On Tuesday, San Diego County District Attorney’s Office investigator Mathew Grindley returned to the stand. This was the fourth day he’d testified, which had been broken up several times when prosecutors called other witnesses.
Grindley continued testimony about the roughly thirty search warrants he’d filed in this case. That included several warrants for phone and text message records from Larry Millete’s personal cell phone, received directly from the mobile phone company.
Millete is accused of killing his wife, Maya, about five years ago and then hiding her body, which has never been recovered. He’s maintained his innocence all along.
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An undated picture of Larry & Maya Millete.
Grindley was asked about several text message exchanges Larry had with his supervisor, Terry Fonville. Both worked at Naval Medical Center San Diego in the optometry department.
Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles walked Grindley through several texts to Fonville, where Larry apparently was sharing Maya’s messages to him. Some were shared just two days before she vanished.
“YOU need serious help, how you view things. PLEASE do not make me feel guilty about [expletive] about what YOU feel and all that Bec you will always DO WHAT YOU WANT. WE ARE COMPLETELY DONE”
“I DONT WANT TO BE YOUR WIFE ANYMORE!!”
“I’m filing whether you like it or not”
“I should have left a long time ago…and this time I’m not going to look back and say that again”
Another message exchange between Larry and Fonville from Jan. 7, 2021, was shown to the jury, which appeared to share a desperate state of mind for Larry, the day Maya was last seen alive.
Fonville: “Good morning Larry. What is your ETA?”
Millette: “I’m not right”
Fonville: “Have you eaten?”
Millete: “I’m about to lose it”
Fonville: “Call me”
Fonville: “Where are you?”
Then Grindley revealed that he took screenshots of messages from Fonville’s physical phone. He said when he compared the messages from the physical phone to the ones from the mobile phone company, he discovered messages were missing from the phone.
That includes Larry writing, “I’m not right” and “I’m about to lose it” as well as several of Maya’s messages that Larry had shared. Grindley also said Fonville had an odd demeanor during his police interview.
“Very nonchalant. Very arrogant,” Grindley said. “It felt like we were wasting his time.”
Fonville testified in this trial on Monday, June 15. During that hearing, Fonville appeared to be combative with Bowles at certain points.
In his responses, he distanced himself from Larry, telling the court they were not friends, despite the seemingly friendly text exchanges. He also couldn’t explain why many of the messages between the two had vanished from his phone.
Tense cross-examination of the DA’s investigator
Mathew Grindley, an investigator with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office, testifies during Larry Millete’s preliminary hearing in 2023.
Liann Sabatini, one of Larry Millete’s two defense attorneys, cross-examined Grindley over a wide range of his previous testimony. That has been a change for Larry’s defense, in which the bulk of that questioning has come from his other attorney, Colby Ryan.
Initially, Sabatini zeroed in on messages between Maya and the co-worker she had an affair with, named Jamey Laird. Most of that conversation took place over secret Instagram accounts they’d both created.
In one quick exchange, Sabatini got Grindley to admit that he never wrote a search warrant for communications between Maya and Jamey through their Microsoft Teams chats at work. That’s despite the fact that Grindley acknowledges seeing them discussing the need to delete those messages in an IG conversation.
Grindley also acknowledges that he never requested a search warrant for another work chat application called FusionChat. During redirection from Bowles, Grindley was given an opportunity to provide deeper explanations.
He said only NCIS could provide communications from MS Teams, which his team requested, but said those records were never provided. He didn’t fully explain why.
Grindley also said the investigative team expected to get back FusionChat messages through one of his search warrants to Google. However, when the data came back, there were no messages included.
The defense questions investigators about Jamey Laird’s whereabouts
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A courtroom sketch artist’s rendition of Jamey Laird, the man who had an affair with missing Chula Vista mother Maya Millete.
Sabatini also worked to highlight potential failures by investigators to look into what Laird told them. On Monday, Maya’s former lover admitted that he had lied repeatedly to his wife, his co-workers, his supervisors, and investigators from multiple law enforcement agencies.
Maya was last seen alive on Jan. 7, 2021. That same day, Laird’s wife, who’s since divorced him, went into labor with their first child.
Laird said he was at the hospital from that date through Jan.10, 2021. While prosecutors accuse Larry of killing Maya and disposing of her body over that time frame, Sabatini said they never physically confirmed that Laird was at the hospital.
Grindley acknowledged that he never visited the hospital nor spoke to potential witnesses who could confirm Laird’s story. He tried explaining that he’d received that man’s cell phone records, but Sabatini cut his answer off with an objection, stating that this answer was nonresponsive.
