July 27, 2026

Maya and Larry Millete

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When 39-year-old mother of three Maya Millete walked up to her Chula Vista home carrying grocery bags on the afternoon of January 7, 2021, security cameras captured what looked like a routine Thursday. But by the next morning, the vibrant Navy contract specialist had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a new Jeep Wrangler, plans for a family road trip, and an appointment with a divorce attorney scheduled for that very week.

What followed was a years-long investigation that peeled back the layers of a marriage built on escalating, obsessive control. Featuring hidden car trackers, a search history involving poison hemlock, and hundreds of frantic emails sent to online spellcasters, the case ultimately centered on one terrifying question: did a devoted mom walk away to start over, or did her husband execute a calculated plan to ensure she would never leave?

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Today’s snack: Lesser Evil Space Balls and Cheezmos

Sources:

WEBVTT

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Hi, I'm Rich and I'm Tina.

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If there's one thing we've learned in over twenty years

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of marriage.

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It's some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and.

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Some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

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Welcome to love, Mary Kill.

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Hey, Hey, Rich, how are you today?

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I am fabulous? How are you?

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I'm doing fabulous as well.

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What am I wearing right now?

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You're wearing a snuggie?

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Well, I have a blanket with arms, and I'm so

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excited to have a chilly day here and.

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Michelle, Oh, it's been a while.

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Our nature is treating us.

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Yeah, it feels really good. We've got the windows open

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for the first time in quite a while. The air

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quality is a little bit better, it's.

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A lot better. So yeah, it's going our way.

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Yeah. Do you like my shirt?

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Well?

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I bought it for you, so yes, yeah.

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I think I'm not. I can't guarantee it, but I

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don't think I've spilled anything on it yet.

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Okay, Yeah, you.

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Went to the outlet mall and you bought me a

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few new T shirts.

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They did, yes, and I've been wearing them and they

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weren't like the cheapest T shirts. I went to the

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polo outlet. So you're wearing a little pony. How much

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do you think that shirt costs?

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I have no earthly idea.

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This is kind of funny, but a couple of weeks

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ago we would not that. We've been going shopping a lot.

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Some of these excursions are without you, but this one

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was with you. And you bought a new pair of

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birken stocks that your old ones were pretty worn right

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and beat up. And when we went to pay for them,

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you said, is.

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This so much burgenstocks cost?

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I think he just said, is it so much shoes cost?

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And it made me laugh.

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I had no idea.

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You really have no idea how much.

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I really am out of touch with the cost of things,

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even when I buy things, like if I go to

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the grocery store and you don't, sometimes I don't really look.

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How much do you think a gallon of milk is

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right now?

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I don't know. Four dollars.

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That's actually a very very guess. I think that's about right.

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Put me on the prices.

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You still loved that show so much.

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This was a really good show, Like if.

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You got to stay home from school? That was the

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best part.

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I know, it was so good. My favorite part was

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the big wheel that they spun. I was always fun.

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I think I always liked the pricing games, like you know,

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how much is rice a roni or whatever?

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And you ended up working in grocery stores, so it

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really must have impacted your life.

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Prices have changed a lot over the last year. The

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things are definitely more expensive. Yeah, so I noticed what

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you're drinking. It always surprises me that you choose to

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drink carbonated beverages before we record the podcast. Sometimes, Yeah,

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you right now are drinking diet burners.

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I love a diet burners. Not everyone does. It's a

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it's a Detroit thing. It's not very common outside of Detroit.

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We've talked about it before, and we actually one of

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our listeners, d from Kansas City.

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You owe her, you should Venmodi.

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She left us a voice a message on our website

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and she said she tried. She ordered a case of

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it and tried it and she didn't like it compared

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to Canada Dry. Which you know, you're you're wrong, but

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that's okay. You're entitled to be wrong about a certain

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that's rude.

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I think that she is correct, But I was not

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born here in Michigan, so I don't really like Berners either,

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but they have changed their formula throughout the years. Yeah,

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years ago ginger because it's a ginger ale, and I

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guess it's no longer continued.

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It used to when you opened up a can or

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a bottle of ginger ale, that the fumes would get

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in your nose and you couldn't like you had to

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start coughing immediately when you open.

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It, and you thought that was delicious.

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It was amazing. It was so it's still good, but

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it was so so good back then. It's just not

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quite the.

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Sat around your house growing up.

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It was a tonic for everybody in the in Michigan.

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It is. It's something that like, oh, I have a

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stomach ache, have a Werner's. I have a headache, I

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have a burners whatever ails you of Werner's was allegedly

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supposed to help with I don't know if it really did,

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but it's delicious.

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Okay, Well that is your opinion. You should have this segment.

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You should end it every time with you and that's

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my opinion.

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We should all Right, Well, I did bring you a snack.

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Would you like to try this?

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I hope it's a cheeseburger.

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It's not a cheeseburger, but milkshake. This what I bought.

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This like a month ago. I was in the grocery

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store and I happened across this. I'd never heard of

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this brand of snack. It's called Lesser Evil. Apparently they

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make a lot of different snacks and they're supposed to

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be a healthy alternative. I think it looks good though.

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I bought two flavors. One is base balls, which is

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like a cheddar cheddar byte type of thing, okay, and

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then the other is sorry, it's making a lot.

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Of noise here.

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The other is crunchy cheety cheese miss so okay. It

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looks like cheese cheese ites or Cheeto's cheetos. Yes, all right,

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give my truck.

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I don't have a choice, do I know?

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What did you think of the Lesser Evil snacks?

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I like snacks that are greater Evil.

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If you're gonna have a snack of Yeah.

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Because they're clean snacks, and it's not like they're that

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that much healthier.

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There's so they're just made with like more natural ingredients.

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They're made with avocado and coconut oil. They weren't bad,

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but the packaging is super cute. I'm gonna give them

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a lot of points for cute packaging. Yeah, but I

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don't think I would eat them again.

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Yeah, the Spaceballs ones I felt like had very little flavor.

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The cheesemast ones I thought were pretty good.

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But yeah, overall, but the packaging in the name's both

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really cute. And I guess if I was packing lunches

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for my kids, yeah, I would maybe put them, you know,

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put them in their lunch. But really, I mean there's

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still six grams of fat, two and a half grams

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of saturated fat, one hundred and thirty calories per serving.

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So you know, if I want a lesser evil snack,

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I'm going to go for fruit.

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Yeah. I was reading a little bit about the company.

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I think they got sued for like false advertising a

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few years ago because I think they were advertising it

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as a really healthy snack and it's like, yeah, they're

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not really that healthy.

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But again, like it's this no alien ingredients. I mean it,

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you know, keep packaging, but that's how they get you.

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Yep. Let's get to the story of Maya and Larry Miliette.

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This case was a recommendation from my friend Erwin, who

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recommended it probably three and a half years ago.

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Yeah, I remember Erwin.

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It was a very fresh case at that time, and

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there wasn't a lot of information out there, so I

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looked into it. At the time, there just wasn't that much.

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There was a recent trial that ended related to this case,

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so I decided to pick it back up again. On

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the afternoon of Thursday, January seventh, twenty twenty one, a

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home surveillance camera in Chula Vista, California captured footage of

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a woman walking up to her front door carrying grocery bags.

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It was four forty two pm. That was the last

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time anyone ever saw Maya Miliate. Maya was thirty nine

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years old and petite five foot two, one hundred and

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ten pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles. But

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everyone who knew her says she had a big personality.

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She was vibrant, witty, and always quick with a joke.

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She had built a successful career as a civilian contract

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specialist for the US Navy, but her world revolved around

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her three young children. Maya was also incredibly adventurous. She

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practiced martial arts, loved camping, and just weeks before she disappeared,

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she had bought a brand new jeep wrangler, throwing herself

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headfirst into a local desert off roading group, and making

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a whole new circle of friends. When she wasn't outdoors,

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she was musical. She played acoustic guitar and piano, and

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she loved family karaoke nights. Her go to tracks were Jewels,

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You Were Meant For Me and Elvis's Can't Help Falling

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in Love. She even uploaded some of her performances to YouTube.

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Here's a short clip, Seyool.

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Screw good.

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Fal it was beautiful, yeah, beautiful voice.

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Because Maya was so close with her family and so

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active on social media, she was in near constant communication

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with the people in her life. So when her phone

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went completely dark after that Thursday afternoon, her inner circle

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knew instantly that something was terribly wrong. Those closest to

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her also knew that Maya was quietly preparing for a

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major change. Earlier that day, she had scheduled a call

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with a divorce attorney. She was planning a road trip

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with her kids, looking forward to packing up her new

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jeep and actively building a future independent of her husband

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of twenty years, Larry Milliette. But by the next morning,

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she was gone. No goodbye. Note, no footprints, no trace

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of her anywhere. What happened inside that Chula Vista home

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between four forty two that Thursday afternoon and sunrise the

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next day would become the center of one of the

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most agonizing, closely watched investigations in southern California history. It

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turned into a case built on circumstantial evidence, a massive

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digital trail, and a husband whose story didn't hold up.

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Neighbors would later report hearing strange noises coming from the

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direction of the house that night. Investigators would uncover months

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of frantic, desperate messages related to Maya, messages that stopped

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entirely the next day, and for years, Maya's family would

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spend their weekends combing the most remote, brutal stretches of

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the California Desert, doing everything in their power to find her.

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This is the story of Maya and Larry Miliette. Maya

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was born May Tablanza in the Philippines in nineteen eighty one.

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Her mother gave her the new nicknamed Maya, after the

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small sparrows common across the islands. She grew up in

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a big family, one of six children. When she was thirteen,

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the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Honolulu.

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Maya's sister later recalled that Maya was always known as

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the smart one of the family. She took her education seriously,

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graduating from Radford High School before attending the University of

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Hawaii at Manoa. Larry Milliete's path to Hawaii started with

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trouble in San Diego. In April nineteen ninety seven, when

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Larry was fifteen, he was arrested and charged with assault

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with a deadly weapon after a seventeen year old was

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stabbed near a shopping center in the Bay Terraces neighborhood.

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Police sources at the time described the incident as gang related.

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Because the case was handled in juvenile court, the records

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were sealed, and the final outcome of those charges was

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never made public. Shortly after the arrest, Larry's family relocated

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to Hawaii, where his father, a career Navy veterans, and

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had been reassigned to Pearl Harbor. This is where Larry

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and Maya met. They attended the same high school in

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Honolulu and worked shifts together at a local fast food restaurant,

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eventually starting to date. During Maya's senior year in two

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thousand Not long after Larry turned eighteen and Maya was nineteen,

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they decided to get married. The news came as a

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shock to both of their families. They were still teenagers

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and hadn't been together for very long. Around the same time,

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Larry enlisted in the US Navy, serving as a hospital

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corman and an optician for the next six years. The

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military eventually brought the young couple to southern California, where

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they both transitioned into careers as civilian Navy employees. Larry

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worked as an optician at the Naval Medical Center San Diego,

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while Maya built a reputation as a highly capable contract specialist,

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eventually working at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific. Around

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the office, Maya was known for having a photographic memory.

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Her colleagues described her as a mentor and a sharp,

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confident leader who other women looked up to. One coworker

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later noted that Maya was the kind of person who

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proved you could achieve anything through hard work, regardless of

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where you started out.

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If there is one attribute that I wish I had,

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it is a photographic memory.

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Oh me too.

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I have the worst memory, and I admire people that

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have such clear memories.

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Have you known people that have a photographic m Yeah,

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it really is a handy thing to have.

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Though they married young, Maya and Larry waited a decade

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before starting their family. Their first daughter was born in

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twenty ten, followed by a second daughter a year later,

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and finally a son in twenty sixteen. By twenty thirteen,

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the family had settled into a thirty seven hundred square

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foot five bedroom home on Peso los Gatos in the

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San Miguel Branch neighborhood of Chula Vista. For Maya, the

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location was a perfect fit. It put her right next

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to the rural trails that she liked to hike. To

258
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their neighbors and co workers, the Milieatees seemed to have

259
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built a nice life. Maya balanced a high pressure career

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with the needs of her three young children. By January

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twenty twenty one, the girls were eleven and nine and

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their son was four. Friends knew that Maya's kids were

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the center of her life. She filled their schedules with

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piano lessons and karate, took them hiking, and shared her

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love of music with them, often recording videos of herself

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singing alongside them on the service They appeared to be

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the perfect family, the epitome of an American success story,

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00:13:37.320 --> 00:13:40.240
but by early twenty twenty, the dynamic inside the home

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had shifted. Maya, now thirty eight, was changing. Her family

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later described it as her growing into a more independent,

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confident version of herself, but to Larry, it felt like

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she was pulling away. He told family members she was

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having a midlife crisis, complaining that she was spending too

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much time I'm out with friends, particularly single friends.

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I don't know how far back their marital troubles went,

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but I did read one place that they actually separated

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for a period of time in twenty nineteen. Maybe so,

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I think the troubles even started before that, but a

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lot of it is really well documented. Starting in twenty twenty, as.

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The distance between them grew, Larry began actively monitoring her.

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00:14:24.159 --> 00:14:27.720
Once he secretly followed Maya and a male coworker, taxting

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his sister a running update of their movements, before ultimately

283
00:14:31.240 --> 00:14:34.759
confronting the pair in person. He also started showing up

284
00:14:34.840 --> 00:14:38.360
unannounced at Maya's office, checking to see who she was with.

285
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Larry's suspicions weren't groundless. Maya had begun an affair with

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00:14:43.159 --> 00:14:48.200
a co worker named James Jamie Laird. The relationship had

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00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:50.679
started in the first half of twenty twenty while they

288
00:14:50.720 --> 00:14:55.039
were working together at the Southwest Regional Maintenance Center. Even

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after Maya transferred to a new position at the Naval

290
00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:03.320
Information Warfare Center that June, the relationship continued to keep

291
00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:07.360
the affair hidden. Maya and Jamie each created secondary, secret

292
00:15:07.399 --> 00:15:12.440
Instagram accounts almost exclusively to communicate with each other. Digital

293
00:15:12.480 --> 00:15:15.679
forensics would later uncover a long trail of romantic and

294
00:15:15.720 --> 00:15:20.480
affectionate messages exchanged on the platform between September twenty twenty

295
00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:25.000
and January twenty twenty one. They also used Microsoft teams

296
00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:29.039
to message each other during the work day, occasionally reminding

297
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one another to delete the chat logs. At one point

298
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during the relationship with Jamie, Maya became pregnant and chose

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to end the pregnancy. As Larry's suspicions grew, his spying escalated.

