Defense Strategy and Closing Arguments

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Sure. Once upon a time, a mom needed a new car. Was she brave? She was tired, mostly. But she went to carvana dot com and found a great car at a great price. No secret treasure map required. Did you have to find a dragon? Nope, She bought it one hundred percent online, from her bed actually. Was it scary? Honey, it was as unscary as carbine could be. Does a car have a sunroof? It did actually. Okay story. Car buying you'll want to tell stories about. Buy your car today on carana. Delivery fees may apply an online spellcaster a secret Instagram account and a trail of digital evidence that offers new insight into Maya Miliete's life She's not been seen since january twenty twenty one, and her husband Larry is now on trial for her murder in Chulav Vista, California He pleaded not guilty to killing Maya Welcome to forty eight Hours Case byy Case. I'm CBS newews legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Caroline Polici The Larry Milette murder trial is now in its seventh week the prosecution has rested its case The defense did the same one day later Since forty eight hours last checked in on this case, jurors heard from key witnesses, like one of those spell casters Larry Miliet emailed, as well as the man that Maya Miliete had been seeing romantically. question that needs to be answered in court. What happened to the thirty nine year old mother of three, Mayamilete, after she disappeared from her Chula Vista home in january twenty twenty one Her body has never been found Join me today is forty eight Hours Consultant Herman Weisberg, a private investigator and managing director of Sage Intelligence Group. whereere among many responsibilities, he oversees investigations in litigation. erman It's so exciting to have you here. In fact, our paths have crossed way back when when I was a criminal defense attorney. Well first of all, thanks for having me. It's great to see you again and be working with you again, Carolyn Before forming Sage, I spent twenty years in the NYPD as a detective My last ten, I was lucky enough to work In the Manhattan District attttorney's office, I led criminal and financial investigations Yeah, as I as I told our producers, you're the real deal. So we're lucky to have you today Before we get into the latest details, a reminder that we've covered the trial in two previous episodes if you want that earlier background, check out our case by case podcast feed and forty eight hours YouTube channel Mr. Herman, what makes this case so interesting to you Mly the challenge, this is very pretty rare to have a no body case, as they say You know, it's hard enough to prosecute a murder, but this has significant challenges. you know, starting with there's no cause of death, for example I mean, no body cases are notoriously difficult, right for prosecutors to handle. So in our last episode on this case, there was a lot of discussion of Jamie Laird, the man who's admitted to having an affair with Maya at the time of her disappearance Jurs not only heard from Laird, but also his ex wife, Patricia, whose testimony we'll get into in a little bit, but let's break down JB Laird's time on the stand Hermann. Jamie's testimony gave jurors a much more intimate look at Maya's life in the months before she disappeared Jamie testified that he met Maya while they were working together as civilian employees supporting the Navy. He said what started as a friendship eventually turned romantic, even though both were married. He said, Maya confided him about problems in her marriage. He testified that she described Larry as controlling that she wasn't even allowed to drive to work alone and She shared concerns that he was tracking her movements. He also told jurors that She was making plans for a future outside the marriage On the stand, Jamie even shared that Maya's cod nameame for Larry was V in their secret communications, which he says was in reference to the evil wizard Voldemort from Harry Potter I had to look that up. I never read or saw Harry Potter movies. But in looking it up, it was interesting though, he was noted as You know who was one way to describe Voldemore or man who shall not be named or the name that shall not be mentioned or something. So that's a pretty I or codeen name they came up with there. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, by all accounts, the prosecution's witnesses testimonies allege that he was only growing more and more controlling in the months leading up to her disappearance. Jamie's testimony was really significant because jurors finally heard directly from someone who perhaps had a little more insight into Maya's private life than anyone really Another detail that really stood out was where Jamie was when Maya was last seen alive He testified that he was at a hospital while his wife was giving birth to their child So the judge said neither the prosecution nor the defense could dig into this, noting Laird could not be treated as a potential suspect, given no direct evidence tying him to her alleged murder. Jurors also heard that Jamie wasn't initially truthful with investigators about the affair. Herman, can you talk about some of the cross examination? Yeah We saw the defense pointed out Jamie's initial lies to