← Crime House 24/7
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Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa. Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love. Hidden history with Dr. Harini Bhat. Every Monday, Dr. Bhatt goes where history gets mysterious. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena and events that science still can't fully explain. Dr. Bot treats these moments like open case files. Not myth myths, not superstition. Just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Hidden History drops every Monday. Follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, so you never miss a mystery.
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This is Crime House.
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All right, friends, it's time for your daily true crime rundown. Grab your coffee, settle in. Let's talk about the cases everyone's definitely going to be discussing today. We're starting with the biggest one. A former federal agent used his own badge, his own gun, and a fake online identity to lure a total stranger to his house and kill him. All so he could get away with murdering his wife. Now he's found out he will never be a free man again. This is Crime House 24 7, your nonstop source for the biggest crime cases developing right now. Make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Vanessa Richardson and we have quite a lineup for you today. Here's what you need to know.
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On this show, we're always digging for the truth, yet modern healthcare remains one of the greatest mysteries of all. Everyone deserves real medical support. And that's why I want to talk about Mochi Health. Mochi is a nationwide platform that's bringing humanity and transparency back to healthcare by treating treating your unique biology. Not a fad. They've already helped 400,000 members lose over £5 million. And while they lead the way in weight loss, Mochi is now a full scale Marketplace for over 120 treatments ranging from hair and skincare to longevity, mental health and specialized men's and women's health. After you complete an eligibility form, you'll receive a telehealth evaluation with a partnered provider on Mochi's platform to build a plan personalized for your specific body and Goals. You'll have 24. 7 access to your provider and specialized medications from a network of licensed pharmacies delivered right to your door. No waiting rooms or hidden fees. You just pay for your membership and your medication. It's personalized care that actually treats you like a human being. Stop leaving your health up to an algorithm. Go to joinmochi.com Good morning and welcome
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to Crime House 24 7. We're starting this Morning with news that just broke out of Fairfax County, Virginia. Because Friday, June 5th was a sentencing day in one of the most calculated, coldly engineered murder cases this area has seen in years. Inside the Fairfax County Circuit Court, A judge sentenced 40 year old Brendan Banfield to life in prison without the possibility of parole. No chance of release, no second chances. He will literally die behind bars. Banfield was a former criminal investigator with the Internal Revenue Service, a federal law enforcement agent whose career was built on following evidence to tracking paper trails and holding people accountable for crimes. And he used every bit of that training to try to get away with murder. Well, two murders to be exact. His wife, 37 year old Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse who was living in Herndon, Virginia, and 39 year old Joseph Ryan, a man from Washington, D.C. who had never met the Banfields in his life and had absolutely no idea what he was being set up to walk into. Before we get into what happened in that courtroom, we need to go back to the beginning because this story didn't start on February 24, 2023, the day Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan were killed. It started months earlier, in the quiet of a suburban home in Northern Virginia with a secret that Brendan Banfield was doing everything he could to protect. Christine Banfield was, by every account, from the people who loved her, someone who gave everything she had to others. She grew up on Long Island, New York. She became a pediatric int care nurse, the kind of work that most people couldn't handle, caring for the most critically ill children day after day. A lifelong friend named Lucille Prio, who grew up with Christine on Long island, described her to CNN ahead of Friday sentencing as one of the kindest people she had ever known. Prio said Christine carried everything in her life with respect and that it was always about helping people and being someone others could trust. That was Christine. That was who she was. She and Brendan lived together in Herndon, Virginia with their young daughter Valerie. On paper, they were a perfect family. But behind closed doors, Brendan Banfield had already checked out of the marriage and he had been seeing other women. During the trial, he admitted on the stand that Christine knew about at least two of his affairs. He described one of those women as someone he had met on what prosecutors called a fetish site. Though when prosecutors put it to him directly, Brendan corrected them. He didn't call it a fetish site. He called it an arranged relationship. That distinction tells you something about how Brendan Banfield saw the world. In October 2021, the Banfield family brought on an au pair to help care for Valerie. Her name was Juliana Perez Magalas, a 25 year old woman from Brazil who moved into the family's home on Stable Brook Way. By August of 2022, she and Brendan Banfield had begun a sexual affair. At some point, a framed photograph of the two of them appeared on the night stand in the master bedroom, the same bedroom Brendan shared with Christine, his wife. Prosecutors would later introduce that photo as evidence, along with the fact that by the time investigators returned to the home eight months after the murders, on a search warrant, Perez Magalis had moved her clothing, including lingerie, into the primary bedroom closet where Brendan kept his things. Photos of Brendan and Christine Banfield had been taken down from the mantle and the bedside tables. They'd been replaced with photos of Brendan and Perez Magalis. But that came later, in the fall of 2022. Brendan Banfield had a problem. He was deeply into this affair and he did not want a divorce. Not because he still wanted to be married to Christine, but because of what a divorce would cost him financially in terms of custody of Valerie, in terms of control. Prosecutors said. Brendan began expressing to Perez