultimately confronting the pair in person. He also started showing up unannounced at Maya's office, checking to see who she was with.

14:39 Larry's suspicions weren't groundless. Maya had begun an affair with a co worker named James Jamie Laird. The relationship had started in the first half of twenty twenty while they were working together at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center. Even after Maya transferred to a new position at the Naval Information Warfare Center that June, the relationship continued to keep the affair hidden. Maya and Jamie each created secondary, secret Instagram accounts almost exclusively to communicate with each other. Digital forensics would later uncover a long trail of romantic and affectionate messages exchanged on the platform between September twenty twenty and January twenty twenty one. They also used Microsoft teams to message each other during the work day, occasionally reminding one another to delete the chat logs. At one point during the relationship with Jamie, Maya became pregnant and chose to end the pregnancy. As Larry's suspicions grew, his spying escalated.

15:41 In September twenty twenty, Maya found one of her children's cell phones hidden inside her car. She realized Larry had planted it there to track her location whenever she went out with friends or took a lunch break. Larry face timed her, demanding to show him exactly where she was and who she was with. He also began calling her family members to ask if Maya was still wearing her wedding ring no Bred Fleggs there. Larry didn't stop at her physical location. He also tracked her spending and accessed her social media accounts. Maya shared a private Facebook group chat with a few close coworkers, and at one point the women realized that Larry had logged into the thread and was reading their messages. Even started replying to the group using Maya's account to impersonate her, before finally revealing himself.

16:29 In one message to Maya's co worker Christine Timmers, he wrote, Christine, this is Larry. I know I haven't been the best husband. Please help us keep our family together. You're having marital problems. That's probably not the best approach to try to fix it is to hack into your wife's social media messenger friends. Did Maya know that? She must have known he was doing this. I think she found out eventuallya. By December twenty twenty, they were sleeping in separate rooms. That month, Maya discovered speakers hidden in her bedroom when she confronted Larry, he admitted that he was playing subliminal audio messages on a loop while she slept, including a recording that repeated the phrase no more men, No more men.

17:12 Investigators later found that Larry had searched the Internet for the phrase subliminal wife training. Holy moly, Yes, if. You search for that phrase, it's pretty interesting. The rabbit holes that it will take you down. Sarah, you're admitting that you have searched this. I did it as part of my research. But yeah, there are many websites out there where you can buy subliminal audio recordings that you can play to try to manipulate your wife into loving you again. Wow, that is shocking, shocking for sure. Larry also began texting Maya links to articles with titles like what men Want from their Wives. Maya pushed back, telling him that he should focus on what women want from their husbands.

17:52 In another message, she wrote, quote, as long as I go back to the wife you liked, the one who didn't rock the boat, who didn't assert her, who didn't care about how much she was hurting. So long as there's peace and harmony, then things will be okay. Because really I'm the problem right. Mary also turned to Maya's family, telling them that she was cheating and acting sinful. He pressured her to attend church and sent Bible passages to her family, including one from Proverbs that read, for the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to the grave. In hindsight, it feels like an ominous warning. Larry begged the family to help him bring Maya back into the religious path. Financial control was part of the dynamic as well.

18:41 Even though Maya earned more than Larry, he managed the household finances and at one point moved a significant portion of their savings into bitcoin. Maya had explicitly asked him to not touch the accounts set aside for their children, but he did anyway. Next, he targeted her professional life. Larry repeatedly threatened to ruin Maya's career, eventually creating a fake whistleblower email account to send anonymous accusations to her employer. The emails claimed Maya was involved in inappropriate relationships with two different co workers and admanded she be transferred. Lary told family members that if the Navy fired her for the affair, he would walk away with full custody of the children and the house. Over time, Larry's behavior started becoming violent. Maya confided in a friend that Larry had once choked her until she lost consciousness. On another occasion, when Maya locked herself into the bathroom to escape an argument, Larry pounded on the door and forced his way inside, hunching a hole through the wood. When Larry discovered the affair, he tracked down Jamie, Lared's wife, who was pregnant with their first child. He told her what was going on.

19:54 The exposure caused a brief rift between Maya and Jamie. While they eventually reconciled, the tone of their mand messages shifted from romantic to platonic. They stopped talking about a future together and began focusing on moving forward separately, Maya toward her divorce and Jamie back toward his family. Their final messages showed no plans to run away together. Instead, Jamie's text became protective. He repeatedly warned Maya to be careful, telling her that he was worried for her safety. That's a lot. Larry was obviously becoming more and more desperate over time, more and more panicked over time, more and more controlling over time, and aggressive and yeah, aggressive as well.

20:37 How long had the affair been going on. I don't know exactly when it started. From what I could understand, the best guests would be it started early in twenty twenty and then went through most of twenty twenty until Larry confronted Jamie's wife, and then it became platonic after that. So they were friends for maybe the last three months or so before Maya disappeared. Neither of them had made plans to run away together and their marriages. I don't know if early in their relationship they may have talked about that, but definitely toward the end, like in the last few months before Miya disappeared, it sounds like there was there were no plans for them to run away together. We'll be back after a break.

21:22 As the marriage fractured and Larry became even more desperate, he turned to an unconventional source for help. Between September twenty twenty and January twenty twenty one, he spent over one thousand dollars buying online spells from people claiming to be psychics, spirit channelers, and spell casters. I did not realize that was something that you could do. This is another rabbit hole I went down, and yes, there are a lot of people out there that are selling spells over the internet. Like on at sea or how do you access them? I would just google it. There is actually a subreddit called I Think It's spellcaster Reviews that people talk about different sources for spells, and it surprised me. Digital forensics investigators later recovered hundreds of pages of emails documenting these transactions.

22:12 One practitioner, Frank Peeve, who worked under the pseudonym test Joy, later told police that Larry's messages were overwhelming. While he might normally get one or two messages from a client, Peev said he would open his inbox in the morning to find twenty seven messages from Larry. TV said that Larry was in a near constant state of panic, expecting results immediately, to the point that Peve eventually blocked him. The email trail with the spellcasters shows a distinct evolution in Larry's mindset over those months leading up to Maya's disappearance. Initially, his requests were focused on keeping Maya from leaving. He asked for powerful love spells to bind my wife to me forever, and for rituals to make her constantly desire him him. But as Maya continued to distance herself, the requests turned toward control and punishment. He began asking for spells to focus on quote dominating her and for her to obey me and to give her the worst nightmares, because, as he wrote, she needs to be punished for her actions.