300
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In September twenty twenty, Maya found one of her children's

301
00:15:44.279 --> 00:15:48.399
cell phones hidden inside her car. She realized Larry had

302
00:15:48.440 --> 00:15:51.559
planted it there to track her location whenever she went

303
00:15:51.600 --> 00:15:54.039
out with friends or took a lunch break. Larry face

304
00:15:54.120 --> 00:15:57.080
timed her, demanding to show him exactly where she was

305
00:15:57.360 --> 00:16:00.320
and who she was with. He also began calling her

306
00:16:00.320 --> 00:16:03.159
family members to ask if Maya was still wearing her

307
00:16:03.159 --> 00:16:07.120
wedding ring no Bred Fleggs there. Larry didn't stop at

308
00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:10.799
her physical location. He also tracked her spending and accessed

309
00:16:10.840 --> 00:16:15.039
her social media accounts. Maya shared a private Facebook group

310
00:16:15.200 --> 00:16:18.159
chat with a few close coworkers, and at one point

311
00:16:18.200 --> 00:16:20.960
the women realized that Larry had logged into the thread

312
00:16:21.039 --> 00:16:24.519
and was reading their messages. Even started replying to the

313
00:16:24.519 --> 00:16:29.320
group using Maya's account to impersonate her, before finally revealing himself.

314
00:16:29.720 --> 00:16:33.720
In one message to Maya's co worker Christine Timmers, he wrote, Christine,

315
00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:36.799
this is Larry. I know I haven't been the best husband.

316
00:16:37.279 --> 00:16:39.559
Please help us keep our family together.

317
00:16:40.039 --> 00:16:42.960
You're having marital problems. That's probably not the best approach

318
00:16:43.039 --> 00:16:44.960
to try to fix it is to hack into your

319
00:16:44.960 --> 00:16:47.480
wife's social media messenger friends.

320
00:16:47.919 --> 00:16:50.000
Did Maya know that? She must have known he was

321
00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:50.360
doing this.

322
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I think she found out eventuallya.

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By December twenty twenty, they were sleeping in separate rooms.

324
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That month, Maya discovered speakers hidden in her bedroom when

325
00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:03.519
she confronted Larry, he admitted that he was playing subliminal

326
00:17:03.720 --> 00:17:07.079
audio messages on a loop while she slept, including a

327
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:11.640
recording that repeated the phrase no more men, No more men.

328
00:17:12.160 --> 00:17:15.240
Investigators later found that Larry had searched the Internet for

329
00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:17.839
the phrase subliminal wife training.

330
00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:19.799
Holy moly, Yes, if.

331
00:17:19.720 --> 00:17:22.240
You search for that phrase, it's pretty interesting. The rabbit

332
00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:23.759
holes that it will take you down.

333
00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:26.160
Sarah, you're admitting that you have searched this.

334
00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:28.680
I did it as part of my research. But yeah,

335
00:17:28.680 --> 00:17:30.880
there are many websites out there where you can buy

336
00:17:31.279 --> 00:17:34.680
subliminal audio recordings that you can play to try to

337
00:17:34.799 --> 00:17:37.319
manipulate your wife into loving you again.

338
00:17:37.839 --> 00:17:41.960
Wow, that is shocking, shocking for sure. Larry also began

339
00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:45.519
texting Maya links to articles with titles like what men

340
00:17:45.640 --> 00:17:49.200
Want from their Wives. Maya pushed back, telling him that

341
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he should focus on what women want from their husbands.

342
00:17:52.559 --> 00:17:55.440
In another message, she wrote, quote, as long as I

343
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go back to the wife you liked, the one who

344
00:17:57.680 --> 00:18:01.079
didn't rock the boat, who didn't assert her, who didn't

345
00:18:01.119 --> 00:18:03.559
care about how much she was hurting. So long as

346
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:07.160
there's peace and harmony, then things will be okay. Because

347
00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:11.640
really I'm the problem right. Mary also turned to Maya's family,

348
00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:15.640
telling them that she was cheating and acting sinful. He

349
00:18:15.720 --> 00:18:18.799
pressured her to attend church and sent Bible passages to

350
00:18:18.880 --> 00:18:22.680
her family, including one from Proverbs that read, for the

351
00:18:22.759 --> 00:18:26.720
lips of the adulterous woman drip honey. Her feet go

352
00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:30.079
down to death. Her steps lead straight to the grave.

353
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In hindsight, it feels like an ominous warning. Larry begged

354
00:18:34.480 --> 00:18:37.319
the family to help him bring Maya back into the

355
00:18:37.359 --> 00:18:41.680
religious path. Financial control was part of the dynamic as well.

356
00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:44.920
Even though Maya earned more than Larry, he managed the

357
00:18:44.920 --> 00:18:48.759
household finances and at one point moved a significant portion

358
00:18:48.920 --> 00:18:53.799
of their savings into bitcoin. Maya had explicitly asked him

359
00:18:53.880 --> 00:18:56.599
to not touch the accounts set aside for their children,

360
00:18:56.960 --> 00:19:01.200
but he did anyway. Next, he targeted her professional life.

361
00:19:01.599 --> 00:19:05.480
Larry repeatedly threatened to ruin Maya's career, eventually creating a

362
00:19:05.519 --> 00:19:10.480
fake whistleblower email account to send anonymous accusations to her employer.

363
00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:14.960
The emails claimed Maya was involved in inappropriate relationships with

364
00:19:15.079 --> 00:19:19.359
two different co workers and admanded she be transferred. Lary

365
00:19:19.440 --> 00:19:22.039
told family members that if the Navy fired her for

366
00:19:22.119 --> 00:19:25.039
the affair, he would walk away with full custody of

367
00:19:25.079 --> 00:19:29.279
the children and the house. Over time, Larry's behavior started

368
00:19:29.319 --> 00:19:32.759
becoming violent. Maya confided in a friend that Larry had

369
00:19:32.799 --> 00:19:36.759
once choked her until she lost consciousness. On another occasion,

370
00:19:36.799 --> 00:19:39.920
when Maya locked herself into the bathroom to escape an argument,

371
00:19:40.279 --> 00:19:42.799
Larry pounded on the door and forced his way inside,

372
00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:46.880
hunching a hole through the wood. When Larry discovered the affair,

373
00:19:47.359 --> 00:19:50.799
he tracked down Jamie, Lared's wife, who was pregnant with

374
00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:53.640
their first child. He told her what was going on.

375
00:19:54.160 --> 00:19:57.480
The exposure caused a brief rift between Maya and Jamie.

376
00:19:57.680 --> 00:20:00.440
While they eventually reconciled, the tone of their mand messages

377
00:20:00.480 --> 00:20:04.400
shifted from romantic to platonic. They stopped talking about a

378
00:20:04.440 --> 00:20:08.400
future together and began focusing on moving forward separately, Maya

379
00:20:08.440 --> 00:20:12.200
toward her divorce and Jamie back toward his family. Their

380
00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:16.000
final messages showed no plans to run away together. Instead,

381
00:20:16.119 --> 00:20:20.759
Jamie's text became protective. He repeatedly warned Maya to be careful,

382
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:23.400
telling her that he was worried for her safety.

383
00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:24.920
That's a lot.

384
00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:29.920
Larry was obviously becoming more and more desperate over time,

385
00:20:30.039 --> 00:20:33.039
more and more panicked over time, more and more controlling

386
00:20:33.079 --> 00:20:36.599
over time, and aggressive and yeah, aggressive as well.

387
00:20:37.160 --> 00:20:38.839
How long had the affair been going on.

388
00:20:39.279 --> 00:20:41.319
I don't know exactly when it started. From what I

389
00:20:41.319 --> 00:20:43.839
could understand, the best guests would be it started early

390
00:20:43.960 --> 00:20:47.039
in twenty twenty and then went through most of twenty

391
00:20:47.079 --> 00:20:51.400
twenty until Larry confronted Jamie's wife, and then it became

392
00:20:51.440 --> 00:20:53.839
platonic after that. So they were friends for maybe the

393
00:20:53.880 --> 00:20:56.680
last three months or so before Maya disappeared.

394
00:20:57.119 --> 00:20:59.559
Neither of them had made plans to run away together

395
00:20:59.839 --> 00:21:01.240
and their marriages.

396
00:21:01.400 --> 00:21:03.519
I don't know if early in their relationship they may

397
00:21:03.559 --> 00:21:06.400
have talked about that, but definitely toward the end, like

398
00:21:06.440 --> 00:21:09.359
in the last few months before Miya disappeared, it sounds

399
00:21:09.400 --> 00:21:11.279
like there was there were no plans for them to

400
00:21:11.720 --> 00:21:12.559
run away together.

401
00:21:13.279 --> 00:21:14.920
We'll be back after a break.

402
00:21:22.279 --> 00:21:25.640
As the marriage fractured and Larry became even more desperate,

403
00:21:25.759 --> 00:21:29.640
he turned to an unconventional source for help. Between September

404
00:21:29.680 --> 00:21:33.160
twenty twenty and January twenty twenty one, he spent over

405
00:21:33.200 --> 00:21:37.519
one thousand dollars buying online spells from people claiming to

406
00:21:37.599 --> 00:21:41.079
be psychics, spirit channelers, and spell casters.

407
00:21:41.759 --> 00:21:44.039
I did not realize that was something that you could do.

408
00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.799
This is another rabbit hole I went down, and yes,

409
00:21:46.880 --> 00:21:48.440
there are a lot of people out there that are

410
00:21:48.759 --> 00:21:51.000
selling spells over the internet.

411
00:21:50.920 --> 00:21:53.559
Like on at sea or how do you access them?

412
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:56.480
I would just google it. There is actually a subreddit

413
00:21:57.200 --> 00:22:00.680
called I Think It's spellcaster Reviews that people talk about

414
00:22:00.680 --> 00:22:06.400
different sources for spells, and it surprised me. Digital forensics

415
00:22:06.440 --> 00:22:11.920
investigators later recovered hundreds of pages of emails documenting these transactions.

416
00:22:12.519 --> 00:22:16.599
One practitioner, Frank Peeve, who worked under the pseudonym test Joy,

417
00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:21.400
later told police that Larry's messages were overwhelming. While he

418
00:22:21.480 --> 00:22:24.119
might normally get one or two messages from a client,

419
00:22:24.519 --> 00:22:27.000
Peev said he would open his inbox in the morning

420
00:22:27.119 --> 00:22:30.640
to find twenty seven messages from Larry. TV said that

421
00:22:30.759 --> 00:22:34.279
Larry was in a near constant state of panic, expecting

422
00:22:34.319 --> 00:22:38.680
results immediately, to the point that Peve eventually blocked him.

423
00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:42.960
The email trail with the spellcasters shows a distinct evolution

424
00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:48.240
in Larry's mindset over those months leading up to Maya's disappearance. Initially,

425
00:22:48.319 --> 00:22:52.000
his requests were focused on keeping Maya from leaving. He

426
00:22:52.119 --> 00:22:56.119
asked for powerful love spells to bind my wife to

427
00:22:56.200 --> 00:22:59.839
me forever, and for rituals to make her constantly desire

428
00:22:59.880 --> 00:23:03.440
him him. But as Maya continued to distance herself, the

429
00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:07.880
requests turned toward control and punishment. He began asking for

430
00:23:07.960 --> 00:23:11.319
spells to focus on quote dominating her and for her

431
00:23:11.400 --> 00:23:15.359
to obey me and to give her the worst nightmares, because,

432
00:23:15.559 --> 00:23:18.839
as he wrote, she needs to be punished for her actions.

433
00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:23.160
By the end of December, the language became explicitly harmful.

434
00:23:23.720 --> 00:23:27.839
On December twenty seventh, Larry asked a spellcaster to quote,

435
00:23:28.039 --> 00:23:31.799
please punish may and incapacitate her enough so she can't

436
00:23:31.880 --> 00:23:34.480
leave the house. It's time to take the gloves off.

437
00:23:34.680 --> 00:23:37.799
She's too much. She needs to be humbled down to

438
00:23:37.880 --> 00:23:41.039
the lowest of the low. In another message, he asked

439
00:23:41.119 --> 00:23:44.039
to please quote hurt her enough that she will have

440
00:23:44.119 --> 00:23:46.599
to depend on me. She's only nice to me when

441
00:23:46.599 --> 00:23:49.279
she needs me or is sick, maybe an accident or

442
00:23:49.319 --> 00:23:50.359
a broken bone.

443
00:23:50.640 --> 00:23:52.880
So I don't know what the ethics involved are here

444
00:23:52.960 --> 00:23:54.400
for spellcasters, but.

445
00:23:54.759 --> 00:23:58.279
Yeah, I can't imagine if you are a spellcaster that

446
00:23:58.359 --> 00:24:00.920
you would follow through on something like that. But I'm sure,

447
00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.480
like in a lot of professions, ethics probably very widely.

448
00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:08.680
Larry didn't just target Maya. He also bought spells aimed

449
00:24:08.720 --> 00:24:13.400
at Jamie Laired, eventually requesting a death spell targeting Jamie

450
00:24:13.440 --> 00:24:17.039
and his unborn child. But Larry wasn't just relying on

451
00:24:17.079 --> 00:24:22.319
the supernatural. Around Christmas twenty twenty, two weeks before Maya disappeared,

452
00:24:22.559 --> 00:24:27.480
he approached Maya's older brother, JP Tabalanza. Distraught over the affair,

453
00:24:27.799 --> 00:24:31.079
Larry asked JP directly if he knew anyone who could

454
00:24:31.440 --> 00:24:35.000
get the other guy. Larry offered to pay JP four

455
00:24:35.039 --> 00:24:38.160
thousand dollars just to find someone for the job, and

456
00:24:38.279 --> 00:24:41.400
an additional twenty thousand dollars to whoever carried it out.

457
00:24:42.039 --> 00:24:45.759
JP understood exactly what Larry was asking for a hired hit,

458
00:24:46.319 --> 00:24:49.559
and while JP may not have approved of his sister's affair,

459
00:24:49.960 --> 00:24:52.119
he told Larry he wanted no part of it.

460
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:54.680
He went to Maya's brother.

461
00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:58.079
Yeah, it seems a little odd. Larry brought the plot

462
00:24:58.200 --> 00:25:01.519
up to JP again on New Year's Day. Another witness

463
00:25:01.680 --> 00:25:05.319
later told investigators that Larry mentioned the idea as recently

464
00:25:05.359 --> 00:25:10.200
as January fourth, just three days before Maya disappeared. JP

465
00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:13.400
wasn't the only relative that Larry targeted He had a

466
00:25:13.440 --> 00:25:17.160
similar conversation with Maya's brother in law, telling him flatly,

467
00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:20.319
I want to get rid of the boyfriend. Larry even

468
00:25:20.359 --> 00:25:23.839
acknowledged the risk of what he was plotting, adding I

469
00:25:23.880 --> 00:25:26.000
know I'll be the first suspect. I have to do

470
00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:29.039
it well. While none of the family members agreed to

471
00:25:29.079 --> 00:25:33.279
help Larry, no one reported the threats to the police either. Later,

472
00:25:33.400 --> 00:25:36.279
Maya's brother explained that he trusted Larry at the time

473
00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:39.319
and never truly believed that he would hurt his sister

474
00:25:39.519 --> 00:25:43.599
or Jamie. By January twenty twenty one, Maya was ready

475
00:25:43.640 --> 00:25:47.400
to move forward with a divorce. On Thursday, January seventh,

476
00:25:47.559 --> 00:25:49.680
she spent part of the day running errands with her

477
00:25:49.680 --> 00:25:52.559
four year old son, stopping at a local car wash

478
00:25:52.640 --> 00:25:56.319
before heading home. That afternoon, she filled out an intake

479
00:25:56.400 --> 00:26:00.119
form for a family law attorney. At three forty eight pm,

480
00:26:00.200 --> 00:26:03.400
she called the firm to schedule a consultation. It was

481
00:26:03.440 --> 00:26:06.759
set for the following Tuesday. That was the last phone

482
00:26:06.839 --> 00:26:09.880
call she would ever make. Less than an hour later,

483
00:26:09.920 --> 00:26:13.519
at four forty two pm, a neighbor's security camera captured

484
00:26:13.559 --> 00:26:16.759
Maya pulling into her driveway and carrying bags toward the

485
00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:20.279
front door. It remains the last confirmed footage of her.

