Transcript of The Au Pair, the Affair and Murder

Wow!

[No speech given] 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. In 2021, Juliana Perez-Magalhaes came from Brazil to Virginia to work for Christine and Brendan Banfield. She was to be their au pair. 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. 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.

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

On February 24th, 2023, the family life that Juliana Margulies was sharing with the Banfields was completely shattered. It was turned upside down. 911, where's your emergency?

I need help. There is my friend, she just was in the second night now she's putting a lot. 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. 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.

Is there somebody else there that can give me the address? Yes.

Stable Brook Way. Okay. And what's your name and what's going on? My name is Brenda Banfield. I'm a federal agent.

This is my house. There's somebody here.

I shot him.

He stabbed her. Brendan described in his 911 call that he, in fact, interrupted a man attacking his wife in the primary bedroom of their home. Brendan tells them that he shot the attacker to protect his wife. She's bleeding. She's got several marks on her neck.

She's not responding. She's still-- her heart's still beating. She's breathing. You said she's breathing normally. She's just not responding to you.

She's got a very big hole in her neck. Can you just send help, please? Yeah, they're on the way. And you say you don't know the individual that was shot. No.

I have officers that are pulling up outside, okay? Myself and all the other detectives on my squad that were available responded out to the scene. When police arrived at the Banfield home, and go up to the master bedroom, they enter a chaotic scene. Police go up the stairs, then they're on the staircase. They see Juliana inside 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. My host kid is downstairs. Okay. How old is your host kid? She's four and a half.

Four and a half? Where is she? I need to talk to her. She doesn't know anything. What's-- Can we get her and we'll go outside?

So the police officer and Juliana together go down into the basement. You can see a little four-year-old girl. Hey, I'm Officer Bell. Nice to meet you. Do you want to go outside with us?

We need to go outside, okay? You see Juliana at the-- The Hesta police take the daughter out of the house. If you just want to tell me quickly what happened, if it's... I don't really know what happened. Everything happened too fast.

The police officer tells the four-year-old girl, why don't you go with that officer? Can you go with Officer Battani really quick? He has some stickers for you. During this time, Juliana starts making some statements to the officer about what happened. I was my daughter's birthday this morning.

And then I forgot the lines you were gonna sing. Julieana basically explains what happened that morning. How Brendan left for work, Christine is home that day. She, Julieana, 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 front door of the house. Do you know who the person is? 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 has a car. I got him. I see his French car, but I don't know who is that.

Can I please come in here? I'm scared. Brendan was at a nearby McDonald's, and then he came back to the home. He comes home, the three of them go into the back of the house, left the little girl in the basement and went upstairs. Juliana explains that she and Brendan saw this man holding a knife at Christine, threatening to kill her.

Brendan was saying, I'm gonna drop the knife, drop the knife. I'm sorry, I'm pretending which is not-- no, no, no, you're doing really well. And he said, I'm gonna kill her, I'm gonna kill her. And I don't know if he stabbed-- he started stabbing her. I think Brendan shot him.

You can see she's shaken up. She's not speaking complete sentences. It's okay. You see Juliana hyperventilating, flustered, just seemingly very distraught. OK, take a breath.

It's OK. Take a minute, OK? We need some water. Outside the house, Juliana is talking to police, and Brendan is upstairs with the police in the bedroom where all this happened. Brendan Banfield 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? We see him put into an ambulance. We see officers talking to him. Where'd all this blood come from, you know?

I was holding her neck. Can they be with her? They're gonna work on her when they get there. You wouldn't be able to see her immediately. 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. You have one of the doctors here. Your wife has died.

It sounds like there was a lot of blood loss. So I think that she died of blood loss. I was trying to apply pressure. Yeah. I mean, those were enormous wounds and, you know, it's not-- There were so many.

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 for 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?

As Brendan is struggling with the idea that he has lost his wife, a patient advocate joins him and you can hear him praying. While Brendan's at the hospital, the house is being processed as a crime scene. Crime scene. 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. The wife of the household was killed. A man unrelated to the household was shot. It's unclear their relationship. We're just trying to work out the details, the sequence of these violent acts.

Police need to figure out who is this? Who Brendan Banfield says he came upon in the master bedroom of his house attacking his wife. We don't know a lot of things just yet, and we're working really hard to find them out.

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Certainly a double murder in a quiet community like this one, is unusual and it's upsetting to everyone. I get it. And we're gonna work really hard to get the facts. When we first heard this story, it seemed pretty clear cut. There was an intruder who came in when Christine was still sleeping, who got caught in the middle of the act.

