48 Hours - Maya Millette's Disappearance

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

A young mother disappears. Investigators say her husband contacted spellcasters to put a hex on his wife so she wouldn’t leave him. "48 Hours" contributor Jonathan Vigliotti reports.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to this podcast ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Even if you love the thrill of true crime stories as much as I do, there are times when you want to mix it up. And that's where Audible comes in, with all the genres you love and new ones to discover. Explore thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. thousands of audiobooks, podcasts, and originals, with more added all the time. Listening to Audible can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits,

and even your overall well-being. And you can enjoy Audible anytime, while doing household chores, exercising, commuting, you name it. There's more to imagine when you listen. Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial and your first audiobook is free. Visit audible.ca. In 2014, Laura Heavlin was in her home in Tennessee when she received a call from California. Her daughter, Erin Corwin, was missing. The young wife of a Marine had moved to the California desert

to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. I don't want her to be a cold case. Please get some water, hydrate. Are you ever overwhelmed as you look around at this wide open space? No.

We're going to find her. We've got to keep searching. This one and this one, right? This one, yeah. I want broken to find her. You gotta keep searching. This one and this one, right? This one, yeah. I want her to be found. I want to bring her home to her kids, to our families. How often do you think about your sister? All the time.

I still can't believe it's like she just vanished. My impression of Maya was that she had a beautiful home life. She was an accomplished career woman. She was a super mom. What was she like as a friend? Kind, funny, witty. Her voice, oh my god. She could sing.

She could play the guitar. She's very talented. She could do martial arts. She's very talented. She could do martial arts. A jeepie, off-roading. There's my adventurous little girl. It's so pretty. She loved the outdoors.

When did you notice something was wrong? She's planning for her daughter's birthday, and we haven't heard anything from her. This is not her at all. When we walked in, the house was a mess. Boxes everywhere. I had right away knew there was something really wrong here. Did you ever think in that moment in that house that Larry did something to Maya?

Yeah. Larry was the last person that saw her. What was his demeanor when you showed up and started asking questions? Calm. He hadn't slept much. It didn't look like he was unconcerned about his wife being gone. He said this wasn't all that unusual for her. I didn't have the answers at that point, but I was very suspicious, so I needed to gather more evidence. The family was well aware this marriage was not working out.

He went on the internet, found a website that does witchcraft, cast spells. He bought one of the spells. I don't even know how to make this out, so I need your help. This is the spell that he casts on Maya, and that's blood that's on there. He created the witchcraft altar, and he puts down the picture of himself and Maya. He wrote, can you hex to have her hurt enough that she will have to depend on me? Maybe an accident or a broken bone. That's really hard to hear. What kind of person do you believe Larry is? A very damaged person. Do you think Maya left that house on her own?

No. No. Sorry. It's been really hard. It is our family. We're still asking the public. Please, help us bring my sister home. Thank you. In the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Peru and New Zealand, lies a tiny volcanic island. It's a little-known British territory called Pitcairn, and it harboured

a deep, dark scandal. There wouldn't be a girl on Pitcairn once they reached the age of 10 that would still have heard it. It just happens to all of them. I'm journalist Luke Jones, and for almost two years, I've been investigating a shocking story that has left deep scars on generations of women and girls from Pitcairn. When there's nobody watching, nobody going to report it, people will get away with what they can get away with. In the Pitcairn Trials, I'll be uncovering a story of abuse and the fight for justice that has brought a unique, lonely Pacific island to the brink of extinction.

Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. The scary cult classic was set in the Chicago housing project. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. Candyman. Candyman? Now we all know chanting a name won't make a killer magically appear.

But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. We're going to talk to the people who were there, and we're also going to uncover the larger story. My architect was shocked when he saw how this was created. Literally shocked. And we'll look at what the story tells us about injustice in America. If you really believed in tough on crime, then you wouldn't make it easy to crawl into medicine cabinets and kill our women. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts. More than a year has gone by since 39-year-old Maya May Miliete,

mother of three young children, vanished in Chula Vista, California. I still have hope. I still have that hope that they'll find her alive. Maya's sister, Mary Chris, and her husband, Richard Drulier, have fought hard so Maya's disappearance doesn't become a cold case. It's been a really, really tough year with the whole family. We still don't have answers yet. Maya was 13 years old when she immigrated to the United States from the Philippines with her parents and five siblings in 1995. Mary Chris says her sister thrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, where the family settled to build a new life.