23:19 By the end of December, the language became explicitly harmful. On December twenty seventh, Larry asked a spellcaster to quote, please punish may and incapacitate her enough so she can't leave the house. It's time to take the gloves off. She's too much. She needs to be humbled down to the lowest of the low. In another message, he asked to please quote hurt her enough that she will have to depend on me. She's only nice to me when she needs me or is sick, maybe an accident or a broken bone. So I don't know what the ethics involved are here for spellcasters, but. Yeah, I can't imagine if you are a spellcaster that you would follow through on something like that. But I'm sure, like in a lot of professions, ethics probably very widely.

24:05 Larry didn't just target Maya. He also bought spells aimed at Jamie Laired, eventually requesting a death spell targeting Jamie and his unborn child. But Larry wasn't just relying on the supernatural. Around Christmas twenty twenty, two weeks before Maya disappeared, he approached Maya's older brother, JP Tabalanza. Distraught over the affair, Larry asked JP directly if he knew anyone who could get the other guy. Larry offered to pay JP four thousand dollars just to find someone for the job, and an additional twenty thousand dollars to whoever carried it out. JP understood exactly what Larry was asking for a hired hit, and while JP may not have approved of his sister's affair, he told Larry he wanted no part of it.

24:52 He went to Maya's brother. Yeah, it seems a little odd. Larry brought the plot up to JP again on New Year's Day. Another witness later told investigators that Larry mentioned the idea as recently as January fourth, just three days before Maya disappeared. JP wasn't the only relative that Larry targeted He had a similar conversation with Maya's brother in law, telling him flatly, I want to get rid of the boyfriend. Larry even acknowledged the risk of what he was plotting, adding I know I'll be the first suspect. I have to do it well. While none of the family members agreed to help Larry, no one reported the threats to the police either. Later, Maya's brother explained that he trusted Larry at the time and never truly believed that he would hurt his sister or Jamie. By January twenty twenty one, Maya was ready to move forward with a divorce. On Thursday, January seventh, she spent part of the day running errands with her four year old son, stopping at a local car wash before heading home. That afternoon, she filled out an intake form for a family law attorney. At three forty eight pm, she called the firm to schedule a consultation. It was set for the following Tuesday. That was the last phone call she would ever make. Less than an hour later, at four forty two pm, a neighbor's security camera captured Maya pulling into her driveway and carrying bags toward the front door. It remains the last confirmed footage of her.

26:20 None of the surrounding cameras showed her leaving the property at any point after that. While Maya was laying the groundwork to leave, Larry appeared to be spiraling. He had stayed home from work that day. Early that afternoon, he texted his supervisor, writing I'm not right, followed by I'm about to lose it. At four forty pm, exactly two minutes before Maya pulled into the driveway, Larry sent his final email to an online spellcaster, asking them to quote make her miserable without me. In other messages sent that day, he wrote that he felt Maya quote wants me to snap, and that he was shaking inside ready to snap. Later that evening, Maya texted her coworker, Christine Timmers, expressing worry over how the divorce would affect her kids. She told Christine that Larry was confronting her about the divorce, calling her cold hearted and accusing her of throwing him away like he was dirt. Maya's final known communication came at eight fifteen pm. It was a Facebook message to her family group chat, where she shared a photo of a travel trailer for Sale, continuing a conversation that they'd been having about a cross country road trip. At around one twenty five am on January eighth, Maya's cell phone activity stopped completely, disconnecting from the cellular network. Reading into all these different communications that we were able to capture after the fact, it seems pretty clear that Maya and Larry were talking about this divorce or arguing or fighting about

27:53 the divorce. It sounds like he was confronting her. She must have told him about it, So it sounds like things, you know, may have gotten ugly. Right. You said that at one twenty five her cell phone stopped working. Do you think it was destroyed or just turned off? I think it was probably just turned off. I don't know for sure. I don't know if her cell phone was ever located after this day. Starting on January eighth, that wasn't just Maya's communications that stopped. After months of sending near daily emails to online spellcasters about his wife, Larry's requests regarding Maya ceased entirely. He did reach out to a spellcaster one final time on January ninth, but the request shifted. He asked to remove every hex that he had previously placed on Maya and redirect them all onto Jamie Laird. Prosecutors would later point to this sudden change as a key piece of circumstantial evidence.

28:48 For months, Larry had been in a panic, paying for supernatural help to keep his wife from leaving, But the exact day she vanished, he stopped trying to save the marriage. He no longer asked for love spells or compliance or to bring her back to him. Meanwhile, Maya's family quickly realized something was wrong. Before she disappeared, Maya had been organizing a weekend getaway to Big Bear to celebrate her oldest daughter's eleventh birthday. She and her five siblings were actively coordinating the details in a group text. On Friday, January eighth, a question was posted to the thread. Every single sibling responded except for Maya. Her sister Mary Chris Juliet was instantly worried. Maya was the driving force behind the trip and usually the first to answer a text.

29:36 When family members tried calling Maya directly, the calls went straight to voicemail. That evening, Maya's brother, j R. Tablanza, drove over to the Miliette house to check on her. Mary told him that he and Maya had argued the night before and that she had locked herself into the bedroom to get away from him. One of the couple's daughters mentioned to Jr. That her mother had been inside the room for a lo eleven hours. Jay R knocked on the bedroom door but didn't get a response. Assuming Maya just wanted to be left alone after a fight, he decided. To leave one very small detail. I should notice that Maya had two brothers. One was JP and one was JR. So this is a different brother.

30:16 By Saturday, there was still no word from Maya. Mary Chris, her husband Richard, and Maya's father went back to the house together. When they walked inside, Richard noticed the home was unusually messy, and despite it being January, the air conditioning was running full blast, leaving the entire house freezing. This time, Larry told them that Maya had gone hiking. Maya's jeep was still parked outside in the dryway, but her driver's license and credit cards were gone. That night, Mary Chris called the Tula Vista Police Department to report her sister missing. Three officers came to the house looked around with Larry's permission, and questioned the family, but one of those officers later admitted that their initial focus was looking for that Maya had simply chosen to leave on her own, such as a plane ticket. Richard felt the frustration immediately, later noting that there seemed to be no real urgency from the police department to investigate the disappearance properly.