The interest in this was big and bold right away. And we knew that this was gonna be a big one. Immediately, Brendan Banfield was a federal law enforcement officer. He worked for the IRS. Federal law enforcement carried a gun both on and off duty.

His wife, Christine, is an ICU nurse.

So this happened in Fairfax County. It's just outside of Washington, D.C. The area where the Banfields lived was an upper middle class suburban neighborhood, roughly million dollar homes. There's a lot of families around. I know that community to be very quiet, very safe.

Tree-lined streets, cul-de-sacs, 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.

Decedent, who was found dead inside the home, shot to death, Joseph Nathan Ryan. He's 39 years old. At 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 van fields.

We have to sort out the exact nature of Mr. Ryan's presence inside the home. 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 friend. I heard from a coworker.

She was like, hey, I just heard that Christine's dead. And I was like, what are you talking about? And you hear that she's stabbed in her own home. What do you make of this? I was just like, an absolute She's such a genuine, caring person, so for something that brutal to happen to her, it just didn't make sense.

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. 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.

And being in pediatric ICU, I mean, that's gotta be very hard. You have to be strong, emotionally strong, when you have to really love what you do. She definitely was extremely resilient, very smart, very kind. In fact, I heard her described as a mother hen. 100%.

When I first met her, she's like, hi, I'm Christie. People know me as the mother hen. And I was like, what? She was like, I just take everybody in underneath of 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.

I was five weeks in coma. When I was in coma, one day I just wake up. When I opened my eyes, I saw a nurse that was taking care of me. And she's like, How can I help you? 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. She 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 call? 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.

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.

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. Christine and Brendan, by all appearances, have a lot in common. They like hiking and traveling and looking after their two dogs, Huskies. Her baby shower was exactly eight years ago, and I just, the laughing and being so She was so excited for her to become a mom. It was a beautiful day.

Did you get a sense of what kind of a mom she was? 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. How much did you know about Brendan?

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 life that they had built and created. She was definitely more of an extrovert, and I think he was more of an introvert. Brendan came off shy and into, like, gaming and things like that. 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 the friendship continued. They participated in these tough Mutter races together. He thought a lot of Brendan.

He's one of those people that seemed like, oh, he always like 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 a 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 seemed to have it all. Was she pleased with where their lives were going? I would say so. I mean, she would describe her life as perfect. And she used that word perfect.

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? Yeah. Everything was perfect.

They couldn't believe that the person they knew would wind up dead like this. Their au pair saw this man walk through the front door of the house carrying a bag. It seemed pretty intentional. How did that happen? This question started to come up of, did Christine know this person?

It comes out that Joe Ryan wasn't necessarily He wasn't necessarily a stranger. He had communications with a Christine Banfield. On this website, it's like, what's going on here? Is she leading a secret life?

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. I don't know what to tell her. You don't have to tell her anything, okay? You just give her a big hug, tell her she's okay.

I'll give her a big hug, okay? Tell her you're here today, tonight. 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? 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. So she saw it as sort of giving-- 100%.

--someone else. 100%. Christine saw her au pairs as family. That Banfield's had an au pair prior to Juliana, and they seem to really have loved that au pair. 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. We had an au pair of our own for a year when my first son was six months old. Was that based on their advice? 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.

Then later she gets another au pair, 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.

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.

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 him over there. How was Brendan reacting at that point? He's killed somebody, his wife is dead. He seemed pretty sad and broken up about it.

He was talking about, you know, how we wouldn't be able to do any of the 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. Your heart must have broken for him. Yeah, it sounded terrible.

What about Juliana? How was she? She was saying like, oh, the police talked to me for like eight hours the previous day. 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. There was no forced entry whatsoever. This is not a home invasion. There was no broken windows. There was no busted in doors.

If this was a stranger, why wasn't there forced entry? When they examine the devices of Christine and Joseph Ryan, they see there's a lot of communication between them. It appears that Joe Ryan wasn't exactly an intruder. It looks like he and Christine might have been in contact before. Joe Ryan, had communications with a Christine Banfield on this website, a social media platform for people interested in sexual fetishes.

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. It seemed that he had coordinated a meeting with a Christine Banfield that day. For rough sex. Joseph Rine, it's his understanding that he and Christine Banfield are gonna 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.

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.