She's always been, you know, the smart one, and she's very active at school. Education is very important to the family. I've always been so proud of her. Maya met her future husband, Larry Miliete, when they were both working at a fast food restaurant in Honolulu. Larry's family had also immigrated from the Philippines. When Larry turned 18 and joined the Navy, the couple decided to get married. They were so young. Teenagers. She's the first one to get married,

so it was a shock for everyone that we respected her decision. Maya and Larry moved to Southern California and built their careers working for the Navy. Larry was an optician at the Naval Medical Center, and Maya worked as a supervisor contract specialist at this naval station in San Diego. She was my mentor from day one. She was like this little tiny person,

but she was a big personality. Claudia Hulau and Allison Alexander worked with Maya at the base and became friends. We actually negotiated contracts for the U.S. Navy, and she was very good at it. I used to, you know, joke around with her and, you know, because she had a photographic memory. I had a lot of respect for her. She was a very strong and confident leader. A lot of the women in the office really looked up to her. There was no glass ceiling. We could get wherever we wanted, didn't matter where we came from. Maya and Larry decided to wait 10 years before starting a family. The couple eventually welcomed two daughters and a son.

It's a joy to see them, you know, that they have their own family too. We're always out camping. We're always outdoors. It's so pretty. Larry was a good dad. Always attentive to the kids. Like great parents. What kind of mother was she? Very caring, loving mother. She's hands-on. She's always teaching them something. Especially, you know, music. She has some videos with her son singing with her.

Word by word. Yeah. Word by word. Brings us to tears every time we watch it. Her kids were everything. She enjoyed her kids. enjoy her kids. In early January 2021, Maya was focused on planning a ski trip to Big Bear for her daughter's birthday. But her family grew concerned when she suddenly stopped communicating on January 7th. For her not to tell us what's going to happen for her daughter's birthday,

you know, that was a big deal. Mary Chris says when their brother J.R. drove over to check on Maya the next day, her husband Larry told him Maya had been in the bedroom for several hours. J.R. knocked on the door but got no response. He kind of just thinks, okay, maybe she's sleeping. Larry did say that they had an argument. He left it at that. We believed Larry.

They had an argument, and she just wanted to be left alone. The following day, when there was still no news from Maya, Mary, Chris, and Richard drove over to the Miliete house. When we walked in, the house was a mess, which I've never seen their house messy. And it was cold. It was January. And he had the AC running, which was really odd. This time, Larry told them Maya was out. So Larry says Maya's been where? Hiking. She went hiking. Suspicious that something wasn't right, Mary Chris reported her sister missing to the Chula Vista Police Department that night. How did the police react? They sent three officers, went to the house, and they questioned us.

Mary Chris and Richard were upset with what they say was a lack of concern from the police. It seemed like there was no urgency for the police department to investigate it properly. By January 10th, Maya had now been missing for three days. Her family gathered at her home to celebrate her daughter's birthday, hoping against hope. We're all like looking at the door, hoping she'll walk in on her daughter's birthday. She never did. I feel so bad. After that, she said, Mommy didn't show up for my birthday.

I didn't know how to comfort her. As Maya's family tried to keep some normalcy for the sake of the children, Richard was watching Larry during the party. Just laid back, wearing his navy sweats on a Sunday, no shoes. And Larry had no concern whatsoever on his face for his missing wife. Not even for his daughter's birthday. That night, Claudia got the distressing news that Maya was missing and drove over to the Miliete house. By now, the birthday party had turned into a search party. So they were outside with babies and blankets, trying to look for their sister,

their daughter. Her parents are elderly. The brothers and the brother-in-law were out knocking on doors, giving out flyers. He had no interest in helping. As word spread that Maya was nowhere to be found, more friends stepped in, trying to help. My wife, Lou, was working at the 32nd Street Naval Base. Said that a friend of hers went missing. The family is concerned. Would you help them? Somebody asks for help, you just do it, right?

So if she was still alive, I needed to get to her quickly. That's why I went straight to where the last place she was seen, which was that house. I had no idea that it would turn into what it was. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld,

and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I'm your host, exclusively on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly? Introducing The Best Idea Yet, a brand new podcast from Wondery and T-Boy about the surprising origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the bold risk takers who brought them to life.