That questioning appeared to walk a very careful line. Judge Enrique Camarena has ruled that the defense is not allowed to ask any questions that could even imply that anyone else killed Maya.
In forbidding what’s called third-party culpability, the judge said the defense wasn’t allowed to dig into Laird’s hospital alibi. In several heated sidebar discussions outside the presence of the jury, the defense had said previously that they needed to do that in order to highlight alleged missteps by investigators.
In fact, later in the day, Judge Camarena held a sidebar discussion outside the presence of the jury. He confronted the defense over the questioning, saying it was in violation of his ruling.
He again said that he would not allow Laird to be treated as a potential suspect, and even told the prosecution they weren’t allowed to ask questions or present evidence to confirm that man’s alibi – saying there was no direct evidence tying Laird to her alleged murder.
He also warned both sides not to go down that road when Laird’s ex-wife is called to testify. Bowles confirmed that she will be a witness for the prosecution.
The judge also made a point to blast both sides over how they’d been acting in court.
“I’m placing counsel on notice,” Judge Camarena said. “Raising voices, eyerolling, emotive expressions…Such conduct is inappropriate and outside courtroom demeanor. I expect you to advocate zealously but politely…arguments must be presented calmly and accurately…otherwise there will be consequences. Is that clear?”
“Yes, your honor,” all attorneys answered.
Defense targets other evidence
Next, the defense attorney asked questions designed to pick apart other evidence in the case. That included the data about where May and Larry’s phones were when they stopped transmitting in the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2021.
Previous testimony revealed that the district attorney’s office had done a highly technical experiment that concluded both phones were inside the Millete residence in Chula Vista’s San Miguel neighborhood. Sabatini got Grindley to admit that the experiment was based on limited historical data from their phones and also used a technical measurement which was considered to be of low confidence.
During re-direct from Bowles, Grindley explained that low confidence meant that the location data had a plus or minus range of 300 meters. High confidence locations were under 100 meters, he said.
Maya’s “Jeep friends” testify
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Maya Millete
In the afternoon, prosecutors called two people to the witness stand who said they’d become recent friends of Maya in December 2020. That connection was based on the Millete family’s new Jeep Wrangler.
Each witness met Maya through Jeep enthusiast groups. Jeep owners would meet up to do off-roading and have fun, often in the desert and mountains.
Blaine Hinckley testified that Maya was so full of life and excited to learn everything she could about her new Jeep. He said there was a lot to learn.
“Oh my gosh, yeah, she was immediately out with her phone, excitedly documenting and vlogging or narrating what she was doing,” Hinckley said. “She was just such a ball of energy. And the excitement she had with her girls. They were so bonded, it was so great to see.”
Hinckley testified that he met Larry during a second outing in the desert, near Anza Borrego, on Dec. 26, 2020. He remarked that it was odd that he saw Larry riding in the backseat of the Jeep.
Another witness, Angela Simoneau, also stated she noticed that Larry seemed standoffish. At one point, she said she asked one of the Millete children if that was their uncle.
Both witnesses talked about future plans they’d made with Maya for more Jeep meetups. Those gatherings never took place, with both witnesses testifying that they never saw Maya again after the Dec. 26 outing.
Another question both were asked – did the Millete family ever bring the black Lexus SUV out to the desert along with the Jeep? Both said they only saw the family’s Wrangler.
Larry asks a neighbor about fixing scratches on his SUV
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Police took this picture of Larry Millete’s black Lexus SUV during a search of his home in 2021.Police took this picture of Larry Millete’s black Lexus SUV during a search of his home in 2021.
The courtroom figured out why that specific question was asked when Kevin Linatoc took the stand next. He lived right down the street from the Millete family, and his home featured a surveillance camera that’s provided key evidence in this case.
That includes video of the black SUV driving away from the home early on Jan. 8, 2021, and not returning until 12 hours later. Police say they couldn’t verify Larry’s alibi that he took his son to the beach at Torrey Pines all day.
Prosecutors played a new surveillance video from Jan. 9, 2021, which shows Larry approach his neighbor. Knowing that Linatoc had a side business restoring paint jobs on automobiles, Larry is recorded asking him to repair the SUV.
In the video, Larry explains that the vehicle was damaged when it was taken out to Anza Borrego. Linatoc testified that the SUV had scratches running alongside the bottoms of both sides of the vehicle, as if it had been driven through bushes.
The neighbor then testified that Larry didn’t end up hiring to fix the SUV, which would have cost about $1,600.
Prosecutors played a video on Tuesday of Larry Millete asking his neighbor to check out his black SUV. But as NBC 7’s Alexis Rivas reports, this was just days after Maya was last seen alive.