The Au Pair, the Affair and Murder

Summary

20/20: "The Au Pair, the Affair and Murder"

Podcast Summary
Date: February 21, 2026
Host: Deborah Roberts, ABC News
Episode Theme:
A gripping true crime exposé, this episode investigates the shocking double murder of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan in suburban Virginia—a case that rocked the community and unraveled secrets of infidelity, hidden online lives, and a chilling murder plot involving the family's au pair.

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Main Theme & Purpose

The episode unravels the complex, real-life murder mystery where what appeared to be a tragic home invasion was ultimately revealed to be a calculated scheme involving betrayal, secret affairs, and the manipulation of kink culture websites. Listeners are taken deep into the investigation, the backgrounds of those involved, the emotional aftermath, and the high-stakes courtroom drama.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Crime Unfolds (00:10–08:51)

• Scene Setting:

  • A young family—the Banfields—hires Juliana Perez Magales, a 20-year-old Brazilian au pair, to help care for their daughter.
  • On Feb 24, 2023, Christine Banfield is found dead, and a man, Joseph Ryan, is shot and killed.

• Immediate Aftermath:

  • Juliana's distressing 911 call introduces the chaos ("Everything happened too fast." – Juliana, 04:19).
  • Brendan Banfield, Christine’s husband and a federal law enforcement officer, claims to have shot an intruder who was attacking his wife (02:15).

• Police Response:

  • Detectives on the scene are confronted with a chaotic, bloody situation.
  • Early reports suggest a violent home invasion.

2. Victims and Personalities (12:11–18:51)

• Christine Banfield:

  • Described as a resilient, caring ICU nurse and cherished friend ("She was the kindest person that I met in the US." – Former patient, 15:12).
  • Deeply dedicated to her family: "She would describe her life as perfect, and she used that word, perfect." (18:45)

• Brendan Banfield:

  • Presented as reserved, with a seemingly devoted family life.
  • Well-liked in his community and amongst friends for his integrity.

3. The Intruder’s Identity and Hidden Lives (19:09–24:39)

• The Victim, Joseph Ryan:

  • Initially no connection to the Banfields is found, but investigating digital communications uncovers links.

• Digital Forensics and Secret Communications:

  • Police discover extensive communication between Christine and Joseph on a fetish website, FetLife, and via Telegram.
  • Evidence of a planned BDSM roleplay encounter emerges ("I probably will be a bit panicked. I think that is part of the fun of it." – "Anastasia"/Christine, 24:39).

• Close Friends and Family React:

  • Christine's friends adamantly reject that she would engage in risky or clandestine affairs, especially with violent overtones.

4. Suspicion Casts Wider Nets (32:32–41:42)

• Brendan’s Past Exposed:

  • Detectives find evidence of prior infidelity:
    • "He would just tell me about negative things... I realize now it was like a carefully curated viewpoint, like, for my benefit." – "Jennifer," Brendan's former affair partner, 35:51

• Affair with Juliana Uncovered:

  • Photos and social media posts confirm Brendan and Juliana's romantic involvement (41:42).
  • Trip to New York and other shared activities suggest the relationship was ongoing and deep.

5. The Plot Revealed: Motive, Method, and the Turning Point (42:33–47:00)

• A New Theory Emerges:

  • Investigators posit Brendan and Juliana conspired to murder Christine, using the FetLife ruse to lure Joseph Ryan as a patsy.
  • Juliana is arrested and later confesses to firing the fatal shot at Joseph under Brendan’s direction.

• Staging and Manipulation:

  • Evidence is staged to frame Joseph as the intruder and attacker.

6. Behind the Evidence: Trials and Testimonies (56:05–83:51)

• Juliana Flips:

  • Offered a plea deal for her testimony, she details Brendan's murderous plan and their use of Christine’s laptop and digital identity for the ruse:
    • "He basically told me... I don't want Christine in our lives." (56:38)
    • Brendan viewed killing Christine as "easier" than divorce, fearing loss of custody and financial impact.

• Juliana’s Testimony:

  • She recounts executing the plan, including staging the scene and the events leading to both Christine’s and Joseph’s deaths.

• Brendan’s Defense:

  • Takes the stand, admits to prior affairs, denies conspiracy, claims to have interrupted a sexual encounter gone wrong.
  • His defense challenges the possibility of anyone using Christine’s devices without her knowledge.

• Forensic Disputes and Internal Police Division:

  • Forensic experts offer differing views on the digital evidence; one expert is even reassigned for dissenting with the prosecution's theory.

7. The Verdict & Aftermath (83:32–86:29)

• The Verdict:
  • Jury convicts Brendan Banfield on all counts ("Find the defendant guilty of aggravated murder of Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield." – 83:40)
• Juliana:
  • Receives a ten-year sentence after plea deal, with likely deportation.
• Victims Remembered:
  • Family and friends emphasize Christine’s loving, vibrant qualities and the pain of her loss:
    • "She loved her family deeply and was devoted to her marriage... The lies told about her after her murder were just as painful as her death." – Christine's family statement (85:09)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Christine:

  • "[Christine] was one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever known. She always thought about someone else before herself." (15:51)
  • "Her daughter was her absolute world. Her daughter’s the reason that she lived every day." (86:15)

• On Brendan and Juliana:

  • “On the nightstand next to the bed was a photograph of Brendan Banfield and Juliana in a romantic kind of embrace…Juliana had effectively replaced Christine.” (45:09)

• On the Catfish Plot:

  • "Police and the prosecution believe that Brendan created or used a FetLife account posing as Christine…in order to lure an unsuspecting sexual partner." (50:37)
  • "Brendan goes upstairs first, followed shortly by Juliana, where they open the door of the primary bedroom and Brendan shoots Joseph Ryan, then takes a knife...and he begins to stab Christine." (52:10)

• Courtroom Drama:

  • “She was extremely nervous, but she wanted to tell the truth...” – On Juliana’s testimony (66:54)
  • “Brendan Banfield killed his wife and another man...He convinced young Juliana that they should get rid of Christine. They would use Christine’s email accounts to create a fake profile...” (63:27)

• On Justice and Memory:

  • “Christine suffered a violent, horrific, senseless death. The lies told about her after her murder were just as painful as her death.” (85:09)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:10–04:45: The discovery—911 call, first police response, chaos at the crime scene.
• 12:11–18:51: Who was Christine? Moving recollections from friends and colleagues.
• 23:33–24:39: Discovery of digital communications and the fetish roleplay ruse.
• 41:42–42:25: The affair between Brendan and Juliana comes to light.
• 43:06–44:09: Juliana admits to shooting Joseph at Brendan’s direction.
• 56:13–59:38: Juliana’s plea, confession, and details of the murder plot.
• 66:54–72:02: Juliana testifies about the events of the day.
• 76:31–81:41: Brendan’s testimony—his alternative account and the prosecution’s challenge.
• 83:32–83:51: Verdicts read aloud in court.
• 85:09–86:29: Families’ final words and reflections on Christine’s legacy.

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Flow and Tone

With careful, empathetic reporting, the episode combines methodical investigation, emotional interviews, and dramatic courtroom moments. Real voices from the case—detectives, family, and both those accused—bring a raw, unvarnished authenticity to every revelation.

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For Listeners:
This episode provides an insightful, nuanced exploration of a real-life tragedy, highlighting the importance of rigorous investigation, the complexity of human relationships, and the long-lasting impact of violence on families and communities. The story’s twists—of hidden affairs, online deception, and ultimately homicide—build to a tense courtroom climax, delivering both answers and further emotional resonance.

Transcript

[Deborah Roberts]

This is a story that begins in a quiet cul de sac where a young family invites somebody new into their lives. And what would eventually happen there would captivate the country for nearly three years.

[Reporter/Journalist]

In 2021, Juliana Perez Magales came from Brazil to Virginia to work for Christine and Brendan Banf. She was to be their au pair.

[Detective/Investigator]

An au pair is typically a person who comes from a different country who joins a family and helps out. It's like a live in nanny.

[Deborah Roberts]

At the time, Christine and Brendan Banfield had a three year old daughter. And like a lot of couples, they had demanding jobs and they needed somebody to help look after their daughter.

[Detective/Investigator]

A year and four months after Juliana joins the Banfield family, a tragedy hits the family.

[Reporter/Journalist]

On February 24, 2023, the Family Life that Juliana Magules was sharing with the Banfields was completely shattered. It was turned upside down.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

911, where's your emergency? I need help. My friend, she just attacked him. Like now. She's bleeding. Hel. I don't know what to do anymore. Okay, where are you located? What's your address? Take a deep breath for me. Just let me know your address.