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On January 11th, 2021, four days after Maya Miliete was last heard from, I knew what had to be done, and I did it. Attorney Billy Little, a former criminal defense investigator for the U.S. Navy, decided to step into the missing persons case. I went straight to where the last place she was seen, which was that house. Little wanted to talk to Larry Miliete. Amongst other things, he had found it odd that Maya's husband wasn't the one who initially called the Chula Vista Police Department. In fact, when the family wanted to call 911, he discouraged it.

Were there police around also investigating at this point? No. No. According to the family the police had come he had given them I guess the same story. In news reports at the time a Chula Vista police spokesperson stated that Larry was being cooperative. They were treating it as a missing persons case and had found no indication of foul play. Little says after he showed Larry his naval civilian ID, he let him in. I started looking for things that I thought might be suspicious in the house. Just like Mary Chris and Richard, he noticed something strange. Most of the windows in the house were open.

It was clear he was trying to air the house out. Little knew from Maya's family that the couple had had a fight on the day she was last heard from. I was looking to see if there was any damage in the house that would indicate some domestic violence. I'm also looking for defensive wounds on his hands, which I don't see. But Little says he did see something outside the Milietti bedroom. We went upstairs where her bedroom was. The first thing I noticed was the hole in the door right next to the handle, because it's right in the area where if you need access to a locked room, you're going to punch right through there. And I touched the patch and it felt new it felt wet I made a comment to Larry about hey it was just and he says oh yeah uh Maya punched a hole in the door there inside the bedroom Little says

he noticed another hole on the wall that also appeared to have been recently repaired that would have been too high for Amaya to punch because she was small, right? And I said, Larry, what about this hole? And he said, oh yeah, she got man punched that too. Larry's creating a picture here of a woman who is violent. Is this adding up to you? No. None of his story is adding up. When you left the house that day after collecting those puzzle pieces, what were you thinking? I thought Larry killed her and we need to find out what he did and what he did with the body. But I wasn't ready to tell Mary Chris yet because I didn't know, right? I could be wrong. Little began canvassing the neighborhood and knocking on doors to track down home security footage

to see if anything suspicious was caught on camera around the Miliete house. So I knew we had to get that quickly and preserve it quickly. Time was of the essence. Oh, God, yes. What Little found was a treasure trove of clues. He says a camera from a neighboring house recorded the voices of the Miliete children playing in the yard at 10.30 p.m. on the night their mother was last heard from. On a school night and it's cold outside and the weather, I believe it was in the high 40s that night. Another camera recorded Larry backing their Lexus into the garage

at 5.58 a.m. the next morning. So you can't see what's going on, but you can see it going in the garage. Larry then leaves the house at 6.45 a.m. and doesn't return home for almost 11 and a half hours. You could have moved on. Why did you stay on this case and take matters into your own hands? In my mind, my job wasn't nearly complete. It was just beginning. It was just beginning. When I see Mary Chris and I see her crying, I'm just like, I got to figure this out.

As Billy Little continued investigating. It's just not in me to quit, so I don't. Mary Chris and Richard turned to local media and organized the first search for Maya on the hiking trails behind her house. We were desperate for answers. We wanted action. We wanted to do something. Staying at home, sitting down wasn't going to bring us answers. Bring her home. Her sister goes on television and is begging the public for help. Help me find my missing sister. And that really moved people. Aleda Vaughn, an attorney and true crime author, saw Maya's case on the news and started following it closely. You realize that this was somebody that was very vibrant, that was really out there living her life. And that is part of why it's also shocking that she's missing. It shocks your

conscious. As the case gathered steam in the media, on January 23rd, 2021, two weeks after Maya's disappearance, the Chula Vista Police Department searched the Miliete house. And what they did find was that Larry had a lot of firearms. They seized two Glock handguns, a rifle, and a shotgun. And they found that he was in possession of an illegal assault weapon. Investigators also downloaded images from Larry's phone. Three days later, the police were back. On January 26th, they served another search warrant and the police take the navigation system, the GPS, from Larry's Lexus. Meanwhile, Maya's friends had been revealing details about the couple's relationship. I would say March or so of 2020, the obsession became obvious.

Larry's behavior had grown alarming before his wife went missing. He would do subliminal messages for her to be that perfect spouse. And it was everywhere she walked at different times they would turn on. That is insane. It sounds like from a movie. She didn't just walk out. That's something she would never do. About a month after Maya's disappearance, her husband, Larry Miliete, hired a lawyer and stopped cooperating with investigators.