486
00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:23.680
None of the surrounding cameras showed her leaving the property

487
00:26:23.759 --> 00:26:27.039
at any point after that. While Maya was laying the

488
00:26:27.039 --> 00:26:30.680
groundwork to leave, Larry appeared to be spiraling. He had

489
00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:33.839
stayed home from work that day. Early that afternoon, he

490
00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:38.039
texted his supervisor, writing I'm not right, followed by I'm

491
00:26:38.039 --> 00:26:41.799
about to lose it. At four forty pm, exactly two

492
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:45.240
minutes before Maya pulled into the driveway, Larry sent his

493
00:26:45.240 --> 00:26:49.480
final email to an online spellcaster, asking them to quote

494
00:26:49.720 --> 00:26:53.319
make her miserable without me. In other messages sent that day,

495
00:26:53.400 --> 00:26:56.440
he wrote that he felt Maya quote wants me to snap,

496
00:26:56.680 --> 00:27:01.119
and that he was shaking inside ready to snap. Later

497
00:27:01.200 --> 00:27:05.519
that evening, Maya texted her coworker, Christine Timmers, expressing worry

498
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:08.680
over how the divorce would affect her kids. She told

499
00:27:08.759 --> 00:27:12.079
Christine that Larry was confronting her about the divorce, calling

500
00:27:12.160 --> 00:27:15.359
her cold hearted and accusing her of throwing him away

501
00:27:15.480 --> 00:27:19.480
like he was dirt. Maya's final known communication came at

502
00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:22.759
eight fifteen pm. It was a Facebook message to her

503
00:27:22.759 --> 00:27:25.640
family group chat, where she shared a photo of a

504
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:29.599
travel trailer for Sale, continuing a conversation that they'd been

505
00:27:29.640 --> 00:27:33.240
having about a cross country road trip. At around one

506
00:27:33.279 --> 00:27:37.039
twenty five am on January eighth, Maya's cell phone activity

507
00:27:37.119 --> 00:27:41.960
stopped completely, disconnecting from the cellular network. Reading into all

508
00:27:42.000 --> 00:27:45.519
these different communications that we were able to capture after

509
00:27:45.559 --> 00:27:49.000
the fact, it seems pretty clear that Maya and Larry

510
00:27:49.079 --> 00:27:53.039
were talking about this divorce or arguing or fighting about

511
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:57.119
the divorce. It sounds like he was confronting her. She

512
00:27:57.240 --> 00:27:59.839
must have told him about it, So it sounds like things,

513
00:28:00.079 --> 00:28:01.200
you know, may have gotten ugly.

514
00:28:01.680 --> 00:28:04.240
Right. You said that at one twenty five her cell

515
00:28:04.279 --> 00:28:07.720
phone stopped working. Do you think it was destroyed or

516
00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:08.720
just turned off?

517
00:28:09.039 --> 00:28:11.720
I think it was probably just turned off. I don't

518
00:28:11.720 --> 00:28:13.559
know for sure. I don't know if her cell phone

519
00:28:13.640 --> 00:28:16.000
was ever located after this day.

520
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:20.599
Starting on January eighth, that wasn't just Maya's communications that stopped.

521
00:28:20.839 --> 00:28:25.160
After months of sending near daily emails to online spellcasters

522
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:29.559
about his wife, Larry's requests regarding Maya ceased entirely. He

523
00:28:29.680 --> 00:28:32.279
did reach out to a spellcaster one final time on

524
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:36.559
January ninth, but the request shifted. He asked to remove

525
00:28:36.759 --> 00:28:39.720
every hex that he had previously placed on Maya and

526
00:28:39.839 --> 00:28:44.519
redirect them all onto Jamie Laird. Prosecutors would later point

527
00:28:44.559 --> 00:28:47.720
to this sudden change as a key piece of circumstantial evidence.

528
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:51.480
For months, Larry had been in a panic, paying for

529
00:28:51.599 --> 00:28:54.880
supernatural help to keep his wife from leaving, But the

530
00:28:55.039 --> 00:28:58.640
exact day she vanished, he stopped trying to save the marriage.

531
00:28:58.759 --> 00:29:01.880
He no longer asked for love spells or compliance or

532
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:05.680
to bring her back to him. Meanwhile, Maya's family quickly

533
00:29:05.720 --> 00:29:09.319
realized something was wrong. Before she disappeared, Maya had been

534
00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:12.759
organizing a weekend getaway to Big Bear to celebrate her

535
00:29:12.839 --> 00:29:16.559
oldest daughter's eleventh birthday. She and her five siblings were

536
00:29:16.599 --> 00:29:20.400
actively coordinating the details in a group text. On Friday,

537
00:29:20.480 --> 00:29:23.880
January eighth, a question was posted to the thread. Every

538
00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:29.160
single sibling responded except for Maya. Her sister Mary Chris

539
00:29:29.279 --> 00:29:33.559
Juliet was instantly worried. Maya was the driving force behind

540
00:29:33.599 --> 00:29:36.160
the trip and usually the first to answer a text.

541
00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:40.160
When family members tried calling Maya directly, the calls went

542
00:29:40.200 --> 00:29:45.079
straight to voicemail. That evening, Maya's brother, j R. Tablanza,

543
00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:47.880
drove over to the Miliette house to check on her.

544
00:29:48.359 --> 00:29:50.640
Mary told him that he and Maya had argued the

545
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:53.119
night before and that she had locked herself into the

546
00:29:53.119 --> 00:29:55.880
bedroom to get away from him. One of the couple's

547
00:29:55.960 --> 00:29:58.839
daughters mentioned to Jr. That her mother had been inside

548
00:29:58.839 --> 00:30:02.160
the room for a lo eleven hours. Jay R knocked

549
00:30:02.200 --> 00:30:05.079
on the bedroom door but didn't get a response. Assuming

550
00:30:05.160 --> 00:30:07.480
Maya just wanted to be left alone after a fight,

551
00:30:07.880 --> 00:30:09.039
he decided.

552
00:30:08.599 --> 00:30:11.480
To leave one very small detail. I should notice that

553
00:30:11.599 --> 00:30:14.799
Maya had two brothers. One was JP and one was JR.

554
00:30:14.920 --> 00:30:16.240
So this is a different brother.

555
00:30:16.680 --> 00:30:20.200
By Saturday, there was still no word from Maya. Mary Chris,

556
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:23.319
her husband Richard, and Maya's father went back to the

557
00:30:23.359 --> 00:30:26.920
house together. When they walked inside, Richard noticed the home

558
00:30:27.000 --> 00:30:30.799
was unusually messy, and despite it being January, the air

559
00:30:30.839 --> 00:30:35.119
conditioning was running full blast, leaving the entire house freezing.

560
00:30:36.039 --> 00:30:39.160
This time, Larry told them that Maya had gone hiking.

561
00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:42.160
Maya's jeep was still parked outside in the dryway, but

562
00:30:42.240 --> 00:30:45.640
her driver's license and credit cards were gone. That night,

563
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:48.799
Mary Chris called the Tula Vista Police Department to report

564
00:30:48.839 --> 00:30:52.599
her sister missing. Three officers came to the house looked

565
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:56.480
around with Larry's permission, and questioned the family, but one

566
00:30:56.519 --> 00:30:59.440
of those officers later admitted that their initial focus was

567
00:30:59.480 --> 00:31:02.839
looking for that Maya had simply chosen to leave on

568
00:31:02.880 --> 00:31:06.039
her own, such as a plane ticket. Richard felt the

569
00:31:06.039 --> 00:31:09.599
frustration immediately, later noting that there seemed to be no

570
00:31:09.680 --> 00:31:14.079
real urgency from the police department to investigate the disappearance properly.

571
00:31:14.880 --> 00:31:16.880
Sunday was supposed to be the day of the birthday

572
00:31:16.920 --> 00:31:20.160
celebration at Big Bear. Instead, the family gathered at the

573
00:31:20.240 --> 00:31:24.319
Chula Vista house. Mary Chris remembered everyone constantly watching the

574
00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:27.640
front door, waiting for Maya to walk in. She never did.

575
00:31:28.200 --> 00:31:30.279
At one point, the eleven year old turned to the

576
00:31:30.359 --> 00:31:34.319
room and simply said, Mommy didn't show up for my birthday.

577
00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:37.480
For the family, that was proof that Maya hadn't walked

578
00:31:37.480 --> 00:31:41.559
away voluntarily. She simply would never miss her daughter's birthday

579
00:31:42.000 --> 00:31:46.160
or abandon her children. Richard also noticed a stark contrast

580
00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:49.039
on Larry's behavior during the gathering. While the rest of

581
00:31:49.079 --> 00:31:52.359
the family was panicking, Larry spent the day lounging in

582
00:31:52.519 --> 00:31:57.039
navy sweatpans barefoot. Richard later recalled that Larry showed no

583
00:31:57.160 --> 00:32:00.400
concern whatsoever on his face, for his missing wife, not

584
00:32:00.599 --> 00:32:05.119
even for his daughter's birthday. By Monday, January eleventh, the

585
00:32:05.160 --> 00:32:08.119
Schula Vista police still hadn't upgraded the case to a

586
00:32:08.160 --> 00:32:13.240
criminal investigation. As Maya's family grew increasingly frustrated, a man

587
00:32:13.400 --> 00:32:16.680
named Billy Little came to the rescue. Billy was a

588
00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:20.599
retired Air Force colonel, an attorney, and a former criminal

589
00:32:20.599 --> 00:32:24.359
defense investigator for the US Navy who volunteered his time

590
00:32:24.599 --> 00:32:28.440
with a cold case foundation. His wife, Lou worked at

591
00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:32.000
the same naval base as Maya. Deeply concerned by the news,

592
00:32:32.200 --> 00:32:34.519
she asked Billy if he would be willing to look

593
00:32:34.519 --> 00:32:38.720
into the disappearance, and he agreed, explaining when somebody asks

594
00:32:38.759 --> 00:32:42.519
for help, you just do it right. He contacted Maya's

595
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:45.680
family that Monday and started walking the neighborhood, knocking on

596
00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:49.559
doors to collect home security footage before the files could

597
00:32:49.559 --> 00:32:55.759
be automatically overwritten. The recordings he gathered revealed several critical details. First,

598
00:32:55.799 --> 00:32:59.039
they confirmed Maya had arrived home at four forty three

599
00:32:59.079 --> 00:33:01.480
p m. On the seventh, with no record of her

600
00:33:01.559 --> 00:33:04.839
leaving the property at any point after that. But the

601
00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:09.119
audio captured by those neighborhood cameras was even more unsettling.

602
00:33:09.720 --> 00:33:12.680
Between nine fifty seven and ten pm that Thursday night,

603
00:33:12.920 --> 00:33:16.160
a neighbour's camera recorded a series of eight or nine

604
00:33:16.359 --> 00:33:21.000
loud bangs jarring on his investigative background. Billy was convinced

605
00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:26.200
the sounds were gunshots. The FBI's subsequent analysis was less definitive.

606
00:33:26.599 --> 00:33:30.079
The audio quality wasn't clear enough for forensic experts to

607
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:33.039
make a final determination, and no one in the neighborhood

608
00:33:33.079 --> 00:33:36.160
had called nine one one to report gunfire that night.

609
00:33:36.720 --> 00:33:38.960
Here is the audio from that recording.

610
00:33:52.759 --> 00:33:55.240
I am no expert, but it sure sounds like gunshots

611
00:33:55.279 --> 00:33:55.440
to me.

612
00:33:55.680 --> 00:33:58.839
If it's not gunshots, what is it, Yeah, exactly, that's

613
00:33:58.839 --> 00:34:02.079
a lot of gunshots, though, yeah, it is. Roughly thirty

614
00:34:02.119 --> 00:34:05.079
minutes later, around ten thirty pm, the same camera picked

615
00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:07.799
up the sound of children playing outside. It was a

616
00:34:07.839 --> 00:34:10.800
school night and the temperature had dropped into the forties.

617
00:34:11.159 --> 00:34:13.920
Billy speculated that Larry had sent his children out into

618
00:34:13.920 --> 00:34:16.760
the backyard to keep them away from what was happening

619
00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:20.760
inside the house cleaning up a crime scene. The timeline

620
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:23.880
picked up again the next morning at five fifty eight am,

621
00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:28.440
neighborhood cameras caught Larry moving the family's black Lexus suv,

622
00:34:28.880 --> 00:34:31.119
backing it into the garage, so the rear of the

623
00:34:31.199 --> 00:34:34.559
vehicle was completely hidden from the street. Less than an

624
00:34:34.559 --> 00:34:37.800
hour later, at six forty five am, Larry drove away.

625
00:34:38.280 --> 00:34:41.400
He didn't return until six oh six that evening, leaving

626
00:34:41.440 --> 00:34:45.320
his whereabouts entirely unaccounted for during those eleven hours and

627
00:34:45.400 --> 00:34:46.480
twenty one minutes.

628
00:34:46.880 --> 00:34:50.159
Amazing how often this comes up in different cases where

629
00:34:50.239 --> 00:34:53.840
the person backs the car into the garage and that's

630
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:57.239
a big clue. You don't normally park your car that way.

631
00:34:57.599 --> 00:34:58.800
Why would you be doing that.

632
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.360
Billy turned all of his findings over to the Chula

633
00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:06.320
Vista Police department, expecting them to move quickly. Instead, he

634
00:35:06.440 --> 00:35:09.760
ran into the exact same wall as the family. He said,

635
00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:13.239
time and time again, there was just no follow up

636
00:35:13.360 --> 00:35:14.039
by the police.

637
00:35:14.360 --> 00:35:16.800
Billy Little is a hero in this story to me.

638
00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:20.760
The fact that this video footage, you know, surveillance cameras

639
00:35:20.800 --> 00:35:23.880
get overridden all the time, so it doesn't last forever

640
00:35:23.960 --> 00:35:25.920
and sometimes you can recover it, but a lot of

641
00:35:25.960 --> 00:35:28.679
times you can't. And so the fact that the police

642
00:35:28.719 --> 00:35:32.039
really didn't look at this as a crime for you know,

643
00:35:32.079 --> 00:35:34.480
a long period of time, was a big mistake and

644
00:35:34.880 --> 00:35:37.880
you know, Billy just volunteered to step in and help out.