[Detective/Investigator]

The Banfield's old pair. Juliana is the one who calls 911. There's a woman on the phone and she's difficult to understand. She's not able to get out the address or really the nature of the emergency.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Is there somebody else there that can

[Reporter/Journalist]

give her the address?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Stable Brook Way. Okay, and what's your name and what's going on? My name is. My name is Brendan Banfield.

[Detective/Investigator]

I'm a. I'm a. I'm a federal agent. This is my house. There's somebody.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There's somebody here.

[Detective/Investigator]

I. I shot. I shot him. But he stabbed her. Brenda described in his 911 call that he in fact interrupted a man attacking his wife in the primary bedroom of their home.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan tells them that he shot the attacker to protect his wife.

[Detective/Investigator]

She's bleeding. She's got several.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Several marks on her neck. She's.

[Detective/Investigator]

She's not responding.

[Deborah Roberts]

She's still.

[Reporter/Journalist]

She's heart's still beating.

[Detective/Investigator]

She's breathing.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You said she's breathing normally, she's just not responding to you.

[Detective/Investigator]

She's got a very big hole in her neck.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Okay. Yeah, they're on the way. And you say you don't know the individual that was shot? Okay. I have officers that are pulling up outside. Okay.

[Detective/Investigator]

Myself and all the other detectives on my squad that were available responded out to the scene.

[Reporter/Journalist]

When police arrive at the Banfield home and go up to the master bedroom. They enter a chaotic scene.

[Detective/Investigator]

Police go up the stairs. Then they're on the staircase, they see Juliana. The primary bedroom. Juliana comes outside the bedroom, speaks to an officer. And she tells the officer, the four year old girl is in the basement.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

My host kid is downstairs.

[Detective/Investigator]

Okay. How old is your host kid?

[Deborah Roberts]

She's four and a half.

[Detective/Investigator]

Four and a half.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Where is she?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I need to talk to her. She doesn't know anything.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Can we get her and we'll go outside.

[Detective/Investigator]

So the police officer and Juliana together go down into the basement. You can see a little four year old girl.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Hey, I'm Officer Bell.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Nice to meet you. Do you want to go outside with us?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

We need to go outside. Okay. You see Juliana, at the behest of police, take the daughter out of the house.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Do you just want to tell me quickly what happened?

[Detective/Investigator]

I don't really know what happened.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Everything happened too fast.

[Detective/Investigator]

The police officer tells the four year old girl. Why don't you go with that officer?

[Reporter/Journalist]

Can you go with Officer Batani really quick? He has some stickers for you.

[Detective/Investigator]

Time. Juliana starts making some statements to the officer about what happened.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I was going to take her to this room this morning, and then I forgot the lunch. We were going to pay.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Juliana basically explains what happened that morning. How Brendan left for work. Christine is home that day. She, Juliana is taking the little girl to the zoo for the day. She had forgot their lunches. She came back, she saw a strange car in the driveway. A man got out of it and he walked through the door of the house. Do you know who the person is?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I have no idea. She calls Christine Banfield, who does not answer her phone. Then she calls Brendan Banfield, alerts him to what is happening. I called Brendan. It's her husband. He's up there. I call him. I see his French car, but I don't know who is that? Who's coming here? I'm scared.

[Detective/Investigator]

Brendan was at a nearby McDonald's and then he came back to the home.

[Reporter/Journalist]

He comes home, the three of them go into the back of the house, left the little girl in the basement and went upstairs.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana explains that she and Brendan saw this man holding a knife at Christine, threatening to kill her.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Brendan was saying, police, Drop.

[Deborah Roberts]

Drop the knife.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Drop the knife. I'm sorry.

[Reporter/Journalist]

No, no, no.

[Detective/Investigator]

You're doing really well.

[Deborah Roberts]

And he was. I'm gonna kill her.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I'm gonna kill her. And I don't know, he started stabbing her. Brendan. I think Brendan shot him.

[Detective/Investigator]

You can see she's shaken up. She's not speaking complete sentences.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It's okay.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You see Juliana hyperventilating, flustered, just seemingly very distraught. Okay, take a breath. It's okay.

[Detective/Investigator]

Take a minute.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Okay.

[Reporter/Journalist]

We need some water.

[Deborah Roberts]

Outside the house, Juliana is talking to police. And Brendan is upstairs with the police in the bedroom where all this happened.

[Detective/Investigator]

Brendan Bamfield is escorted out of the house. He was complaining of an injury or pain to his leg while he was being transported. Brendan asked about his wife Christine. Is there a way to get an update?

[Reporter/Journalist]

We see him put into an ambulance. We see officers talking to him.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Where did all this blood come from?

[Detective/Investigator]

You know, I was holding her neck. Can I be with her? They're gonna work on her when they get there. You wouldn't be able to see her immediately anyway. I want to be with her. Okay. He was eventually transported to a hospital. There's a doctor that comes in at one point when Brendan is at the hospital.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You have one of the doctors here. Your wife's his dog. Sounds like there was a lot of blood loss.

[Detective/Investigator]

Yes.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

So I think that she died of blood loss.

[Detective/Investigator]

I was starting to apply pressure.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yeah. I mean, those were enormous wounds. And, you know, it's not.

[Detective/Investigator]

There are so many.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yes. And the neck is not compressible, so it's not possible, really, to stop all the blood loss. Everything that was possible to be done was done from her right away. You did a wonderful. You know, you did everything that was possible. It's not a survivable injury. You want to wash your hands?

[Detective/Investigator]

As Brandon is struggling with the idea that he has lost his wife, a patient advocate joins him, and you can hear him praying

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

to come.

[Reporter/Journalist]

While Brendan's at the hospital, the house is being processed as a crime scene.

[Detective/Investigator]

Police Chief Kevin Davis of Fairfax county came out and spoke to reporters. We have two adults who have been killed. One was shot and killed, and the other was stabbed and killed.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The wife of the household was killed. A man unrelated to the household was shot. It's unclear their relationship.

[Detective/Investigator]

We're just trying to work out the details, the sequence of these violent acts.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Police need to figure out who is this man who Brendan Banfield says he came upon in the master bedroom of his house, attacking his wife.

[Detective/Investigator]

We don't know a lot of things just yet, and we're working really hard to find them out.

[Deborah Roberts]

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[Detective/Investigator]

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[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

area where the Banfields live was an upper middle class suburban neighborhood. Roughly million dollar homes, a lot of families around.

[Detective/Investigator]

I know that community to be very quiet, very safe, tree lined streets, cul de sac, a lot of kids. We enjoy a very low violent crime rate. So murders don't happen very often in Fairfax County. In the hours after this tragic incident, law enforcement does reveal the name of that mystery man found inside the home. Joseph Ryan, the male decedent who was found dead inside the home, shot to death. Joseph Nathan Ryan. He's 39 years old. the beginning of the investigation, we didn't know much at all about Joe Ryan. We know that he lives locally. He doesn't have any apparent connections to the Banfields. We have to sort out the exact nature of Mr. Ryan's presence inside the home.

[Deborah Roberts]

I sat down with three of the nurses who had worked with Christine over the years. They were bonded in this pediatric ICU unit. They couldn't believe this had happened to their friends.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I heard from a co worker, she was like, hey, I just heard that Christine's dead. And I was like, what are you talking about?

[Deborah Roberts]

And you hear that she's stabbed in her own home. What do you make of this?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I was just like in absolute disbelief at that time. She's such a genuine, caring person. So for something that brutal to happen to her, it just didn't make sense.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Christine and Brendan Banfield had been together for almost two decades, starting in college. They had moved from Long Island, New York in 2019 to Virginia.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She had left her job. She was working as a sexual assault nurse examiner. So she left that position and she came down and she was excited to work in the picu.

[Deborah Roberts]

And being in pediatric icu, I mean, that's got to be very hard.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You have to be strong, emotionally strong, and you have to really love what you do. She definitely was extremely resilient, very smart, very kind.

[Deborah Roberts]

In fact, I heard her described as

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

a mother hen, 100% when I first met her. She's like, hi, I'm Christine. People know me as the mother hen. And I was like, what? She was like, I just take everybody in underneath my wings and make sure everybody feels welcomed and loved and cared for. When Covid first happened, without knowing the risks of what was going on, she took it upon herself to volunteer. She offered to go over to the adult side and work with some of their COVID positive patients. There's a patient she had during COVID who was in a coma for a very long time.

[Detective/Investigator]

I was five weeks in coma when

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I was in coma.