Joseph sends a picture of all the equipment he intends to bring to their first encounter, the knife, the chains, the robes 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. Could she have had a side that you just didn't know about? That story reeked 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? Really? Okay. 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 jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts. And he also was an animal lover. He collected old, ugly dogs, rescued them, Rescue dogs and he loved them. Who's a spaz?

Are you? 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 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 I admired that about him. 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 and to take care of me. And he offered to shave his head because I was bald at the time. And I said, no. I was taking a picture of them together smiling. And after that first picture, Deirdre was 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 gonna 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. Joe was very close to his mom.

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. And Joe Ryan seemed to want to make sure anybody he was going to connect with was into it as well. We 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? 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 role play sex scene that was mutually beneficial to both parties. He thought he was going into a good time.

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

This isn't right. This is not Christine. Could she have had a side that you just didn't know about? 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. So there may be mysteries about Christine Banfield. Who is Christine, really? But there are questions about Brendan Banfield, too.

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

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 to be. 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.

Brendan hires a lawyer, so his lawyer tells him, don't talk. That's not unusual. So on advice of counsel, he doesn't talk. So we don't really know anything from Brendan, except what he said initially, which wasn't much. As we're investigating, we start to discover things that occurred in the past in the marriage between Brendan Banfield and Christine Banfield.

Detectives doing what they do were able to find a woman who had a relationship with Brendan early in his marriage. I got a chance to meet up with a woman who had actually had a relationship with Brendan. She had connected with Brendan 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.

You're rolling? Oh, you are? Okay. Are you okay with these shots? Yes, this shot is fine.

And you're fine with us using your pseudonym for you, Jennifer? Correct. Jennifer? Yes. Okay.

Very good. So are you ready to tell your story? I am. What kind of an impression did he give you? 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 is always a plus. 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 sex for hire? It was more like relationship for hire.

I didn't see it as sex work or anything like that. It was more I just want you to take care of me. How much did he pay you? 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. She says he told her that he was married. Now, he gave her the impression that he was not really happy in his marriage, 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 been more than roommates for months and months.

So he gave you the impression that he was in an unhappy marriage. 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. He was married, so how did he find time to spend long days or maybe even a weekend with you?

Well, his wife, she's a nurse, and she had a job at the time that involved a lot of time away from home. Did you go to his home ever? 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 I do these very detailed cleanings after I leave, 'cause I have different colored hair from his wife. So, you know, there was, 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 thrill, I think, to doing forbidden things, right?

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

Their affair is going on and going strong. And Jennifer says one day Christine comes home and finds them there. 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. She says they were dating for about a year, and then she says he dumps her. Years have gone by. Jennifer has moved on And then she happens to come across this article and she reads Brendan's name.

She couldn't believe it. 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. Jennifer tells me this was so unsettling that she reached out to a detective on the case.

I just wanted to reveal a piece of information that he had had an affair before. You wanted investigators to know what his character was all about. Right, 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.

Christine's friends, the nurses who worked alongside her, said Christine often talked about infidelity, how she was so sickened by it. 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. Did she ever let on whether she worried her husband might be?

No. It's okay. Were you here when it happened? When Juliana was interviewed? Initially by detectives, she denied having any type of sexual relationship with Brendan Banfield.

She described their relationship as he is her employer and she is his au pair.

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

For a while, the case didn't have a lot of developments. There was no arrest. I just was afraid there wouldn't be justice for Joe. It was very difficult. It was very, very difficult.

Very difficult. 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? 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 if you're still gonna somehow live in this house, trying to make the best of the situation. And interestingly, Juliana, the au pair, is still living in this house, too. 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 two 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 Brendan Banfield. And we discovered that Juliana had told her friend about the affair she was having. 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. Prosecutors had said that they found photos of them, you know, out in public. 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 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. Brendan and Juliana had been having an affair. The police think at least six months before Christine was killed. 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 7 News. A family's au pair is now charged with shooting and killing a man in a Reston home. The Fairfax County Police Department announced today they made a new arrest in that case and they're charging the family. Pair was second degree murder.

Eight months after the homicides, Juliana is arrested and charged with second degree murder for the death of Joseph Ryan. Juliana pleads not guilty. 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. It turns out that on the day of the shooting, Juliana Tells the police on the scene that she shot Joe Ryan too.

Yeah, and Brendan said, no, police don't drop the knife. And I think Brendan shot him, and he asked me help shot him too. She said from the very beginning that Brendan shot Joe Ryan first, and she shot him second. Juliana 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. 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.