645
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:42.159
That's amazing. While the family and Billy Little were scrambling

646
00:35:42.159 --> 00:35:44.840
for answers, the rest of the world was largely unaware

647
00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:48.400
of what was happening in Chula Vista. Early on, at least,

648
00:35:48.559 --> 00:35:52.199
Maya's disappearance simply didn't get the massive media attention that

649
00:35:52.280 --> 00:35:55.800
drives cases like this. In fact, a research study out

650
00:35:55.840 --> 00:35:59.639
of Bryant University by Caitlin Muia looked closely at this

651
00:35:59.679 --> 00:36:02.760
exaus gap, comparing the coverage of Maya's case to that

652
00:36:02.920 --> 00:36:06.960
of Gabby Patito, who disappeared later that same year. The

653
00:36:07.079 --> 00:36:11.079
numbers were staggering. A search of news databases showed that

654
00:36:11.079 --> 00:36:15.320
Potito's case generated over thirty two hundred news stories, while

655
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:17.800
Maya's gathered just fourteen.

656
00:36:18.440 --> 00:36:21.679
I should say here that Maya's story did eventually become

657
00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:24.559
a very big story, but early on is the time

658
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:27.039
that you really need to alert people to be on

659
00:36:27.079 --> 00:36:29.679
the lookout, right, and that didn't really happen in the

660
00:36:29.719 --> 00:36:33.119
first week or a few weeks of Maya's disappearance.

661
00:36:33.559 --> 00:36:36.519
The study points directly to a systemic bias in the

662
00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:40.960
news media, often called missing white woman syndrome the clear

663
00:36:41.119 --> 00:36:45.119
tendency of major outlets to focus heavily on young, white,

664
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:49.639
conventionally attractive women. Maya, a thirty nine year old Filipino

665
00:36:49.719 --> 00:36:54.079
American mother, didn't fit that profile. The research highlighted age

666
00:36:54.119 --> 00:36:58.000
as a major factor, noting that national press coverage drops

667
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:02.119
off sharply for missing persons over the age of thirty.

668
00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:05.199
Beyond the sheer volume of stories, the tone was also

669
00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:08.599
very different. While the Potito case was covered with high

670
00:37:08.639 --> 00:37:13.239
emotion sensational headlines that drive internet traffic, a few stories

671
00:37:13.239 --> 00:37:16.920
about Maya were brief and strictly clinical, lacking any real

672
00:37:16.960 --> 00:37:20.719
sense of urgency. And this gap and media attention wasn't

673
00:37:20.800 --> 00:37:24.719
just unfair, it had real practical consequences for the investigation.

674
00:37:25.480 --> 00:37:28.519
When police asked the public for help finding Gabby Patito,

675
00:37:28.920 --> 00:37:33.599
citizen dashcam footage poured in almost immediately, leading surgers straight

676
00:37:33.639 --> 00:37:37.320
to her body. The public mobilization was so massive that

677
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:41.880
search teams actually discovered the remains of five other unrelated

678
00:37:41.960 --> 00:37:43.239
missing people along the.

679
00:37:43.199 --> 00:37:45.480
Way that blew me away. I had no idea of that.

680
00:37:46.199 --> 00:37:48.599
Maya's family had nothing close to that kind of public

681
00:37:48.639 --> 00:37:52.920
mobilization during those first critical weeks her brother in law, Richard,

682
00:37:53.039 --> 00:37:55.760
pointed out that the Chula Vista police didn't even put

683
00:37:55.760 --> 00:37:59.280
out a public call for neighborhood dashcam footage that might

684
00:37:59.320 --> 00:38:04.000
have tracked Larry's lexus. Watching another case captivate the nation

685
00:38:04.199 --> 00:38:07.920
and resolve so quickly left Maya's sister Mary Chris heartbroken.

686
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:11.760
She later said simply, I wish we got the same support.

687
00:38:12.400 --> 00:38:15.360
I think about this all the time, and it just

688
00:38:15.440 --> 00:38:19.039
hurts my heart because every single missing person deserves the

689
00:38:19.039 --> 00:38:22.320
same coverage. And I don't think the public is to blame.

690
00:38:22.360 --> 00:38:24.840
I think it's the media, because I think that most

691
00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:27.719
people care about anyone that's missing and want to help

692
00:38:27.800 --> 00:38:30.719
find them, and for some reason, the media just glombs

693
00:38:30.719 --> 00:38:33.760
onto these stories about you know, attractive young people and

694
00:38:34.239 --> 00:38:34.519
you know.

695
00:38:34.800 --> 00:38:36.880
Yeah, the media makes the choice of what to cover

696
00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:39.159
and what not to cover. So it definitely goes back

697
00:38:39.199 --> 00:38:39.400
to that.

698
00:38:39.519 --> 00:38:41.840
And I really do think most people care about any

699
00:38:41.840 --> 00:38:44.280
missing person, yeah, and want to do their best to

700
00:38:44.280 --> 00:38:47.840
bring them home. Absolutely, we'll be back after a break.

701
00:38:54.320 --> 00:38:57.639
It wasn't until January twenty third, more than two weeks

702
00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:00.679
after Maya's disappearance, that the teol of is To police

703
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:04.840
finally showed signs of a serious investigation. That was the

704
00:39:04.920 --> 00:39:08.119
day they served their first search warrant for the Miliete

705
00:39:08.239 --> 00:39:12.800
family home. Detectives seized computers and collected Larry's cell phone,

706
00:39:12.840 --> 00:39:17.559
which he handed over voluntarily. When digital forensics experts examined

707
00:39:17.559 --> 00:39:20.360
the device, they found a strange gap in the logs

708
00:39:20.360 --> 00:39:23.639
from the morning Maya vanished. Larry's phone had been plugged

709
00:39:23.639 --> 00:39:26.519
into a charger at two thirty eight am on January

710
00:39:26.599 --> 00:39:30.280
eighth and unplugged at four forty five am. Then at

711
00:39:30.360 --> 00:39:34.000
six thirty five am, the phone logged a manual power down.

712
00:39:34.480 --> 00:39:37.719
It stayed completely dark all day, only turning back on

713
00:39:37.840 --> 00:39:41.599
at six thirty five pm that evening. This meant during

714
00:39:41.639 --> 00:39:44.280
the eleven hours and twenty one minutes that Larry was

715
00:39:44.320 --> 00:39:48.119
missing on January eighth, his phone stayed behind at the house,

716
00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:52.360
leaving investigators with no digital trail to track his location.

717
00:39:53.119 --> 00:39:55.440
Larry was supposed to be working that Friday at the

718
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:58.159
Naval Medical Center, but he never showed up and never

719
00:39:58.239 --> 00:40:02.440
called in, a complete depart archer from his normal routine.

720
00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:05.920
His supervisors tried reaching him multiple times throughout the day

721
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:10.360
but got no response. Yet, when Maya's brother Jr. Checked

722
00:40:10.360 --> 00:40:13.159
in at the house that evening, Larry claimed he was

723
00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:16.159
just getting home from a normal day at work. Later,

724
00:40:16.280 --> 00:40:19.199
when questioned by police, Larry claimed he had taken his

725
00:40:19.239 --> 00:40:22.000
four year old son to Solana Beach for the day,

726
00:40:22.480 --> 00:40:25.239
but when detectives asked him to point out Solana Beach

727
00:40:25.280 --> 00:40:28.840
on the map, Larry pointed to Torrey Pine's Beach instead,

728
00:40:28.960 --> 00:40:32.320
which is several miles south. He also tripped up over

729
00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:36.400
basic details, giving conflicting accounts about what food he had

730
00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:41.079
packed for his son. Ultimately, investigators couldn't find a single witness,

731
00:40:41.400 --> 00:40:45.360
security camera image, or shred of evidence placing Larry or

732
00:40:45.440 --> 00:40:48.880
the Lexus at either beach. To try and figure out

733
00:40:48.920 --> 00:40:53.599
exactly where Larry went, investigators turned to the family's Lexus suv.

734
00:40:54.280 --> 00:40:57.280
They pulled the vehicle's mileage records from its most recent

735
00:40:57.320 --> 00:41:00.760
oil change and compared them against Larry's time typical driving

736
00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:04.639
habits over the previous two months I crossed. Referencing cell

737
00:41:04.719 --> 00:41:09.039
tower data, work schedules, and financial records, they calculated how

738
00:41:09.079 --> 00:41:12.800
much the Lexus had been driven. Their conclusion was startling

739
00:41:13.039 --> 00:41:16.400
on January eighth, the suv had put on between four

740
00:41:16.480 --> 00:41:19.199
hundred and forty four and six hundred and ninety two,

741
00:41:19.639 --> 00:41:23.760
completely unaccounted four miles. While the car didn't have a

742
00:41:23.800 --> 00:41:27.480
live tracking system active during the drive, it did record

743
00:41:27.559 --> 00:41:31.239
one crucial piece of data. At three twenty nine PM,

744
00:41:31.360 --> 00:41:35.599
someone manually typed the Chulavista home address into the vehicles

745
00:41:35.599 --> 00:41:39.440
built in navigation system. Larry arrived back home two and

746
00:41:39.440 --> 00:41:43.079
a half hours later at six oh six. Wherever Larry

747
00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:46.360
had driven he apparently needed the GPS to find his

748
00:41:46.440 --> 00:41:49.480
way back. Just to sum this up real quick, Larry

749
00:41:49.719 --> 00:41:52.920
was gone for over eleven hours that day, and by

750
00:41:52.920 --> 00:41:55.119
the way, I believe he had his four year old

751
00:41:55.119 --> 00:41:58.239
son with him that entire time. I wasn't able to

752
00:41:58.280 --> 00:42:00.679
confirm that one hundred percent, but I did read one

753
00:42:00.719 --> 00:42:04.360
account that his four year old was with him the Lexus.

754
00:42:04.400 --> 00:42:06.800
I was surprised that they weren't able to get more

755
00:42:06.840 --> 00:42:09.920
detailed GPS data from the Lexus.

756
00:42:09.920 --> 00:42:11.519
I would think, do you know what year it was?

757
00:42:11.719 --> 00:42:13.639
I don't know, but it had to be it had

758
00:42:13.639 --> 00:42:17.039
to be relatively new. I just it always surprises me

759
00:42:17.159 --> 00:42:20.480
because I think that, you know, modern cars just track

760
00:42:20.519 --> 00:42:23.320
your location everywhere. But either that wasn't the case or

761
00:42:23.360 --> 00:42:26.440
they weren't able to get that information for whatever reason.

762
00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:29.920
But they did try to roughly calculate how many miles

763
00:42:29.920 --> 00:42:30.719
he must have driven.

764
00:42:31.280 --> 00:42:34.199
Well, you said wherever he drove from three twenty nine

765
00:42:34.239 --> 00:42:36.280
pm to six oh six pm, that he put it

766
00:42:36.280 --> 00:42:39.960
into the GPS. But sometimes I'll put in even if I'm,

767
00:42:40.079 --> 00:42:42.199
you know, shopping not far from home, I'll put in

768
00:42:42.239 --> 00:42:44.360
the address just to just so you know there's any

769
00:42:44.400 --> 00:42:46.760
traffic disruptions. Yeah, when I'll get home.

770
00:42:47.000 --> 00:42:51.960
Yep, that's certainly a possibility. Detectives took the estimated extra mileage,

771
00:42:52.159 --> 00:42:55.039
split it in half to estimate a round trip radius,

772
00:42:55.440 --> 00:42:58.239
and mapped out potential routes that lined up with the

773
00:42:58.320 --> 00:43:03.440
vehicle's recorded engine star. The geography pointed toward a specific region,

774
00:43:03.840 --> 00:43:08.039
the Colorado River Indian Reservation, a massive, remote area of

775
00:43:08.079 --> 00:43:12.920
desert and river corridors stretching across the California Arizona border.

776
00:43:13.480 --> 00:43:17.679
While law enforcement focused on these coordinates, Maya's family organized

777
00:43:17.719 --> 00:43:21.920
their own massive volunteer search parties every weekend, raising money

778
00:43:21.960 --> 00:43:27.559
through GoFundMe. For months, groups of community volunteers combed the landscape,

779
00:43:27.679 --> 00:43:31.719
searching the Glomys sand dunes, the Salt and Sea Fish Creek,

780
00:43:31.840 --> 00:43:36.320
and the rugged terrain near the California Arizona Border. Larry

781
00:43:36.440 --> 00:43:39.840
never joined them. He didn't participate in a single search

782
00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:42.199
or show any interest in looking for the mother of

783
00:43:42.239 --> 00:43:45.360
his children. At one point, the family even made a

784
00:43:45.360 --> 00:43:48.639
public plea to him through the media, saying, we wish

785
00:43:48.639 --> 00:43:50.880
he was out here helping us. Come and help us

786
00:43:50.880 --> 00:43:54.320
find your wife. Larry did sit down for one media

787
00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:59.000
interview on January fourteenth, a week after Maya's disappearance. Here's

788
00:43:59.000 --> 00:44:01.840
a clip of Larry re responding to the reporter's question,

789
00:44:02.199 --> 00:44:03.519
what do you love about your wife?

790
00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:08.320
Oh? I love everything about her. She's very smart, kind,

791
00:44:10.119 --> 00:44:19.000
you know, basically just her her social personality, personal just everything,

792
00:44:20.679 --> 00:44:21.880
and probably your love for life.

793
00:44:21.920 --> 00:44:23.239
She loved to hike, right.

794
00:44:23.239 --> 00:44:27.440
Oh yeah, yeah, she you know, just her outgoing personality

795
00:44:28.960 --> 00:44:33.039
and probably a great mom. Oh yes, yes, she is there.

796
00:44:33.079 --> 00:44:35.760
He seemed to be having a little trouble answering how that.

797
00:44:35.679 --> 00:44:38.480
Theor is beating information about his wife.

798
00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:40.280
I know, that's how it felt like the reporter is

799
00:44:40.320 --> 00:44:43.159
like reminding him, like maybe you should talk about your children.