Magalis a desire to be rid of his wife. And according to prosecutors and the testimony that would later come out at trial, the of them began to plan something that went far beyond an affair. The scheme Brendan constructed was deliberate, methodical and almost hard to process. He went online and created a fake profile on FetLife, a social networking site used by people interested in the BDSM and fetish community. He built the profile to look like it belonged to his wife. He named it Anastasia 9. He used Christine's own laptop to do it. The profile described a woman who wanted a stranger to come to her home and act out a violent sexual fantasy, specifically a consensual rape roleplay scenario. The plan was to find someone willing to show up at the house and then make it look like that person had broken in, attacked Christine and been shot in self defense. A home invasion gone wrong. A tragedy, not a murder. Joseph Ryan found that profile and to state again, he had no connection to the Banfield family whatsoever. He made contact with Anastasia9 and believe, believed completely, that he was communicating with a woman named Christine who wanted to meet him. Just days before February 24th, Brendan instructed Perez Magalis to reach out to Ryan via telegram to confirm the details of the meetup and to confirm consent so the scene would look legitimate. Ryan confirmed he had no idea that the man behind the profile had already purchased a gun and given it to Perez Magalis. He had no idea. They'd been to a shooting range together in the months prior, with Brendan training her on how to use it. On the morning of February 24, 2023, the plan was set in motion. If you've ever wondered what diseases, medieval pee tests and cocktails have in common, you're in the right place.
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On our show, this Podcast Will Kill
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youl, we explore the wild world of
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diseases, their history, biology and impact. Today, vaccines are in part a victim
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of their own success. They have been so effective in preventing
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disease and death that we take them for granted.
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New episodes drop every Tuesday on the exactly right network.
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Listen to this podcast will kill you on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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wherever you get your podcasts.
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Brendan Banfield turned off his wife's phone and left it in a kitchen drawer so she couldn't call for help. Then he drove to a nearby McDonald's and waited. He wanted to be close enough to return quickly, but he needed to be away from the house so the timeline could work. When Ryan arrived at the house, Perez Magalis was outside in a car with Valerie. She called Brendan at McDonald's to signal that Ryan was inside. Brendan drove back and the two of them entered the house together through the basement, leaving 4 year old Valerie there before heading upstairs to the bedroom. According to prosecutors, Brendan announced himself as a police officer and shot Joseph Ryan in the head with his service issued firearm. Ryan fell. Peres Magalis called 911 briefly and then ended the call at Banfield's direction. And then Brendan Banfield stabbed his wife Christine repeatedly in the neck. When Ryan showed signs of movement, Perez Magalis shot him a second time. A second 911 call was made. This time the story was that an intruder had broken in and attacked Christine. When police arrived at the home, they found Christine Banfield still alive but suffering from multiple stab wounds to the neck. Joseph Ryan was dead from gunshot wounds found in an upstairs bedroom. There were no signs of forced entry anywhere in the home. Christine died from her injuries. Shortly after, Banfield and Perez Magalis told officers a version of the self defense story they had prepared. Ryan had broken in, attacked Christine, and both of them had shot him to save her. Banfield even said he hadn't wanted to fire. He would later testify at trial, quote, I did not want to shoot him. I wanted him to let her go, end quote. It didn't hold. Investigators pulled the digital evidence apart. The FET life profile, the telegram messages, the trail of months of planning. The physical evidence inside the home contradicted the story they'd been told. And in October 2023, eight months after the killings, Juliana Perez Magalis was arrested. She was charged with second degree murder and firearm offenses. During police interviews, she admitted to shooting Ryan and ultimately provided a detailed account that corroborated what the physical and digital evidence was already showing. Nearly a year after her arrest, Brendan Banfield was taken into custody following a traffic stop in Fairfax County. He was indicted in September 2024 on multiple counts, denied Bo and held as both a flight risk and a danger to his own daughter. In October 2024, Perez Magalis entered a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the death of Joseph Ryan and agreed to testify against Brendan Banfield for the prosecution. Jury selection began on January 12, 2026 in Fairfax County Circuit Court. The trial that followed lasted three weeks. Prosecutors called more than 34 witnesses. Two of them dominated the courtroom. The first was Perez Magalis. On day one of the testimony, she walked the jury through every detail. Banfield's defense attorney tried to undercut her credibility. And it led to one of the stranger moments of the trial. During cross examination, he had her read aloud from letters she had written from jail to her family in Brazil. In one letter, she claimed Netflix had offered her $10,000 for the exclusive rights to her story and that she wanted more, that her whole life was going to be exposed and they deserved something for it. The defense used this to paint her as someone looking to profit. Then Brendan Banfield took the stand himself. It was a rare move for a murder defendant. He admitted to cheating on Christine with Perez Magalis and with several other women. And he denied planning a murder. The jury deliberated for less than nine hours. On February 2, 2026, they returned a guilty verdict on every single count. Two counts of aggravated murder, one count of using a firearm in the commission of a felony, and one count of child endangerment. That last charge tied to the fact that his four year old daughter Valerie had been in that basement while her mother was being murdered upstairs.