[Detective/Investigator]

One day I just wake up. When I opened my eyes, I saw a nurse that was taking care of

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

me and she's like, how can I help you?

[Detective/Investigator]

She was advocating for me and doing everything. She was shaving me, she was cleaning me. I think as a nurse, she was an angel. It was the best person that God gave me in this moment just to come back to life. After I got out of the hospital, I asked her like, hey, can we have a. It was amazing just to see her. I invite her to my house with her husband and her daughter. She went to my birthday with her family. She was the kindest person that I met in the US

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

As a friend and as a nurse. She was one of the most compassionate people I've ever known. She always thought about someone else before she thought about herself. I am Christine's best friend from childhood. We've been friends for over 40 years. As kids, we lived two houses down, so we were always together. Every birthday we spent together. Our first holy communions, our confirmations, proms, sweet 16s, I mean, you name it, at every stage of life that she was there for. Christine could be a spitfire. She was fun, she was funny, and she liked to have a good time. Then as we got a little older, we got obsessed with the backstreet boys, and we would stay up all night learning the everybody dance and things like that. Everybody else run up your body, right? I remember when she came back from college, she was one of my first friends to get married and going through all of that and their first house together.

[Deborah Roberts]

Christine and Brendan, by all appearances, have a lot in common. They like hiking and traveling and looking after their two dogs, huskies.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Her baby shower was exactly eight years ago. And I just. The laughing and being so excited for her to become a mom. It was a beautiful day.

[Deborah Roberts]

Did you get a sense of what kind of a mom she was?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The best mom ever. She just loved her so much. She always would show us pictures that her daughter had drawn or what outfit she had picked out for the day and had taken pictures and would share it with everybody there.

[Deborah Roberts]

How much did you know about Brendan?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She Just talked very highly of him all the time. I mean, she was very proud that he worked for the government and the life that they had built and created. She was definitely more of an extrovert, and I think he was more of a. An introvert. Brendan came off shy and into, like, gaming and things like that.

[Deborah Roberts]

I had an opportunity to meet one of Brendan's friends, Brian Jarrett. They met on a gaming site. They were both avid gamers. Later, they actually met each other in person, and their friendship continued. They participated in these tough mudder races together. He thought a lot of Brendan.

[Detective/Investigator]

He's one of those people that seemed like, oh, he always liked, had it all figured out. Seemed like. Had, like, you know, a life that a lot of people would be envious of. He always presented himself as somebody of very high integrity. He was always really good at analyzing the situation and finding, like, maybe the most efficient way to approach it. I was over at their house a good bit. Seemed like he really cared about his family, and that was what was most important to him in his life. It seems to seem to have it all.

[Deborah Roberts]

Was she pleased with where their lives were going?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I would say so. I mean, she would describe her life as perfect, and she used that word, perfect.

[Deborah Roberts]

She posted one time, all of my heart fit into one picture. Did that seem to describe the way she felt about her home life?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yeah, everything was perfect.

[Deborah Roberts]

They couldn't believe that the person they knew would wind up dead like this.

[Reporter/Journalist]

They're au pair saw this man walk through the front door of the house carrying a bag. It seemed pretty intentional. How did that happen?

[Detective/Investigator]

This question started to come up of, did Christine know this person?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

It comes out that Joe Ryan wasn't necessarily a stranger, that he had communications with a Christine Bamfield on this website.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It's like, what's going on here? Is she leading a secret life?

[Deborah Roberts]

This is the morning of the homicides, and Juliana, the au pair, is right there comforting Christine's daughter right after this horrible thing has happened in the house.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I don't know what to tell her.

[Detective/Investigator]

You don't have to tell her anything, okay? You just gave her a big hug.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Tell her she's okay. All right. Give her a big hug. Okay.

[Deborah Roberts]

Wow. Many people hire babysitters. Christine had an au pair. How does she decide to go that route? As opposed to the classic babysitter or nanny?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She saw having an au pair as an opportunity to invite somebody to our country to give them the opportunity they wouldn't have if they were not here.

[Deborah Roberts]

So she saw it as sort of giving to someone else 100%.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Christine saw her au pairs as family. The Banfields had an au pair prior to Juliana, and they seemed to really have loved that au pair.

[Deborah Roberts]

She'd even posted on social media about the first au pair she had. She posted my daughter and her best friend, her sister, her third parent, her, everything.

[Detective/Investigator]

We had an upair of our own for a year when my first son was six months old.

[Deborah Roberts]

Was that based on their advice?

[Detective/Investigator]

Based on their recommendation? She went ahead and sent me a lot of the questions and things that she was looking for with her au pair. And that's kind of used that as like a guideline.

[Deborah Roberts]

Then later, she gets another au pair.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Juliana, her initial au pair, had gotten married and she had talked openly about another person coming in from Brazil and was excited to have a new person.

[Deborah Roberts]

Before leaving Brazil, Juliana had studied nursing. She was a classic 20 year old. She loved experimenting with makeup, seemed to be checking out dating apps, and she was proud of her heritage. You can see in her bedroom there at the Banfield house, the Brazilian flag hanging up on her wall.

[Detective/Investigator]

Law enforcement is still investigating the scene, seeing what evidence is going to piece together to get a full understanding of what happened. Initially, Brendan and his daughter and his family, they were all placed in a hotel nearby while police were investigating the crime scene in the house. And I went ahead and visited them over there.

[Deborah Roberts]

How was Brendan reacting at that point? He's of kind. Killed somebody, his wife is dead.

[Detective/Investigator]

He seemed pretty sad and broken up about it. He was talking about, you know, like, oh, how we wouldn't be able to do any other future things that he and Christine had planned. I know. Even like one time I brought up how his daughter was gonna have a birthday party, and he's like, yeah, normally Christine would take care of that. I don't know what to do.

[Deborah Roberts]

Your heart must have broken for him.

[Detective/Investigator]

Yeah, it sounded terrible.

[Deborah Roberts]

What about Juliana? How was she?

[Detective/Investigator]

She was saying, like, oh, the police talked to me for like eight hours the previous day.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

When I saw Brendan for the first time at the funeral, I would describe him as a zombie. The only thing that he ever said to me at the wake was, how can somebody take her from us? Almost from the beginning, it seemed that police had questions that were not typical of their usual homicide cases.

[Detective/Investigator]

There was no forced entry whatsoever. This is not a home invasion. There was no broken windows. There was no busted indoors.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

If this was a stranger, why wasn't there forced entry?

[Reporter/Journalist]

When they examine the devices of Christine and Joseph Ryan, they see there's a lot of communication between them, it appears

[Deborah Roberts]

that Joe Ryan wasn't exactly an intruder. It looks like he and Christine might have been in contact before.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Joe Ryan had communications with a Christine Banfield on this website, a social media platform for people interested in sexual fetishes.

[Detective/Investigator]

Fetlife is an adult fetish website where people can go on it, set up an account, find people who are willing to carry out some kind of fantasy.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

It seemed that he had coordinated a meeting with a Christine Banfield that day for rough sex.

[Detective/Investigator]

Joseph Rhine. It's his understanding that he and Christine Banfield are going to fulfill some kind of rape fantasy that involves knives and restraints. We discovered a telegram message thread that was a continuation of the initial conversations that occurred through the FetLife site.

[Reporter/Journalist]

On Telegram, Christine's name was Anastasia. Anastasia says, I'm excited but nervous. On February 22nd. This is two days before the attack. Anastasia says, I can't wait for Friday. She says, I probably will be a bit panicked. I think that is part of the fun of it.

[Detective/Investigator]

Joseph sends a picture of all the equipment he intends to bring to their first encounter. The knife, the chain, the ropes.

[Reporter/Journalist]

On the day of, Joe says, 7:30 ETA traffic, exclamation point. To which Anastasia responds, okay, I'll be waiting for you. When you look at all these telegram communications, it makes you wonder if this was a sexual encounter that the two of them had arranged and it just went awry.

[Deborah Roberts]

Could she have had a side that you just didn't know about?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

That story wreaked from day one. I was like this, this doesn't add up. This isn't right. This is not Christine. All right. Guys, are we ready? My name is Deirdre Fisher. I am Joseph Nathan Ryan's mother. I would describe my son as somebody who was intelligent, caring, creative, somebody who embraced life. Very high spirited and playful. He did jujitsu and Mika martial arts and he also was an animal lover. He collected old ugly dogs, rescue dogs. And he loved them.