31:14 Sunday was supposed to be the day of the birthday celebration at Big Bear. Instead, the family gathered at the Chula Vista house. Mary Chris remembered everyone constantly watching the front door, waiting for Maya to walk in. She never did. At one point, the eleven year old turned to the room and simply said, Mommy didn't show up for my birthday. For the family, that was proof that Maya hadn't walked away voluntarily. She simply would never miss her daughter's birthday or abandon her children. Richard also noticed a stark contrast on Larry's behavior during the gathering. While the rest of the family was panicking, Larry spent the day lounging in navy sweatpans barefoot. Richard later recalled that Larry showed no concern whatsoever on his face, for his missing wife, not even for his daughter's birthday. By Monday, January eleventh, the Schula Vista police still hadn't upgraded the case to a criminal investigation. As Maya's family grew increasingly frustrated, a man named Billy Little came to the rescue. Billy was a retired Air Force colonel, an attorney, and a former criminal defense investigator for the US Navy who volunteered his time with a cold case foundation. His wife, Lou worked at the same naval base as Maya. Deeply concerned by the news, she asked Billy if he would be willing to look into the disappearance, and he agreed, explaining when somebody asks for help, you just do it right. He contacted Maya's family that Monday and started walking the neighborhood, knocking on

32:45 doors to collect home security footage before the files could be automatically overwritten. The recordings he gathered revealed several critical details. First, they confirmed Maya had arrived home at four forty three p m. On the seventh, with no record of her leaving the property at any point after that. But the audio captured by those neighborhood cameras was even more unsettling. Between nine fifty seven and ten pm that Thursday night, a neighbour's camera recorded a series of eight or nine loud bangs jarring on his investigative background. Billy was convinced the sounds were gunshots. The FBI's subsequent analysis was less definitive.

33:26 The audio quality wasn't clear enough for forensic experts to make a final determination, and no one in the neighborhood had called nine one one to report gunfire that night. Here is the audio from that recording. I am no expert, but it sure sounds like gunshots to me. If it's not gunshots, what is it, Yeah, exactly, that's a lot of gunshots, though, yeah, it is. Roughly thirty minutes later, around ten thirty pm, the same camera picked up the sound of children playing outside. It was a school night and the temperature had dropped into the forties.

34:11 Billy speculated that Larry had sent his children out into the backyard to keep them away from what was happening inside the house cleaning up a crime scene. The timeline picked up again the next morning at five fifty eight am, neighborhood cameras caught Larry moving the family's black Lexus suv, backing it into the garage, so the rear of the vehicle was completely hidden from the street. Less than an hour later, at six forty five am, Larry drove away. He didn't return until six oh six that evening, leaving his whereabouts entirely unaccounted for during those eleven hours and twenty one minutes. Amazing how often this comes up in different cases where the person backs the car into the garage and that's a big clue. You don't normally park your car that way.

34:57 Why would you be doing that. Billy turned all of his findings over to the Chula Vista Police department, expecting them to move quickly. Instead, he ran into the exact same wall as the family. He said, time and time again, there was just no follow up by the police. Billy Little is a hero in this story to me. The fact that this video footage, you know, surveillance cameras get overridden all the time, so it doesn't last forever and sometimes you can recover it, but a lot of times you can't. And so the fact that the police really didn't look at this as a crime for you know, a long period of time, was a big mistake and you know, Billy just volunteered to step in and help out.

35:38 That's amazing. While the family and Billy Little were scrambling for answers, the rest of the world was largely unaware of what was happening in Chula Vista. Early on, at least, Maya's disappearance simply didn't get the massive media attention that drives cases like this. In fact, a research study out of Bryant University by Caitlin Muia looked closely at this exaus gap, comparing the coverage of Maya's case to that of Gabby Patito, who disappeared later that same year. The numbers were staggering. A search of news databases showed that Potito's case generated over thirty two hundred news stories, while Maya's gathered just fourteen.

36:18 I should say here that Maya's story did eventually become a very big story, but early on is the time that you really need to alert people to be on the lookout, right, and that didn't really happen in the first week or a few weeks of Maya's disappearance. The study points directly to a systemic bias in the news media, often called missing white woman syndrome the clear tendency of major outlets to focus heavily on young, white, conventionally attractive women. Maya, a thirty nine year old Filipino American mother, didn't fit that profile. The research highlighted age as a major factor, noting that national press coverage drops off sharply for missing persons over the age of thirty.

37:02 Beyond the sheer volume of stories, the tone was also very different. While the Potito case was covered with high emotion sensational headlines that drive internet traffic, a few stories about Maya were brief and strictly clinical, lacking any real sense of urgency. And this gap and media attention wasn't just unfair, it had real practical consequences for the investigation. When police asked the public for help finding Gabby Patito, citizen dashcam footage poured in almost immediately, leading surgers straight to her body. The public mobilization was so massive that search teams actually discovered the remains of five other unrelated missing people along the.

37:43 Way that blew me away. I had no idea of that. Maya's family had nothing close to that kind of public mobilization during those first critical weeks her brother in law, Richard, pointed out that the Chula Vista police didn't even put out a public call for neighborhood dashcam footage that might have tracked Larry's lexus. Watching another case captivate the nation and resolve so quickly left Maya's sister Mary Chris heartbroken. She later said simply, I wish we got the same support. I think about this all the time, and it just hurts my heart because every single missing person deserves the same coverage. And I don't think the public is to blame. I think it's the media, because I think that most people care about anyone that's missing and want to help find them, and for some reason, the media just glombs onto these stories about you know, attractive young people and you know.

38:34 Yeah, the media makes the choice of what to cover and what not to cover. So it definitely goes back to that. And I really do think most people care about any missing person, yeah, and want to do their best to bring them home. Absolutely, we'll be back after a break. It wasn't until January twenty third, more than two weeks after Maya's disappearance, that the teol of is To police finally showed signs of a serious investigation. That was the day they served their first search warrant for the Miliete family home. Detectives seized computers and collected Larry's cell phone, which he handed over voluntarily. When digital forensics experts examined the device, they found a strange gap in the logs from the morning Maya vanished. Larry's phone had been plugged into a charger at two thirty eight am on January eighth and unplugged at four forty five am. Then at six thirty five am, the phone logged a manual power down.

