San Diego County District Attorney’s Office investigator James Rhoades returned to the stand on Monday, and revealed where they believe Larry Millete disposed of his wife Maya’s body. Rhoades has sat next to Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles for the duration of the trial. Rhoades talked about the efforts by investigators to try to determine where Larry went on January 8, 2021, which was the day after Maya was last seen alive. Larry says he didn’t murder Maya, and her body has never been found. Based on home surveillance video, investigators have testified that Larry left his house in Chula Vista’s San Miguel Ranch neighborhood after 6 a.m. and returned home about 12 hours later.  An undated picture of Larry Maya Millete. Police say they’ve been unable to verify Larry’s story that he and his son went to Torrey Pines State Beach. Throughout the trial, testimony has circled around the accusation that Larry spent that day traveling to a remote location, potentially a desert, to dispose of Maya’s body.  Rhoades then explained how investigators created a timeline of all the trips the vehicle took from December 17, 2020, when it was serviced, through January 23, 2021. That’s when it was impounded by the police.  Detectives used cell phone location records, financial transactions, and toll road transactions to calculate how much mileage was used each day, with the expectation of the gap on January 8, 2021. Rhoades said there were an estimated 444 miles the vehicle drove that day that are unaccounted for. Where investigators say they believe Maya’s body was dumped Rhoades also testified that the Lexus SUV recorded data about when it was turned on or when the key fob was activated, which he said allowed investigators to infer it had been turned off. These were the times for those power-on events he said were significant on January 8, 2021. 6:45 a.m. 6:46 a.m. 7:00 a.m. 7:04 a.m. 10:58 a.m, 11:11a.m., 11:13 a.m. 1:41 p.m. 3:29 p.m.  Bowles then dove into questioning into where exactly investigators believed Larry went to dispose of Maya’s body. Up to this point, there had only been implications that had happened in one of the desert areas the Millete family was familiar with. Rhoades identified that location as being somewhere near or inside the Colorado River Reservation. He said that area is at the intersection of several routes the family had taken before and was the approximate halfway point for the missing mileage – 222 of the 444 miles unaccounted for. This map, created by NBC 7, shows the area within and around the Colorado River Reservation where prosecutors say they believe Maya Millete’s body was dumped. The investigator testified that the SUV power-on events coincided with stops to refuel the vehicle with gasoline. Rhoades said his analysis indicated the vehicle drove away in the morning, fueled up around 11:00 a.m., and drove out to the location where Maya’s body was dumped.  Then he said the vehicle was turned back at 1:41 p.m., driven to a gas station to refuel, and then began the journey back to Chula Vista just before 3:29 p.m. Rhoades said it would be possible for Larry to travel that distance and carry out the crime in the roughly 12 hours he was gone. “There would be enough time to drive out in that time frame, some additional time there, and time to return with the time frame,” Rhoades said. Rhoades said the Lexus had an older navigation system, which didn’t record GPS data of its travels or what locations are entered into it. However, it did record when addresses were inputted.  Rhoades said the vehicle had an address entered for a trip that began at 3:29 p.m. The investigator also said there were many small shrubs and bushes that could create the same kind of scratches that Larry told a neighbor on January 9, 2021 that needed to be repaired. Rhoades said several searches were conducted across the area in the Colorado River Reservation, which was vastly empty. Nothing was found. During cross-examination, Colby Ryan, one of Larry’s two defense attorneys, worked to pick apart Rhoades’ missing mileage calculations. That included pointing out that other family members lived in the Millete household after Maya vanished, and could have driven the car any number of times. Ryan also got Rhoades to acknowledge that any trips where a driver used cash for a transaction wouldn’t have been recorded under his analysis. And when phone records were used to establish a trip, Rhoades also acknowledged that trips taken without a phone, or a turned-off phone, wouldn’t have been recorded. Ryan also questioned Rhoades about the toll road transactions, specifically those captured at a toll plaza near the Millete family home on State Road 125. The defense attorney pointed out there were several records that show the toll road was only used once in a day, arguing that the toll roads do not always capture a vehicle’s trip based on license plate reader or transponder failures. During redirect questioning Bowles asked Rhoades if it was possible that the vehicle had simply taken a different route home, explaining away the missing toll road trip. He said that was the most likely explanation. Larry’s final messages to spellcasters Prosecutors in the case against Larry Millete submitted this photo intro evidence, saying it was created by Larry in late 2020 as he tried to cast spells to make his wife fall back in love with him. The prosecution also finished presenting evidence of the communications between Larry and multiple spellcasters. During previous days of testimony, the jury had heard about Larry’s payments for spells to save his failing marriage by making Maya fall in love with him again. During testimony, Rhoades read several dozen more messages to the jury, capturing a desperate tone from Larry to make the spells work. Between January 5 and January 7, messages were read where Larry said Maya told him she was adamant she would divorce him. Those messages included phrases like, “I’m shaking inside ready to snap…” and “Make her miserable without me. Make her want to sleep on the same bed for all eternity.” Rhoades said the messages changed significantly after Maya disappeared. On January 9, a message from Larry read, “Can you remove or stop hexing my wife May[?]. Instead hex Jamey Laird.” That’s the name of the co-worker that Maya had a year-long affair with. Rhoades said the messages that followed only directed hexes at Jamey. At the end of the day, Peter Villaver with the district attorney’s office retook the stand to continue testimony about cell phone tracking of the Millete family. That’s centered on the family’s trips to the east, through the area prosecutors believe Larry dumped Maya’s body. The prosecution is expected to call one final witness tomorrow named Justin Bostic. He’s also an investigator with the district attorney’s office. After that, the prosecution will rest and it will be the defense’s turn to call witnesses. ...read more read less