[Detective/Investigator]

Who's a spaz, are you?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He was talkative and friendly, he was caring and he was somebody who loved his family. And those are just some things about Joe that I want people to know. I first heard that something happened to my son a day and a half after he was murdered. I got a call on the phone. The lead detective told me Joe had been killed. And I remember, I do remember screaming, no, no, no. I remember it. And I just continued to scream for a while. I am the best friend of Joseph Ryan's mother. And I knew Joe most of his life, knew him well. He was like a nephew to me. We knew Joe wasn't capable of the heinous things Brendan had told them and that what Juliana had told them. Joe was one of the least violent people I've ever known. This is a picture of me and Joe together. This is a picture I took of Joe right after he got this haircut. This was his favorite haircut of all time, and he's showing it off. I would describe Joe's personality as somewhere in between an extrovert and an introvert. He had moments of really sort of an entertaining personality. The rest of the time, Joe was sometimes quiet and like, he did things like the Appalachian Trail by himself, weeks in the woods, climbing mountains. He was a very unconventional person, and

[Reporter/Journalist]

I admired that about him.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Even as a kid. He knew who he was. He didn't care much about what the rest of the world thought. Joe was kind of counterculture in some ways. He was not driven financially in any way. So he spent his life doing all kinds of jobs. He would work construction as a lifeguard, as a bouncer. At times he worked as a farmer. He took care of sick people sometimes. I'm a survivor of cancer twice. And Joe flew in to take care of me, and he offered to shave his head because I was bald at the time.

[Reporter/Journalist]

And I said no.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I was taking a picture of them together smiling.

[Reporter/Journalist]

And after that first picture, Deirdre was

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

like, oh, I want to put my wig on. You know, I'm a little self conscious. And so Joe's like, well, I'm going to put your other wig on. And in camaraderie, took a picture with her with her other cancer wig, and they're smiling. That encapsulates who he was pretty well.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Joe was very close to his mom.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

They shared their hopes and dreams and anything about their lives. Joe could talk about any subject with me. So he began to tell me about his interest in bdsm. Joe described to me all the encounters that he had sexually as completely consensual. That was his thing that was very important to him. He didn't want to push somebody to do something they didn't want to do. I knew Joe was very gentle as a person and concerned about the welfare of his romantic and sexual partners.

[Deborah Roberts]

And Joe Ryan seemed to want to make sure anybody he was going to connect with was into it as well. He even messaged in a telegram message to Anastasia, I'm not interested in violating boundaries. And he goes on to say, I don't want to do this if you're having a panic attack. Or injured or something. Right.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

So the night before he died, he sent me a text and a picture and he told me how proud of himself. He had lost weight, he was in shape and he was really happy. He was in a good place. So that's the last picture of Joe before his death, the night before to his mommy. You know, Joe's no kind of killer. He sent a picture to mom and said how happy he was and I'm glad he was happy. The night before he died on that day, I believe my son thought he was walking into a roleplay sex scene that was mutually beneficial to both parties. He thought he was going into a good time.

[Reporter/Journalist]

As the months go by and the investigation is continuing, there still are a lot of questions about Joseph Ryan, but there are questions about Christine Banfield too. What police need to do is figure out if this profile Anastasia on this website is consistent with Christine's character and what other people know about her.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I immediately knew this isn't the truth. There's got to be more to this story. I was like this, this doesn't add up. This isn't right. This is not Christine.

[Deborah Roberts]

Could she have had a side that you just didn't know about?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I mean, it's always possible, but if she were ever going to partake in something like that, she would definitely not do it in her own home, much less at 7, 8 o' clock in the morning as her child had just walked out the door. This was just completely out of character for her. Having an affair is one thing, but having an affair under the guise of a rape fantasy, when her being the sexual assault nurse, it was not her, she could never do anything like that.

[Reporter/Journalist]

So there may be mysteries about Christine Banfield, who is Christine really? But there are questions about Brendan Banfield too.

[Detective/Investigator]

As we're investigating, we start to discover things that occurred in the past in the marriage between Brennan Banfield and Christine Bamfield.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It's critical for detectives to look into the background of all people who are present in the house to understand exactly what happened, because it's not always what it appears be to.

[Detective/Investigator]

Five people were in the house, which included Christine Banfield, Brendan Banfield, the family's au pair, Juliana Joseph Ryan and the four year old girl.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Brendan hires a lawyer. So his lawyer tells him, don't talk. That's not unusual. So on advice accounts, he doesn't talk. So we don't really know anything from Brendan except what he said initially, which wasn't much.

[Detective/Investigator]

As we're investigating, we start to discover things that occurred in the past in the marriage between Brendan Banfield and Christine Banfield.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Detectives doing what they do were able to find a woman who had a relationship with Brendan early in his marriage.

[Deborah Roberts]

I got a chance to meet up with a woman who had actually had a relationship with Brendon. She had connected with Brendon 10 years before. It was the first time she had sat down on television and she wanted to tell her story, but she was a little uncomfortable revealing her face.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You're rolling.

[Deborah Roberts]

Oh, you are? Okay.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Are you okay with these shots? Yes, this shot is fine.

[Deborah Roberts]

And you're fine with us using your pseudonym for you, correct, Jennifer? Okay, very good. So are you ready to tell your story?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I am.

[Deborah Roberts]

What kind of an impression did he give you?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I thought he was cute, attractive, and he just seemed nice. He was very flattering, you know, had nice things to say about me, which was always a plus.

[Deborah Roberts]

Jennifer says she connected with him on a sugar baby website. A website for young women who want to date but they want financial benefits. Was the expectation that it was dating or sexual for hire?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

It was more like relationship for hire. I didn't see it as sex, work or anything like that. It was more just like, I just want you to take care of me.

[Deborah Roberts]

How much did he pay you?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

It wasn't like a life changing amount of money. It was something like if we met up for a weekend, like maybe 600 bucks or something like that. And there were times he gave me money just as a gift, like, go buy yourself something, or he would just buy me something.

[Deborah Roberts]

She says he told her that he was married. Now, he gave her the impression that he was not really happy in his marriage.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She says he kind of painted me a picture of what the marriage was like, which probably was false in retrospect, but, you know, he was like, oh, my wife. Like, we don't even sleep in the same room anymore. We haven't even like been more than roommates for months and months.

[Deborah Roberts]

So he gave you the impression that he was in an unhappy marriage?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yeah, very much. He would just tell me about negative things and what things he didn't like about her. I realize now it was like a carefully curated viewpoint, like, for my benefit.

[Deborah Roberts]

He was married. So how did he find time to spend long days or maybe even a weekend with you?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Well, his wife, she's a nurse and she had a job at the time that involved a lot of time away from home.

[Deborah Roberts]

Did you go to his home ever?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I did all the time. He was very nonchalant about having me in his home. It didn't bother him at all. And, you know, he would do these very detailed, like, cleanings after I leave because I have different colored hair from his wife. So, you know, there's like. He called it CSI Sweep, which was really stupid, but, you know, it was just like. I think he almost liked it. It was almost like a game to him. It was kind of like there's a lot. There's a thrill, I think, to doing forbidden things, right.

[Deborah Roberts]

Jennifer says that Brendan told her that he wanted to divorce his wife, but no divorce happens. And she says that he was really sort of obsessed with money and worried about money.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He, I guess, was under the impression that he'd be giving up far more money than he ought to if they went through a divorce. So he just didn't want to give up a penny that he didn't have.

[Deborah Roberts]

Their affair is going on and going strong. And Jennifer says one day Christine comes home and finds them there.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I heard the door opening and I like, kind of half heartedly tried to like, hide in a corner somewhere while they were talking. But you know, he was like, you can come out now. And in a way it was like she scolded me and, you know, she was like, you don't understand how hard I work for this family. And, you know, you can just like waltz in here and just like have fun like this while I'm working hard and trying to make money for our family. I was just like, oh, this is very, very weird for me and I would like to leave. So I left and then he was like, yeah, I'm gonna need to talk to her. But then I found out later that it was more of just like, you know, he was just like telling. Reassuring his wife that they were like, the marriage was still okay, that, you know, he was really, really sorry, but it was just like a one time fling.

[Deborah Roberts]

She says they were dating for about a year, and then she says he dumps her. Years have gone by. Jennifer has moved on from Brendan. And then she happens to come across this article and she reads Brendan's name. She couldn't believe it.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The circumstances of what I was reading were very bizarre. And I was like, this is not normal. Like, there's something weird about the situation.

[Deborah Roberts]

Jennifer tells me this was so unsettling that she reached out to a detective on the case.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I just wanted to reveal a piece of information that he had had an affair before.

[Deborah Roberts]

You wanted investigators to know what his character was all about, right?