I believe that he did something to her. Billy Little was told by Maya's friends and family that troubling signs in the marriage began emerging the year before. And it started back in January of 2020 when they started having marital problems. Larry would call every single one of us trying to ask for help to intervene into the marriage. Larry was complaining that Maya was having a midlife crisis. He's like, well, she's been going out with her friends more often His relationship was very kind of to the side and just very watchful. From what my observation of him, he always had to be in control. Claudia recalls an instance when Larry

couldn't get a hold of Maya at work. You know when somebody might be agitated or you overhear their voice? I did hear, where are you? It takes you this long to get from your car to your office. Who were you talking to? He wants her to be submissive, for her to comply to him, to be the same person as she used to. But Maya's loved ones say that Maya was changing. She was growing into someone new, a strong woman, for sure. As the months passed in 2020, Larry's grip on Maya tightened. He's now tracking her spending habits. He's gotten into all of her social media accounts.

She doesn't have any privacy. And he suspected that she was straying. Larry accused her of having affairs with several men at work, wrote emails to her boss at work. He knows that if he tells the boss that she's having an affair with somebody at work, that she will get fired. He tells all of Maya's family, she's cheating, she's sinful. Help me get her back on the Christian religious way.

And starts forcing her to go to church. These are texts that Larry sent to Maya's family. He's quoting the Bible, and it says, For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, her feet go down to death, her steps lead straight to the grave. He's talking about Maya. In his own words, he said that he was getting desperate, and he felt that the devil was tempting him. At some point, Maya's family says they told her they were concerned about what was unfolding. At that time, we knew that my sister is ready to move on.

We told her, whatever your decision is, we're here to support you. By the fall of 2020, Billy Little says Larry was growing increasingly desperate to hold on to Maya. And so what does he do? He goes to witchcraft. There are people on the internet that will sell you for five bucks, you know, how to make a spell that will get her to be attracted to you, to bind your marriage in blood. And that's what he tried to do. Does a little witchcraft blood altar. That is the picture that he took of the altar, an old photo of them with blood thrown on it. Little says Larry contacted numerous spellcasters and even wrote a review for one.

And he writes of this spellcaster, She is kind, professional, and courteous. My casting has not yet manifested, but I'm really hoping and counting on it. Leaving a review like one would leave on Yelp for a food order. Like it's an Uber, right? And he's like, ah, five stars. Good job, spellcaster. So he's not quite as smart as he thinks he is.

He doesn't realize that all of that stuff is pointing the finger at him. By December of 2020, Maya and Larry were sleeping in separate rooms. Little says Maya found speakers in her room and confronted Larry. He admitted he had been playing subliminal messages while she slept. Maya messaged a friend and said her marriage was definitely over. What was that message that was coming out of those speakers under the bed? It's right there. No more men.

No more men. No more men. On New Year's weekend, Maya told her family her decision. She's ready for divorce. She's finally made up her mind. I just told her, just be careful. Just be careful. On January 7th, the last day she was heard from, Maya filled out this form and made an appointment with a divorce attorney.

I think she told him that she was going to file for divorce. He snapped when he found out that he was finally losing her. What had happened in the house that night? Little thinks he knows after a neighbor reached out with some information. The neighbors, do they say, oh yeah, we heard gunshots? Yeah, not only did they tell me that they've got gunshots, but they've got the audio. A home surveillance system from the neighbor captured these loud bangs around 10 p.m. that night.

Little also believes they are gunshots. It's coming from Larry and Maya's house. Remember, Billy Little had tracked down that other home security footage that police agreed captured audio of the Miliete kids playing in the backyard at 10.30 p.m. playing in the backyard at 10.30 p.m. The picture is becoming more and more clear. He's got to clean up and he's got to move the body, so he needs to send those kids outside on a school night at 10.30. Do you try to speak to law enforcement?

I did, and I told them what I found. And time and time again, there was just no follow-up by the police. The Chula Vista Police Department declined our request for an interview. But in April 2021, they told local media that it had been an active investigation since mid-January. And they were keeping their cards close to the vest. It's tough. There was very minimal details. And that was part of our frustration working with the police department. The family now is having various rallies in front of the Chula Vista Police Department, basically demanding answers.

But the police are not going to release a lot of information to the family. This is potentially a murder investigation. In May of 2021, the police served Larry Miliete with a gun violence restraining order. Among the reasons, investigators had found this image on Larry's phone. Another photo, which had been redacted, featured the couple's four-year-old son surrounded by weapons. Authorities retrieved more firearms from the Miliete house. I think that was a smart move by the police. It protects the children while they try to buy a little bit of time.

