The lead investigator on the case for the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office returned to the witness stand on the 13th day of testimony in Larry Millete’s murder trial. James Rhoades delved into evidence that has made this case more unusual than most – spellcasting services.
Maya has been missing since January 7, 2021. Larry has maintained that he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Rhoades detailed how the district attorney’s office built an exhibit, which showed a timeline of Larry’s communications and payments to practitioners of positive charm love spells and dark magic hexes. He said he put those together based on search warrants of Larry’s phone, email inboxes, and online payment accounts.
Investigator James Rhoades, with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, testifies during Larry Millete’s preliminary hearing in 2023.
Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles walked Rhoades through several months of spell messages, while highlighting how the tone of the spells changed over time. First, Larry’s communications showed him asking for powerful love spells that would bind Maya to him.
In messages from September 2020, Larry told the spellcasters everything about his failing marriage. That included writing that she’d been having an affair with a subordinate co-worker named Jamey Laird.
He then paid for voodoo hex spells against Jamey, wishing that, ‘‘he would suffer tenfold.’ Messages included requests for harm to fall upon Laird’s unborn child.
Prosecutors also said Larry paid for spells that would turn his wife into his sex slave. He repeatedly asked for spells to be cast that would require her to be intimate with him as much as twice per day, every day.
In October, Bowles said the messaging became darker, with Larry asking for physical harm to fall upon his wife. He wrote that she should be physically incapacitated in some way so that she would become dependent on him caring for her.
Much of the evidence that prosecutors showed the jury had also been submitted during Larry’s 2023 preliminary hearing. Below, you can find a gallery of selected messages from late 2020.
Prosecutors ran out of time today and weren’t able to finish going through all the spell evidence. If that preliminary hearing is any indication, they will show messages that were sent close to the day Maya was last seen alive.
That previously included messages where Larry told a spellcaster that Maya had finally decided to divorce him, had taken off her ring, and said the marriage was over. He wrote, ‘I’m shaking inside ready to snap.’
During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors said Larry sent two messages to spellcasters after Maya vanished. They said on January 9, 2021, he asked for all hexes to be removed from Maya, and instead to hex Jamey.
As the day’s testimony ended, Larry stood and turned as the jury exited the room, revealing that he’d been crying. Tears were seen streaming down his face as he then watched the rest of the courtroom empty.
Evidence: Spellcasting messages
During his testimony, Rhoades also revealed a new piece of information – that Larry’s phone visited pornographic websites the night that Maya’s family members came over to look for her.
He said on the evening of January 9, 2021, just minutes before her sister, Maricris Drouaillet, called the police, Larry’s phone visited several pornography websites.
Rhoades didn’t say what the names of these sites were, but says that Larry accessed them from 10:46 p.m. through 10:51 p.m.
Rhoades will return to the witness stand on Wednesday morning.
Maya’s bosses and co-workers testify about affair accusations
Maya’s former work supervisor, Derek Sopp, testifies during Larry Millete’s preliminary hearing in 2023.
Maya Millete’s former work supervisor at the U.S. Navy’s Southwest Regional Maintenance Center was called to the witness stand earlier in the day.
Derek Sopp was Maya’s direct supervisor at SWRMC from 2017 to 2020. Maya would ultimately switch commands, working at NIWC, following accusations that she was having an affair with a subordinate employee.
Those allegations came to light after the mother-in-law of one of Maya’s co-workers, Jamey Laird, began leaving voicemail messages with Maya, Larry, and higher-up command officials at SWRMC. That woman said that Maya and Jamey cheated on their spouses together during a trip to New York.
Sopp said he quickly arranged a closed-door meeting that day between himself, Maya, Jamey, and Larry to sort through the accusations. He testified that it didn’t make sense to him because he knew for certain that Maya didn’t go on that trip to New York.
Sopp said that he believed there was some kind of mix-up with paperwork that had Jamey’s wife and mother believing the wrong thing. However, he said that while Jamey denied the affair with Maya, he admitted during the meeting that he did ‘slip up’ with a different woman during that New York trip.
However, Maya’s supervisor said Laird admitted to him in November of 2021 that he’d lied to him and naval investigators.
Sopp also revealed that Larry Millete sent him two emails, asking for a different co-worker of Maya’s to be transferred to another unit. In the email, Larry indicated that a man named Eric Cogan was putting a strain on their marriage by purposefully inserting himself into Maya’s day-to-day professional life.
Sopp said he chose to ignore the first email from Larry, finding it unusual. But he decided to respond to the second. He testified that he wrote back that their work relationship was appropriate and that no action would be taken against Cogan, and Larry apologized in a responding email.
John Robinson was called to testify after Sopp. He’s the Executive Director at SWRMC, overseeing all contracting there.
Robinson revealed that he began receiving emails from a person who had created an anonymous whistleblower email address. The subject matter was also focused on Maya’s relationships with subordinate coworkers.
Robinson read emails aloud to the court, which asked him to look into fraternization between Maya and both Jamey Laird and Eric Cogan. The messages expressed concern about Maya’s marriage and requested that both workers be reassigned.
It also said that Maya and Eric got tattoos together during a lunch break. That was also something Sopp said he was aware of.
Robinson testified that the whistleblower emails were unusual. Not only because the sender misspelled the SWRMC acronym, but also because there were multiple ways for workers to make anonymous complaints at work.
He said he did take some action from the emails and roped in the Inspector General to investigate the claims. Robinson said during that probe, both Maya and Jamey provided statements denying the affair.
Maya’s former coworker and friend, Suzanne Shin, also testified. She revealed they communicated for years through Instagram messages.
She said that while they typically didn’t delve into deeply personal issues, that changed in late 2020. Shin said Maya shared details about alleged controlling and narcissistic behaviors from Larry.
Shin testified that she also reached out to Maya after seeing one of her Facebook posts, which was an image of a door with a large hole in it. Maya apparently took down the post minutes later.
Shin said she was concerned the hole was created during an explosive outburst from Larry.
“Because I’ve had incidents in my family where people lose control and punch walls,” Shin said. “I wanted to make sure she paid attention to any physical harm or maybe any intimidation that she might feel and to know that we were there for her if she needed to come to us.”
Maya responded by saying it wasn’t what it looked like.
“That wasn’t supposed to be posted,” Maya wrote. “But we accidentally locked the door.”
Shin said Maya reached a breaking point in December of 2020 and messaged her, “I’ve decided to file for divorce. I don’t think Larry and I are salvageable. I’m looking for a lawyer and will likely hand him papers after [her daughter]’s birthday…so mid-January.”
Shin was asked if she believed Maya would have been capable of abandoning her children, to which she answered, “No way…They were her reason for getting up in the morning.”