[Reporter/Journalist]

Like, yeah, it was important for Jennifer to come forward because it shows that Brendan is not true to his wife. He also didn't speak so well about Christine.

[Deborah Roberts]

Christine's friends, the nurses who worked along. Christine, often talked about infidelity, how she was so sickened by it.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

We were sharing stories about other people we knew and the lengths that they would go to to hide their affairs. And she used the word disgusting. That's the most disgusting thing that somebody could do to their partner.

[Deborah Roberts]

Did she ever let on whether she worried her husband might be.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

No, it's okay.

[Detective/Investigator]

Were you here when it happened or when Juliana was interviewed initially by detectives, she denied having any type of sexual relationship with Brennan Banfield. She described their relationship as, he is her employer and she is his au pair.

[Reporter/Journalist]

She denied having an affair with him. But then they find pictures and video that tell a very different story.

[Detective/Investigator]

For a while, the case didn't have a lot of developments.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There was no arrest. I just was afraid there wouldn't be justice for Joe. It was very difficult. It. It was very, very difficult.

[Deborah Roberts]

It's been a few months since Christine was killed in her home, and her husband, Brendan, is still living in the house with their daughter. What was Brendan like during this period? Trying to care for his daughter, having lost his wife. What was he like?

[Detective/Investigator]

He would say to me, you know, like, this is one of the first times in my life where I really feel kind of lost, or I, like, don't know what to do. I know. He even, like, showed me how his bedroom, which had been completely gutted out, and how he was getting it redone. And I thought, I guess you're still gonna somehow live in this house, trying to make the best of the situation.

[Deborah Roberts]

And interestingly, Giuliana, the au pair, is still living in this house too.

[Detective/Investigator]

Law enforcement continues their investigation. They're also looking at Juliana's social media. There are a lot of photos of what you would imagine a 22 year old woman posting. But as they look at those photos, they see someone that they believe looks like Brendan, but having strategic emojis or pictures posted over his face. There was some items of clothing, a watch, and other items that led us to suspect that it may be Brennan Banfield. And we discovered that Juliana had told her friend about the affair she was having.

[Reporter/Journalist]

That becomes the basis of a search warrant to get Juliana's social media. And what the police find is a lot of evidence that she was having an intimate relationship with Brendan.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Prosecutors had said that they found photos of them, you know, out in public.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Among the photos the police found on one of Juliana's devices was photos of a trip that Juliana and Brendan took and they took Brendan's daughter. In October 2022, before the murders, Juliana

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

and Brendan Banfield took a trip together to New York. They suggested that this is more than just a fling, that this was a relationship.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan and Juliana had been having an affair, the police think, at least six months before Christine was killed.

[Detective/Investigator]

And from there, this blows open the case in a whole different way. This leads them to believe maybe there's something more here. Maybe there's a motive that they didn't see at first. You're watching seven News.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

A family's au pair is now charged with shooting and killing a man in a Reston home.

[Detective/Investigator]

The Fairfax County Police Department announced today they made a new arrest in that case, and they're charging the family. So was second degree murder. Eight months after the homicides, Juliana is arrested and charged with second degree murder for the death of Joseph Ryan.

[Deborah Roberts]

Juliana pleads not guilty.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I'm Jenna Sands, and I am the Chief Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney for Fairfax County. We knew that Juliana was responsible for the death of Joseph Ryan.

[Deborah Roberts]

It turns out that on the day of the shooting, Julian Juliana tells the police on the scene that she shot Joe Ryan, too.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

And Brendan said, no, police, don't drop the knife. And I think Brendan shot him. And he asked me how to shot him, too.

[Detective/Investigator]

She said from the very beginning that Brendan shot Joe Ryan first and she shot him second. Juliano told police, Joseph Ryan, he's on the ground, he's bleeding. And then they hear a moan from Joseph Ryan. Juliana is then directed by Brendan Banfield to go into the closet and get another gun. And according to police, Juliana fired that fatal blow and killed Joseph Ryan.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

We knew that she had shot Joe in that room, and we did not have a reasonable defense that we could imagine for her, given the evidence.

[Detective/Investigator]

When we arrested Juliana, we followed up with another search warrant at the residence. And when we went into the house, the first thing that I think all the investigators noticed was all the pictures of Christine were gone. Then we went up into the primary bedroom. On the nightstand next to the bed was a photograph of Brendan Banfield and Juliana in a romantic kind of embrace, like a couple. It was a picture of a couple. And when we looked around the rest of the room, inside the closet, throughout the room, we found Juliana's clothing, Juliana's lingerie. Juliana had effectively replaced Christine.

[Deborah Roberts]

And when you saw those photos, Disgusted.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

You're really going to move into the master bedroom a few months after the woman who hired you to come in and take care of your child dies and is murdered in that same bedroom. No. It's so insulting. It's insulting to Christine's memory. Not only that, Christine's family. Family and most of all, Christine's daughter.

[Detective/Investigator]

There was no trace of her. There was no photographs. There was no memorial. It was as if she had never existed in the first place.

[Deborah Roberts]

And then police discover something else that

[Reporter/Journalist]

sets off alarm bells at Juliana's pretrial hearing. It comes out that she went to a shooting range with Brendan twice before. Christine is killed in October and December, and she in fact has a photo of herself firing a gun that she posts on social media.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

When you combine that with the fact that he never took his wife shooting, it really points in the direction of a plot.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana could serve a lot of time for this. If convicted, it's a minimum of five years in prison with a maximum of 40 years.

[Deborah Roberts]

Police are still suspicious of Brendan, and now they're zeroing in on another 911 call, one made on the morning of the killings. A full 15 minutes before that other one that she made asking for help.

[Detective/Investigator]

We could hear in that call what sounded like a man moaning.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It's very revealing. The question is, what happened in those 15 minutes?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

This episode is brought to you by Greenlight. You can't solve every case for your kids, but with greenlight, they'll have the instincts and money skills to stay out of trouble. With a greenlight debit card and money app, parents can monitor spending and teach financial responsibility. Educate your kids as they grow from earning allowance and tracking chores to learning how to save and invest. Start your risk free greenlight trial [e-mail] Spotify

[Detective/Investigator]

ABC. Wednesday, the Emmy winning comedy Scrubs returns. This is a whole new chapter for me.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

No more sad sack.

[Detective/Investigator]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I want both of our sacks to be fun.

[Detective/Investigator]

You two idiots are perfect for each other. From executive producers of Ted Lasso and shrinking. We were all a part of this victory. Now get those nachos out of the premium warmer nachos. Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech. The new season of Scrubs Wednesday, 87 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Here we go.

[Deborah Roberts]

It's the New Year 2023 and Christine Banfield is very excited. In fact, she even posted on her social media. 2022 was pretty awesome. Let's see if 2023 can top it. Just a few weeks later, she would be dead.

[Detective/Investigator]

Fairfax county police are still investigating who killed a woman inside that home.

[Deborah Roberts]

It just seems like she was so Looking forward to the next year.

[Detective/Investigator]

Yeah, it's incredibly tragic. Now looking back on it, a woman

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

working as an au pair for a family in Herndon has been arrested and charged for a fatal shooting.

[Detective/Investigator]

While Juliana was in jail, Brendan was living a version of a normal life. Not quite the life that he had led before, but somewhat of in front. He was no longer IRS law enforcement. He was making money as a delivery driver, living with his daughter and his mother in the house, coaching sports for his daughter.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

At the point in time that we arrested Juliana, we still couldn't tie Brendan to it until we had had the opportunity to really work that scene, to go through it with a fine tooth comb. But when we received all of that evidence, that's when we were able to take the next step.

[Detective/Investigator]

We've got shocking new details tonight in a double murder in Reston. We've been following this for more than a year now. 570 days after the murders, Brendan Banfield is indicted for aggravated murder.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan Banfield pleads not guilty.

[Detective/Investigator]

We have evidence to now allege that Christine Banfield's life was unlawfully taken and Joseph Ryan's life was unlawfully taken. Do you have anything you want to say?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I. I was happy. I was celebrating. I couldn't have been more thrilled. That's when I was like, yes, finally

[Reporter/Journalist]

they got this guy.

[Deborah Roberts]

What did you make of that? This is the man you thought you knew to be this upstanding guy, basically

[Detective/Investigator]

thinking that, wow, we're like me and so many other people, people wrong about him all this time. Just a few hours from now, a husband accused of killing his wife and another man is due back in a Fairfax county courtroom for a bond hearing.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The police theory and their evidence to prove it is that Brendan was the mastermind behind an incredibly intricate, detailed plan to kill his wife.

