Transcript of Temptation

Tonight on Dateline.

She was like Christine's dad.

I was speechless.

Complete shock. She was a truly good human.

Loving mother. A nurse's nurse.

Where's the gun at?

The officers, they're met by Juliana, the au pair.

They come upon a scene that's sheer chaos.

Absolutely. There is somebody shot and a woman that's been stabbed.

What's bothering you right now?

To just keep seeing this scene.

You can see Brennan Banfield. He's kneeling over his wife. Wife.

The deceased male we later identify as Joe Ryan.

They find this fetish website where Christine's profile is communicating with Joseph Ryan's profile.

They're having in-depth correspondence regarding this violent sexual fantasy.

I was like, what if the fantasy was a setup?

We start to get these juicy details about this so-called catfish theory. The whole plot is just wild.

Very few people see that kind of evil. Man, it shakes you.

A double murder as elaborate as it was brutal. Inside the case that riveted the country. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Blaine Alexander with Temptation.

What a perfect day to it was supposed to be. For the 4-year-old little girl, anyway. She was going on an adventure with her live-in nanny.

They had bought tickets a few days prior. She's making packed lunches. They're going to go to the zoo as a type of playdate with other au pairs in the neighborhood that are also bringing the kids that they watch.

Very typical.

Very typical.

But instead of visiting the lions, tigers, and bears that Friday, February 24th, 2023, The little girl found herself in her family's basement in Northern Virginia alone.

It's difficult to watch the body camera footage. You just know that when you see the images of that little girl, that her life is never going to be the same. It's never going to be the same.

And she was inside the house while whatever horrific thing went on upstairs. She was right there.

Yeah. 911, what is your emergency? My name is Brendan Banfield. I'm a federal agent. This is my house. There's somebody here. It was just after 8 AM. The girl's father, Brendan Banfield, told a 911 operator he'd shot a stranger in his home. So the person that you shot, where is he? I don't know.

I don't know him.

Okay, where is he though? He's here. He's on the ground.

Brendan said he fired because the man was stabbing his wife Christine.

Can you tell me how her breathing is? She's still— she's hard to stop breathing. She's still breathing. Within minutes, first responders were at the house, guns drawn. Well, I got voices inside. Let's do something quick.

County police, call out!

Where's the gun at?

Where's the gun?

They meet a woman, and this woman starts telling the officers upstairs. Come upstairs to the master bedroom.

Is there anyone else in the house? Any kids in the house? Fairfax County homicide detective Thomas Goodell.

You can see Brennan Banfield, and he's kneeling over his wife, and she's not moving. And he has one arm outstretched and touching the area of her neck, on the side of her neck. And he has blood on his hands.

He's touching her. Is he trying to perform life-saving measures? What does that look like?

So he was kneeling. She was laying on her side, on one of her sides, and he had the hand, one of his hands on her neck.

Christine had been stabbed multiple times.

Behind where they're situated, deeper in the corner of the bedroom, laying on top of a dog bed, is another man, fully clothed, and his face is covered with blood. And he is not moving.

It was the man Brendan shot.

Anybody say, "Walk here." You have these two victims there. Now you have medics on the scene.

Patrick Bruch, now retired, was a police captain at the time.

You see two people that are critically injured, a firearm in plain view, a man covered in blood, a woman that's let you in the house, and what we later find out, a 4-year-old girl in the basement.

Wow, that's quite a scene. That's a lot.

It was soon clear there was nothing first responders could do for the man who'd been shot.

He was deceased.

Yes, he was deceased at the scene.

But Christine, despite repeated stabs to her neck, was miraculously still alive and was rushed to the ER. Officers then coaxed the Banfields' 4-year-old daughter from the basement.

Do you want to go outside with us?

We need to go outside, okay?

Officers guided both out of the house, the child and the woman with her.

And that would be who we later identify as Juliana, the au pair.

That left Brandon, his hands still covered in Christine's blood. Can you check him out?

Yeah, I got—

I got more units here.

We'll check him out.

What's his demeanor at this time?

Sort of consistent with someone who's experienced a critical incident. Levels of shock. Not really saying too much. You know, making somewhat some utterances, but very small. And that's part of the challenge for the responding officers is they're trying to elicit more information.

But this is somebody who has shot a stranger in his bedroom.

Sounds like a home invasion.

For all intents and purposes, that's what you would have to initially classify it as.

Yet even in those early hours, investigators wondered what an odd time of day for a home invasion. Early on a Friday morning when neighbors, potential witnesses, were bustling to school, to work, and almost sure to see something? Was there something else going on here?