his wife, his bosses, and the multiple law enforcement agencies Jamie acknowledged he lied because he was afraid of the consequences for his marriage. And he didn't want their affair to coming out And that's a common fact pattern we see sometimes in cases like this. Herman, as a former detective, how do investigators and ultimately jurors evaluate a witness who admits they weren't truthful at first? And how often do you come across witnesses like this who initially lie In my experience, that's not unusual at all for witnesses to withhold embarrassing or deeply personal information when they're first interviewed you know, as investigators, we don't automatically dismiss somebody just because they were they weren't forthcoming initially. You know, there's a process to this The next question becomes once they begin cooperating, is their account corroborated by other evidence? It can certainly be a barrier in a trial for a jury to get around U, and defense counsel may try to poke holes and prosecutors may try to use that to villainize. in the Yeah. And as we often say as defense attorneys, you know, you can't choose your facts and you can't choose your witnesses. So you just you know use what you've got and hope that the jury chooses your side So prosecutors had already established the affair through Jamie's testimony, but they called Patricia Laird, Jamie's ex wife, as a witness, a few days after his testimony What did Patricia's testimony add? Well, Patricia corroborated parts of Jamie's testimony, including that he was at the hospital with Patricia as she gave birth when Maya went missing Patricia added another twist to this case. After Larry learned about Maya's affair, but before she went missing, Patricia testified she started getting repeated phone calls from Larry. Yeah. what do we know about those calls Well, she said Larry first contacted her at work, identifying himself as somebody from the Naval hospital, which initially of course made Patricia think something had happened to Jamie From an investigative standpoint, testimony like that helps establish another piece of the timeline and Larry's reaction after discovering their relationship Interestingly According to reports of the defense cross examination of Patricia Laird, they asked about Larry's demeanor during the calls and if he was threatening She noted that he was polite, never menacing, and would repeatedly apologize for disturbing her Yeah, but still, Patricia noted the frequency of his calls, which the prosecution may want to show sort of as a window into his state of mind. And notably, she also noted that the calls from Larry ceased after Maya went missing Overall, Pricious's testimony wasn't really about proving the affair. It seemed to be more about helping jurors understand how Larry reacted once he believed Maya was involved with someone else Patricia said that Larry told her Jamie was cheating on her with his wife and that by early twenty twenty, it felt like he was calling her weekly, so much so that she actually blocked his number. But Larry would actually find other numbers to reach her. And on the stand, according to our San Diego station, she listed phone numbers linked with Larry that included his children's cell phones and even the phone number of his a Y this testimony definitely suggests a pattern of behavior portraying him not as a guy who takes hints very well. I've seen it in other cases where it could be seen as really Harassment calling like this Summer always sneaks up on me. One week it's still spring, and then the next, my calendar is filling up with travel plans and packed weekends. With everything going on, it can be harder to prioritize wellness habits. 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In Jamie's testimony on their correspondence within the Instagram account, he said always working together to cover up the affair. There was no topic off limits Yeah, this is very important information here. It's contemporaneous, it's unfiltered. And investigators can use this to compare against texts, phone records and witness testimony Here, the prosecution wasn't just asking jurors to believe what Jamie said Maya told him, but they were also pointing jurors to Maya's own words, including screenshots of text conversations with Larry that she'd screenshot into her private Instagram DMs, like this one from august twenty twenty, where Maya said to Larry, quote, I can't wait to get away from this toxicity that you create And investigator Grinley also shared contents of Maya's emails that They obtained that through a search warrant where she also she was writing herself almost like a journal like messages where she described her plans for the future without Larry pllans that included graduate school, and they also found that she had been making appointments with a divorce attorney For the prosecutors, this painted a consistent picture of where Maya believed her life was headed. Yeah. Prosecutors questioned Courtney Nixon, one of Maya's closest friends from work, who described hearing Maya in their Facebook messages become increasingly anxious over the impact on their children of leaving Larry Courtney testified that Larry went onto Maya's Facebook, found those messages between them, and then blocked Courtney's ability to communicate with Maya on Facebook We know this