[Detective/Investigator]

It's digital evidence, it's physical evidence, it's forensics evidence, it's circumstantial evidence. But the work still goes on. Police and the prosecution believe that Brendan created or used a FetLife account posing as Christine. He created a fictitious account in his wife's name portraying her image, using this catfish scheme in. In order to lure an unsuspecting sexual partner to have this kind of violent sex act that would presumably look like he was assaulting her, make it look like he was an intruder, shoot Joseph Ryan, the so called intruder, and then stab Christine. Brennan's plan was to replace his wife with Juliana.

[Reporter/Journalist]

More detail come out about what exactly happened that morning in the hour or so before the murders. We learned that Brendan Banfield left and went to McDonald's and ordered a breakfast sandwich and stayed there for 20 minutes. And Juliana said she was going to take the little girl to the zoo for an outing, but she didn't. She stayed in a cul de sac, watching the house. Brendan had unlocked the door using Christine's phone. He had shut her phone off and put it in a drawer off the kitchen.

[Detective/Investigator]

As Juliana waited, she saw Joseph Ryan arrive. She then called Brendan. He then meets with Juliana and his daughter, and they sneak around the back of the house where they enter through the basement entrance. Brendan goes upstairs first, followed shortly by Juliana, where they open the door of the primary bedroom and Brendan shoots Joseph Ryan, then takes a knife that was brought by Joseph Ryan as part of a scripted sexual foreplay, and he begins to stab Christine.

[Deborah Roberts]

Police are looking at everything, but now they are laser focused on a quick call to 911 made from Juliana's phone a full 15 minutes before that other one that she made asking for help.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Fairfax County 911. Where's our emergency? Hello, Fairfax County 911.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It's only eight seconds long, and you can hear moaning in the background. And now police realize that's probably Joseph Ryan moaning in the background. The call is hung up. Dispatchers try to call back.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Hello, this is Fairfax County911. We had a call from this number. If you have an emergency, please hang UP and dial 911. This call was made in error. You can disregard this message. Thank you.

[Detective/Investigator]

Prosecutors say the initial 911 call was made too soon, that Juliana called before everything was properly laid out.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

What we think happened between the 2911 calls was that Brendan gives the signal to Juliana to hang up the phone. And at that point in time, Joe is now dead, Christine is dying, and Brendan manipulates the scene. We think that he picks up enough of Christine's blood to be able to leave traces of it on Joseph Ryan.

[Detective/Investigator]

Prosecutors say that Banfield smeared it on Joseph Ryan to make it look like he was the one stabbing Christine.

[Deborah Roberts]

Now there are two people sitting in jail awaiting their murder trials.

[Detective/Investigator]

Yeah. Get your breath.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yeah.

[Deborah Roberts]

But is one of them gonna flip?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I was going to bury Joe's ashes, and I just couldn't let him go. So we're looking at half of Joe's ashes. It sits on top of a dresser in my living room. And every day I say hi to Joe, and then every night, I'd say goodnight to him and I'd wave at the box.

[Deborah Roberts]

Tonight, a major new development in a 2023.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Double murder in Reston.

[Deborah Roberts]

It's now been more than a year and a half into this investigation, and now a big turn. Juliana is actually offered a plea deal.

[Detective/Investigator]

According to my sources, the Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney offered this plea deal to Juliana Perez Maglihayes in exchange for her testimony against Brendan Banfield.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There'd been a lot of discussion about how we could get her to turn. There were discussions that sounded a whole lot like dating advice. Leave her alone. She'll come to us. Give her time. She'll make the right choice. We heard from her attorney after we had charged Brendan Banfield that she was finally ready to confess. Yeah.

[Detective/Investigator]

Catch your breath.

[Reporter/Journalist]

So, in order to get this deal, Juliana has to sit down with prosecutors and law enforcement. She's got to come clean with everything, and she has to be truthful.

[Detective/Investigator]

Have you had to your satisfaction, full and fair opportunity to consult with your lawyers?

[Reporter/Journalist]

Yes.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The idea was for her to tell us in her own words exactly what she remembered so that we would know that it was reliable.

[Detective/Investigator]

She told us that the trip to New York was the time when Brendan first talked to her openly about his plan to kill Christine.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He basically told me, I want to tell you something, but I don't want you to be afraid or scared or leave me. I said, okay, you can tell me whatever. And he said, I don't want Christine in our lives. Then I asked him, we're going to divorce her. And then he said, I don't want Sherman because it'll be easier if she was not in the picture.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana corroborates this catfish theory.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He told me me that he was going to do create an account on website FetLife.

[Detective/Investigator]

Where in the house were you predominantly when he is on FetLife, I was

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

mostly in the basement. We sit there and then with her laptop. He said he needed to find a person who likes to play white blood. Play with knife and stuff like that. Play violent.

[Detective/Investigator]

This whole plan was designed to a t to kind of COVID their tracks, basically.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

After a while talking to Joe, he said he's the right person. Joe is the right person. Juliano was the one person who could tell us exactly what Brendan Banfield's role was in it. And we knew him to be largely the hand that was moving the pieces on this particular test board. He just told me, I wish I didn't need you, but I needed to do this with me. I can't do it without you. And I said, what do you mean? Why you can do it without me? And I said, because something was wrong. I Needed to have my back.

[Detective/Investigator]

Can you tell me the words that he used in terms of how he intended on killing her?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Like, stabbing her?

[Detective/Investigator]

Did he say where he intended on stabbing her? How he intended on stabbing her?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yeah. He was putting sever in the neck, just like he did. He was just expecting Joe to bring a pointy knife instead of the knife to chop vegetables, which would have been easier.

[Detective/Investigator]

So what did Joe Ryan say during the time when Brendan Banfield comes in?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He looked at us like, surprised, like shocked that there were other people in the bedroom. And then I just went and just shot him.

[Detective/Investigator]

Hearing Juliana describe Christine's last moments was absolutely gut wrenching. She is describing the moment a mother lost her life.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He was sad for her. And then she was just telling him, let me go. I'm gonna die anyways. I'm gonna bleed to death. She was just leaving me here. Let me die. And then he was telling her, I can't.

[Deborah Roberts]

This is pretty heartbreaking stuff. Juliana even tells prosecutors that Christine, while she's dying, is talking about her daughter's birthday coming up. She's about to turn five.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She said something about birthday because it was going to be the next month in March. Ray's telling him, like, it has to be before birthday. Why?

[Detective/Investigator]

I can only imagine that her last thoughts are out of. Were of her daughter. Sorry. That's right. Juliana accepts a plea deal and ultimately agrees to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter. And on top of that, prosecutors say they will recommend a sentence of time served, meaning no more prison time, and she'd be immediately deported back to Brazil, which means as soon as this trial is done, she's free. As long as she testifies against Brendan Banfield in his trial.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I don't know where the justice in that is. How do you get to plan a murder and think that you're going to live a life, you know, her life, essentially, and walk away after a couple years.

[Detective/Investigator]

In less than 12 hours, the trial of Brendan Banfield will get underway.

[Deborah Roberts]

It's been nearly three years since the murders. The case is finally headed to trial, and the defense is about to make the argument that nothing is what it appears to be. Even the police can't seem to agree on exactly what happened here.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There was a divide amongst investigators. Our supervisor at the time told us there were two theories in the case

[Deborah Roberts]

and we needed to get behind the right one.

[Reporter/Journalist]

While awaiting trial, Brendan Bamfield is indicted on two more felony charges.

[Detective/Investigator]

Prosecutors file another indictment charging him with felony child cruelty and felony child abuse.

[Reporter/Journalist]

And this is because he had this remarkably intricate plan to kill his wife and did it with his daughter in the house.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan Banfield pleads not guilty to the additional charges too. The investigation is ongoing and something unusual is playing out. Detectives are divided on whether this catfishing theory is even legit.

[Detective/Investigator]

Brendan Miller is a forensic investigator within the police department that is investigating Brendan Banfield. This is a man who looked at every cell phone, every laptop in the Banfield home. He wrote a report associated with this case. The key line and conclusion in Biller's report is that there's no indication at any point, point in time that Christine lost control or contact with her own devices.

[Reporter/Journalist]

So if Christine always had control of her devices, then the whole theory of the case falls apart.

[Detective/Investigator]

After Brendan Miller releases this report to law enforcement, he's removed from this case and transferred to another section of the detective's unit.

[Reporter/Journalist]

It created this atmosphere that like maybe police want to find facts to fit their theory, not go where the facts lead them. It raises the question, could Christine have actually set up this profile? Did she really invite Joseph Ryan to the house?