Well, yes, there was. A lot more.

There was just something about it all that compelled me to, to couch my words at that on-scene press conference.

He had sent a photograph in advance. These are the things that I'm going to bring— zip ties and chains and whips and, you know, rubber belts.

You hear about this fetish website. Did that sound like anything that was even remotely possible?

Absolutely not.

No, absolutely not.

God, no.

It's these details that take the public interest from here through the roof because you're—

what he was doing What if there is such a thing as a perfect place to raise a family? The Banfields' community was probably it.

This is a really nice place to live. Herndon, Virginia, all of Fairfax County is fairly suburban.

Drew Wilder covers the area for NBC 4 Washington.

Great schools, great place to live, beautiful quiet neighborhoods.

But on Friday, February 24th, 2023, this neighborhood was chaos. Patrick Bruch was a member of police senior command.

So you get here, I mean, what is the street like when you first get to the scene?

So from here, as far as your eye can see, it's, it's fire apparatus, it's police cars, it's lights. There is a clear path to the residents, and that's just so any one of the ambulances—

We're talking about a huge response, just flashing lights up and down that street.

Absolutely, as far as you can see.

I get notified right away.

Kevin Davis is chief of the Fairfax County Police Department.

We know what our 911 caller, the husband, told us.

I spent a lot of time as a local reporter. When we would go to crime scenes, if the chief came out and spoke to reporters, we're automatically thinking, okay, this is a big deal.

People were out of their homes. They were curious. And I knew based on the geography of this crime, based on the nature of this crime, that this was going to garner a lot of attention.

They quickly learned the man on the 911 call was Brendan Banfield, a 38-year-old special agent for the IRS in its criminal investigation division.

He is a sworn officer. He does carry a firearm. And he basically enforces federal crimes as they pertain to, you know, IRS and tax issues.

So he has a lot of the powers of a law enforcement official.

Sure thing, yes.

He, Christine, and their 4-year-old daughter were fairly new to the area. They'd moved here from their native Long Island in 2019 after the IRS promoted Brendan to special agent.

When they were looking at houses, we all went out and grabbed dinner together.

Bri and Jared already knew Brendan through online gaming. They often teamed up.

We just seemed to vibe right away. Both competitive, both good at what we did. And we were having a lot of success together and like constantly winning and enjoying yourself. You know, just think like, okay, this is fun. Let's, let's see, let's keep going, see where this goes.

Brian says Brendyn and Christine were a fun couple who loved to work out and compete in mud races. He and Brendyn became close friends.

We did Tough Mudder together. Sometimes we'd go on hikes or we'd go to concerts together or, you know, sometimes just like watch like, like like a football game or something like that. We'd also talk about just, like, individual investing, but he always said his goal was to create generational wealth for his daughter. From everything I'd heard, they accumulated a lot and were extremely well off, had very nice house.

Christine was an accomplished nurse who took on the tough jobs, like working with victims of sexual assault. Her specialty, though, was pediatric intensive care.

She's like, I'm kind of like the unit mother hen. Like, I take in all the new grads.

Nurses Katie Janice and Marissa Moncayo worked alongside her in the ICU.

So you already take a, a very busy environment, which can be very, very stressful, and then you add on trying to educate a new person and a new nurse coming on. So I think it takes a special breed of person to be able to do that.

They'll never forget how Christine volunteered to work the adult ICU ward during those terrifying first days of COVID I mean, that was a very scary time, especially to be in the healthcare field.

Yeah, I think being in the healthcare world at that time was hard because in the beginning we didn't know what COVID was, what it looked like. And I think initially as healthcare workers, we were all super, super scared. Like, am I going to get this?

It was like running into a building that's on fire. And she was like, okay, There's people in that burning building. I need to go save them. That's exactly what she did.

Katie and Marissa say the only thing Christine prized more than her work was her family, especially their young daughter.

Super, super proud, super beaming.

Like, all she did was talk about her daughter, constantly pulling out her phone, constantly showing pictures.

And as a working mom, childcare was always top of mind.

Especially if you're working difficult hours, how are you going to make it all work?

Yeah, because I think all of us had different schedules on the unit.

It was one of the reasons Christine turned to the au pair program, hosting young live-in nannies from abroad.

For busy parents, the au pair program can be a godsend. Yeah. I, I've done it. It's been amazing. Did it seem like Christine had kind of found the perfect childcare solution?

Yeah.

I think she talked about it that way. And it wasn't just like, I have an au pair and this fits my family's lifestyle. It was like, I have an au pair and I'm helping somebody come to our country and I'm giving them a chance to live here and see what our country is like. Like, she really promoted the role.