was early twenty twenty t the height of the pandemic, people were really relying on social media back then as like a lifeline to their friends and family Courtney and M eventually got around this moving their conversation to Instagram. Larry somehow also accessed Maya's account there according to the prosecution, and messaged Courtney on Instagram, urging her to speak in his favor Yeah. you know, and again, like this testimony just Just to me this increasingly escalating behavior, this controlling behavior. And then of course, Herman, there was the spellcaster that Larry had been emailing, perhaps what this case is most well known for, because it just seems so unbelievable. How often have you come across spellcasters in your work, Herman I remember I took the homicide course in the NYPD and there was a couple of hours dedicated to theccult and it was called occult training Wow, I certainly have never come across it in any of my work. But you it's one of the things about this case that is so sort of eye popping and catching for really everybody So we heard from Frank Peve, and while much of the media has referred to him as a spell caster. On the stand, he described his work as spiritual assistance. prorosecutors say Larry sought him out online in October of twenty twenty in the hopes of repairing the relationship with Maya Herm and what else did we learn So interesting Jurors heard that Larry Miliete sent PV a flood of messages. There were days when he was sending moreore than two dozen brief messages in quick succession PveV described Larry as When he use just the exact words Manic and obsessive And eventually TV blocked Larry because of the volume of communication. Yeah. So you're seeing a you know definitely a recurring theme here. Yeah, sounds familiar. Obviously, you can't help but draw those parallels to Patricia Laird's testimony where she described blocking those calls from Larry as they escalated. It is important to note that in the defense's cross examination of PV, he acknowledged that Larry Milatee had never asked for Maya to be killed or have her vanish That's right Because this is a no body case These little behavioral details hold a lot of weight. They help the jury understand the relationship between this couple. and also to reconstruct events Investigators begin looking at every piece of physical, digital forensic evidence that they can gather to either support or challenge their theory of what happened Yeahes. And one recurring theme we've seen throughout this trial has been Maya's phone. Investigators testified that they never recovered it, but they spent years trying to reconstruct her movements through the digital evidence that she left behind Herman, how significant is a missing phone in a homicide investigation Oh, it's that's huge. I mean, a phone tell investigators an incredible amount of what's going on in our lives and When a phone can't be recovered, investigators have to work backwards, they have to like reverse engineer other digital evidence, phone records, surveillance, and witness testimony to try to fill in these gaps.. Eactly And just this week, a cell phone record specialist took the stand to present a timeline of Maya's last phone activity It turns out that on the night she disappeared, he testified that she texted her family about a trailer and a motorcycle before all communications suddenly ceased at one twenty five AM The data specialist timeline also revealed Larry's phone activity on the day Maya disappeared, including the twelve hours that he was unreachable. Yeah. And digital evidence wasn't the only way prosecutors tried to reconstruct Maya's final days This week, jurors also heard testimony about the family's Lexus SUV as prosecutors work to reconstruct what happened the day after Maya disappeared. A district attorneys's investigator testified that by analyzing the SUV's service history, odometer readings, and cell phone records, he identified approximately four hundred forty four miles of travel that couldn't be fully accounted for His analysis led him to focus on a remote area near the California Arizona border, which is an area that the Miliete family had visited before. He testified, investigators searched that region three different times for Maya, but never found her body Sturs also heard that the search vehicles were turned with scratches after driving through that rugged terrain Testimony that really echoed earlier evidence that Larry asked a neighbor to repair scratches on his Lexus a couple days after Maya disappeared. Cars can become almost as important as phones in a case like this By itself, the mileage really doesn't prove anything, but when you combine it with digital evidence, witness testimony and timelines, it can help investigators pward or eliminate possible scenarios, I think Jurors also heard prosecutors introduce border crossing records and passport evidence. A border patrol officer testified that Maya's passport had expired in November of twenty twenty and was never renewed. In fact, there's no record of her leaving the country since twenty nineteen. So this really challenges the idea that Maya abandoned her family to live elsewhere or went off the grid out of the US Yeah, that's pretty much a standard part of a missing person's investigation. Detectives really don't begin with a conclusion.