[Detective/Investigator]

In less than 12 hours, the trial of Brendan Banfield will get underway. Banfield is the man accused of killing his wife and another man in an effort to run away with the family's au pair.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The judge who's presiding over the case is Penny Ascarrati. She's a former Marine. She's a no nonsense judge. She is familiar to people who saw the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial.

[Detective/Investigator]

Jurors in Depp and Amber Heard's multimillion dollar defamation trial are taking their time.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

In opening statement, the goal is really to introduce the jury to the story that's going to be told. Brendan Banfield killed his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man named Joseph Ryan. And he convinced young Juliana, 22 years old, that they should get rid of Christine. They would use Christine's email accounts to create a fake profile to lure someone in to come into the house and fake rape Christine. Brendan would be the hero of the day. He would show up, kill the guy, kill his wife, pretending that it had been that guy. That was the plan.

[Detective/Investigator]

Banfield's defense attorney, John Carroll, says that Juliana cannot be trusted because she's testifying for her life. The whole reason she was arrested was to flip her against my client. He moved on to say that the prosecution's case rests on this idea that there was some sort of catfishing scheme.

[Reporter/Journalist]

But yet one of the critical detectives, the forensic examiner in the case, the original one, said, no, that's not right.

[Detective/Investigator]

And so then started the turmoil within the police department. You're going to see manipulation within the police department where if homicide detectives didn't agree with this theory, they were transferred

[Reporter/Journalist]

early on in the prosecution's case. The jury hears the 911 calls.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I need help. My friend. He just wasn't the night and I was.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Brandon is sitting at the table crying.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There's somebody here. I thought I got him. The best way to tell this story was to put the good evidence out in front. And Juliana was our best evidence. She was our storyteller. We called Juliana to the stand the first day.

[Reporter/Journalist]

She needs to deliver. This is a big moment.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

As Juliana walked past Brendan, his eyes tracked her.

[Detective/Investigator]

Brendon tried to connect with her, lock eyes with her. Juliana didn't give him a second glance.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Do you swear or affirm to testify truthfully in this case under penalty of law?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Yes. Thank you. Are you gonna have a seat? Good afternoon. Good afternoon. We had her first describe how her relationship with Brendan had developed. When you first met Mr. Banfield, what was your relationship to him? Professional. It was my boss, Brenda and I barely spoke at all. At some point, did your relationship with the defendant change? It became sexual. Did he ever talk about his relationship with his wife, Christine Banfield? He used to say that she didn't seem to care about where he was, what he was doing. She didn't seem to care about him at all. Juliana testified that divorce was not an option for Brendan, primarily because he would lose custody or have to share custody of his daughter with his wife. Did he tell you what he wanted to do? He mentioned his plan to get rid of her.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The trial is now at a critical point. Jurors are on the edges of their seats because Juliana is about to tell the jury what she says happened in that bedroom.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She was extremely nervous, but she wanted to tell the truth. When I first saw that happening, I was just. Just crunching down, covering my ears and covering my eyes. And now to more stunning revelations from the double murder trial playing out in Fairfax County.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Juliana Perez Magoles is on the stand on direct examination, and she tells the jury that when Brendan first talked to her about killing his wife, she didn't take him seriously.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

At first, I thought he was joking. He had heard of a website called FetLife. Were you present when he created the FetLife account?

[Deborah Roberts]

Yes.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He created a new email account for Christine. And Christine's name.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana explains that as a part of this plan, Brendan creates this profile, this Anastasia9.

[Reporter/Journalist]

How did the two of you use

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

her laptop without her knowing about it. Every time she used to get home from work, she threw her backpack by the door. In the backpack was her laptop. Joseph Ryan was really just one out of of many, many people that they spoke to and the only one who was willing to follow the rules. Joe Ryan didn't need to meet in advance. Joe Ryan was happy to come to a house that he didn't know. Joe Ryan was willing to come at odd hours, specifically this early morning meetup. He made Brendan feel confident enough that he would be the person to played a role and come over to the house.

[Deborah Roberts]

She goes on to say that she and Brendan were so determined to make sure that this meeting was going to happen that she jumps on a call with Jo Ryan pretending to be Christine.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

As soon as I said hi, he was surprised that I had an accident.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana testifies that February 24th arrives the day that this plan was supposed to be executed. She wakes up up early preparing the four year old daughter for this fake trip to the zoo.

[Deborah Roberts]

She testifies that Christine had the day off and wanted to sleep in.

[Reporter/Journalist]

According to Juliana, that morning, Brendan messaged Joe Ryan with Christine's phone and then shut the phone off and put it in a drawer and he left and went to McDonald's where he was going to wait for her call.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

What, if anything, did he give you

[Reporter/Journalist]

in that morning before the two of you left?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Gun. Juliana's plan that morning was for her to take the child to get into her car and to wait in the cul de sac until she saw Jo Ryan arrive.

[Detective/Investigator]

The zoo was the COVID And as part of that, she was going to bring some lunches that she packed and left in the refrigerator so that she would have a reason to be loitering outside in the cul de sac.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

That's when I saw Jill pulling in the driveway and I called Brendan. He told me he would be coming home. Juliana testified that when Brendan got back to the house from McDonald's, the two of them left the cars, bringing the child with them, and then the three

[Reporter/Journalist]

of them went in the back of the house, left the little girl in the basement and went upstairs.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He took his gun out. I just did the same. I just followed him to the master bedroom.

[Deborah Roberts]

Juliana goes on to say that she and Brendan burst into the bedroom and find Jo Ryan there with Christine.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

She yelled back at Brendan, saying, brendan, he has a knife. That's when Brenda first shot Joe. Brenda ran to Christine. She told me Juliana called 911.

[Detective/Investigator]

She testified that in the moment when Christine shouted, Giuliana called 911. She instinctively did it.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

That's where you have our very brief recording in which you hear Joseph Ryan moaning in the background. County 9 1. Where's your emergency? Brendan looks at me and just hung up the call.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Well, the police theory is that the scene wasn't ready yet for the police to show up. Brendan needed time to stage it.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He got on top of her. And that's when I first saw him stabbing her with a knife. Juliana testified Brendan picked up the knife that Joe Ryan had brought to the house and that he began stabbing Christine. Juliana turned away. She said that it was hard to watch. She testified that Joe moved and that she told Brendan that he was moving. That's when I fired the shot, too.

[Reporter/Journalist]

So she shot him. Just shot him.

[Detective/Investigator]

The defense definitely had a strategy when it came to Juliana trying to give the jury a motive for why this witness is lying.

[Reporter/Journalist]

On cross examination, the defense attorney asked Juliana why she waited so long to cooperate.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The feeling of shame and guilt. And also because I had a potential of getting less time.

[Detective/Investigator]

When the defense tried to get Juliana to lay out some of the details of the this plan, many times she just said, I don't know who took the laptop from wherever it was that

[Deborah Roberts]

Christina thought it was that day.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I do not remember. I can't tell you for sure. I can tell you the date.

[Detective/Investigator]

I mean, with all due respect, you

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

don't remember a lot of details. Yeah, that's what's

[Detective/Investigator]

really concerning about this.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

And I'm telling you that I do not recall.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Juliana has really damaged Brendon with her testimony, if she's believed. So the big question now is, will Brendan Banfield take the stand?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Anytime a defendant wishes to testify at trial, there's a hold your breath moment. Is this really a good idea? But at the same time, it was exciting.

[Detective/Investigator]

All right.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Call Brendan Banfield.

[Detective/Investigator]

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[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

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[Deborah Roberts]

It's been four days of testimony, more than a dozen witnesses, and the prosecution is resting its case. Now time for the defense as John

[Detective/Investigator]

Carroll begins his case. The argument is that the prosecution and law enforcement had blinders on.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

We had a briefing within the first week. Our supervisor at the time told told us there were two theories in the case and we needed to get behind the right one.

[Detective/Investigator]

The internal politics that John Carroll introduced to the trial were complete distraction efforts. One of the theories we were examining was that Brendan was telling the truth. So we examined a ton of theories, but ultimately, we're examining the evidence.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The defense called Detective Brendan Miller as their own witness. He's the forensic examiner who wrote the report concluding that Christine, in his opinion, always had control of her devices.

[Detective/Investigator]

Did you make any conclusions at that time that she had not given up her devices? I had nothing indicating loss of dominion and control at that time.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

So your conclusions based on zeros and

[Detective/Investigator]

ones are still the same? Yes.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The defense calls their own expert to basically verify or agree with Miller's original conclusion.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Were you able to draw any opinions related to this case?