39:34 It stayed completely dark all day, only turning back on at six thirty five pm that evening. This meant during the eleven hours and twenty one minutes that Larry was missing on January eighth, his phone stayed behind at the house, leaving investigators with no digital trail to track his location. Larry was supposed to be working that Friday at the Naval Medical Center, but he never showed up and never called in, a complete depart archer from his normal routine. His supervisors tried reaching him multiple times throughout the day but got no response. Yet, when Maya's brother Jr. Checked in at the house that evening, Larry claimed he was just getting home from a normal day at work. Later, when questioned by police, Larry claimed he had taken his four year old son to Solana Beach for the day, but when detectives asked him to point out Solana Beach on the map, Larry pointed to Torrey Pine's Beach instead, which is several miles south. He also tripped up over basic details, giving conflicting accounts about what food he had packed for his son. Ultimately, investigators couldn't find a single witness, security camera image, or shred of evidence placing Larry or the Lexus at either beach. To try and figure out exactly where Larry went, investigators turned to the family's Lexus suv.

40:54 They pulled the vehicle's mileage records from its most recent oil change and compared them against Larry's time typical driving habits over the previous two months I crossed. Referencing cell tower data, work schedules, and financial records, they calculated how much the Lexus had been driven. Their conclusion was startling on January eighth, the suv had put on between four hundred and forty four and six hundred and ninety two, completely unaccounted four miles. While the car didn't have a live tracking system active during the drive, it did record one crucial piece of data. At three twenty nine PM, someone manually typed the Chulavista home address into the vehicles built in navigation system. Larry arrived back home two and a half hours later at six oh six. Wherever Larry had driven he apparently needed the GPS to find his way back. Just to sum this up real quick, Larry was gone for over eleven hours that day, and by the way, I believe he had his four year old son with him that entire time. I wasn't able to confirm that one hundred percent, but I did read one account that his four year old was with him the Lexus.

42:04 I was surprised that they weren't able to get more detailed GPS data from the Lexus. I would think, do you know what year it was? I don't know, but it had to be it had to be relatively new. I just it always surprises me because I think that, you know, modern cars just track your location everywhere. But either that wasn't the case or they weren't able to get that information for whatever reason. But they did try to roughly calculate how many miles he must have driven. Well, you said wherever he drove from three twenty nine pm to six oh six pm, that he put it into the GPS. But sometimes I'll put in even if I'm, you know, shopping not far from home, I'll put in the address just to just so you know there's any traffic disruptions. Yeah, when I'll get home.

42:47 Yep, that's certainly a possibility. Detectives took the estimated extra mileage, split it in half to estimate a round trip radius, and mapped out potential routes that lined up with the vehicle's recorded engine star. The geography pointed toward a specific region, the Colorado River Indian Reservation, a massive, remote area of desert and river corridors stretching across the California Arizona border. While law enforcement focused on these coordinates, Maya's family organized their own massive volunteer search parties every weekend, raising money through GoFundMe. For months, groups of community volunteers combed the landscape, searching the Glomys sand dunes, the Salt and Sea Fish Creek, and the rugged terrain near the California Arizona Border. Larry never joined them. He didn't participate in a single search or show any interest in looking for the mother of his children. At one point, the family even made a public plea to him through the media, saying, we wish he was out here helping us. Come and help us find your wife. Larry did sit down for one media interview on January fourteenth, a week after Maya's disappearance. Here's a clip of Larry re responding to the reporter's question, what do you love about your wife?

44:04 Oh? I love everything about her. She's very smart, kind, you know, basically just her her social personality, personal just everything, and probably your love for life. She loved to hike, right. Oh yeah, yeah, she you know, just her outgoing personality and probably a great mom. Oh yes, yes, she is there. He seemed to be having a little trouble answering how that. Theor is beating information about his wife. I know, that's how it felt like the reporter is like reminding him, like maybe you should talk about your children. On February fifth, nearly a month after Maya vanished, Jula Vista police Chief Roxanna Kennedy held a joint media briefing with Maya's family to assure the public that the department was taking the case seriously. Kennedy said that detectives were working around the clock and emphasized that Maya missing her daughter's birthday had resonated deeply with officers. By mid April, the operation had expanded significantly. The Chula Vista Police Department formed a multi agency task force, bringing in reinforcements from the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the San Diego County District Attorney's Office. By that point, investigators had already conducted dozens of interviews and served more than twelve search warrants. In May, authorities returned to Larry's home with another search warrant. This time they also served him with

45:35 a gun violence Restraining Order or GVRO. Officers seized more than a dozen firearms from the house, including an illegal assault rifle. However, one specific weapon that was registered to Larry, a forty caliber Smith and Wesson handgun, was nowhere to be found. It has never been recovered. The push to remove Larry's weapons stemmed from pictures that detectives found on its own phone. One showed a kitchen table covered in firearms, ammunition, high capacity magazines, and tactical gear. Another photo showed the couple's four year old son standing on a table surrounded by sixteen different rifles and handguns.

46:16 So the firearms are removed from the home, but the child is not, No, the child was not interesting. In their official filing for the GVRO, officers explicitly stated their concern that if Larry got advanced notice of a search or an arrest, he might attempt to shoot it out with the police. Which, to your point, if they were worried that Larry was going to engage in a shootout, wouldn't they want to try to separate the children from that environment. I think they need a little more evidence than that, but still it's disturbing. Yeah. Over the nine months following Maya's disappearance, the investigation grew to include sixty seven search warrants, eighty seven interviews, and more than one hundred and thirty tips. During their searches of the home, detective uncovered evidence beyond the firearms.