Yeah.

They say Christine became close with her first au pair. When that woman left, Christine found a replacement in Juliana Perez Magalhaes from Brazil.

I think that the reason that she had liked her is because the new au pair had mentioned that she had worked in healthcare.

Oh, wow.

So I think that they had like that common bond, and that's why she was like, oh, this would be a great fit.

Now, more than a year later, Christine was fighting for her life as officers led the traumatized au pair out of the house.

It's okay.

Just breathe.

Okay.

As they're escorting her out of the house, by the driveway. They stop for a period of time. And as they're doing that, she starts making statements.

Barely audible at first, but officers got the gist. The breathless woman from Brazil wanted to share what she'd witnessed in that upstairs bedroom, every heart-pounding moment of it.

And then he said, no, please don't drop the knife. And then he was saying, I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her.

It was a horrifying scene, way too much for 22-year-old au pair Juliana Perez Magalhaes to handle.

Take a minute, okay?

I need some water.

The officers are trying to walk her through deep breaths to try and calm her down while at the same time trying to get the preliminary information of what happened inside this residence.

Okay.

She's so upset she can't even really speak.

Not— she's making more utterances, more phrases.

I don't know what happened. Everything happened too fast.

In fits and starts, a story started to take shape.

I'm sorry, English is almost present.

Oh, you're fine.

Juliana said she was headed to the National Zoo for that outing with the Banfields' 4-year-old daughter.

She was with the little girl in a car across the street when she sees an unfamiliar car, an SUV, and it pulls right into the Banfields' driveway.

What? The car is here. I don't know who it is.

And a man gets out of the car. And goes directly in the front door. She then called Brendan.

Brendan had stopped for breakfast at a nearby McDonald's on his way to work.

I got him. I see a strange car, but I don't know who is that. Can you please come here? I'm scared. And then he, he, he came here and then we went inside.

They actually brought the little girl with them, the 4-year-old girl.

Inside the house?

Inside the house. That she had secured the little girl in the basement.

Juliana set up a tablet for the girl to watch, then followed Brendan upstairs.

And what she hears is sounds consistent with sex noises or slapping.

Dude, it's painting her. I don't know.

You hear what?

It's painting her.

When they entered the bedroom, she said Christine was on the floor, a man with a knife above her.

Brendan identifies himself as a police officer. There's some sort of verbal exchange.

And Brendan said, no, police, drop the knife. And then he was saying, I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her. I don't know. He started stabbing her. I think Brendan shot him.

As Juliana tried to compose herself, officers escorted Brendan out of the house, took him to an ambulance, and headed to the hospital.

An officer asked about two guns they found in the bedroom. Sir, was yours the Glock 19 with the, uh, TLR?

Mine has the light, yeah. My other gun is my, uh, personal weapon.

Oh, that's the.43X?

Yeah.

So both those are yours?

Both of them are mine.

Brendan had some questions of his own. First, about his wife, who'd already been rushed to the hospital. Can I be with her? Uh, they're going to 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 also wanted to know about his daughter. She's there with the other officers that are still on scene.

Are they going to tell her?

I mean, as Right now, I don't think they're going to tell her anything.

It's kind of a delicate matter, and I don't think anybody wants to upset her currently.

She's only 4.

Yes, sir, I understand that.

Just moments after arriving at the hospital, a doctor approached him with the worst possible news.

Hi, sir. My name is Gina.

I'm one of the doctors here. Your wife has died.

Christine Banfield was just 37 years old. A hospital chaplain asked if she could do anything for Brendan. There in the hospital room, they recited the Lord's Prayer.

Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

Back at the house, forensic techs collected evidence to send to the crime lab for DNA testing and blood pattern analysis. The Banfields' daughter was shepherded down the block away from the chaos, where she was reunited with Juliana.

It's difficult to watch the body camera footage, and you just know that when you see the images of that little girl, that her life is never going to be the same.

And she was inside the house while Whatever horrific thing went on upstairs, she was right there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hours later at police headquarters, Juliana was still unsettled, pacing back and forth nonstop.

What's bothering you right now? What's going on?

I just keep seeing this scene.

She told them she had a good professional relationship with the Banfields.

They're like A traditional family can tell, like, you know, dad, mom, daughter, dog, and super nice.

She also gave a more detailed version of the moment Brendan confronted the stranger in the bedroom.

And Brendan said, uh, drop the knife, please drop the knife. That's what I heard. And that strange guy, he was saying, drop the gun, drop the gun. They They were yelling at each other. I covered my ears. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see or hear anything because they were getting serious, I guess. Brendan shot him. And I was even more scared.