800
00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:47.679
On February fifth, nearly a month after Maya vanished, Jula

801
00:44:47.760 --> 00:44:51.480
Vista police Chief Roxanna Kennedy held a joint media briefing

802
00:44:51.559 --> 00:44:54.639
with Maya's family to assure the public that the department

803
00:44:54.880 --> 00:44:58.920
was taking the case seriously. Kennedy said that detectives were

804
00:44:58.920 --> 00:45:02.400
working around the clock and emphasized that Maya missing her

805
00:45:02.480 --> 00:45:07.119
daughter's birthday had resonated deeply with officers. By mid April,

806
00:45:07.159 --> 00:45:11.480
the operation had expanded significantly. The Chula Vista Police Department

807
00:45:11.599 --> 00:45:15.639
formed a multi agency task force, bringing in reinforcements from

808
00:45:15.719 --> 00:45:19.800
the FBI, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and the San

809
00:45:19.840 --> 00:45:24.199
Diego County District Attorney's Office. By that point, investigators had

810
00:45:24.239 --> 00:45:27.639
already conducted dozens of interviews and served more than twelve

811
00:45:27.719 --> 00:45:31.920
search warrants. In May, authorities returned to Larry's home with

812
00:45:31.960 --> 00:45:35.199
another search warrant. This time they also served him with

813
00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:40.280
a gun violence Restraining Order or GVRO. Officers seized more

814
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:43.719
than a dozen firearms from the house, including an illegal

815
00:45:43.760 --> 00:45:48.480
assault rifle. However, one specific weapon that was registered to Larry,

816
00:45:48.719 --> 00:45:51.920
a forty caliber Smith and Wesson handgun, was nowhere to

817
00:45:51.920 --> 00:45:55.639
be found. It has never been recovered. The push to

818
00:45:55.679 --> 00:45:59.679
remove Larry's weapons stemmed from pictures that detectives found on

819
00:45:59.719 --> 00:46:04.400
its own phone. One showed a kitchen table covered in firearms, ammunition,

820
00:46:04.639 --> 00:46:09.280
high capacity magazines, and tactical gear. Another photo showed the

821
00:46:09.320 --> 00:46:13.159
couple's four year old son standing on a table surrounded

822
00:46:13.199 --> 00:46:15.719
by sixteen different rifles and handguns.

823
00:46:16.239 --> 00:46:18.719
So the firearms are removed from the home, but the

824
00:46:18.800 --> 00:46:22.760
child is not, No, the child was not interesting.

825
00:46:23.559 --> 00:46:27.760
In their official filing for the GVRO, officers explicitly stated

826
00:46:27.800 --> 00:46:31.079
their concern that if Larry got advanced notice of a

827
00:46:31.119 --> 00:46:33.920
search or an arrest, he might attempt to shoot it

828
00:46:33.960 --> 00:46:36.920
out with the police. Which, to your point, if they

829
00:46:36.960 --> 00:46:39.480
were worried that Larry was going to engage in a shootout,

830
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:42.679
wouldn't they want to try to separate the children from

831
00:46:42.719 --> 00:46:43.360
that environment.

832
00:46:43.519 --> 00:46:45.280
I think they need a little more evidence than that,

833
00:46:45.400 --> 00:46:46.519
but still it's disturbing.

834
00:46:46.719 --> 00:46:51.280
Yeah. Over the nine months following Maya's disappearance, the investigation

835
00:46:51.400 --> 00:46:55.519
grew to include sixty seven search warrants, eighty seven interviews,

836
00:46:55.559 --> 00:46:58.440
and more than one hundred and thirty tips. During their

837
00:46:58.480 --> 00:47:02.199
searches of the home, detective uncovered evidence beyond the firearms.

838
00:47:02.480 --> 00:47:06.039
They found a vial of poison hemlock inside the house

839
00:47:06.519 --> 00:47:09.519
and discovered the charred remains of one of Maya's credit

840
00:47:09.559 --> 00:47:13.719
cards in the ashes of a backyard fire pit. On Tuesday,

841
00:47:13.800 --> 00:47:17.639
October nineteenth, twenty twenty one, a Chula Vista Police Department

842
00:47:17.760 --> 00:47:21.719
swat team arrived at the Milliere home, detonating a flash

843
00:47:21.840 --> 00:47:25.920
bang before breaching the front door. Outside, the FBI established

844
00:47:25.960 --> 00:47:29.119
a mobile command center to assist as the raid unfolded.

845
00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:32.559
Larry was home alone when he was taken into custody.

846
00:47:33.119 --> 00:47:35.440
The couple's three children, who had been living with him

847
00:47:35.480 --> 00:47:39.199
since January, were elsewhere at the time and were confirmed safe.

848
00:47:39.840 --> 00:47:43.199
Investigators later noted that in the days just before his arrest,

849
00:47:43.559 --> 00:47:46.320
Larry had been withdrawing large amounts of cash from his

850
00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:49.800
bank accounts, raising concerns that he might have been preparing

851
00:47:49.840 --> 00:47:53.480
to flee. Larry was charged with first degree murder and

852
00:47:53.679 --> 00:47:57.320
illegal possession of an assault weapon. He pleaded not guilty

853
00:47:57.440 --> 00:48:00.880
and was ordered held without bail. At a press conference

854
00:48:00.920 --> 00:48:05.599
announcing the charges, San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan addressed

855
00:48:05.599 --> 00:48:08.800
the challenge of prosecuting a homicide case without a body.

856
00:48:09.239 --> 00:48:12.760
She said the legal precedent was clear, noting we cannot

857
00:48:12.800 --> 00:48:15.480
let someone murder someone and gain a benefit by hiding

858
00:48:15.559 --> 00:48:18.000
the body in a way that we cannot discover it.

859
00:48:18.800 --> 00:48:22.360
Chula Vista Police Chief Roxana Kennedy added that the multi

860
00:48:22.480 --> 00:48:26.000
agency effort had produced what she described as clear and

861
00:48:26.119 --> 00:48:30.320
overwhelming evidence that Larry was responsible for his wife's death.

862
00:48:31.039 --> 00:48:34.239
For Maya's inner circle, the arrest was welcome news, but

863
00:48:34.719 --> 00:48:38.199
at the same time it confirmed their worst fears. Her

864
00:48:38.239 --> 00:48:42.400
brother in law, Richards's first reaction was simply to say finally.

865
00:48:43.000 --> 00:48:46.079
Her sister Mary Chris, broke down the moment she heard

866
00:48:46.119 --> 00:48:50.800
the news. Maya's friend Claudia Joulau articulated the mixed feelings

867
00:48:50.840 --> 00:48:53.840
brought on by the arrest, saying, although you keep that

868
00:48:53.920 --> 00:48:55.880
hope up, now, it became real.

869
00:48:56.679 --> 00:48:59.760
When Maya Vanashed, her three children were only four, nine,

870
00:49:00.159 --> 00:49:02.719
eleven years old. With the nine months leading up to

871
00:49:02.760 --> 00:49:06.239
his arrest, Larry had isolated them from maya side of

872
00:49:06.280 --> 00:49:10.320
the family, permitting only a single supervised phone call between

873
00:49:10.360 --> 00:49:14.199
the kids and their maternal relatives. Following the arrest, the

874
00:49:14.239 --> 00:49:18.639
court issued a protective order explicitly barring Larry from contacting

875
00:49:18.719 --> 00:49:22.800
his children. He bypassed that order with help of his parents,

876
00:49:22.960 --> 00:49:26.760
Benito and Judith Miliette, who took custody of the kids

877
00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:30.559
after the raid. Prosecutors later discovered that Larry had placed

878
00:49:30.800 --> 00:49:34.760
one hundred twenty nine calls from jail to his parents' home,

879
00:49:35.199 --> 00:49:39.280
spending more than nine hours talking to the children. How

880
00:49:39.320 --> 00:49:40.000
did that fly?

881
00:49:40.679 --> 00:49:41.559
That's a great question.

882
00:49:42.280 --> 00:49:46.159
The content of those recorded calls deeply concerned authorities. In

883
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:48.880
one exchange, Larry asked his eleven year old daughter to

884
00:49:48.960 --> 00:49:53.039
read him news headlines about his own murder case. In another,

885
00:49:53.159 --> 00:49:56.480
he instructed his two older children to watch the film

886
00:49:56.679 --> 00:49:59.599
Shot Caller, a movie about a man who becomes a

887
00:49:59.599 --> 00:50:03.000
hardened prison gang member, telling them that they needed to

888
00:50:03.039 --> 00:50:07.559
watch it to understand the environment I am in. Once

889
00:50:07.599 --> 00:50:10.400
these calls came to life, the judge revoked Larry's bone

890
00:50:10.440 --> 00:50:15.119
privileges entirely restricting his communication to only his defense attorney.

891
00:50:15.719 --> 00:50:18.960
In October twenty twenty two, the court modified the restrictions

892
00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:21.880
slightly to allow Larry to write letters to the children,

893
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:26.880
provided they were pre screened by a court appointed guardian. Meanwhile,

894
00:50:26.960 --> 00:50:31.039
an intense custody battle was unfolding. Mary Chris argued in

895
00:50:31.119 --> 00:50:35.559
court that the children urgently needed professional therapy to process

896
00:50:35.599 --> 00:50:39.000
the loss of their mother and the incarceration of their father.

897
00:50:39.719 --> 00:50:43.519
She petitioned for emergency custody, but the judge initially denied

898
00:50:43.559 --> 00:50:46.639
the request, ruling that the children shouldn't be removed from

899
00:50:46.639 --> 00:50:50.199
the school, neighborhood and daily routines they had always known.

900
00:50:50.800 --> 00:50:54.079
Mary Chris contested the ruling, pointing out that Larry's parents

901
00:50:54.079 --> 00:50:58.320
were facilitating the unauthorized jailhouse calls and failing to get

902
00:50:58.320 --> 00:51:02.199
the children into counseling. The court eventually ordered the grandparents

903
00:51:02.239 --> 00:51:06.079
to permit regular visitation, allowing Maya's family to host the

904
00:51:06.159 --> 00:51:09.599
children every other weekend at their home in Riverside County.

905
00:51:10.199 --> 00:51:14.760
The legal battle continued for three years. Throughout the process,

906
00:51:14.880 --> 00:51:17.920
Mary Chris focused on keeping the children connected to their

907
00:51:17.920 --> 00:51:21.320
mother's side of the family, stating that her main priority

908
00:51:21.719 --> 00:51:23.719
was making sure that they knew that they were loved

909
00:51:23.760 --> 00:51:27.599
and supported by everyone. Finally, in August twenty twenty four,

910
00:51:27.960 --> 00:51:31.599
a judge granted Mary Chris and Richard full legal custody

911
00:51:31.639 --> 00:51:35.239
and guardianship of the three children. That sounds like that

912
00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:37.159
was a better situation.

913
00:51:37.079 --> 00:51:40.000
Absolutely the right decision for them. I feel like I

914
00:51:40.000 --> 00:51:41.840
got to know Mary Chris a little bit because she

915
00:51:42.000 --> 00:51:46.079
was so out American. Yeah, she was out there speaking

916
00:51:46.119 --> 00:51:48.840
in the media all the time, and she and Richard

917
00:51:48.840 --> 00:51:51.760
both to seem like lovely people, and I'm sure have

918
00:51:51.840 --> 00:51:53.760
the best interests of the children in mind.

919
00:51:54.440 --> 00:51:57.360
While the custody dispute played out, the criminal case faced

920
00:51:57.400 --> 00:52:01.719
a series of legal delays. Larry's defense attorney, Bonita Martinez,

921
00:52:02.039 --> 00:52:06.119
raised questions regarding her client's mental competency to stand trial.

922
00:52:06.639 --> 00:52:09.920
The judge paused the criminal proceedings and ordered a psychiatric

923
00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:14.119
evaluation to determine whether Larry understood the charges against him

924
00:52:14.280 --> 00:52:17.519
and could assist in his own defense. The case remained

925
00:52:17.559 --> 00:52:22.079
at a standstill for three months until September twenty twenty two,

926
00:52:22.119 --> 00:52:26.000
when a judge reviewed the psychiatric findings and ruled Larry competent,

927
00:52:26.440 --> 00:52:29.760
allowing the case to move forward toward a preliminary hearing.

928
00:52:30.360 --> 00:52:33.639
By that point, however, Martinez informed the court that Larry

929
00:52:33.679 --> 00:52:37.039
could no longer afford his defense, let alone the private

930
00:52:37.079 --> 00:52:41.079
investigators and expert witnesses needed for the trial. The defense

931
00:52:41.119 --> 00:52:43.920
had hoped to fund the case using proceeds from selling

932
00:52:44.000 --> 00:52:47.440
off the couple's assets, including their one point two million

933
00:52:47.440 --> 00:52:50.960
dollars to La Vista home and their vehicles, but a

934
00:52:51.039 --> 00:52:53.760
judge ordered all the funds from the estate liquidation to

935
00:52:53.800 --> 00:52:56.639
be placed in a frozen account, ruling that because it

936
00:52:56.679 --> 00:52:59.599
was still unclear how much that money legally belonged to

937
00:52:59.639 --> 00:53:03.079
Maya Larry could not access it, and what about the

938
00:53:03.199 --> 00:53:04.360
kids too, right?

939
00:53:04.480 --> 00:53:07.679
I think that's mainly what it was for. Is Okaya

940
00:53:08.599 --> 00:53:11.280
legally was entitled to a certain amount of money it

941
00:53:11.320 --> 00:53:12.159
would go to the kids.

942
00:53:12.920 --> 00:53:16.360
Larry eventually replaced Martinez with a new legal team. In

943
00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:20.639
September twenty twenty four. His new attorneys leveled serious allegations

944
00:53:20.880 --> 00:53:25.320
against his former counsel, accusing Bonita Martinez of fraud. They

945
00:53:25.320 --> 00:53:27.880
claimed that she had failed to show Larry the discovery

946
00:53:27.920 --> 00:53:31.239
evidence against him and only visited him in jail when

947
00:53:31.280 --> 00:53:34.480
she needed him to sign paperwork. They also alleged that

948
00:53:34.519 --> 00:53:39.280
Martinez accepted payments from Larry without assigned retainer agreement, a

949
00:53:39.400 --> 00:53:44.119
legal requirement in California for any service exceeding one thousand dollars.

950
00:53:44.719 --> 00:53:49.119
Those fraud allegations remain unresolved, adding in another layer of

951
00:53:49.360 --> 00:53:52.679
complexity to an already convoluted legal battle.

952
00:53:53.199 --> 00:53:55.159
I didn't go too far down this rabbit hole, but

953
00:53:55.280 --> 00:53:58.360
Bonita Martinez. I saw some news reports and some video

954
00:53:58.480 --> 00:54:01.599
of her in court in a preliminary hearing, and I

955
00:54:01.639 --> 00:54:04.679
hate to speak badly of someone, but she just seemed

956
00:54:04.920 --> 00:54:08.679
completely lost and clueless in the courtroom. The judge had

957
00:54:08.719 --> 00:54:12.719
to admonish her, like multiple times. The other council was

958
00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:16.679
objecting constantly, and the judge was sustaining every objection because

959
00:54:16.719 --> 00:54:19.559
they were right, and she just didn't seem to understand.

960
00:54:19.559 --> 00:54:22.400
The judge had to like basically stop her and explain

961
00:54:22.440 --> 00:54:25.639
to her, I just ruled against you. You can't say that,

962
00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:28.480
and she just seemed completely lost. Really, I happened to

963
00:54:28.519 --> 00:54:31.559
look on Google and she has three reviews that are

964
00:54:31.559 --> 00:54:34.079
all all of them are one star reviews, so people

965
00:54:34.360 --> 00:54:36.039
do not have nice things to say about her.

