CHULA VISTA (KGTV) — NOTE: This page will be updated throughout the day.
4:30 p.m. — One of Maya and Larry's neighbors took the stand. He testified that two days after Maya disappeared, Larry walked over to his house and asked him for a quote to detail his Lexus.
A video of that interaction was captured on the neighbor's surveillance cameras. He says Larry told him the car had been scratched during a Jeep run in Anza Borrego.
He says Larry told him the car needed some light polishing and that "it’s not lifted," with Larry explaining: "I kind of ran over bushes."
The neighbor described the scratches as "light scratches caused by bushes."
He says he quoted Larry $1,600 dollars to fix the scratches, but says Larry never hired him for the job.
The woman who worked cleaning Maya's house also took the stand late Tuesday. She broke down in tears as a picture of Maya was displayed in the courtroom.
A Chula Vista police investigator took the stand at the end of the day, who testified about obtaining surveillance footage from neighbors.
3:00 p.m.— Two Jeep owners took the stand Tuesday afternoon. They testified that they met Maya in mid-December during a jeep run. On that run, they said Maya went with her two daughters.
Angela Simoneau and Blaine Hinckley said Maya was new to jeeping but was excited to learn from them. They all met through a Facebook page called San Diego Jeep Club.
Hinckley testified that Maya “was a ball of energy.”
Hinckley and Simoneau say Maya returned for another Jeep run on Dec. 26, 2020, and was joined by her three children and Larry.
Both witnesses say that on the late-December trip, they observed Larry was in the back seat of the car when the family arrived, noting that it was odd.
The prosecution asked Hinckley and Simoneau if they had ever seen a black Lexus SUV on either of the two December Jeep runs. Both testified they had not.
They say that after the second Jeep run, they never saw Maya again.
2:00 p.m. — In the afternoon, outside the presence of the jury, Judge Enrique Camarena gave a stern warning to the attorneys about decorum in the courtroom. He said he was “placing them on notice” about raising voices and eye-rolling, saying those actions have no place in the courtroom. He said he expects them to argue zealously, respectfully and maintain decorum at all times, even when the attorneys go to sidebar with the judge.
Camarena said that any further violation will lead to consequences. Both the prosecution and the defense answered “yes” when asked whether they understood his instructions.
After giving the warning, the judge once again reminded the attorneys about his ruling on third-party culpability, which means the defense cannot argue that someone else committed a crime. This is a ruling Judge Camarena made before the trial in motions in limine.
Judge Camarena said that before the lunch break, the defense had violated his order with their line of questioning.
He was referencing questions from the morning session when the defense was questioning District Attorney Investigator Mat Grindley about whether or not he’d investigated Jamey Laird’s whereabouts on the day she disappeared.
The judge said both the prosecution and the defense are “tiptoeing around my ruling.”
Camarena said he would not be striking any of Tuesday morning’s testimony , but he would not be allowing any questioning that implied that Laird was responsible for Maya’s death.
He said this would especially apply when Laird's now ex-wife takes the stand.
12:30 p.m. — During cross-examination, defense attorney Liann Sabatini pointed out that Grindley never issued search warrants for Fusion or Microsoft Teams Chat, where Maya and Jamey Laird, her affair partner, often communicated. Grindley confirmed he never did.
He also testified that he never went to the hospital to verify Laird’s claim that he was with his wife in labor the night Maya went missing. Grindley says he relied on phone records that placed him there.
Grindley was questioned about the roughly 30 search warrants he issued in connection with the case. He said they planned to search Jamey Laird's Instagram accounts, but the pages had been deleted, so Meta and Facebook could not retrieve them to assist with the request.
10:40 a.m. — Larry Millete’s communications were under the spotlight during Tuesday morning's testimony.
District Attorney investigator Mat Grindley took the stand and spoke about the phone analysis he conducted on the Millete family’s phones.
He confirmed that despite a search of the Eastlake neighborhood near the Millete home, Maya’s phone was never located. Grindley said there was no communication from Maya’s phone after Jan. 7, 2021.
Grindley also highlighted the text messages to and from Larry’s phone in January 2021.
On Jan. 6, Larry messaged his boss, Terry Fonville, saying that he was not coming into work and that it was an exhausting day full of getting yelled at. He wrote that “life is hopeless.”
On Jan. 7, he told Fonville, “I’m not right” and “I’m about to lose it.” That was the last day Maya vanished.
Grindley says he interviewed Fonville in September 2021, months after Maya disappeared. He says it was a surprise visit to his work at Balboa Naval Hospital.
Grindley testified that it took time locating Fonville on the property and that once the interview started, his demeanor in the interview was “nonchalant, very arrogant" and that Fonville acted like they "were wasting his time.”
Grindley testified that when comparing the messages on Fonville’s phone with the messages found on search warrant records, there were messages that had been deleted, including the message Larry had sent him that read, "I'm about to lose it."
The prosecution finished their questioning with Grindley, and cross-examination is now underway.