47:02 They found a vial of poison hemlock inside the house and discovered the charred remains of one of Maya's credit cards in the ashes of a backyard fire pit. On Tuesday, October nineteenth, twenty twenty one, a Chula Vista Police Department swat team arrived at the Milliere home, detonating a flash bang before breaching the front door. Outside, the FBI established a mobile command center to assist as the raid unfolded. Larry was home alone when he was taken into custody. The couple's three children, who had been living with him since January, were elsewhere at the time and were confirmed safe. Investigators later noted that in the days just before his arrest, Larry had been withdrawing large amounts of cash from his bank accounts, raising concerns that he might have been preparing to flee. Larry was charged with first degree murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon. He pleaded not guilty and was ordered held without bail. At a press conference announcing the charges, San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan addressed the challenge of prosecuting a homicide case without a body.

48:09 She said the legal precedent was clear, noting we cannot let someone murder someone and gain a benefit by hiding the body in a way that we cannot discover it. Chula Vista Police Chief Roxana Kennedy added that the multi agency effort had produced what she described as clear and overwhelming evidence that Larry was responsible for his wife's death. For Maya's inner circle, the arrest was welcome news, but at the same time it confirmed their worst fears. Her brother in law, Richards's first reaction was simply to say finally. Her sister Mary Chris, broke down the moment she heard the news. Maya's friend Claudia Joulau articulated the mixed feelings brought on by the arrest, saying, although you keep that hope up, now, it became real.

48:56 When Maya Vanashed, her three children were only four, nine, eleven years old. With the nine months leading up to his arrest, Larry had isolated them from maya side of the family, permitting only a single supervised phone call between the kids and their maternal relatives. Following the arrest, the court issued a protective order explicitly barring Larry from contacting his children. He bypassed that order with help of his parents, Benito and Judith Miliette, who took custody of the kids after the raid. Prosecutors later discovered that Larry had placed one hundred twenty nine calls from jail to his parents' home, spending more than nine hours talking to the children. How did that fly?

49:40 That's a great question. The content of those recorded calls deeply concerned authorities. In one exchange, Larry asked his eleven year old daughter to read him news headlines about his own murder case. In another, he instructed his two older children to watch the film Shot Caller, a movie about a man who becomes a hardened prison gang member, telling them that they needed to watch it to understand the environment I am in. Once these calls came to life, the judge revoked Larry's bone privileges entirely restricting his communication to only his defense attorney. In October twenty twenty two, the court modified the restrictions slightly to allow Larry to write letters to the children, provided they were pre screened by a court appointed guardian. Meanwhile, an intense custody battle was unfolding. Mary Chris argued in court that the children urgently needed professional therapy to process the loss of their mother and the incarceration of their father.

50:39 She petitioned for emergency custody, but the judge initially denied the request, ruling that the children shouldn't be removed from the school, neighborhood and daily routines they had always known. Mary Chris contested the ruling, pointing out that Larry's parents were facilitating the unauthorized jailhouse calls and failing to get the children into counseling. The court eventually ordered the grandparents to permit regular visitation, allowing Maya's family to host the children every other weekend at their home in Riverside County. The legal battle continued for three years. Throughout the process, Mary Chris focused on keeping the children connected to their mother's side of the family, stating that her main priority was making sure that they knew that they were loved and supported by everyone. Finally, in August twenty twenty four, a judge granted Mary Chris and Richard full legal custody and guardianship of the three children. That sounds like that was a better situation.

51:37 Absolutely the right decision for them. I feel like I got to know Mary Chris a little bit because she was so out American. Yeah, she was out there speaking in the media all the time, and she and Richard both to seem like lovely people, and I'm sure have the best interests of the children in mind. While the custody dispute played out, the criminal case faced a series of legal delays. Larry's defense attorney, Bonita Martinez, raised questions regarding her client's mental competency to stand trial. The judge paused the criminal proceedings and ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether Larry understood the charges against him and could assist in his own defense. The case remained at a standstill for three months until September twenty twenty two, when a judge reviewed the psychiatric findings and ruled Larry competent, allowing the case to move forward toward a preliminary hearing.

52:30 By that point, however, Martinez informed the court that Larry could no longer afford his defense, let alone the private investigators and expert witnesses needed for the trial. The defense had hoped to fund the case using proceeds from selling off the couple's assets, including their one point two million dollars to La Vista home and their vehicles, but a judge ordered all the funds from the estate liquidation to be placed in a frozen account, ruling that because it was still unclear how much that money legally belonged to Maya Larry could not access it, and what about the kids too, right? I think that's mainly what it was for. Is Okaya legally was entitled to a certain amount of money it would go to the kids.

53:12 Larry eventually replaced Martinez with a new legal team. In September twenty twenty four. His new attorneys leveled serious allegations against his former counsel, accusing Bonita Martinez of fraud. They claimed that she had failed to show Larry the discovery evidence against him and only visited him in jail when she needed him to sign paperwork. They also alleged that Martinez accepted payments from Larry without assigned retainer agreement, a legal requirement in California for any service exceeding one thousand dollars. Those fraud allegations remain unresolved, adding in another layer of complexity to an already convoluted legal battle.

53:53 I didn't go too far down this rabbit hole, but Bonita Martinez. I saw some news reports and some video of her in court in a preliminary hearing, and I hate to speak badly of someone, but she just seemed completely lost and clueless in the courtroom. The judge had to admonish her, like multiple times. The other council was objecting constantly, and the judge was sustaining every objection because they were right, and she just didn't seem to understand. The judge had to like basically stop her and explain to her, I just ruled against you. You can't say that, and she just seemed completely lost. Really, I happened to look on Google and she has three reviews that are all all of them are one star reviews, so people do not have nice things to say about her.