966
00:54:36.880 --> 00:54:41.480
Mary's trial was originally scheduled for September twenty twenty three. However,

967
00:54:41.559 --> 00:54:45.360
the date was pushed back repeatedly. For Maya's family, every

968
00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:49.760
postponement meant months of waiting. I remember around the COVID

969
00:54:49.960 --> 00:54:54.800
times when every trial was just horribly delayed. Yes, in

970
00:54:54.800 --> 00:54:58.519
twenty twenty five, following yet another delay, Mary Chris released

971
00:54:58.519 --> 00:55:01.400
a statement expressing how pain until the timeline had become,

972
00:55:02.119 --> 00:55:05.119
noting that it had been nearly five years since her

973
00:55:05.159 --> 00:55:10.000
sister vanished without any resolution. When the defense requested another

974
00:55:10.079 --> 00:55:13.840
extension in early twenty twenty six, Mary Chris spoke directly

975
00:55:13.880 --> 00:55:16.840
to the court, asking the judge to deny it. She

976
00:55:17.000 --> 00:55:20.639
highlighted the impact the weight was having on her aging parents,

977
00:55:21.000 --> 00:55:24.559
telling the courtroom quote, both my parents are living day

978
00:55:24.599 --> 00:55:26.800
to day. We do not know how much time they

979
00:55:26.800 --> 00:55:29.800
have left. They wake up every morning still waiting for

980
00:55:30.039 --> 00:55:33.679
justice for their daughter. The judge granted the delay anyway,

981
00:55:33.840 --> 00:55:37.960
scheduling the trial from mid May. On Monday May eighteenth,

982
00:55:38.039 --> 00:55:41.599
twenty twenty six, opening statements finally began at the South

983
00:55:41.639 --> 00:55:45.039
Bay Courthouse in Cheula Vista. A jury of seven women

984
00:55:45.079 --> 00:55:49.159
and five men was seated, along with six alternates. Because

985
00:55:49.199 --> 00:55:53.559
of the intense public scrutiny, Judge Enrique Camerina banned all

986
00:55:53.639 --> 00:55:57.199
cameras and audio recording equipment from the courtroom to protect

987
00:55:57.199 --> 00:56:01.000
the integrity of the proceedings. The courtroom gallup was crowded

988
00:56:01.000 --> 00:56:04.880
with supporters from both sides. For the first time, observers

989
00:56:04.880 --> 00:56:08.599
saw a very different version of Larry Amiliette, who had

990
00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:11.840
spent the last several years in custody. He sat at

991
00:56:11.840 --> 00:56:15.039
the defense table wearing a maroon sweater, a collared shirt,

992
00:56:15.360 --> 00:56:18.440
and black rimmed glasses. His hair had grown long and

993
00:56:18.599 --> 00:56:22.000
was tied back into a ponytail. Throughout the initial days

994
00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:25.639
of the trial, observers noted that Larry remained completely stoic,

995
00:56:25.920 --> 00:56:31.280
staring straight ahead without any visible reaction. Deputy District Attorney

996
00:56:31.360 --> 00:56:35.239
Christy Bowles delivered the opening statement for the prosecution. She

997
00:56:35.400 --> 00:56:38.599
focused heavily on the contrast between the life Maya was

998
00:56:38.679 --> 00:56:42.719
actively building, her new friends, her outdoor hobbies, her daughter's

999
00:56:42.800 --> 00:56:46.679
upcoming birthday, and the control Larry exerted over her bulls.

1000
00:56:46.719 --> 00:56:50.480
Summarized the state's entire case in one sentence, Rather than

1001
00:56:50.559 --> 00:56:55.480
let her leave, he killed her. Defense attorney Colby Ryan

1002
00:56:55.679 --> 00:56:58.920
countered by urging the jury to set aside any reconceived

1003
00:56:59.000 --> 00:57:01.920
notions they had gathered from the media. He focused on

1004
00:57:01.960 --> 00:57:04.920
the lack of physical evidence, reminding the jurors that there

1005
00:57:04.960 --> 00:57:08.679
was nobody, no confirmed crime scene, and no weapon linking

1006
00:57:08.800 --> 00:57:12.880
Larry to a murder. Ryan also introduced the defense's primary

1007
00:57:12.920 --> 00:57:17.760
alternative theory, suggesting that investigators developed tunnel vision early on

1008
00:57:18.119 --> 00:57:23.440
and ignored other potential leads, including Maya's extramarital affair. The

1009
00:57:23.480 --> 00:57:27.000
trial's first dramatic moment came just a day into testimony,

1010
00:57:27.400 --> 00:57:30.960
when Maya's father of Pablito Tabalanza, took the stand, He

1011
00:57:31.039 --> 00:57:34.719
wrote down while testifying, and at one point screamed directly

1012
00:57:34.760 --> 00:57:38.280
at Larry across the courtroom, why did you do this?

1013
00:57:39.239 --> 00:57:42.480
Larry's defense team immediately moved from a mistrial, arguing the

1014
00:57:42.519 --> 00:57:47.360
outburst had unfairly prejudiced the jury. Judge Camerina denied the motion,

1015
00:57:47.639 --> 00:57:51.639
and the trial continued. Maya's father having to testify and

1016
00:57:51.719 --> 00:57:55.440
have that outburst, I can completely understand that it must

1017
00:57:55.480 --> 00:57:58.239
be so painful to have to sit there and look

1018
00:57:58.280 --> 00:58:02.159
at this man in front of you. Yeah, what he

1019
00:58:02.199 --> 00:58:05.559
did that would be really difficult. We'll be back after

1020
00:58:05.599 --> 00:58:06.039
a break.

1021
00:58:12.719 --> 00:58:17.400
The prosecution's case rested on a massive puzzle of circumstantial details.

1022
00:58:17.599 --> 00:58:21.519
Beginning with the digital history recovered from Larry's personal devices,

1023
00:58:22.159 --> 00:58:25.960
investigators cataloged a series of search terms that closely tracked

1024
00:58:25.960 --> 00:58:29.880
the breakdown of the marriage. Early queries included what are

1025
00:58:29.920 --> 00:58:34.000
the symptoms of a nervous breakdown, subliminal wife training, and

1026
00:58:34.440 --> 00:58:38.119
how to hypnotize someone to love you. But as Maya

1027
00:58:38.239 --> 00:58:41.119
moved forward with her plans to leave, the search terms

1028
00:58:41.159 --> 00:58:45.679
shifted toward lethal methods. Larry looked up plant you take

1029
00:58:45.800 --> 00:58:50.880
to never wake up, water hemlock, painless death and shot

1030
00:58:50.960 --> 00:58:55.000
in the heart instant death. He also researched the sedative

1031
00:58:55.119 --> 00:58:58.639
ro hipnol and looked into whether a life insurance policy

1032
00:58:59.000 --> 00:59:02.079
would pay out in the event of a suicide. These

1033
00:59:02.079 --> 00:59:06.159
digital searches directly connected to physical evidence found inside the home,

1034
00:59:06.599 --> 00:59:10.880
a vile containing knee en, the highly toxic compound found

1035
00:59:10.920 --> 00:59:15.679
in poison hemlock, which police recovered after Larry's arrest. While

1036
00:59:15.679 --> 00:59:19.079
the state acknowledged they could not prove the exact mechanism

1037
00:59:19.119 --> 00:59:22.800
of Maya's death, they presented the hidden poison as evidence

1038
00:59:23.119 --> 00:59:28.079
of Larry's capability and preparation. The prosecution also introduced the

1039
00:59:28.199 --> 00:59:32.559
hundreds of emails Larry sent to the online spellcasters. They

1040
00:59:32.599 --> 00:59:35.599
mapped out the timeline again for the jury, highlighting how

1041
00:59:35.679 --> 00:59:40.679
his requests transitioned from desperate love spells to explicit demands

1042
00:59:40.840 --> 00:59:44.360
that Maya be made really sick or suffer physical harm.

1043
00:59:44.920 --> 00:59:48.199
They emphasized that the daily flood of emails stopped entirely

1044
00:59:48.519 --> 00:59:52.239
the day after Maya vanished, which prosecutors argued was because

1045
00:59:52.320 --> 00:59:55.960
Larry no longer needed the spells to work. Finally, the

1046
00:59:56.000 --> 00:59:58.800
state let the jury hear from Maya herself through the

1047
00:59:58.840 --> 01:00:02.400
people she confided in during her final days. During a

1048
01:00:02.440 --> 01:00:06.039
family camping trip just days before she disappeared, she told

1049
01:00:06.079 --> 01:00:09.840
relatives flatly, if anything happens to me, it will be Larry,

1050
01:00:10.480 --> 01:00:12.920
and in a text message to a close friend around

1051
01:00:12.960 --> 01:00:15.960
the same time, she expressed a fear that Larry would

1052
01:00:16.079 --> 01:00:19.559
quote hurt the kids to get back at me. When

1053
01:00:19.559 --> 01:00:22.320
the defense took the floor, they focused heavily on everything

1054
01:00:22.360 --> 01:00:27.159
the prosecution didn't have. Defense attorney Leanne Sabatini argued that

1055
01:00:27.199 --> 01:00:29.960
the state was asking the jury to convict a man

1056
01:00:30.000 --> 01:00:33.719
based purely on speculation, pointing to the absolute lack of

1057
01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:38.400
physical evidence, no confirmed crime scene, no weapon, no eyewitnesses,

1058
01:00:38.519 --> 01:00:42.519
and no body. The defense also attempted to redirect suspicion

1059
01:00:42.599 --> 01:00:46.880
toward Maya's co worker, Jamie Laird, arguing that detectives developed

1060
01:00:46.920 --> 01:00:51.280
immediate tunnel vision and failed to vet Jamie properly. While

1061
01:00:51.360 --> 01:00:54.719
Laird's alibi placed him at the hospital from January seventh

1062
01:00:54.760 --> 01:00:57.599
to January tenth for the birth of his child, The

1063
01:00:57.679 --> 01:01:02.199
defense highlighted that investigators never physically visited the hospital or

1064
01:01:02.280 --> 01:01:06.159
interviewed staff to verify those dates. They argued Laird had

1065
01:01:06.199 --> 01:01:10.039
a strong motive to make Maya disappear, claiming the exposure

1066
01:01:10.039 --> 01:01:14.280
of the affair threatened both his marriage and his career. However,

1067
01:01:14.400 --> 01:01:17.840
Judge Camerina shut down that line of defense before Larry's

1068
01:01:17.880 --> 01:01:20.840
lawyers were able to get traction with the jury. Citing

1069
01:01:20.920 --> 01:01:24.480
the legal standard for third party culpability, the judge ruled

1070
01:01:24.480 --> 01:01:27.360
that the defense could not present Laird as a suspect,

1071
01:01:27.679 --> 01:01:32.360
finding no direct or circumstantial evidence connecting him to Maya's disappearance.

1072
01:01:33.119 --> 01:01:36.280
Blocked from pointing to Laird, the defense shifted their focus

1073
01:01:36.320 --> 01:01:40.360
to Maya's personal life. They alleged that Maya was drinking heavily,

1074
01:01:40.599 --> 01:01:44.880
using online dating apps, and changing into a completely different person.

1075
01:01:45.519 --> 01:01:48.199
The defense suggested that the fear of her affair being

1076
01:01:48.280 --> 01:01:52.239
reported to her Navy superiors created a high pressure situation

1077
01:01:52.679 --> 01:01:56.039
that could have driven Maya to run away. To explain

1078
01:01:56.119 --> 01:01:59.079
why none of the neighborhood's security cameras caught her leaving,

1079
01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:02.239
they argued she could have slipped out of a back balcony,

1080
01:02:02.360 --> 01:02:05.639
climbed the property fence, and hiked out onto a nearby

1081
01:02:05.679 --> 01:02:09.840
mountain trail undetected. Finally, the defense team took aim at

1082
01:02:09.880 --> 01:02:14.519
the digital and tracking evidence. They challenged the neighbor's security footage,

1083
01:02:14.679 --> 01:02:18.000
questioning the accuracy of the time stamps and pointing out

1084
01:02:18.039 --> 01:02:21.440
a seven minute gap in the overnight recording. They also

1085
01:02:21.519 --> 01:02:26.440
disputed the prosecution's mileage calculations for the Lexus suv. The

1086
01:02:26.480 --> 01:02:29.880
defense argued that the states estimated four hundred and forty

1087
01:02:29.880 --> 01:02:32.800
four to six hundred and ninety two miles was based

1088
01:02:32.960 --> 01:02:37.400
entirely on Larry and Maya's personal driving habits, completely ignoring

1089
01:02:37.440 --> 01:02:40.320
the fact that Larry's parents lived with Larry and Maya

1090
01:02:40.360 --> 01:02:43.920
at the time and regularly borrowed the vehicle. But seems

1091
01:02:43.960 --> 01:02:47.920
like the defense is really grasping its straws here doing whatever.

1092
01:02:47.960 --> 01:02:50.800
Obviously they're throwing anything they can at this to try

1093
01:02:50.800 --> 01:02:53.280
to raise some doubt. But it always bothers me when

1094
01:02:53.320 --> 01:02:56.719
they tried to assassinate the character of the victim in

1095
01:02:56.800 --> 01:02:58.840
this case, like, oh, it's Maya, which she was out

1096
01:02:58.920 --> 01:03:02.719
drinking heavily and carousing at all. This it really gets

1097
01:03:03.280 --> 01:03:07.400
gets me. Following six weeks of testimony, the jury deliberated

1098
01:03:07.400 --> 01:03:11.079
for just five hours before returning a verdict guilty of

1099
01:03:11.199 --> 01:03:14.360
first degree murder. The jurors had been given the option

1100
01:03:14.440 --> 01:03:18.599
of convicting on lesser offenses including second degree murder and manslaughter,

1101
01:03:19.079 --> 01:03:21.559
but their choice of the top charge meant they found

1102
01:03:21.599 --> 01:03:25.960
the killing to be deliberate and premeditated. Inside the courtroom,

1103
01:03:26.159 --> 01:03:29.320
Maya's family wept as the verdict was read, a release

1104
01:03:29.360 --> 01:03:31.800
of five years of tension that carried out into the

1105
01:03:31.800 --> 01:03:36.519
hallway in cheers of relief. Larry's family sat entirely still.