She said after he shot the stranger, Brendan went to help Christine, who was bleeding badly. And the other man was still moving.

He was reacting, so he was going to do something with Brendan also. And then I shot him also. I did.

That's notable.

That's significant.

Juliana met with detectives for almost 9 hours. Brendan declined to give a statement.

And an officer-involved shooting, and whether or not he was in an official capacity or not, He was involved in a shooting. And so oftentimes officers are coached to talk to an attorney first before making a statement.

It had been a tragic and bewildering day with so much loss to absorb.

Some random guy had pretty much just come off the street and broken into their home and killed Christine. How does something like this happen?

Katie, how did you find out that she died?

I was at home. Marissa texted me and she was like, Christine, Jeanine Banfield was killed in her home this morning, and I was like speechless.

And Marissa, how did you find out?

So somebody had texted me, and then they told me, and I was just in complete shock.

In those early hours, it was a complicated scene for detectives with so many unanswered questions. At the top of their list, who was the man killed in in the Banfields' house? And what was he doing in Christine's bedroom?

Joseph Ryan had accounts on an adult fetish dating site.

So kind of like a Tinder meets BDSM.

Yes.

It was a flash of violence that left 2 people dead. Christine Banfield attacked in her own bedroom, and a stranger shot dead just feet away.

This was a very convoluted crime scene. Uh, we maintained custody of that crime scene for days. That's how thorough these crime scene detectives are. They don't let any stone go unturned, and they process process the entire house and collect anything that they think might be pertinent to the investigation, even if it isn't overwhelming at the time.

Their search included the stranger's car.

We had the car that was parked in the driveway that he came in, which gave us our first lead to his identity. But we also confirmed that a couple other ways.

Joseph Ryan is his name?

Yes, his name is Joseph. Joseph Ryan.

Joseph Ryan. Joe to his friends and family. Was 39 years old and lived with his grandmother about 20 miles from the Banfields.

We learned a lot about Joseph Ryan and his background, where he lived, who his friends were, what his hobbies and his activities were. We learned that he was into things like live-action role-playing or LARPing.

Explain this. I've never heard LARPing before.

People will dress up in costumes and things like that, and they will engage in non-sexual fantasy roleplay, um, like Dungeons and Dragons type of things.

So like theater, um, kind of.

Oftentimes I think it's centered more around like pugilistic combat with foam swords and things like that.

So play fighting in costumes?

Yes.

Cell phones collected from his car revealed a more private side of Joe Ryan.

We learned that Joseph Ryan also had accounts on a website known as FetLife.

What kind of a website is that?

It is a place where people who have very specific fetishes or sexual proclivities will connect with each other on a consensual basis.

So kind of like a Tinder meets BDSM?

Yes.

We learned that Joseph Ryan had several encounters with people on that website.

Joe's most recent conversation on the site was with someone with the profile name Anastasia9.

They're having very in-depth correspondence regarding this violent sexual fantasy, which Anastasia is indicating she wished to explore.

What is the sexual fantasy?

The sexual fantasy is essentially a rape fantasy where a stranger comes into the residence and violently attacks Anastasia.

The plan took shape on a secure messaging app. This is what Anastasia wrote to Joe. I'm looking for someone aggressive, dominant, and experienced.

There were specific things about clothing being cut off. There was discussions about certain sexual acts and positions that were violent in nature.

The script was planned to a T. Anastasia would be asleep at home and leave the front door unlocked. Joe would go to her bedroom and carry out the plan, even if she resisted.

You have this trove of information about Joseph Ryan and his activity on this website. What did you find when you looked at Christine Banfield's devices?

So when we looked at Christine's devices, we found that they were connected to the Anastasia9 account that had been communicating with Joe Ryan's FetLife account.

I mean, that had to have been a huge moment.

It was.

A huge moment that helped explain so much, like a strange piece of evidence discovered in Christine's bedroom.

There was a backpack that was filled with items that would be consistent with things used in BDSM. Style sexual encounters.

Oh, gosh.

The very items Joe said he would bring to the house.

The items that were in that backpack were actually sent in a photograph to Christine's devices.

So he took pictures and sent them to Anastasia 9?

Yes.

Are you starting to get a picture in your mind of what possibly happened here?

Yes.

That instead of this being a random home break-in, You're now looking at this and saying this is something that appears to be planned.

Yes.

Now it looked like Joe Ryan was no burglar. He had been invited into the house.

The idea that this was a home break-in gone wrong did not appear to be a viable lead anymore.