54:36 Mary's trial was originally scheduled for September twenty twenty three. However, the date was pushed back repeatedly. For Maya's family, every postponement meant months of waiting. I remember around the COVID times when every trial was just horribly delayed. Yes, in twenty twenty five, following yet another delay, Mary Chris released a statement expressing how pain until the timeline had become, noting that it had been nearly five years since her sister vanished without any resolution. When the defense requested another extension in early twenty twenty six, Mary Chris spoke directly to the court, asking the judge to deny it. She highlighted the impact the weight was having on her aging parents, telling the courtroom quote, both my parents are living day to day. We do not know how much time they have left. They wake up every morning still waiting for justice for their daughter. The judge granted the delay anyway, scheduling the trial from mid May. On Monday May eighteenth, twenty twenty six, opening statements finally began at the South Bay Courthouse in Cheula Vista. A jury of seven women and five men was seated, along with six alternates. Because of the intense public scrutiny, Judge Enrique Camerina banned all cameras and audio recording equipment from the courtroom to protect the integrity of the proceedings. The courtroom gallup was crowded with supporters from both sides. For the first time, observers saw a very different version of Larry Amiliette, who had

56:08 spent the last several years in custody. He sat at the defense table wearing a maroon sweater, a collared shirt, and black rimmed glasses. His hair had grown long and was tied back into a ponytail. Throughout the initial days of the trial, observers noted that Larry remained completely stoic, staring straight ahead without any visible reaction. Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles delivered the opening statement for the prosecution. She focused heavily on the contrast between the life Maya was actively building, her new friends, her outdoor hobbies, her daughter's upcoming birthday, and the control Larry exerted over her bulls. Summarized the state's entire case in one sentence, Rather than let her leave, he killed her. Defense attorney Colby Ryan countered by urging the jury to set aside any reconceived notions they had gathered from the media. He focused on the lack of physical evidence, reminding the jurors that there was nobody, no confirmed crime scene, and no weapon linking Larry to a murder. Ryan also introduced the defense's primary alternative theory, suggesting that investigators developed tunnel vision early on and ignored other potential leads, including Maya's extramarital affair. The trial's first dramatic moment came just a day into testimony, when Maya's father of Pablito Tabalanza, took the stand, He wrote down while testifying, and at one point screamed directly at Larry across the courtroom, why did you do this?

57:39 Larry's defense team immediately moved from a mistrial, arguing the outburst had unfairly prejudiced the jury. Judge Camerina denied the motion, and the trial continued. Maya's father having to testify and have that outburst, I can completely understand that it must be so painful to have to sit there and look at this man in front of you. Yeah, what he did that would be really difficult. We'll be back after a break. The prosecution's case rested on a massive puzzle of circumstantial details. Beginning with the digital history recovered from Larry's personal devices, investigators cataloged a series of search terms that closely tracked the breakdown of the marriage. Early queries included what are the symptoms of a nervous breakdown, subliminal wife training, and how to hypnotize someone to love you. But as Maya moved forward with her plans to leave, the search terms shifted toward lethal methods. Larry looked up plant you take to never wake up, water hemlock, painless death and shot in the heart instant death. He also researched the sedative ro hipnol and looked into whether a life insurance policy would pay out in the event of a suicide. These digital searches directly connected to physical evidence found inside the home, a vile containing knee en, the highly toxic compound found

59:10 in poison hemlock, which police recovered after Larry's arrest. While the state acknowledged they could not prove the exact mechanism of Maya's death, they presented the hidden poison as evidence of Larry's capability and preparation. The prosecution also introduced the hundreds of emails Larry sent to the online spellcasters. They mapped out the timeline again for the jury, highlighting how his requests transitioned from desperate love spells to explicit demands that Maya be made really sick or suffer physical harm. They emphasized that the daily flood of emails stopped entirely the day after Maya vanished, which prosecutors argued was because Larry no longer needed the spells to work. Finally, the state let the jury hear from Maya herself through the people she confided in during her final days. During a family camping trip just days before she disappeared, she told relatives flatly, if anything happens to me, it will be Larry, and in a text message to a close friend around the same time, she expressed a fear that Larry would quote hurt the kids to get back at me. When the defense took the floor, they focused heavily on everything the prosecution didn't have. Defense attorney Leanne Sabatini argued that the state was asking the jury to convict a man based purely on speculation, pointing to the absolute lack of physical evidence, no confirmed crime scene, no weapon, no eyewitnesses, and no body. The defense also attempted to redirect suspicion

1:00:42 toward Maya's co worker, Jamie Laird, arguing that detectives developed immediate tunnel vision and failed to vet Jamie properly. While Laird's alibi placed him at the hospital from January seventh to January tenth for the birth of his child, The defense highlighted that investigators never physically visited the hospital or interviewed staff to verify those dates. They argued Laird had a strong motive to make Maya disappear, claiming the exposure of the affair threatened both his marriage and his career. However, Judge Camerina shut down that line of defense before Larry's lawyers were able to get traction with the jury. Citing the legal standard for third party culpability, the judge ruled that the defense could not present Laird as a suspect, finding no direct or circumstantial evidence connecting him to Maya's disappearance.

1:01:33 Blocked from pointing to Laird, the defense shifted their focus to Maya's personal life. They alleged that Maya was drinking heavily, using online dating apps, and changing into a completely different person. The defense suggested that the fear of her affair being reported to her Navy superiors created a high pressure situation that could have driven Maya to run away. To explain why none of the neighborhood's security cameras caught her leaving, they argued she could have slipped out of a back balcony, climbed the property fence, and hiked out onto a nearby mountain trail undetected. Finally, the defense team took aim at the digital and tracking evidence. They challenged the neighbor's security footage, questioning the accuracy of the time stamps and pointing out a seven minute gap in the overnight recording. They also disputed the prosecution's mileage calculations for the Lexus suv. The defense argued that the states estimated four hundred and forty four to six hundred and ninety two miles was based entirely on Larry and Maya's personal driving habits, completely ignoring the fact that Larry's parents lived with Larry and Maya at the time and regularly borrowed the vehicle. But seems like the defense is really grasping its straws here doing whatever.

1:02:47 Obviously they're throwing anything they can at this to try to raise some doubt. But it always bothers me when they tried to assassinate the character of the victim in this case, like, oh, it's Maya, which she was out drinking heavily and carousing at all. This it really gets gets me. Following six weeks of testimony, the jury deliberated for just five hours before returning a verdict guilty of first degree murder. The jurors had been given the option of convicting on lesser offenses including second degree murder and manslaughter, but their choice of the top charge meant they found the killing to be deliberate and premeditated. Inside the courtroom, Maya's family wept as the verdict was read, a release of five years of tension that carried out into the hallway in cheers of relief. Larry's family sat entirely still.