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Such an ordinary thing to walk home from high school. Her name was Mickey Costanzo. Just 16. She didn't have far to go. Seemed perfectly safe. Until it wasn't. What happened to Mickey? I'm Keith Morrison and this is five Miles From Home, an all new podcast from Dateline. Search five Miles From Home to start listening now.
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In mid February, before Banfield's own sentencing, Perez Magalis faced the judge. The prosecution had recommended time served and deportation in line with the cooperation deal she'd made. The judge rejected that recommendation entirely and sentenced her to 10 years in prison, the maximum followed by deportation to Brazil. She received credit for the two plus years she'd already served and could be released earlier for good behavior. But she was not walking free. Then last week, Banfield's legal team made one final attempt. They filed a motion asking a judge to overturn the conviction. It was denied on Thursday, June 4th. And so on Friday, Brendan Banfield was brought into Fairfax County Circuit Court for sentencing before Judge Penny Askarate imposed the sentence the courtroom heard from the people whose lives he had destroyed. Christine's sister, Danielle Hawker, stood at the podium. She was crying, her voice was trembling. She told the court that her family had largely stayed silent throughout the entire case to protect Valerie and to preserve Christine's memory from public consumption. She said the grief didn't perform itself in public moments. It hid behind closed doors in quiet spaces and it had fundamentally changed who she was as a person. She spoke directly to Banfield about Valerie, telling him that his daughter would one day have to come to terms with what he did and the fact that he had put her in harm's way. She called his trial testimony the most self serving display of narcissism she had ever witnessed. Hawker said, quote, he could have divorced and moved on, but divorce would have required relinquishing control and control was always the priority. His actions were not driven by love, but a desire for power, deception and a complete disregard for the lives he destroyed. End quote Joseph Ryan's mother, Deirdre Fisher, appeared in court, virtually joining by video due to medical reasons. She described the moment she received the call that her son had been been murdered, the primal scream she let out when she heard the words. She pushed back against the way Ryan had been treated throughout the proceedings, reduced in some ways to a prop in someone else's story. Fiser said, quote, he had a face, he had a name, he had a life. But Brendan Banfield shot his face, soiled his name and treated his life as disposable, end quote. And then Brendan Banfield spoke, standing before the court that had just spent months convicting him on every count. He continued to insist he was innocent. He said, quote, I am not responsible. I am not responsible for her death. This is not a knife that I ever held in my hands. Sentencing in cases like this is difficult, that it stays with her long after the hearing ends. She said that in her career, only twice before had she encountered something she felt was categorically difficult. Different individuals who carried no remorse, who had calculated and planned their violent crimes and left devastation in their wake. Looking at Brendan Banfield, she said she believed she was in the presence of that same thing a third time. She sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole for aggravated murder, with additional consecutive terms for the firearm offense and the child endangerment conviction. All sentences running back to back. This case will stay with people for a long time, not just because of what happened, but because of who was responsible for it. Christine Banfield was a nurse who spent her career keeping critically ill children alive. Joseph Ryan was an innocent man who had no idea the danger he was walking into. Valerie lost her mother at 4 years old, and now she grows up knowing what her father did. And on Friday, in a courtroom in Fairfax, Virginia, a judge made sure that Brendan Banfield will spend every remaining day of his life inside a prison, which is exactly where he belongs. That's the latest here from Fairfax County. We'll continue to follow any developments as they come in. Stay with us here on crime house 247 and make sure you tune in for our afternoon episode because trust us, it is one you are not going to want to miss. You've been listening to Crime House 24 7, bringing you breaking crime news. I'm Vanessa Richardson. Stay safe and thanks for listening.
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On a quiet Saturday morning, five women walked into Elaine Bryant store and never came home. The man responsible for their deaths was heard and even described by the lone survivor. But despite nearly being caught, thought he vanished into thin air. In the years since, new technology, new investigators and new questions have changed what's possible. But the families are still waiting for answers. The evidence is still there, and this case isn't cold. It's unfinished. Listen to Counterclock season eight wherever you get your podcasts.