CHULA VISTA, Calif. (KGTV) — Opening statements in the Larry Millete murder trial are set to begin Monday, three days after a jury and six alternates were seated in the case.
Millete is accused of killing his wife, Maya, a Chula Vista mother of three who disappeared in 2021. Her body has never been found.
The jury of 7 women and 5 men will spend the next three months hearing evidence in the case. The prosecution must convince them that Larry killed Maya. He was charged with her murder in late 2021 and has always denied killing his wife.
Matt Murphy, a former homicide prosecutor in Orange County, spoke about the challenges of prosecuting so-called "no-body" cases. Murphy prosecuted five such cases, and juries convicted in all five.
"No body cases are, it does present some unique challenges," Murphy said.
But Murphy said the absence of a body does not necessarily work against prosecutors.
"It looks scary at the beginning, and then you pretty quickly realize as a prosecutor that what you get to do is you get to introduce that third dimension of who your victim was," Murphy said.
"The jury gets to meet their friends and their family and their loved ones," Murphy said.
Murphy said without Maya's body, it will be up to the jury to piece together the circumstantial evidence the prosecution presents, adding that circumstantial evidence is just as good as direct evidence.
"So it's a collage of all of that. It's gonna be cell phone pings, it's going to be witnesses, it's gonna be. Um, it's going to be people that he tried to hire to help cast spells, it's going to be people that were talking about relationship problems," Murphy said.
Murphy said jury demographics do not really matter in a case like this.
"What you want is you want rational, sober-minded people who are gonna, who're gonna want to do the right thing, and they understand the importance of following the law," Murphy said.
The trial is expected to last three months.
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