But it also protects them if they have to go in and arrest him. In the summer of 2021, investigators named Larry Miliete a person of interest in his wife's case. You keep wondering, is this going to be the time that they're going to arrest Larry? On October 19th, nine months after the disappearance of Maya, investigators did just that. Today at 11 42 a.m., the Chula Vista Police Department SWAT team arrested Larry Malete for the murder of his wife. And with that,

even more evidence came to light. Maya's family and friends anticipated the news of an arrest for months. I understand that there is a case that needs to be built. There's only one shot. But it just seemed like it was too long. Yet when Maya's husband, Larry Miliete, was arrested for her murder in October 2021, it was still a mixed range of emotions. Claudia, what was your reaction? Relieved, yet at the same time sad.

And so although you gave that hope up, now it became real. I think we had different reactions. And I said, finally. She started crying. He's been with us for 20 years. My sister did love him. She gave him three kids. She just gave him a go.

In a press conference, San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan laid out some of the details of the months-long law enforcement investigation. In homicide cases, there is often a triggering event. In this case, the last call recorded that May made was to a divorce attorney. That call was at 3.48 p.m. Home security cameras captured her arriving at her house at 4.42 p.m. There were no images of her leaving. Investigators had also turned up more evidence of Larry trying to keep Maya in the marriage through the supernatural before she went missing. I've never had a case

where that was involved. But the spells they discovered went beyond more than asking Maya to be attracted to him. According to the arrest warrant, Larry now wanted Maya to be harmed. Before Maya went missing, Larry sent this message to a website that claims to cast spells. Please punish May and incapacitate her enough so she can't leave the house. It's time to take the gloves off. It was evidence, they say, of his unbalanced mindset and homicidal ideation.

The day Maya went missing, Larry sent countless emails to spellcasters. I think she wants me to snap. I'm shaking inside, ready to snap. What's more, according to the arrest warrant, Larry had allegedly snapped before. One of Maya's friends said that Maya told her. Larry choked her to the point where she was unconscious. I just heard that. Oh, I was mad. How could he do that?

Maya had never shared that with Mary Chris. Were you aware of any physical abuse? No. No. No. She would say little things here and there, but not always to the same person. There were already incidents

that were huge red flags, that if we all knew it at the same time, it would have been a bigger picture. I feel guilty at the, you know, after the fact, once she went missing.

It was a very harsh reality for me. I wasn't able to help her. And I will forever live with that. Nobody had the full picture, right, besides the two of them. Evelyn Rodriguez is an associate professor of sociology who teaches on topics of race and identity at the University of San Francisco. She reviewed the case for 48 hours. The signs of domestic abuse can be so hard to identify because we as a society are unable to distinguish the line that divides that

kind of like zealous, passionate love from controlling behavior. Larry Miliete checks all the boxes for domestic partner abuse. He knew what Maya's pressure points were, and so he weaponized her work, he weaponized her children, her family, her religion, before he got desperate enough to try these other means of controlling her and keeping her in that marriage. Rodriguez suggests when Larry turned to spellcasting

as another method to control Maya, he may have been inspired by an old world form of folk magic in the Philippines. And this is stuff of like the old world to our parents even. Somehow that has evolved into what I think Larry was able to find. But Rodriguez points out that it is important not to lose sight of what the issue is here. Really, the story here is that this was an abusive partner, regardless of his culture,

who was exhibiting every single sign of domestic abuse. This one and this one, right? This is where we're going to be staying. With Maya's alleged killer behind bars, her family knew their work was not done. Don't go too far. They were more determined than ever to find her, energized with new information that had come out after Larry's arrest.

Aleda Vaughn was part of that search. The thing that this case really needed was to be able to know where to search. That was the problem here. You can't just search the entire world. Where are we right now? It's a hotspot that Larry could have brought Maya's body out here. Where are we right now? It's a hot spot that Larry could have brought Miles' body out here.

Like Billy Little, investigators obtained footage that showed Larry leaving the house in the couple's Lexus for almost 11 and a half hours the day after his wife was last heard from. They analyzed the car's navigation system. According to the information that we have now, he was about two and a half hours out from his house when he put his address in. Somewhere two and a half hours away from his house, Larry had entered his address to find his way back home. That information was enough to center the searches on places Larry was familiar with, like this desert area where he and Maya had gone hiking. familiar with, like this desert area where he and Maya had gone hiking. What are you specifically looking for as you comb this area? At this point, fortunately, I hate to say it, but we're probably just looking for clothing or bones.