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 Brandon 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's jewelry. Had effectively replaced Christine. And when you saw those photos, disgusted. 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, and most of all, Christine's daughter.

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.

And then police discover something else that 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. When you combine that with the fact that he never took his wife's shooting, it really points in the direction of a plot. 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. 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.

We could hear in that call what sounded like a man moaning. It's very revealing. The question is, what happened in those 15 minutes?

From 30 for 30 Podcasts.

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They just want a conviction. We've been placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U. Listen now.

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Here we go. 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 years later, she would be dead. Fairfax County police are still investigating who killed a woman inside that home.

It just seems like she was so looking forward to the next year. Yeah, it's incredibly tragic. Now, looking back on it, a woman working as an au pair for a family in Herndon has been arrested and charged for a fatal shooting. While Juliana was in jail, Brendan living a version of a normal life. Not quite the life that he had led before, but somewhat normal.

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. At the point in time that we arrested Juliana, we still couldn't tie Brendon to it until we had had the opportunity to really work that scene, 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. 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. Brendan Banfield pleads not guilty. We have evidence to now allege that Christine Banfield's life was unlawfully taken and Joseph Ryan's life was unlawfully taken. You have anything you want to say?

I was happy. I was celebrating. I couldn't have been more thrilled. That's when I was like, Yes, finally they got this guy. What did you make of that?

This is the man you thought you knew to be this upstanding guy. Basically thinking that, wow, we're like me and so many other 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. 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. 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 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. More details 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.

As Juliana waited, she saw Joseph Ryan arrive.

She then called Brendan. He then Brendan 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. 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.

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.

Hello, this is Fairfax County 911. 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. Prosecutors say the initial 911 call was made too soon that Juliana called before everything was properly laid out. What we think happened between the two 911 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 Prosecutors say that Banfield smeared it on Joseph Ryan to make it look like he was the one stabbing Kristine.

Now there are two people sitting in jail awaiting their murder trials. Yeah, they're true. Yeah.

But is one of them gonna flip?

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 good night to him.

And I wave at the box.

Night, a major new development in a 2023 double murder in Reston.

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. According to my sources, the Fairfax County Commonwealth's Attorney offered this plea deal to Juliana Perez-Maglhaes in exchange for her testimony against Brendan Banfield. There had 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, get your breath. Yeah.

So in order to get this deal, Juliana has to sit down with prosecutors and law enforcement. She's gotta come clean with everything that she knows. She has to be truthful. Have you had, to your satisfaction, full and fair opportunity to consult with your lawyers? Yes.

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. 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. He basically told me, I want to tell you something, but I don't want you to be afraid or scared or leave me. He said, okay, you can tell me whatever. And then 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 Sharon because it would be easier if she was not in the picture. Corroborates this catfish theory. He told me that he was going to create an account on the website FetLife. Where in the house were you predominantly when he is on FetLife?

It was mostly in the basement. We'd sit there and then with her laptop, he said he needed to Find a person who likes to play like blood, play with knife and stuff like that, play violent. This whole plan was designed to a tee to kind of COVID their tracks. Basically, after a while talking to Joe, he said, He's a white person. Joe is a white person.

Juliana 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 chessboard. 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't do it without me? And he said, Because something was wrong, I needed to have my back.

Can you tell me the words that he used in terms of how he intended on killing her? Like stabbing her? Did he say it? Where he intended on stabbing her, how he intended on stabbing her. Yeah, he was planning to stab her 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 could be easier. So what did Joe Ryan say during the time when Brendan Banfield comes in? He looked at us like surprised, like shocked, that there were other people in the bedroom. And then as soon as I'm gonna just shot him. Hearing Juliana describe Christine's last moments was absolutely gut-wrenching.

She is describing the moment a mother lost her life. He was sad for her and then she was just telling him, let me go, I'm gonna die anyways. I'm gonna plead to death. She was just, Leave me here, let me die. And then he was telling her, I can't.

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. She said something about birthday because it was going to be the next month, in March. Based on him, like, he has to be before birthday.

Why? I can only imagine that her last thoughts were of her daughter.

Sorry, that's all.

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.

I don't know where the justice in that is. How do you get to plan a murder and think that you're gonna live a life, you know, her life essentially, and walk away? Walk away after a couple years. In less than 12 hours, the trial of Brendan Banfield will get underway. 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. There was a divide amongst investigators. Our supervisor at the time told us there were two theories in the case and we needed to get behind the right one.