The evidence suggested Christine Banfield, a devoted mother, wife, and nurse, was living a secret life But if that meeting was consensual, why did they both end up dead?

If it looks like a duck, it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck. And that's what this was. It was a catfish.

On its face, the online conversation between Joe Ryan and Christine Banfield unlocked the mystery of what was happening in her bedroom before things went tragically wrong. But there were still so many questions.

As an investigator, everything is possible until it's not.

So you all are looking at everything?

At everything. We're looking at Joseph Ryan. We're looking at Christine's background.

The texts setting up their rendezvous were written in the days before Christine was killed. Detectives followed up with a more comprehensive search, looking at years of activity on her devices.

Are you seeing a history of her communicating with sexual partners or engaging on these fetish websites?

None at all. No indication of being on any sort of fetish website, sexual website, no footprint of adulterous behavior, promiscuous behavior. Or any engagement in sexual fetish fantasies.

No one—

Christine, you hear about this fetish website. Did that sound like anything that was even remotely possible?

Absolutely not.

Why?

Because she was just who she was as a person.

She was a sexual assault nurse examiner who advocated for rape victims. Like, there's no way that she would be working as an advocate for that, but then on the side engaging in that kind of fantasy.

Yeah, would be the furthest thing from something she would do.

Correct.

Joe Ryan did have a history of meeting women he found on the fetish website. Detectives spoke with them and learned something.

We learned that there are parameters and consent is a very large part of what goes on, and great care is taken to ensure that consent is there.

He was kind of described as an easygoing individual, respected people's boundaries.

And they all say, hey, he never crossed the line, he never got violent, never.

Joe had even texted about respecting limits. We need to set boundaries and make sure we will do the right things.

And again, it goes back to who was Joe Ryan and what was his pattern in life. And not a violent individual. And it goes back to who was Christine Banfield and what was her pattern of life? And this was just completely out of the ordinary.

It just didn't add up. Christine simply wasn't the kind of person to engage in that kind of fetish.

And by all accounts, Joe was not a violent person.

Captain Bruch concluded it had to be the work of someone else posing as Christine online, luring Joe to the house.

This was a catfish.

The fact that this was not Christine Banfield was apparently obvious to, to several of us.

But it wasn't obvious to everyone working the case. There were serious disagreements about the catfish theory.

You had forensic detectives who were professionals at analyzing computers and cell phones, and they came to a very different conclusion. We don't see a catfish. We see Christine probably using these devices.

Yeah.

So immediately we see that there is a substantial problem surrounding the catfish theory.

Captain Brugge held firm. He believed the circumstantial evidence and common sense supported only one theory.

If it looks like a duck, it talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it's a duck. And that's what this was. It was a catfish. Christine Banfield was set up.

Forensic experts spent months analyzing their devices but could not find evidence of a catfishing scheme. But there was other evidence from the crime scene that demanded a closer look, like the way first responders found Joe Ryan after he'd been shot.

His arms were in what we kind of call— it looked like a funeral pose. Like a body posed in a casket. One hand was over top of the other.

It's like crossed over his chest.

One hand crossed over the other hand.

Oh, gosh.

If Joe was right next to Christine when he was shot, how did he end up on his back, hands neatly crossed, several feet away?

It was a very odd body positioning.

And you sort of work backwards from that.

Eric Klingon was a Fairfax County prosecutor at the time. He says that positioning alone was enough to suggest the crime scene had been manipulated.

We have a staged scene here. Now the question becomes, how did it get staged? Who staged it? And we had Juliana's initial statement.

Let's look at Juliana's story. Were there holes in her initial story that she was telling police?

Yeah.

Brendan said, uh, drop the knife, please drop the knife. That's That's what I heard. And that strange guy, he was saying, drop the gun, drop the gun.

This claim that Brendan says drop the knife and Joe says drop the gun, that makes no logical sense. Because if you're Joe, you still have a knife and he has a gun. You don't win. You're not going to win. So we knew that that conversation could not have taken place that way.

Clingan also zeroed in on the 911 calls made that morning. Juliana actually called twice.

There's no explanation that was satisfactory as far as why there were multiple calls to 911 with a 13-minute— I think it was 13-minute gap between them. And on the initial call, we have clearly a person moaning in the background.

Hello, 911. Klingin says it was a male voice. And must have been Joe Ryan moaning on that first 911 call, which lasted only a few seconds before Juliana hung up.

So clearly a person was in an injured state, and yet it still took 13 or more, more minutes for the second call to come in. It made no sense.

And that was a big flag, right?

Immediately, that was a big flag.

