Verdict Soon in the Larry Millete Trial

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1:24Herman Weisberg:News legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Caroline Polisi. The Larry Miliete murder trial is now in its seventh week. The prosecution has rested its case. The defense did the same one day later. Since 48 Hours last checked in on this case, jurors heard from key witnesses, like one of those spellcasters Larry Miliete emailed, as well as the man that Maya Miliete had been seeing romantically. The question that needs to be answered in court, what happened to the 39-year-old mother of three, Maya Miliete, after she disappeared from her Chula Vista home in January 2021. Her body has never been found.

2:02Herman Weisberg:Joining me today is 48 Hours consultant Herman Weisberg, a private investigator and managing director of Sage Intelligence Group, where among many responsibilities, he oversees investigations in litigation. Herman, it's so exciting to have you here. In fact, our paths have crossed way back when, when I was a criminal defense attorney.

2:21Caroline Polisi:Well, first of all, thanks for having me. It's great to see you again and be working with you again, Carolyn. Before forming SAGE, I spent 20 years in the NYPD as a detective. My last 10, I was lucky enough to work in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. I led criminal and financial investigations.

2:40Herman Weisberg:Yeah. As I told our producers, you're the real deal. So we're lucky to have you today. Before we get into the latest details, a reminder that we've covered the trial in two previous episodes. So if you want that earlier background, check out our Case by Case podcast feed and 48 Hours YouTube channel. So Herman, what makes this case so interesting to you?

2:58Caroline Polisi:Mostly the challenge. This is pretty rare to have a no-body case, as they say. It's hard enough to prosecute a murder, but this has significant challenges, you know, starting with there's no cause of death, for example.

3:15Herman Weisberg:I mean, no body cases are notoriously difficult, right, for prosecutors to handle. So in our last episode on this case, there was a lot of discussion of Jamie Laird, the man who's admitted to having an affair with Maya at the time of her disappearance. Jurors not only heard from Laird, but also his ex-wife Patricia, whose testimony we'll get into in a little bit, but let's break down Jamie Laird's time on the stand, Herman.

3:40Caroline Polisi:Jamie's testimony gave jurors a much more intimate look at Maya's life in the months before she disappeared. Jamie testified that he met Maya while they were working together as civilian employees supporting the Navy. He said what started as a friendship eventually turned romantic, even though both were married. He said Maya confided him about problems in her marriage. He testified that she described Larry as controlling, said she wasn't even allowed to drive to work alone. And she shared concerns that he was tracking her movements. He also told jurors that she was making plans for a future outside the marriage.

4:15Herman Weisberg:On the stand, Jamie even shared that Maya's code name for Larry was V in their secret communications, which he says was in reference to the evil wizard Voldemort from Harry Potter.

4:26Caroline Polisi:I had to look that up. I never read or saw Harry Potter movies. But in looking it up, it was interesting, though. He was noted as you-know-who was one way to describe Voldemort, or the man who shall not be named, or the name that shall not be mentioned, or something. So that's a pretty cute nickname or code name they came up with there.

4:47Herman Weisberg:Yeah, absolutely. And by all accounts, the prosecution's witnesses' testimonies allege that he was only growing more and more controlling in the months leading up to her disappearance. Jamie's testimony was really significant because jurors finally heard directly from someone who perhaps had a little more insight into Maya's private life than anyone, really.

5:09Caroline Polisi:Another detail that really stood out was where Jamie was when Maya was last seen alive. He testified that he was at a hospital while his wife was giving birth to their child. Though the judge said neither the prosecution nor the defense could dig into this, noting Laird could not be treated as a potential suspect, given no direct evidence tying him to her alleged murder.

5:31Herman Weisberg:Jurs also heard that Jamie wasn't initially truthful with investigators about the affair. Herman, can you talk about some of the cross-examination?

5:38Caroline Polisi:We saw the defense pointed out Jamie's initial lies to his wife, his bosses, and the multiple law enforcement agencies. Jamie acknowledged he lied because he was afraid of the consequences for his marriage, and he didn't want their affair to coming out. Yeah.

5:54Herman Weisberg:And that's a common fact pattern we see sometimes in cases like this. Herman, as a former detective, how do investigators and ultimately jurors evaluate a witness who admits they weren't truthful at first? And how often do you come across witnesses like this who initially lie?

6:11Caroline Polisi:In my experience, that's not unusual at all for witnesses to withhold embarrassing or deeply personal information when they're first interviewed. As investigators, we don't automatically dismiss somebody just because they weren't forthcoming initially. There's a process to this. The next question becomes, once they begin cooperating, is their account corroborated by other evidence? It can certainly be a barrier in a trial for a jury to get around. and defense counsel may try to poke holes and prosecutors may try to use that to villainize. It's pretty common, though.

6:46Herman Weisberg:Yeah. And as we often say, as defense attorneys, you know, you can't choose your facts and you can't choose your witnesses. So you just, you know, use what what you've got and hope that the jury chooses your side. So prosecutors had already established the affair through Jamie's testimony, But they called Patricia Laird, Jamie's ex-wife, as a witness a few days after his testimony. What did Patricia's testimony add?

7:13Caroline Polisi:Well, Patricia corroborated parts of Jamie's testimony, including that he was at the hospital with Patricia as she gave birth when Maya went missing. But Patricia added another twist to this case. After Larry learned about Maya's affair, but before she went missing, Patricia testified she started getting repeated phone calls from Larry. Yeah. What do we know about those calls? Well, she said Larry first contacted her at work, identifying himself as somebody from the Naval Hospital, which initially, of course, made Patricia think something had happened to Jamie. So, from an investigative standpoint, testimony like that helps establish another piece of the timeline and Larry's reaction after discovering their relationship.

7:55Caroline Polisi:Interestingly, according to reports of the defense cross-examination of Patricia Laird, They asked about Larry's demeanor during the calls and if he was threatening. She noted that he was polite, never menacing, and would repeatedly apologize for disturbing her.

8:10Herman Weisberg:Yeah, but still, Patricia noted the frequency of his calls, which the prosecution may want to show sort of as a window into his state of mind.

8:19Caroline Polisi:And notably, she also noted that the calls from Larry ceased after Maya went missing.

8:24Herman Weisberg:Yeah. Overall, Patricia's testimony wasn't really about proving the affair. It seemed to be more about helping jurors understand how Larry reacted once he believed Maya was involved with someone else. Patricia said that Larry told her Jamie was cheating on her with his wife and that by early 2020, it felt like he was calling her weekly, so much so that she actually blocked his number. But Larry would actually find other numbers to reach her. And on the stand, according to our San Diego station, she listed phone numbers linked with Larry. That included his children's cell phones and even the phone number of his aunt.

8:59This testimony definitely suggests a pattern of behavior, portraying him not as a guy who takes hints very well.

9:06Caroline Polisi:I've seen it in other cases where it can be seen as really harassment, just repeated calling like this.

9:21Herman Weisberg:So through Jamie and Patricia, jurors heard about the affair and the impact it had on Maya's marriage. But in their case, prosecutors also introduced digital evidence they say corroborates much of that testimony. Before Jamie and Patricia Laird took the stand, investigator Matthew Grindley with the San Diego County District Attorney's Office testified on how they uncovered a private Instagram account connected to Maya. Prosecutors say Maya used it to communicate secretly with Jamie. According to the reports, Grindley said that the messages between them were sexual and, quote, that they were very emotional.

9:55Herman Weisberg:In Jamie's testimony on their correspondence within the Instagram account, he said, quote, we were always working together to cover up the affair. There was no topic off limits.

10:05Caroline Polisi:Yeah, this is very important information here. It's contemporaneous. It's unfiltered. And investigators can use this to compare against text, phone records and witness testimony.