While awaiting trial, Brendan Banfield is indicted on two more felony charges. Prosecutors file another indictment charging with felony child cruelty and felony child abuse.

And this is because he had this remarkably intricate plan to kill his wife and did it with his daughter in the house. 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. 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 the report Miller's report is that there's no indication at any point in time that Christine lost control or contact with her own devices. So if Christine always had control of her devices, then the whole theory of the case falls apart. 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.

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?

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

The judge who's presiding over the case is Penny Azcarate. She's a former Marine, she's a no-nonsense judge. She is familiar to the people who saw the Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial. Jurors in Depp and Amber Heard's multimillion dollar defamation trial are taking their time. 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. 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. But yet one of the critical detectives, the forensic examiner in the case, the original one, said, no, that's not right.

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.

Early on in the prosecution's case, the jury hears the 911 calls. I need help.

My friend, he just was attacked in the night, and I was completely, my lot. Brendan is sitting at the table crying. There's somebody here.

I thought, I got him.

The best way to tell the story is to let the people who were there tell the story. The 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.

She needs to deliver. This is a big moment. As Juliana walked past Brendan, his eyes tracked her. Brendan tried to connect with her, lock eyes with her. Juliana didn't give him a second glance.

You swear or affirm to testify truthfully in this case under penalty of law. Yes. Thank you. Now you can 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. He was my boss.

Brendan 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 has 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 has 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. 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. She was extremely nervous, but she wanted to tell the When I first saw that happening, I was just crouching down, covering my ears and covering my eyes.

And now to more stunning revelations from the double murder trial playing out in Fairfax County.

Juliana Perez-Magdalenes is still 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. At first, I thought he was joking. He had heard of a website called FetLife. Were you present when he created the FetLife account? Yes.

He created a new email account. For Christine, and Christine's name.

Juliana explains that as a part of this plan, Brendan creates this profile, this Anastasia 9. How did the two of you use her laptop without her knowing about it? The first time she has to get home from work, she throw her backpack by the door. In the backpack was her laptop.

Joseph Ryan was really just one out 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 meet up. He made Brendan feel confident enough that he would be the person to play the role and come over to the house.

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 Joe Ryan pretending to be Christine. As soon as he said hi, he was surprised that I had an accent. Juliana testifies that Felber January 24th arrives, the day that this plan was supposed to be executed. She wakes up early, preparing the four-year-old daughter for this fake trip to the zoo. She testifies that Christine had the day off and wanted to sleep in.

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 gonna wait for her call. What, if anything, did he give you in that morning before the two of you left? 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 Joe Ryan arrive.

The zoo was the COVID and as part of that, she was going to bring some watches that she packed and left in the refrigerator so that she would have a reason to be loitering outside in the cul-de-sac. That's when I saw Jill pulling in the driveway and I called Brendan. He told me he would be coming home. Julianna 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 of them went in the back of the house, left the little girl in the basement, and went upstairs. He took his gun out. I just did the same. I just followed him to the master bedroom. Juliana goes on to say that she and Brendan burst into the bedroom and find Joe Ryan there with Christine.

She yelled back at Brendan saying, Brendan, he has a knife. That's when Brendan first shot Joe. Brendan went to Christine. She told me, 'Juliana, call 911.' She testified that in the moment when Christine shouted, 'Juliana, call 911,' she instinctively did it. That's where you have our very brief recording in which you hear Joseph Ryan moaning in the background.

Where's your emergency?

Brendan looks at me and he just hung up the call. Well, the police theory is that the scene wasn't ready yet for the police to show up. Brendan needed time to stage it. He got on top of her, and that's when I first saw him stab 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. So she shot him.

She shot him. The defense definitely had a strategy when it came to Juliana, trying to give the jury a motive for why this witness is lying. On cross-examination, the defense attorney asked Juliana why she waited so long to cooperate. The feeling of shame and guilt and also because I had a potential of getting less time. And the defense tried to get Juliana to lay out some of the details of this plan.

Many times she just said, I don't know. Who took the laptop from wherever it was that Christina thought it was? That day, I do not remember. I can't tell you for sure. I can tell you the date.

I mean, with all due respect, you don't remember a lot of details. Yeah. That's what's really concerning about this. And I'm telling you that I'm not recalling. Julieana has really damaged Brendan with her testimony, if she's believed.

So the big question now is, will Brendan Banfield take the stand? Any time 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. All right, call Brendan Banfield.