1:03:37 Larry himself, with visibly red eyes, leaned over to thank his defense team. Larry was back in court earlier this week on the separate charge of illegal possession of an assault weapon. Sentencing for the murder conviction is scheduled for September twenty ninth. The guidelines in California range from twenty five years to life in prison without parole. The weapons charge could add another three years. Maya's children are now fourteen, thirteen, and seven years old. They're growing up without their mother or their father, and for the family, the immediate priority is helping them find some sense of peace. Richard has issued public appeals directly to Larry, asking him to finally break his silence, saying for the kid's sake, for their mindset, for their happiness, let the kids know what happened to their mom. A guilty verdict provides accountability, but it doesn't bring closure. Maya's brother, Jr. Tabalanza, has emphasized that regardless of what happens in a courtroom, their main objective remains exactly what it was on day one, to find their sister and bring her home. But five years of searching the desert has shifted the nature of that search. Richard has acknowledged the reality of the family now faces, noting that at this stage they're likely looking for clothing or bones.

1:04:57 Yet Mary Chris and the community volunteers refuse to stop. They continue to head out into the desert, driven by a commitment made when Maya first vanished. As Mary Chris explained, we made a promise to her eleven year old daughter that we would bring her mom home. Let her kids know where their mommy is at rest in peace. Maya. That is so sad that her kids don't know what happened to her. I mean for her whole family, but especially her children. So that really does tug up my heart strings. You know, think about her eleven or eleven year old daughter, you know, just wanting to find totally. I guess I have a faint hope now that the case is settled. I mean, this is only a couple of weeks ago that the verdict came in. But I do have like a small hope that maybe Larry will come forward, And it's probably not likely.

1:05:44 But I just feel like, I think the only time that happens is when all of the exhaust. Yeah, you're probably right. Unfortunately, we've talked before about the challenges in prosecuting nobody murder cases. It seems like it's getting easier. I was thinking that when you were sing this case that, yeah, you know, it's become so common. It seems like, you know, jury's are willing to forego that. Yeah, I think that's a good it's a good point. This case in particular, you know, it was completely circumstantial. There was absolutely no physical evidence. But obviously the jury they only deliberated for five hours away. I am a little surprised by that. That they only deliberated that long. Just yeah, that they quickly came to that verdict because there wasn't any circumstance. I mean, I'm sorry, there wasn't any evidence that she had died in the house.

1:06:30 Yeah, I read that. Everyone was very surprised when the jury came back like people were not expecting to come back in the courtroom that quickly, so everyone was rushing back. And really maybe the big thing that was a surprise is that they didn't have to go with first degree murder. They could have gone with second degree or manslaughter. So even just that seems like, yeah, would have taken a while to debate, and I'm glad that they came up with the verdict they did, because I think Larry does deserve to go to prison and never get out of prison. But it does seem like was it really first degree murder? I mean, it seemed to me like they had an argument that night and that maybe he shot her. But I guess the fact that he did go out and buy poison, you know, indicates that he was thinking about this.

1:07:14 Where did he get hemlock from? I don't know. That really threw me. I don't know where that came from. Do you think that as a society we are just so accustomed to, you know, not just women, but you know, people in marriages killing each other, that jury's are more likely to convict. I mean, that could be, but I just feel like in this case, there was so much evidence pointing to Larry, and yes, it was all circumstantial. But all of these online spells that he was paying for, and the fact that he just stopped the day she disappeared, that seems really odd. But just there's so much leading up to it. I think that it seemed pretty obvious in this case to me, at least.

1:07:54 I wanted to ask you about the spells and the spellcasters and all those things that he was paying for. Any did he really believe in that? Why did he believe in that? And did any of those spells come to fruition? You know, that's a good question. I think I think he clearly really believed it. I mean, he spent a thousand more than a thousand dollars on. These, so I don't know how much you spell costs. I don't either, but I wouldn't spend a thousand dollars on something unless I was pretty sure it was going to work. I did listen to an interview the press. They did that one interview with him, which was a week after she disappeared, but then they did one while he was in jail before his trial, apparently against the advice of his attorney, And I did listen to some of that, and they asked him about that, and he said that he, you know, he believed in the spells and he was just trying to get Maya back and that's why he did that. He wouldn't talk about why he put spells on her to try to hurt her or to you know, incapacitate her to some degree. But yeah, he obviously believed it. And apparently he's not alone. Like I said, there is there is a whole subreddit about this, and you know, if you go online and search for spells, you can find a lot of people who are willing to take your money to put a spell on somebody.

1:09:05 Interesting. Why do you think that the police didn't take Maya's disappearance as seriously as they should have until weeks into the case. I mean, it happens all the time, right, I really don't know. Yeah, it's so frustrating. The only thing I can think of is that you know, she because she was having an affair, that maybe they thought, oh, she probably ran away. They knew she was planning for a divorce, but none of that. And this case is fairly recent, so I think the police have gotten better. You know, the first forty eight and all that. Yeah, but yeah, it is super frustrating. Yeah, what do you think happened? I think the audio of those gunshots is pretty clear, and this is a small, you know, a neighborhood where something like that would be pretty out of the ordinary.

1:09:51 I think he shot her. Although how did he clean up the crime scene? He must have done what I'm asking, Yeah, he must have done a good job cleaning it up. He had time to clean it up, because nobody he really did a thorough search of the house for weeks afterward. But that's the only thing I can think. I was that he probably shot her, cleaned up the crime scene to put her body in the car, and drove her out to the desert somewhere. But it sounds like the police like although you said, I know there were like seventy search warrants, they didn't go through the house with a fine toothcomb, and they didn't use luminol or anything like. That, right, I don't know. They may have eventually, but if they did, it took them a long time to do it. And you know, I who knows if he was able to clean up the crime scene well enough to eliminate any evidence.

1:10:34 Any update on the children. No. The last update I have is that Mary Chris and Richard got custody of them, so I, you know, obviously hope that they're doing well. I did read that Mary Chris and Richard did get the children into therapy, so they are hopefully dealing with the trauma that they experienced. And they probably don't talk to their dad. I doubt it. I don't know for sure, but I can't imagine that they do well. That is the story of Maya and Larry Milliete. Let us know what you think. Let's talk about subliminal messages and spellcasting. Do you do you believe in any of that? Do you think any of that works?