Klingon was convinced Juliana's story was riddled with lies But one thing did ring true.

What we had was a man was prone on the ground, not a threat to anybody in that room. And Juliana confessed to shooting him.

And then I shot him also. I did.

Detectives were about to discover another big flag, and this one would give them a possible motive for the crime.

She has basically moved into this bedroom. Christine's old bedroom.

I would say that she replaced Christine in that bedroom. It was like she was erased.

In the months after the killings, Brendan continued to live in the house that had once been a crime crime scene.

He ultimately made the decision to gut his bedroom, like completely ripped everything out, and seemed like he was almost using that whole project as a way to occupy himself and get over it.

Brian says his friend, now a single father, was struggling to cope.

He really had this whole situation weighing on him heavily, and he would even ask me, you know, like, what's the best way to deal with this?

Also still living in the home, Juliana. She had told police her relationship with Brendan was purely professional. A check of his work and personal phones seemed to back that up.

But by this point, detectives already suspected Juliana had lied to them.

There's a thing called Instagram, and Juliana posted pictures on Instagram a lot.

Pictures of her with a man whose identity was face was concealed in a rather unusual way.

Emojis.

Emojis.

Like the way you would protect a child's face.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

She's posting pictures of them out dancing together, out drinking together, going to dinner.

Detectives believed that man could be Brendan, but Prosecutor Klingon faced a new, more pressing development. There was some concern over her status here in the U.S. Yes.

So her visa had— it was going to expire, had expired at the end of September. And so Brazil is a non-extraditable country, and the concern that the police had is that if she were to go back to Brazil, we're never going to get her, and we're never going to find out what happened in that room.

It was a risk the prosecutor wasn't prepared to take, particularly since Juliana had already confessed to shooting Joe Ryan.

We had all the elements we needed to prosecute her, uh, based on just that.

In October 2023, nearly 8 months into the investigation, police swooped in on the now 23-year-old au pair and arrested her for Joe Ryan's murder.

What is that for?

What are you doing to me?

She's going to come back with us to headquarters, okay?

That same day, detectives executed a warrant warrant for a second search of the home.

What do officers find when they get there and go inside that house?

The first thing that I noticed, and I think every detective and every investigator noticed, was we didn't see any pictures of Christine. They were gone.

They used to be there. Now it appeared that they had been taken down.

Yes, we didn't see any.

But the real surprise came upstairs in the bedroom.

On the nightstand On another countertop, there's pictures of Juliana and Brendan together in romantic kind of embrace.

Like a couple.

Absolutely like a couple.

And that wasn't all.

Juliana's clothing was now in the shared walk-in closet off the master bathroom with Brendan's clothing, and her lingerie and other items like that were in the bedroom.

So she has basically moved into this bedroom, Christine's old bedroom.

I would say that she replaced Christine in that bedroom. It was like she was erased.

It was a here we go moment. This investigation has taken a turn.

This was a major shift.

Absolutely. It became obvious to us that our suspicions about their relationship relationship were, were absolutely on point.

To Chief Davis and investigators, the bedroom photos confirmed an affair. And from the timestamps on Juliana's Instagram posts, it was clear she and Brendan began that affair months before the murders, all while Christine was still alive.

Absolutely.

Without her even knowing.

Yeah, she's working shifts at the hospital, and these shifts You know, sometimes night shifts, sometimes day shifts, sometimes she's subbing in for somebody. You come home, you're just looking to breathe. I don't think that Christine had any idea that this was going on in her house.

And having this— yeah, it's a motive.

Yes.

Showing this relationship between the two.

Absolutely.

Yeah. Juliana pleaded not guilty and was denied bail. The prosecutor was sure she would try to cut a deal.

How long did you give her? How long did you think she how long she would last before flipping?

Oh, I thought she would flip the day that we arrested her.

But Juliana wasn't talking.

She said nothing.

She wasn't interested in having a conversation with us.

Wow.

Yeah.

As you're seeing all of that, what did you think?

Finally.

For me, it's like, why did it take so long?

Brendan's friends didn't know what to think.

He'd always seemed like someone very trustworthy and of high integrity. But if this is something that he would have been, like, hiding, what was he actually capable of then and how well did I really know him?

And in the months ahead, investigators too would wonder just what Brendan Banfield was capable of.

That had to have just been shocking for you to just listen to.

Yeah. My wife will tell you I didn't sleep that weekend.

That was a crucial piece of evidence for you.

That was a massive piece of evidence in this case.

He was involved. We couldn't say 100% in how he was involved, but it was just so off from day one.

You gotta wonder what's going through somebody's head to come up with a scheme like that.

She'd come to America from Brazil, an au pair excited to explore a new country, a new culture.

Now Juliana sat in a Virginia jail awaiting trial for the murder of Joe Ryan.

Prosecutor Klingin figured she'd talk, but when almost another year passed, we couldn't understand it.

If she's thinking clearly, she wants to get back to Brazil. Let's find a way to get her to tell us what happened.

Klingin believed that whatever happened in that bedroom also involved Brendan Banfield.

Field.

You have an arrest for the death of Joseph Ryan, but still there's no arrest, no charges in the death of this woman, this wife, this mother who was brutally stabbed to death in her own bedroom. Is there a sense of pressure at this point?

Yeah, definitely.

So you were just waiting for her to tell the truth?

Yes.

And you knew that that truth would very likely implicate Brendan with the way the evidence was pointing?

Yes.

In fact, Detective Goodell suspected it wasn't Juliana but Brendan who was the mastermind behind the scheme.

Brendan, in the course of his law enforcement training, knows how investigations work. And in addition to that, he knows about computers.

So in a sense, the staging of the crime, the digital footprint, knowing how an investigation works, all of that was within his area of expertise.

Yes.

But they had a problem— how to prove it was not Christine on her devices talking to Joe Ryan.

As we start digging into whose home at the time these messages are sent, we can never say that it wasn't her. We can look at this data and this information, and it gives the appearance that it's Christine.

Though Brendan and Juliana were not talking to police, Investigators would eventually learn they were talking and writing to each other.

At one point, Brendan writes her this 14-page letter. It seemed almost as though he was trying to convince her, hey, I'm here with you. Nobody else matters. I'm here on your side.

Yeah, almost love bombing. It looked like he was trying to hold on to her.

Brendan wrote, you are my family. You are my dream girl. You are everything. I don't think anyone will love each other like we do. You are unique, wonderful, beautiful, loving, and everything I need.

His love bombing seemed to be working. I can take the blame, Juliana wrote to Brendan. I would never do anything to hurt you or against you.

What are you all thinking as you're watching this, as you're monitoring this?

During this timeframe, we discovered that Brandon's mother was paying for everything for Juliana. Juliana would frequently ask, I need more money on my account to make these phone calls. I need commissary money. And we also learned that Brandon's mother was paying for Juliana's attorney.

Wow.

So I think there was a lot of loyalty purchased through those actions.

Then in the summer of 2024, the long-delayed forensic report on the blood patterns from the crime scene was ready, and it was big.

You can tell by where blood is and the shape of it as a stain how it got there.

The expert said certain stains on Brendan were telltale signs that he had attacked Christine.

So in the way that someone who was wielding a knife would typically get blood on them?

Yes.

The blood spatter was consistent with Brendan being the person that was wielding a knife, um, attacking Christine and not Joseph Ryan.

So that was a crucial piece of evidence for you?

That was a massive piece of evidence in this case.

Once you had an accurate picture of the crime scene, you could then say it's time to arrest Brendan Banfield.

That's exactly what happened.

We are today announcing aggravated murder charges against Brendan Branfield for the murder of his wife, Christine Banfield, and Joseph Ryan.

In September of 2024, almost 18 months after the brutal killings, police arrested Brendan, marching him right in front of news cameras.

That was my idea because I think the community deserved that. It's something we don't typically do.

You wanted people to see him?

I wanted people to see him. I wanted people to see that we never gave up on the case. To me, that was an exclamation exclamation point moment that we got our guy.

Yes, yes, thank you.

You're thinking, finally, finally.

He was involved. We couldn't say 100% and how he was involved, but it was just so off from day one.

Actually seeing him arrested, it was like all of a sudden made everything seem and feel a lot more real. Okay, like they had legitimately like, have something here.

Brendan pleaded not guilty to the murders and was denied bail.

You're there waiting for him. Has he changed? Is he talking now? Is he ready to answer questions?

Uh, no. He exercised his right to remain silent, which is his right to do.

Brendan Banfield is not talking. But not too long after that, somebody else is talking.

Yes.

That's the biggest moment of it all.

He said he needed to find the right person to do what, uh, what he wanted the person to do.

Brendan Banfield was now in the same jail as Juliana Perez Magalhaes, charged with the murders of his wife Christine and Joe Ryan.

About a month after he's arrested, you get a phone call from Juliana's attorney. Yeah. What does he say?

Um, well, that was the best part. He says Juliana wants to have a conversation.

She now wants to cooperate with the investigation and give us a proffer of what actually happened on that day.