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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 Carroll begins his case, the argument is that the prosecution and law enforcement had blinders on. We had a briefing within the first week. Our supervisor at the time told us there were two theories in the case and we needed to get behind the right one.

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. 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.

Did you make any conclusions at that time that she had not given up her devices? I had nothing indicating of dominion and control at that time. So your conclusions based on zeros and ones are still the same? Yes. The defense calls their own expert to basically verify or agree with Miller's original conclusion.

Were you able to draw any opinions related to this case? Catfishing did not occur. I didn't see anything here that indicated loss of control. 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?

Correct.

All right, Mr. Banfield, do you understand you have a constitutional right not to testify? Yes, ma'am. Any time a defendant wishes to testify at trial, there's a hold your breath moment. You're all right, Cole. Brendan Banfield.

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. 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. So Brendan stays on the stand over two days.

And he told jurors that he's had affairs in the past, he admitted to it, but he said his wife has also had affairs in the past. There was a point a number of 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.

In our detective's examination of Christine Banfield's 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. There was never any secrets. 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. Regarding the day of, Brendan had an explanation for the jury. Brendan testifies that when he pulls up to the house and sees this strange car, he doesn't call the police. I call 9-1-1 right away because he says that he thinks maybe his wife is having another indiscretion.

It wasn't on my mind that this was some type of violent or threatening encounter. I was emotional at that point. Brendan says that he enters the house through the basement door and then he sees Juliana and his daughter behind him. I never told her to come in. Come down to the house.

Brendan leaves Juliana and Banfield's daughter in the basement. He goes upstairs and into the bedroom. Christine was nude 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 I said police.

I saw him do a downward stabbing stroke. And that is when I. 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. Brendan notices that Juliane is now in the bedroom.

With him. I told Juliana to call 911. She went into the master bathroom. Brendan says that while he's tending to his wife, he then he feels something on his back. Joe Ryan struck me in my shoulder.

All of a sudden, a gunshot. And I looked up and I saw that Juliana had my other firearm. I was stunned that Juliana really on a headshot.

As John Carroll is finishing his direct examination of Brendan Banfield, I'm ready. Your Honor, I have no further questions. Cross-examination? There were a number of things that I wanted to push on. He's asked, well, you know, you've explained a couple of stab wounds.

She had seven stab wounds. When did he stab her those other five times?

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. Okay, well she had to get five more wounds at some point. 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. Would it surprise you if the digital footprint Forensics would show that she was not on her phone at 6:30 or really anytime before or after that.

I saw her with her phone. It was on the bed. Got it. Okay. So she was just with the phone, not using the phone.

Yes. The prosecutor is really questioning Brendan's behavior. He sees Juliana in the basement, doesn't tell, with his daughter, doesn't tell her, go back to the car. Why wouldn't you tell the babysitter to take your daughter back outside. I believe that she was safe in the basement.

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

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

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. 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. Julianna made it up. She told the Commonwealth what they wanted to hear. She told this lie to secure herself a deal.

He argued that officials rushed to judgment in this case and transferred people out who did not support the conclusion that they had. The one detective who stood up and said, 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. After nearly nine hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict and everyone rushed into 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. We, the jury in the case of the Commonwealth of Virginia versus Brendan Robert Banfield, defendant, find the defendant guilty of aggravated murder of Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield. 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. Brendan will be sentenced in May, but just days ago, Juliana was back in court, finally learning her fate. I'm truly sorry for the pain it caused. I hope someday I can be forgiven. Your actions were deliberate.

Self-serving and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life. Therefore, I do sentence you to 10 years in the penitentiary. May it weigh heavily on your soul. I believe she is equally as responsible for my son's death. She's a cold-blooded killer.

Joe Ryan, for his loved they don't want him forgotten. I want people to know Joe was a good son.

That he loved people and that he didn't deserve this.

Christine's family has mostly been quiet about the loss but they just Christine 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 Christine will always be remembered as the beautiful person she was. There are so many things that remind me of her.

A Backyard Boyz song will come on.

Remembering her laugh. Sometimes I could look at a picture and I hear it because it was a pretty great laugh. What do you want her daughter to know about her? How much she loved and adored her. You have a necklace that she shared with you.

Her daughter had made me this necklace that says family, which was sort of the focus of Christine's life. Her daughter was her absolute world. Her daughter's the reason that she lived every day. She loved her so much.

And that's our program for tonight. Thank you for watching. I'm David Muir. And I'm Deborah Roberts from all of us here at 2020 and ABC News. Good night.

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