1:11:18 I mean, I have wondered how a guy like you got a babe like me for a long time, so. I asked myself that all the time. Or you could also say vice brusa, how a weirdo like me got such an amazing fellow like you. But I have been so I have been playing subliminal messages over the last few nights. So you've been sleeping. They say, Tina, get oreos, get oreos. And because I was at the store yesterday and I paused, I thought, you know, I really I love you. You know that I love to buy trees for people at like that's my love language, you know. I just I'd like to do nice things for you guys. And I stopped at the double stuffed Oreos and I said, he would be so happy if I brought home Oreos. But then I said to myself self, you know that he would eat the whole bag by himself, and that's not really showing love to him. So I did not buy the Oreos.

1:12:15 Okay, So, but the subliminal messaging, it sounds like it may I wasn't really subliminal messages. But yeah, But I'm thinking of a movie that we saw recently. We actually saw it at the theater called Obsession. I don't think we talked about it on the podcast. I don't think we did. It was really good. It was a streaming on Peacock right now. I thought it was a really good movie. It was really low budget but super interesting. The gist of it is this young man wants this woman young woman to fall in love with him, and he makes a wish on I can't remember what it was called. Some that he bought it a curio shop or something like that. Funny and then the wishes something like I want her to love me more than anyone has ever been loved in the history of the world, or something like that, and it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

1:13:03 The moral of the story is be careful what you wish for. It's a really yeah, definitely highly recommend it if you like a good horror film. And for the budget it was, I thought it was really well done and there was a couple of really good scares in there, so definitely yeah. So this reminded me. I kept thinking of that a little bit. I did look a little bit into the history of subliminal messagings. I was curious kind of where this started. I mean, I a worked, wouldn't every advertiser use it? Well, I think it's against I think it's against the law, But it came up. It first came up in nineteen fifty seven. So this market researcher held a press conference in New York. He claimed that during screenings of a movie in a theater in New Jersey, that he used a special projector to flash two messages on the screen for one three thousands of a second, faster than the human eye could register, and the messages one said eat popcorn and the other said drink Coca Cola, and he claimed that popcorn and hoke sales went up by fifty seven percent during the showing of that.

1:14:04 So in nineteen fifty seven did most theaters sell popcorn and coke? Or was that the time that the market was just burgeoning? I have no idea, Okay, but whatever, this movie theater did sell popcorn coke, and he said that they sold fifty seven percent more than they normally did. But years later he admitted that he made the whole thing up because people were trying to recreate the results of it in experiments and they couldn't. And he went on he did an interview like, now, I made the whole thing up because my business was failing and I was trying to find a way. Oh yeah, I don't. I did read the science behind it, and it can work to a very limited extent, Like if you get a subliminal message that says like drink pepsi, for example, it'll only work for a few seconds after you get the message, and only if you're already thirsty, So it might make you more more likely to choose pepsi than coke or to think, Oh, I might enjoy a pepsi, but I do.

1:15:04 Believe in the power of suggestion and a little bit in mind control. And I shouldn't admit this, but I feel like I do mind control you sometimes, because like once in a while, this happened a couple of weeks ago, I wanted a sandwich from Mike's Deli. You messaged me like an hour later, and you're like, hey, I'm thinking about running to MIC's to get a sandwich for lunch. Would you like one? And I was like, oh my god, I'm I'm a witch. I could just be because you know I love a sandwich as well. But you initiated it though you were like, hey, I didn't do anything but just sit there and send you, you know, a message. Oh, this could explain how you attracted a guy like me as well, Like maybe you used that mind control earlization swamp creature. It's not true. Even a little bit before we go, we should mention really briefly that we watched a new docum memory about Scott Peterson's appeal from the La Innocence Project to try to get him off.

1:16:07 So this was a two part documentary on an e and it claimed. That it was four hours, four hours that will never get back. Well, they claimed going into it that they were going to reveal new evidence. Well the show is literally called Scott Peterson The New Evidence. Yeah, well that makes me hop and mad. I posted about this on social media. I talked to some of our listeners about it, and a lot of people who watched it were also super irritated. Whether you think Scott's innocent or guilty, there was no new evidence and it was presented in such a non critical way drove me nots. Yeah, it was the It was completely biased toward everyone on the documentary was basically had a mission to convince you that Scott was innocent, and they had new analysis of existing evidence where they went back and looked at evidance.

1:16:57 So well, we reinterpreted this to mean this. Yeah, thought there was absolutely zero new evidence, right, And. The thing that drove me nuts is they talked about confirmation bias, but they were using confirmation bias. Then they were talking about how you can't believe I witnessed testimony, but you should believe this testimony. Yeah, it was very bizarre. Yeah. I left it feeling very angry and like we wasted four hours of our. Lives, and it's just sad because you know that they just want people to watch it and tune in because everyone is still compelled. It's a fascinating case Scott Peterson, and it was just disappointing. And so now any the next documentary'll probably so much. But you know, it just takes away from their credibility and it really.

1:17:42 It really is a fascinating case. I think you and I are both on the same page that we believe that Scott Peterson is guilty. I know there are a lot of people out there who feel differently about the documentary itself was very irritating. Disappointing, really disappointing. One thing that I we had talked about, I think in our last was that how we were going to watch it and we would be you know, keep our minds open. The burnt out van has been like this question mark because there's this bloody mattress and I think that I forgot that the van that was at the robbery scene was white and this burnt out van is orange. And yeah, so they really have to do some mental gymnastics to understand why the orange van would be linked to the white van.

1:18:25 Yeah, so it was just there was found like a mile and a half away from their home, and so yeah, it really. I think it was found like six miles away. I don't know. But anyway, if you disagree with us, that's fine. If you enjoyed it, good for you. But I think for most people you probably would feel the same as we did. Well, thanks everybody for hanging out with us. We really appreciate it. Follow us on social media, or you can go to our website at Lovemarykill dot com, send us a note, leave us a voicemail. And if you like the work we're doing, consider supporting us on Patreon. Go to patreon dot com love Mary Kill. For only five dollars a month, you get it all good early ad, free access and a monthly well researched bonus episode and.

1:19:09 Our appreciation until next time. Don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife. Take my. Hold too. For a. Falling You like surely did see.

1:19:52 Something all men to be. So take. Had signal fold. Two for a and talk for all the wit you for a talk falling Wait with you