Over the months, droves of volunteers have responded to her family's calls to the community and have joined Team Maya. We're just so thankful and blessed to have everybody here. We're the three together. I'm a San Diego City retired firefighter. I got a team, and we go out and we systematically cover areas where someone could possibly hide a body. And it's very sad to even talk about, but you have to do it. And it's the proverbial needle in a haystack. Why are you here today?

Really, just to support the family. Hopefully we can bring peace to the family. Always make sure you've got eyes on somebody. What drives you to do this for a total stranger, somebody you didn't even know? I felt that it should be a community effort. You just want closure for this family so much. And that's why we're out here. That's why we keep coming.

They deserve it. Maya deserves it. As the search for Maya continues in the vast lands of eastern San Diego, the quest for justice is just beginning in the halls of the San Diego court system. The problem with this case is you don't have a body. What would inspire you to join a search for a missing person? Go inside the Maya Miliete disappearance at 48hours.com. Mr. Miliete, you have the right to have a preliminary examination hearing with this 10-count court case.

His ego was so damaged by the fact his wife didn't want to be with him anymore, and he couldn't handle it, so he killed her. Larry Milioti has been behind bars since his arrest in October 2021, awaiting trial. At this time, we'd like to enter a plea of not guilty. He pled not guilty to charges of murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon. If convicted, Larry could face up to 25 years to life in prison. Although there is still hope Maya could be found any day, a victim's body is not required to convict someone of murder. This is one of the strongest

circumstantial cases I've ever seen. You don't have a body, so what? You don't get to get away with murder because you're good at disposing of bodies. But Larry maintains Maya left on her own. His defense attorney, Bonita Martinez, turned down a request for an interview, but spoke with reporters after a hearing where Larry was denied bail. His wife was used to leaving the house in the past, and you cannot rule out that she's alive. Larry maintains that Maya voluntarily left him, left the children to start her own new life. Do you believe that? No.

Nope. Not at all. I would never believe that. Never. Maya loved her kids. There's no way she would have up and left. The best argument for the defense here is Maya is not dead. They don't have a body.

She's alive and well. Attorney Aleda Vaughn says a no body defense has worked before in other cases. She says without a body, the prosecution may be at a disadvantage. They need strong evidence. And the question is, what do they have? Do they have something that they're going to bring out in a courtroom that definitely ties Larry to murder? Those loud bangs recorded on the neighboring security camera may not be proof of anything. An FBI analysis was inconclusive. They couldn't definitively say those were gunshots because the sound quality was not good enough. In November 2021, Larry's attorney filed documents with the San Diego Superior Court with more allegations about Maya. They believe that she had this wild lifestyle,

that she was out there having affairs, she's dating different men off the internet, that she's drinking excessively, that she's become this completely different person. And so they're pointing to third-party culpability. If she's harmed, it was somebody else. Larry and his parents claim in court documents that Maya was essentially a party girl. Definitely not. or documents that Maya was essentially a party girl. Definitely not. The Maya that I know, she was a devoted mother.

Not long after Maya's disappearance, Mary, Chris, and Richard say Larry cut off contact between the children and Maya's side of the family. We're just trying to see them. Going from hanging out, hugging them, jumping on my back, seeing them at least once or twice a month, at least, to not seeing them at all for nine months. The Miliete children are still living at home in the care of Larry's parents, but after months of not seeing them, Maya's family was granted visitation rights in November 2021. But the fight is not over.

Mary Chris has filed a petition for guardianship of her sister's children. Just show them that the whole entire family are waiting for them and, you know, are eager to be with them again. Glory be to the Father and to the Son. What those children will go through, all those moments in life when they need their mom and she's not going to be there, it breaks my heart. In January 2022, Maya's family and friends held a vigil to mark the one-year anniversary of her disappearance. There's somebody out there that knows something, that's seen something. They should come forward. Have it in your heart to help us bring her home.

I'll be gone away from here. She will forever be my hero. That's what I'm going to take with me. It's a bright, shiny star of a woman that gave every other woman, regardless of what she was going through, an inspiration to be whoever they wanted. That's who Maya is. These trees that are all around us here played a role in solving a murder? Absolutely.

A young mother, dead. Will DNA from a tree found on a suspect's boots help catch her killer? 48 Hours, Saturday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus.