Maya Millete disappearance tied to divorce, alleged spellcasting plot

Larry Millete was arrested on Oct. 19, 2021, after Maya Millete vanished from Chula Vista, California, leaving investigators with a no-body case and no confirmed cause of death. Maya, 39, was last seen on Jan. 7, 2021, the same day reporting says she contacted a divorce attorney.

The disappearance quickly moved from a missing-person search into a criminal investigation. Civil court records made public in July 2021 described Larry Millete as a person of interest, and investigators later used cell-phone data and deleted material to reconstruct the hours around Maya’s disappearance. Reporting says Maya’s phone never left the Millete residence after Jan. 7, 2021, a detail that became central to efforts to pin down what happened inside the home.

The marital breakup was visible before Maya disappeared. Jane Fetalvero testified that in November 2020 Maya told siblings she wanted to divorce Larry and co-parent their children, a statement that prosecutors used to frame the marriage as deteriorating well before the January disappearance. Later trial coverage added claims about a secret relationship and a hidden Instagram account, details that widened the case beyond a simple missing-person inquiry and into questions about secrecy, surveillance and control.

The most unusual allegations centered on spellcasting. Investigators said Larry Millete sent messages to a spellcaster asking to punish or incapacitate Maya, and NBC 7 San Diego reported that prosecutors treated communications with an online spiritual practitioner as part of the evidence. Court coverage later said prosecutors presented evidence of thousands of spells Larry cast in an apparent effort to save his marriage, which stopped abruptly after Maya vanished. That sequence gave the case a wider public reach, because it tied intimate-partner conflict to a digital trail that investigators could preserve and present in court.

Maya’s body has never been found, and the absence of a recovery has kept the case open in the public mind as much as in the courtroom. The combination of a pending divorce, alleged coercive control, digital evidence and spellcasting claims turned the Millete case into one of Southern California’s most closely watched domestic-violence narratives.