On the sixth day of the preliminary hearing, Maya Millete’s brother Jaypie Tabalanza resumed his testimony on the stand. Deputy District Attorney Christy Bowles only needed a few minutes to continue her questioning from the previous day. Bowles asked him about the last time he saw and communicated with Maya.
The cross-examination that followed, which was conducted by Larry Millete’s defense attorney, Bonita Martinez, was loaded with objections from both Bowles and Judge Dwayne Moring. The judge repeatedly sustained objections over the relevance of questions, due to the fact they were vague, and if they contained more than one question. But perhaps the most common sustained object was over court procedure. Bonita was only allowed to question witnesses based on their previous testimony, and the judge told her again and again that she was going beyond the scope of cross-examination.
Other members of Maya’s family could be heard sighing in frustration and disbelief as her questions were disallowed again and again. Judge Moring warned Martinez to “move on,” “stop combining questions,” “wrap it up,” and at one point told her to “calm down” after she appeared to raise her voice at Tabalanza in frustration.
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Judge Moring also corrected many of the objections from Bowles, saying she was citing the wrong objection to defense questions.
Many of the defense's questions centered on exactly what Tabalanza did or said after he said Larry told him that he wanted to find someone to “get that guy.” The defense referred to that person as a hitman. Other questions were about what Tabalanza knew about an alleged affair between Maya and a subordinate coworker. The judge shot down those questions, saying any answer would be speculation on the witness’s part. The judge even made a point to say that the affair is not a proven fact and nothing has been entered into evidence that would make it so.
Maya’s former supervisor at NIWC was next to testify. Brian Mansfield told the court he met Maya in June of 2021 after she applied for a position in his unit, which was a transfer from SWRMC. He said the move was technically a downgrade in rank for her, but would increase her pay. He said he was happy to have her on his team and said she was a good worker who had the ambition to return to a supervisor role in the future.
He said her work performance changed in November of 2020. Mansfield said she began to have delays finishing work contracts. He said he had a meeting with her to discuss it, and she told him she was going through a separation from her husband and it was a difficult emotional time.
“She seemed to be somebody who cared deeply about her job and wanted to do well,” Mansfield said.
Following Mansfield’s testimony, the Deputy District Attorney called one of her own investigators to the stand. For this case, Justin Bostic conducted an extensive search for online media coverage, social media posts, and more about Maya Millete’s disappearance. More than a dozen exhibits were presented from both local and national television stations which told the public about the case. Bostic said he compiled a list of over 150,000 online posts about the case.
Some of the most emotional testimony of the day came from the final witness, Maya’s close friend and coworker, Kristeen Timmons. She met Maya in 2008. Their work relationship was mostly professional for a while, but became much closer in the years that followed until she became a close confidant. Timmons went into detail about the declining state of Maya and Larry’s marriage and his behavior over 2020. She said Maya told her he was always very controlling about their relationship, but it really impacted Maya in 2020.
“She was emotionally confined," Timmons said. “Just kind of smothered and controlled. He was being controlling. And she never really had shared that much with me.”
Timmons said Maya told her that Larry demanded to have all the logins and passwords to Maya’s social media accounts and demanded to track her phone. She also said Maya told her he had taken complete control of her finances, despite making less money than she did.
During testimony, Timmons was asked to read text messages and Facebook messenger messages aloud. She told the court that Maya said she felt like she was being emotionally blackmailed by Larry. She said at one point he threatened suicide if she left him.
Timmons said the stress of the declining relationship also seemed to impact Maya’s health. One message from Maya discussed how she felt during a time period in 2020 when she separated from Larry. It read, “I’m doing much better. I can sleep now. I’m gaining weight back. I can eat.”
In August of 2020, Timmons said she received a phone call from Maya who was crying and upset. She told her she locked herself in a room to get away from Larry. Timmons said she could hear Larry calling through the door for her to come out. She also said she heard the family’s children calling out for their Mom, but believed that Larry was manipulating them to do it.
Timmons also talked about a social media post Maya made that showed an image of a door with damage to it. She said Maya said it was a mistaken post, but she believes something different now.
“Until now, all us girlfriends don’t know if that was a cry for help,” Timmons said.
Later in 2020, Timmons said Maya told her she was starting to put aside money, hiding it from Larry so she could pay for an attorney to get a divorce. She said Maya told her Larry had changed the code on the safe and she no longer had access to family investments. She also said Maya told her she was mad at Larry for taking investments made for the children, and instead shifted the money toward bitcoin and cryptocurrency.
Dozens of objections were lodged during the defense’s cross-examination of Timmons. Many of those were again based on the relevance of the questions or whether they were outside the scope of the cross-examination. At one point, the judge even took time to instruct the defense on how to properly lay the foundation to show evidence to a witness to refresh their recollection of a previous conversation they had.
The preliminary examination continues Friday and will likely run through early next week. Once it’s concluded, the judge will decide if there’s enough evidence to move forward with a trial.