10:18Herman Weisberg:Here, the prosecution wasn't just asking jurors to believe what Jamie said Maya told him, but they were also pointing jurors to Maya's own words, including screenshots of text conversations with Larry that she'd screenshot into her private Instagram DMs, like this one from August 2020, where Maya said to Larry, quote, I can't wait to get away from this toxicity that you create.

10:39Caroline Polisi:And investigator Grindley also shared contents of Maya's emails that they obtained that through a search warrant where she also she was writing herself almost like a journal like messages where she described her plans for the future without Larry, plans that included graduate school. And they also found that she had been making appointments with a divorce attorney for the prosecutors. This this painted a consistent picture of where Maya believed her life was headed.

11:08Herman Weisberg:Yeah. Prosecutors questioned Courtney Nixon, one of Maya's closest friends from work, who described hearing Maya in their Facebook messages become increasingly anxious over the impact on their children of leaving Larry.

11:20Caroline Polisi:Courtney testified that Larry went onto Maya's Facebook, found those messages between them, and then blocked Courtney's ability to communicate with Maya on Facebook. You know, we know this was early 2020, the height of the pandemic. People were really relying on social media back then as like a lifeline to their friends and family. Courtney and Maya eventually got around this, moving their conversation to Instagram, but Larry somehow also accessed Maya's account there. according to the prosecution, and messaged Courtney on Instagram, urging her to speak in his favor.

11:56Herman Weisberg:Yeah. And again, this testimony just suggests to me this increasingly escalating behavior, this controlling behavior. And then, of course, Herman, there was the spellcaster that Larry had been emailing, perhaps what this case is most well known for, because it just seems so unbelievable. How often have you come across spellcasters in your work, Herman?

12:20Caroline Polisi:I remember I took the homicide course in the NYPD, and there was a couple of hours dedicated to the occult. It was called occult training.

12:30Herman Weisberg:Wow. I certainly have never come across it in any of my work. But, you know, it's one of the things about this case that is so sort of eye-popping and catching for really everybody. So we heard from Frank Peavy, and while much of the media has referred to him as a spellcaster, on the stand he described his work as spiritual assistance. Prosecutors say Larry sought him out online in October of 2020 in the hopes of repairing the relationship with Maya. Herman, what else did we learn?

13:01Caroline Polisi:So interesting. Jurors heard that Larry Meliette sent Peavy a flood of messages. There were days when he was sending more than two dozen brief messages in quick succession. And Peavy described Larry as, when he was the exact words, manic, desperate, and obsessive. And eventually, Peavy blocked Larry because of the volume of communication. Yeah. So you're seeing, you know, definitely a recurring theme here.

13:27Herman Weisberg:Yeah, sounds familiar. Obviously, you can't help but draw those parallels to Patricia Laird's testimony, where she described blocking those calls from Larry as they escalated. It is important to note that in the defense's cross-examination of Peavey, he acknowledged that Larry Miliate had never asked for Maya to be killed or have her vanish.

13:46Caroline Polisi:That's right. But because this is a no-body case, these little behavioral details hold a lot of weight. They help the jury understand the relationship between this couple and also to reconstruct events. investigators begin looking at every piece of physical, digital, forensic evidence that they can gather to either support or challenge their theory of what happened.

14:09Herman Weisberg:Yeah. And, you know, one recurring theme we've seen throughout this trial has been Maya's phone. Investigators testified that they never recovered it, but they spent years trying to reconstruct her movements through the digital evidence that she left behind. Herman, how significant is a missing phone in a homicide investigation.

14:26Caroline Polisi:Oh, that's huge. I mean, a phone, they tell investigators an incredible amount of what's going on in our lives. And when a phone can't be recovered, investigators have to work backwards. They have to like reverse engineer other digital evidence, phone records, surveillance, and witness testimony to try to fill in these gaps.