1106
01:03:37.159 --> 01:03:40.760
Larry himself, with visibly red eyes, leaned over to thank

1107
01:03:40.800 --> 01:03:44.360
his defense team. Larry was back in court earlier this

1108
01:03:44.440 --> 01:03:47.400
week on the separate charge of illegal possession of an

1109
01:03:47.719 --> 01:03:51.719
assault weapon. Sentencing for the murder conviction is scheduled for

1110
01:03:51.880 --> 01:03:56.079
September twenty ninth. The guidelines in California range from twenty

1111
01:03:56.079 --> 01:03:59.760
five years to life in prison without parole. The weapons

1112
01:03:59.800 --> 01:04:05.199
charge could add another three years. Maya's children are now fourteen, thirteen,

1113
01:04:05.400 --> 01:04:08.400
and seven years old. They're growing up without their mother

1114
01:04:08.559 --> 01:04:12.000
or their father, and for the family, the immediate priority

1115
01:04:12.039 --> 01:04:15.400
is helping them find some sense of peace. Richard has

1116
01:04:15.440 --> 01:04:19.199
issued public appeals directly to Larry, asking him to finally

1117
01:04:19.239 --> 01:04:23.159
break his silence, saying for the kid's sake, for their mindset,

1118
01:04:23.360 --> 01:04:26.360
for their happiness, let the kids know what happened to

1119
01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:30.599
their mom. A guilty verdict provides accountability, but it doesn't

1120
01:04:30.639 --> 01:04:36.360
bring closure. Maya's brother, Jr. Tabalanza, has emphasized that regardless

1121
01:04:36.360 --> 01:04:39.519
of what happens in a courtroom, their main objective remains

1122
01:04:39.559 --> 01:04:42.239
exactly what it was on day one, to find their

1123
01:04:42.280 --> 01:04:45.719
sister and bring her home. But five years of searching

1124
01:04:45.719 --> 01:04:49.320
the desert has shifted the nature of that search. Richard

1125
01:04:49.320 --> 01:04:53.119
has acknowledged the reality of the family now faces, noting

1126
01:04:53.159 --> 01:04:56.800
that at this stage they're likely looking for clothing or bones.

1127
01:04:57.440 --> 01:05:01.239
Yet Mary Chris and the community volunteers refuse to stop.

1128
01:05:01.639 --> 01:05:04.559
They continue to head out into the desert, driven by

1129
01:05:04.559 --> 01:05:08.760
a commitment made when Maya first vanished. As Mary Chris explained,

1130
01:05:09.159 --> 01:05:11.320
we made a promise to her eleven year old daughter

1131
01:05:11.400 --> 01:05:13.840
that we would bring her mom home. Let her kids

1132
01:05:13.920 --> 01:05:17.159
know where their mommy is at rest in peace. Maya.

1133
01:05:17.920 --> 01:05:20.440
That is so sad that her kids don't know what

1134
01:05:20.559 --> 01:05:22.880
happened to her. I mean for her whole family, but

1135
01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:25.559
especially her children. So that really does tug up my

1136
01:05:25.599 --> 01:05:27.960
heart strings. You know, think about her eleven or eleven

1137
01:05:28.039 --> 01:05:30.599
year old daughter, you know, just wanting to find totally.

1138
01:05:30.679 --> 01:05:32.920
I guess I have a faint hope now that the

1139
01:05:33.000 --> 01:05:34.920
case is settled. I mean, this is only a couple

1140
01:05:34.960 --> 01:05:37.679
of weeks ago that the verdict came in. But I

1141
01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:40.320
do have like a small hope that maybe Larry will

1142
01:05:40.719 --> 01:05:44.159
come forward, And it's probably not likely.

1143
01:05:44.000 --> 01:05:45.800
But I just feel like, I think the only time

1144
01:05:45.840 --> 01:05:49.840
that happens is when all of the exhaust.

1145
01:05:49.639 --> 01:05:53.719
Yeah, you're probably right. Unfortunately, we've talked before about the

1146
01:05:53.800 --> 01:05:56.719
challenges in prosecuting nobody murder cases.

1147
01:05:57.000 --> 01:05:59.239
It seems like it's getting easier. I was thinking that

1148
01:05:59.280 --> 01:06:02.159
when you were sing this case that, yeah, you know,

1149
01:06:02.199 --> 01:06:05.639
it's become so common. It seems like, you know, jury's

1150
01:06:05.760 --> 01:06:06.960
are willing to forego that.

1151
01:06:07.280 --> 01:06:09.119
Yeah, I think that's a good it's a good point.

1152
01:06:09.239 --> 01:06:12.800
This case in particular, you know, it was completely circumstantial.

1153
01:06:12.880 --> 01:06:16.400
There was absolutely no physical evidence. But obviously the jury

1154
01:06:16.480 --> 01:06:18.440
they only deliberated for five hours away.

1155
01:06:18.480 --> 01:06:20.159
I am a little surprised by that.

1156
01:06:19.840 --> 01:06:21.280
That they only deliberated that long.

1157
01:06:22.159 --> 01:06:24.719
Just yeah, that they quickly came to that verdict because

1158
01:06:24.960 --> 01:06:27.679
there wasn't any circumstance. I mean, I'm sorry, there wasn't

1159
01:06:27.719 --> 01:06:30.320
any evidence that she had died in the house.

1160
01:06:30.519 --> 01:06:32.880
Yeah, I read that. Everyone was very surprised when the

1161
01:06:32.920 --> 01:06:35.920
jury came back like people were not expecting to come

1162
01:06:35.960 --> 01:06:39.079
back in the courtroom that quickly, so everyone was rushing back.

1163
01:06:39.320 --> 01:06:41.440
And really maybe the big thing that was a surprise

1164
01:06:41.559 --> 01:06:44.159
is that they didn't have to go with first degree murder.

1165
01:06:44.199 --> 01:06:46.880
They could have gone with second degree or manslaughter. So

1166
01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:49.840
even just that seems like, yeah, would have taken a

1167
01:06:49.880 --> 01:06:53.920
while to debate, and I'm glad that they came up

1168
01:06:53.920 --> 01:06:56.320
with the verdict they did, because I think Larry does

1169
01:06:56.719 --> 01:06:59.400
deserve to go to prison and never get out of prison.

1170
01:06:59.800 --> 01:07:03.039
But it does seem like was it really first degree murder?

1171
01:07:03.159 --> 01:07:05.079
I mean, it seemed to me like they had an

1172
01:07:05.159 --> 01:07:07.960
argument that night and that maybe he shot her. But

1173
01:07:08.039 --> 01:07:09.719
I guess the fact that he did go out and

1174
01:07:09.719 --> 01:07:13.719
buy poison, you know, indicates that he was thinking about this.

1175
01:07:14.119 --> 01:07:15.360
Where did he get hemlock from?

1176
01:07:15.440 --> 01:07:18.719
I don't know. That really threw me. I don't know

1177
01:07:18.840 --> 01:07:20.440
where that came from.

1178
01:07:20.840 --> 01:07:23.000
Do you think that as a society we are just

1179
01:07:23.440 --> 01:07:26.840
so accustomed to, you know, not just women, but you know,

1180
01:07:26.920 --> 01:07:31.000
people in marriages killing each other, that jury's are more

1181
01:07:31.159 --> 01:07:32.079
likely to convict.

1182
01:07:32.639 --> 01:07:34.440
I mean, that could be, but I just feel like

1183
01:07:34.440 --> 01:07:38.159
in this case, there was so much evidence pointing to Larry,

1184
01:07:38.199 --> 01:07:40.920
and yes, it was all circumstantial. But all of these

1185
01:07:40.960 --> 01:07:44.679
online spells that he was paying for, and the fact

1186
01:07:44.719 --> 01:07:48.039
that he just stopped the day she disappeared, that seems

1187
01:07:48.119 --> 01:07:51.000
really odd. But just there's so much leading up to it.

1188
01:07:51.039 --> 01:07:53.920
I think that it seemed pretty obvious in this case

1189
01:07:53.960 --> 01:07:54.679
to me, at least.

1190
01:07:54.960 --> 01:07:56.760
I wanted to ask you about the spells and the

1191
01:07:56.800 --> 01:07:59.719
spellcasters and all those things that he was paying for.

1192
01:08:00.559 --> 01:08:03.360
Any did he really believe in that? Why did he

1193
01:08:03.440 --> 01:08:06.440
believe in that? And did any of those spells come

1194
01:08:06.519 --> 01:08:07.119
to fruition?

1195
01:08:07.960 --> 01:08:10.039
You know, that's a good question. I think I think

1196
01:08:10.079 --> 01:08:12.000
he clearly really believed it. I mean, he spent a

1197
01:08:12.039 --> 01:08:13.880
thousand more than a thousand dollars on.

1198
01:08:13.880 --> 01:08:16.199
These, so I don't know how much you spell costs.

1199
01:08:16.239 --> 01:08:19.640
I don't either, but I wouldn't spend a thousand dollars

1200
01:08:19.640 --> 01:08:21.640
on something unless I was pretty sure it was going

1201
01:08:21.720 --> 01:08:25.760
to work. I did listen to an interview the press.

1202
01:08:25.840 --> 01:08:27.760
They did that one interview with him, which was a

1203
01:08:27.760 --> 01:08:30.520
week after she disappeared, but then they did one while

1204
01:08:30.560 --> 01:08:33.640
he was in jail before his trial, apparently against the

1205
01:08:33.640 --> 01:08:36.079
advice of his attorney, And I did listen to some

1206
01:08:36.159 --> 01:08:38.520
of that, and they asked him about that, and he

1207
01:08:38.640 --> 01:08:40.800
said that he, you know, he believed in the spells

1208
01:08:40.800 --> 01:08:42.680
and he was just trying to get Maya back and

1209
01:08:42.720 --> 01:08:45.680
that's why he did that. He wouldn't talk about why

1210
01:08:45.680 --> 01:08:47.840
he put spells on her to try to hurt her

1211
01:08:48.000 --> 01:08:51.760
or to you know, incapacitate her to some degree. But yeah,

1212
01:08:51.760 --> 01:08:54.720
he obviously believed it. And apparently he's not alone. Like

1213
01:08:54.760 --> 01:08:57.039
I said, there is there is a whole subreddit about this,

1214
01:08:57.199 --> 01:09:00.680
and you know, if you go online and search for spells,

1215
01:09:01.039 --> 01:09:02.880
you can find a lot of people who are willing

1216
01:09:02.920 --> 01:09:05.520
to take your money to put a spell on somebody.

1217
01:09:05.720 --> 01:09:06.439
Interesting.

1218
01:09:07.119 --> 01:09:09.520
Why do you think that the police didn't take Maya's

1219
01:09:09.520 --> 01:09:13.039
disappearance as seriously as they should have until weeks into

1220
01:09:13.079 --> 01:09:13.800
the case.

1221
01:09:14.119 --> 01:09:17.279
I mean, it happens all the time, right, I really

1222
01:09:17.279 --> 01:09:17.720
don't know.

1223
01:09:18.079 --> 01:09:20.800
Yeah, it's so frustrating. The only thing I can think

1224
01:09:20.800 --> 01:09:23.439
of is that you know, she because she was having

1225
01:09:23.479 --> 01:09:27.119
an affair, that maybe they thought, oh, she probably ran away.

1226
01:09:27.560 --> 01:09:29.560
They knew she was planning for a divorce, but none

1227
01:09:29.600 --> 01:09:29.800
of that.

1228
01:09:30.039 --> 01:09:32.880
And this case is fairly recent, so I think the

1229
01:09:32.960 --> 01:09:35.600
police have gotten better. You know, the first forty eight

1230
01:09:35.720 --> 01:09:40.319
and all that. Yeah, but yeah, it is super frustrating. Yeah,

1231
01:09:40.359 --> 01:09:41.680
what do you think happened?

1232
01:09:42.359 --> 01:09:45.520
I think the audio of those gunshots is pretty clear,

1233
01:09:45.600 --> 01:09:48.199
and this is a small, you know, a neighborhood where

1234
01:09:48.279 --> 01:09:50.640
something like that would be pretty out of the ordinary.

1235
01:09:51.399 --> 01:09:53.680
I think he shot her. Although how did he clean

1236
01:09:53.760 --> 01:09:55.800
up the crime scene? He must have done what I'm asking, Yeah,

1237
01:09:55.840 --> 01:09:57.720
he must have done a good job cleaning it up.

1238
01:09:57.920 --> 01:10:00.079
He had time to clean it up, because nobody he

1239
01:10:00.479 --> 01:10:03.479
really did a thorough search of the house for weeks afterward.

1240
01:10:03.920 --> 01:10:05.319
But that's the only thing I can think. I was

1241
01:10:05.319 --> 01:10:07.800
that he probably shot her, cleaned up the crime scene

1242
01:10:08.319 --> 01:10:10.840
to put her body in the car, and drove her

1243
01:10:10.880 --> 01:10:12.039
out to the desert somewhere.

1244
01:10:12.439 --> 01:10:14.840
But it sounds like the police like although you said,

1245
01:10:14.920 --> 01:10:17.800
I know there were like seventy search warrants, they didn't

1246
01:10:17.800 --> 01:10:20.239
go through the house with a fine toothcomb, and they

1247
01:10:20.279 --> 01:10:22.239
didn't use luminol or anything like.

1248
01:10:22.199 --> 01:10:24.399
That, right, I don't know. They may have eventually, but

1249
01:10:24.760 --> 01:10:26.720
if they did, it took them a long time to

1250
01:10:26.760 --> 01:10:29.880
do it. And you know, I who knows if he

1251
01:10:29.960 --> 01:10:32.279
was able to clean up the crime scene well enough

1252
01:10:32.319 --> 01:10:34.000
to eliminate any evidence.

1253
01:10:34.520 --> 01:10:35.800
Any update on the children.

1254
01:10:36.359 --> 01:10:39.199
No. The last update I have is that Mary Chris

1255
01:10:39.239 --> 01:10:42.079
and Richard got custody of them, so I, you know,

1256
01:10:42.319 --> 01:10:45.399
obviously hope that they're doing well. I did read that

1257
01:10:46.000 --> 01:10:49.359
Mary Chris and Richard did get the children into therapy,

1258
01:10:49.920 --> 01:10:53.319
so they are hopefully dealing with the trauma that they experienced.

1259
01:10:53.399 --> 01:10:55.399
And they probably don't talk to their dad.

1260
01:10:55.960 --> 01:10:57.600
I doubt it. I don't know for sure, but I

1261
01:10:57.600 --> 01:11:00.560
can't imagine that they do well. That is the story

1262
01:11:00.600 --> 01:11:03.800
of Maya and Larry Milliete. Let us know what you think.

1263
01:11:11.520 --> 01:11:14.960
Let's talk about subliminal messages and spellcasting. Do you do

1264
01:11:15.000 --> 01:11:16.800
you believe in any of that? Do you think any

1265
01:11:16.800 --> 01:11:17.279
of that works?

1266
01:11:18.319 --> 01:11:21.199
I mean, I have wondered how a guy like you

1267
01:11:21.239 --> 01:11:23.640
got a babe like me for a long time, so.

1268
01:11:23.680 --> 01:11:25.800
I asked myself that all the time.

1269
01:11:26.399 --> 01:11:29.479
Or you could also say vice brusa, how a weirdo

1270
01:11:29.640 --> 01:11:32.439
like me got such an amazing fellow like you.

1271
01:11:33.279 --> 01:11:38.479
But I have been so I have been playing subliminal

1272
01:11:38.520 --> 01:11:40.840
messages over the last few nights. So you've been sleeping.

1273
01:11:41.399 --> 01:11:45.039
They say, Tina, get oreos, get oreos.