[Detective/Investigator]

Catfishing did not occur. I didn't see anything here that indicated loss of control of device.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

The digital forensic evidence was simply inconclusive because Brendan Banfield had been so careful in his planning. You could never point to one person as being the sole operator of the device at the time that the messages were sent. And you can't say who was in control of either device. All you can tell us is what the devices are doing, correct?

[Detective/Investigator]

Correct.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

All right.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Mr. Banfield, do you understand you have a constitutional right not to testify?

[Detective/Investigator]

Yes, ma'.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Am. Anytime a defendant wishes to testify at trial, there's a hold your breath moment. All right.

[Detective/Investigator]

Call Brendan Banfield.

[Deborah Roberts]

This is a big moment. Brendan Banfield has not spoken to police. He has not shared his story. Now he's about to take the stand, talking for the first time.

[Detective/Investigator]

Brendan Banfield does this defense that we call my hands are dirty but not bloody because he's saying I've done some bad things. We were having an affair. Now, was Christine aware of your affair? I don't believe she was aware of the affair between me and Juliana. She was aware of at least two previous affairs.

[Reporter/Journalist]

So Brendan stays on the stand over two days, and he told jurors that he had affairs in the past. He admitted to it, but he said his wife has also had affairs in the past.

[Detective/Investigator]

There was a point

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

a number of

[Detective/Investigator]

years ago that Christine had indicated that she was interested in bondage type Situations. In terms of your sexual relationship with Christine, what, if any, differences did you have? I was not interested in ever harming her. I was never interested in sexual violence.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

In our detective's examination of Christine Bant digital life, there was absolutely no evidence of her having been involved or even interested in rough sex. Christine never mentioned to me anything about any affairs. I would be the one she would share it with, and there was never any secrets.

[Detective/Investigator]

Did you ever create any sort of a plan with Juliana? No, there was no plan. I think that it's an absurd line of questioning.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Regarding the day of. Brendan had an explanation for the jury.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan testifies that when he pulls up to the house and sees this strange car, he doesn't call 911 right away because he says that he thinks maybe his wife is having another indiscretion.

[Detective/Investigator]

It wasn't on my mind that this was some type of violent or threatening encounter. I was emotional at that point.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Brendan says that he enters the house through the basement door, and then he sees Juliana and his daughter behind him.

[Detective/Investigator]

I never told her to come down to the house. Brendan leaves Juliana and Banfield's daughter in the basement.

[Reporter/Journalist]

He goes upstairs and into the bedroom.

[Detective/Investigator]

Christine was new and on all fours, and Joe Ryan was behind her. I don't know that I've ever been more panicked in my life. Almost immediately, I said, police. I saw him do a downward stabbing stroke, and that's when I fired at him. Christine told me that she was bleeding out and that. That she was sorry and that she loved me.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Brendan notices that Juliana is now in the bedroom with him.

[Detective/Investigator]

I told Juliana to call 911. She went into the master bathroom.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Brendan says that while he's tending to his wife, he. Then he feels something on his back.

[Detective/Investigator]

Joe Ryan struck me in my. In my shoulder.

[Reporter/Journalist]

All of a sudden, a gunshot.

[Detective/Investigator]

And I looked up, and I saw that Juliana had my other firearm. I was stunned that Juliana had shot.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

As John Carroll is finishing his direct examination of Brendan Banfield. I'm ready, your honor.

[Detective/Investigator]

I have no further questions.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Cross examination. There were a number of things that I wanted to push on.

[Reporter/Journalist]

He's asked, well, you know, you've explained a couple of stab wounds. She had seven stab wounds.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

When did he stab her those other five times?

[Detective/Investigator]

The knife is inside of her hair. I can't tell the movement. And I don't know exactly what happened before I arrived either.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Okay, well, she had to get five more wounds at some point.

[Deborah Roberts]

Prostitute. Prosecutors are hammering away at Brendan, and they press him on his story that Christine was Awake and on her devices on the morning that she was killed.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Would it surprise you if the digital forensics would show that she was not on her phone at 6:30 or really anytime before or after that?

[Detective/Investigator]

I saw her with her phone. It was on the bed.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Got it. Okay, so she was just with the phone. Not yet.

[Detective/Investigator]

Yes.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The prosecutor is really questioning Brendan's behavior. He sees Juliana in the basement with his daughter, doesn't tell her, go back to the car.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Why wouldn't you tell the babysitter to take your daughter back outside?

[Detective/Investigator]

I believe that she was safe in the basement. I thought they were okay there.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Common sense. I mean, what we know of how people behave just never never made with what Brendan Banfield had done. Thank you. Nothing further, Judge.

[Reporter/Journalist]

The jurors now have heard two vastly different versions of what happened. Each of you must decide this case for yourself. I can excuse you now to delivery.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Please be seated and come to order.

[Deborah Roberts]

The case has gone on for nine days now. It's that final moment. Both sides have their final arguments to make before the jury.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Brendan Banfield killed both Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan. He was in love with Juliana. He was afraid of losing her. He needed to get rid of his wife so that they could be together. Brendan let Juliana take the fall. It's his turn to be held accountable. John Carroll argued in closings that Juliana had ulterior motives, that she wanted to go back to Brazil. And saying what prosecutors wanted her to say was her ticket to going home.

[Detective/Investigator]

Juliana made it up. She told the commonwealth what they wanted to hear. She told this lie to secure herself and declare.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

He argued that officials rushed to judgment in this case and transferred people out who did not support the conclusion that they had.

[Detective/Investigator]

The one detective who stood up and said the evidence contradicted her story was transferred off a case. After both sides have their last words to tell their story, then it's all to the jury. The fate of the man accused in a high profile double murder case now in the hands of a jury.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

After nearly nine hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict and everyone rushed into the courtroom.

[Detective/Investigator]

We turn now to the verdict in the case of that husband and father in Virginia accused of killing his wife so he could have a new life with his au pair.

[Reporter/Journalist]

We, the jury, in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Brendan Robert Banfield, defendant, find the defendant guilty of aggravated murder of Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield.

[Detective/Investigator]

The jury finding him guilty on all counts just a short time ago. At the end of the day, I am very, very pleased that we are able to stand here successfully having gotten justice for Joe Ryan and Christine Banfield.

[Deborah Roberts]

Brendan will be sentenced in May. But just days ago, Juliana was back in court, finally learning her faith.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I'm truly sorry for the pain it cost. I hope someday I can be forgiven.

[Reporter/Journalist]

Your actions were deliberate, self serving and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Therefore, I do sentence you to 10

[Reporter/Journalist]

years in the penitentiary.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

May it weigh heavily on your soul. I believe she is equally as responsible for my son's death. She's a cold, cold blooded killer.

[Deborah Roberts]

Joe Ryan, for his loved ones. They don't want him forgotten.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I want people to know Joe was a good son. That he loved people and that he didn't deserve this.

[Deborah Roberts]

Christine's family has mostly been quiet about the loss, but they just sent us a statement talking about her, saying she loved her family deeply and was devoted to her marriage. Christine suffered a violent, horrific, senseless death. The lies told about her after her murder were just as painful as her death. We are committed to ensuring that that Christine will always be remembered as the beautiful person she was.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

There's so many things that remind me of her. A Backstreet Boy song will come on everybody else. Your body, right? Remembering her laugh. Sometimes I could look at a picture and I hear it because it was pretty great.

[Detective/Investigator]

Laugh.

[Deborah Roberts]

What do you want her daughter to know about her?

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

How much she loved and adored her?

[Deborah Roberts]

You have a necklace that she shared with you.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Her daughter had made me this necklace

[Deborah Roberts]

that says family, which is sort of the focus of Christine's life.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

Her daughter was her absolute world. Her daughter's the reason that she lived every day. She loved her so much.

[Detective/Investigator]

And that's our program for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm David Muir.

[Deborah Roberts]

And I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC News, good night. It's the Paradise Podcast.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bathe

[Deborah Roberts]

with my husband Sterling.

[Reporter/Journalist]

What's up?

[Deborah Roberts]

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

on Disney where we'll discuss each episode

[Deborah Roberts]

with the cast and crew of Paradise.

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

I'll be getting all the secrets from

[Deborah Roberts]

Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson and Sterling Kelby Brown. Woo. Paradise, the official podcast is now streaming

[Juliana Perez Magales / Witnesses / Prosecutor / Defense Attorney / Other Interviewees]

and stream paradise on February 23rd on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers terms apply.