1274
01:11:45.119 --> 01:11:48.560
And because I was at the store yesterday and I paused,

1275
01:11:49.199 --> 01:11:52.560
I thought, you know, I really I love you. You

1276
01:11:52.640 --> 01:11:54.760
know that I love to buy trees for people at

1277
01:11:55.119 --> 01:11:57.600
like that's my love language, you know. I just I'd

1278
01:11:57.640 --> 01:11:59.399
like to do nice things for you guys. And I

1279
01:11:59.439 --> 01:12:02.600
stopped at the double stuffed Oreos and I said, he

1280
01:12:02.640 --> 01:12:05.560
would be so happy if I brought home Oreos. But

1281
01:12:05.600 --> 01:12:09.000
then I said to myself self, you know that he

1282
01:12:09.039 --> 01:12:11.600
would eat the whole bag by himself, and that's not

1283
01:12:11.720 --> 01:12:14.880
really showing love to him. So I did not buy

1284
01:12:14.880 --> 01:12:15.439
the Oreos.

1285
01:12:15.520 --> 01:12:17.800
Okay, So, but the subliminal messaging, it sounds like it

1286
01:12:17.840 --> 01:12:22.479
may I wasn't really subliminal messages.

1287
01:12:22.560 --> 01:12:24.800
But yeah, But I'm thinking of a movie that we

1288
01:12:24.840 --> 01:12:28.720
saw recently. We actually saw it at the theater called Obsession.

1289
01:12:29.119 --> 01:12:31.319
I don't think we talked about it on the podcast.

1290
01:12:31.439 --> 01:12:32.079
I don't think we did.

1291
01:12:32.119 --> 01:12:32.840
It was really good.

1292
01:12:33.079 --> 01:12:36.000
It was a streaming on Peacock right now. I thought

1293
01:12:36.039 --> 01:12:38.279
it was a really good movie. It was really low

1294
01:12:38.319 --> 01:12:41.720
budget but super interesting. The gist of it is this

1295
01:12:41.840 --> 01:12:45.119
young man wants this woman young woman to fall in

1296
01:12:45.119 --> 01:12:47.199
love with him, and he makes a wish on I

1297
01:12:47.239 --> 01:12:48.399
can't remember what it was called.

1298
01:12:48.199 --> 01:12:51.359
Some that he bought it a curio shop or something

1299
01:12:51.439 --> 01:12:51.640
like that.

1300
01:12:51.720 --> 01:12:55.760
Funny and then the wishes something like I want her

1301
01:12:55.800 --> 01:12:57.960
to love me more than anyone has ever been loved

1302
01:12:58.079 --> 01:12:59.960
in the history of the world, or something like that,

1303
01:13:00.479 --> 01:13:02.800
and it's not all that it's cracked up to be.

1304
01:13:03.000 --> 01:13:04.760
The moral of the story is be careful what you

1305
01:13:04.800 --> 01:13:08.039
wish for. It's a really yeah, definitely highly recommend it

1306
01:13:08.039 --> 01:13:09.399
if you like a good horror film.

1307
01:13:09.600 --> 01:13:12.560
And for the budget it was, I thought it was

1308
01:13:12.560 --> 01:13:14.159
really well done and there was a couple of really

1309
01:13:14.159 --> 01:13:17.760
good scares in there, so definitely yeah. So this reminded me.

1310
01:13:17.840 --> 01:13:19.479
I kept thinking of that a little bit.

1311
01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:22.399
I did look a little bit into the history of

1312
01:13:22.399 --> 01:13:25.399
subliminal messagings. I was curious kind of where this started.

1313
01:13:25.760 --> 01:13:28.920
I mean, I a worked, wouldn't every advertiser use it?

1314
01:13:29.159 --> 01:13:32.199
Well, I think it's against I think it's against the law,

1315
01:13:33.000 --> 01:13:35.239
But it came up. It first came up in nineteen

1316
01:13:35.319 --> 01:13:39.199
fifty seven. So this market researcher held a press conference

1317
01:13:39.239 --> 01:13:41.800
in New York. He claimed that during screenings of a

1318
01:13:41.880 --> 01:13:44.840
movie in a theater in New Jersey, that he used

1319
01:13:45.159 --> 01:13:48.119
a special projector to flash two messages on the screen

1320
01:13:48.520 --> 01:13:51.399
for one three thousands of a second, faster than the

1321
01:13:51.439 --> 01:13:54.000
human eye could register, and the messages one said eat

1322
01:13:54.079 --> 01:13:57.479
popcorn and the other said drink Coca Cola, and he

1323
01:13:57.560 --> 01:14:02.000
claimed that popcorn and hoke sales went up by fifty

1324
01:14:02.000 --> 01:14:03.880
seven percent during the showing of that.

1325
01:14:04.159 --> 01:14:08.239
So in nineteen fifty seven did most theaters sell popcorn

1326
01:14:08.359 --> 01:14:10.840
and coke? Or was that the time that the market

1327
01:14:11.000 --> 01:14:11.840
was just burgeoning?

1328
01:14:12.239 --> 01:14:17.399
I have no idea, Okay, but whatever, this movie theater

1329
01:14:17.520 --> 01:14:20.119
did sell popcorn coke, and he said that they sold

1330
01:14:20.159 --> 01:14:23.159
fifty seven percent more than they normally did. But years

1331
01:14:23.199 --> 01:14:25.399
later he admitted that he made the whole thing up

1332
01:14:25.520 --> 01:14:28.520
because people were trying to recreate the results of it

1333
01:14:28.600 --> 01:14:31.439
in experiments and they couldn't. And he went on he

1334
01:14:31.479 --> 01:14:33.159
did an interview like, now, I made the whole thing

1335
01:14:33.199 --> 01:14:36.039
up because my business was failing and I was trying

1336
01:14:36.039 --> 01:14:40.920
to find a way. Oh yeah, I don't. I did

1337
01:14:41.039 --> 01:14:44.399
read the science behind it, and it can work to

1338
01:14:44.479 --> 01:14:48.000
a very limited extent, Like if you get a subliminal

1339
01:14:48.039 --> 01:14:53.079
message that says like drink pepsi, for example, it'll only

1340
01:14:53.159 --> 01:14:56.439
work for a few seconds after you get the message,

1341
01:14:56.640 --> 01:14:59.039
and only if you're already thirsty, So it might make

1342
01:14:59.119 --> 01:15:02.039
you more more likely to choose pepsi than coke or

1343
01:15:02.079 --> 01:15:04.840
to think, Oh, I might enjoy a pepsi, but I do.

1344
01:15:04.840 --> 01:15:08.000
Believe in the power of suggestion and a little bit

1345
01:15:08.039 --> 01:15:11.720
in mind control. And I shouldn't admit this, but I

1346
01:15:11.760 --> 01:15:15.159
feel like I do mind control you sometimes, because like

1347
01:15:15.479 --> 01:15:17.880
once in a while, this happened a couple of weeks ago,

1348
01:15:18.600 --> 01:15:23.760
I wanted a sandwich from Mike's Deli. You messaged me

1349
01:15:24.319 --> 01:15:26.600
like an hour later, and you're like, hey, I'm thinking

1350
01:15:26.600 --> 01:15:28.800
about running to MIC's to get a sandwich for lunch.

1351
01:15:28.840 --> 01:15:31.119
Would you like one? And I was like, oh my god,

1352
01:15:31.159 --> 01:15:33.399
I'm I'm a witch.

1353
01:15:34.000 --> 01:15:35.880
I could just be because you know I love a

1354
01:15:35.960 --> 01:15:37.279
sandwich as well.

1355
01:15:37.319 --> 01:15:39.640
But you initiated it though you were like, hey, I

1356
01:15:39.960 --> 01:15:42.720
didn't do anything but just sit there and send you,

1357
01:15:42.720 --> 01:15:43.960
you know, a message.

1358
01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:47.000
Oh, this could explain how you attracted a guy like

1359
01:15:47.039 --> 01:15:49.520
me as well, Like maybe you used that mind control

1360
01:15:49.680 --> 01:15:55.079
earlization swamp creature. It's not true. Even a little bit

1361
01:15:56.079 --> 01:15:58.880
before we go, we should mention really briefly that we

1362
01:15:58.920 --> 01:16:04.399
watched a new docum memory about Scott Peterson's appeal from

1363
01:16:04.399 --> 01:16:07.520
the La Innocence Project to try to get him off.

1364
01:16:07.560 --> 01:16:09.720
So this was a two part documentary on an e

1365
01:16:10.039 --> 01:16:11.560
and it claimed.

1366
01:16:11.119 --> 01:16:13.359
That it was four hours, four hours that will never

1367
01:16:13.399 --> 01:16:13.800
get back.

1368
01:16:14.520 --> 01:16:16.560
Well, they claimed going into it that they were going

1369
01:16:16.600 --> 01:16:17.880
to reveal new evidence.

1370
01:16:17.920 --> 01:16:21.720
Well the show is literally called Scott Peterson The New Evidence. Yeah,

1371
01:16:21.760 --> 01:16:24.880
well that makes me hop and mad. I posted about

1372
01:16:24.880 --> 01:16:27.039
this on social media. I talked to some of our

1373
01:16:27.079 --> 01:16:29.800
listeners about it, and a lot of people who watched

1374
01:16:29.800 --> 01:16:33.680
it were also super irritated. Whether you think Scott's innocent

1375
01:16:33.800 --> 01:16:37.640
or guilty, there was no new evidence and it was

1376
01:16:37.680 --> 01:16:42.680
presented in such a non critical way drove me nots.

1377
01:16:42.880 --> 01:16:46.359
Yeah, it was the It was completely biased toward everyone

1378
01:16:46.399 --> 01:16:49.760
on the documentary was basically had a mission to convince

1379
01:16:49.800 --> 01:16:54.439
you that Scott was innocent, and they had new analysis

1380
01:16:54.520 --> 01:16:57.119
of existing evidence where they went back and looked at evidance.

1381
01:16:57.159 --> 01:17:00.199
So well, we reinterpreted this to mean this. Yeah, thought

1382
01:17:00.199 --> 01:17:03.560
there was absolutely zero new evidence, right, And.

1383
01:17:03.760 --> 01:17:05.720
The thing that drove me nuts is they talked about

1384
01:17:05.760 --> 01:17:09.840
confirmation bias, but they were using confirmation bias. Then they

1385
01:17:09.880 --> 01:17:13.039
were talking about how you can't believe I witnessed testimony,

1386
01:17:13.359 --> 01:17:18.479
but you should believe this testimony. Yeah, it was very bizarre.

1387
01:17:18.680 --> 01:17:21.760
Yeah. I left it feeling very angry and like we

1388
01:17:21.880 --> 01:17:23.479
wasted four hours of our.

1389
01:17:23.319 --> 01:17:26.119
Lives, and it's just sad because you know that they

1390
01:17:26.680 --> 01:17:28.960
just want people to watch it and tune in because

1391
01:17:29.000 --> 01:17:32.560
everyone is still compelled. It's a fascinating case Scott Peterson,

1392
01:17:33.039 --> 01:17:36.199
and it was just disappointing. And so now any the

1393
01:17:36.239 --> 01:17:39.960
next documentary'll probably so much. But you know, it just

1394
01:17:40.239 --> 01:17:42.920
takes away from their credibility and it really.

1395
01:17:42.720 --> 01:17:44.680
It really is a fascinating case. I think you and

1396
01:17:44.680 --> 01:17:47.000
I are both on the same page that we believe

1397
01:17:47.079 --> 01:17:49.239
that Scott Peterson is guilty. I know there are a

1398
01:17:49.239 --> 01:17:51.600
lot of people out there who feel differently about the

1399
01:17:51.600 --> 01:17:54.880
documentary itself was very irritating.

1400
01:17:54.319 --> 01:17:58.880
Disappointing, really disappointing. One thing that I we had talked about,

1401
01:17:58.920 --> 01:18:00.680
I think in our last was that how we were

1402
01:18:00.720 --> 01:18:02.920
going to watch it and we would be you know,

1403
01:18:03.039 --> 01:18:06.960
keep our minds open. The burnt out van has been

1404
01:18:07.119 --> 01:18:10.159
like this question mark because there's this bloody mattress and

1405
01:18:10.199 --> 01:18:12.600
I think that I forgot that the van that was

1406
01:18:12.640 --> 01:18:15.239
at the robbery scene was white and this burnt out

1407
01:18:15.319 --> 01:18:19.079
van is orange. And yeah, so they really have to

1408
01:18:19.119 --> 01:18:24.119
do some mental gymnastics to understand why the orange van

1409
01:18:24.159 --> 01:18:25.439
would be linked to the white van.

1410
01:18:25.640 --> 01:18:27.479
Yeah, so it was just there was found like a

1411
01:18:27.520 --> 01:18:30.399
mile and a half away from their home, and so yeah,

1412
01:18:30.479 --> 01:18:30.920
it really.

1413
01:18:31.199 --> 01:18:33.880
I think it was found like six miles away. I

1414
01:18:33.880 --> 01:18:36.199
don't know. But anyway, if you disagree with us, that's fine.

1415
01:18:36.239 --> 01:18:38.680
If you enjoyed it, good for you. But I think

1416
01:18:38.840 --> 01:18:41.680
for most people you probably would feel the same as

1417
01:18:41.720 --> 01:18:42.079
we did.

1418
01:18:42.760 --> 01:18:45.079
Well, thanks everybody for hanging out with us. We really

1419
01:18:45.199 --> 01:18:48.359
appreciate it. Follow us on social media, or you can

1420
01:18:48.399 --> 01:18:51.319
go to our website at Lovemarykill dot com, send us

1421
01:18:51.319 --> 01:18:53.600
a note, leave us a voicemail.

1422
01:18:53.640 --> 01:18:56.439
And if you like the work we're doing, consider supporting

1423
01:18:56.479 --> 01:19:00.920
us on Patreon. Go to patreon dot com love Mary Kill.

1424
01:19:01.039 --> 01:19:03.520
For only five dollars a month, you get it all

1425
01:19:03.800 --> 01:19:07.560
good early ad, free access and a monthly well researched

1426
01:19:07.600 --> 01:19:08.880
bonus episode and.

1427
01:19:09.199 --> 01:19:11.600
Our appreciation until next time.

1428
01:19:11.960 --> 01:19:14.000
Don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife.

1429
01:19:14.960 --> 01:19:17.319
Take my.

1430
01:19:21.720 --> 01:19:25.800
Hold too.

1431
01:19:28.279 --> 01:19:28.720
For a.

1432
01:19:33.800 --> 01:19:47.680
Falling You like surely did see.

1433
01:19:52.279 --> 01:19:59.239
Something all men to be.

1434
01:20:00.800 --> 01:20:03.159
So take.

1435
01:20:07.600 --> 01:20:11.520
Had signal fold.

1436
01:20:14.479 --> 01:20:27.760
Two for a and talk for all the wit you

1437
01:20:30.479 --> 01:20:36.880
for a talk falling

1438
01:20:40.359 --> 01:20:42.439
Wait with you