She's ready to tell the truth.

Yeah. She's ready to tell the truth.

Detective Goodell was there on a Friday afternoon in October 2024 when Juliana sat down with her lawyer, Prosecutor Clingan, and other investigators.

Juliana Perez, how do I correctly pronounce your last name?

Magalhaes.

Over the course of a 4-hour statement, the au pair would describe in chilling detail the plan to get rid of Christine and frame Joe Ryan for her murder.

She said the seeds were planted when she and Brendan started their affair in August 2022, about 6 months before the murders.

It was just basically hooking up, like sexual relationship. Then they used to go out together on dates and in public places. It was never like real secret. It was almost like fun all the time.

Well, not all the time.

He kind of complained that every time we went out, he was the one paying for our dates and stuff. And then I was telling him, well, I get $200 a week. What am I supposed to do?

Juliana confirmed that Christine seemed completely unaware of the affair.

She never asked me any questions whether or not I go. What are you guys doing? Like, why, you know, you guys are always out at at the same time.

A couple of months later, things took a dark turn during a romantic getaway to New York.

He said, I, I don't want Christine in our lives. I said, what do you mean? And then he said, she's not a good mother, she's being lazy, she's not doing this, not doing that, and as a wife, she's not good either.

It was clear to Juliana what Brendan meant. He wanted to kill Christine. More than a month before the murder, she said, he laid out his plan.

It was carefully orchestrated and cruel.

He was like, oh, I know. I heard of a website. It's called FetLife.

They worked in concert to create this account to try to lure somebody to the house for this violent encounter in which they would not only kill Christine Banfield, but the male subject that came to the residence.

So in the course of giving this proffer, she is confirming confirming your catfish theory.

Everything to a T.

The scheme took shape with Brendan gaining access to Christine's devices, which Juliana said was easy to do.

Normally, when she got home from work, she just like threw her backpack by the door, and then in her backpack was her work stuff and her laptop.

They would go and they'd get the laptop, they go down to the bedroom in the basement, and they would open up the chat board.

Posing as Anastasia9, their next step was to find their fall guy.

He said he needed to find a person who likes to play, like, blood, play with knife and stuff like that, play violent.

It didn't take long for Brendan to reel in Joe Ryan.

Joe was saying all those things, like dirty stuff, that he likes to play with blood stuff and do this and that.

Joe agreed to bring restraints, rope, and a knife to act out what he thought was a consensual encounter.

One of the things in this investigation that gets forgotten is Joe Ryan. Joe Ryan was baited and hunted. Yeah, complete disregard for human life.

But even at this late stage of the plan, Juliana said she doubted Brendan would actually go through with it.

I still thought, now, she— he might just step back the day before. He might just, you know, say, "Never mind, I'm gonna just divorce her," whatever.

Juliana said it was Brendan who picked the date for the murders, February 24th, 2023. He knew Christine would have that day off and would be home. Brendan would leave for work as usual. Juliana was to follow soon after, leaving the front door unlocked for Joe. She would take the Banfields' little girl, but instead of going to the zoo, they would stay in Juliana's car parked on the street waiting for Joe to arrive.

Brenda had instructed me before, as soon as I see Joe's car, for me to call him like right away.

Brendan would be waiting at a nearby McDonald's.

He just said a few days before he would start going to McDonald's before work, so then on that day You're gonna be aware that just happened. He went to McDonald's instead of straight to work.

After the call from Juliana, Brendan was to drive back to the house. By then, Joe would be inside, upstairs in the bedroom, beginning what he believed was role-playing with a willing Anastasia Nine. But Christine, of course, would have no idea what was happening, why a stranger was suddenly in her bedroom.

Who is this person?

Absolutely. I mean, it's horrific. Unbeknownst to her that this was going on, he actually thinks it's furthering the whole scenario.

Brendan and Juliana were to enter the house through the basement door with his daughter, who would stay in the basement.

We'd go upstairs or in the master bedroom floor, and then that's when he, he would start like kind of the argument with Joe because he knew Joe had a knife. But then he would be like, oh, police officer, drop the knife, blah blah. And then he was just like, shoot Joe.

Then Brendan was to use Joe's own knife to murder Christine.

Tell me the words that he used in terms of how he intended on killing her.

Like stabbing her.

Did he say where he intended on stabbing her, how he intended on stabbing her.

Yeah, he was going to stab her in the neck.

That had to have just been shocking for you to just listen to.

Yeah, my wife will tell you I didn't sleep that weekend. Very few people go through life and see that kind of evil, the diabolical evil. It really shakes you.

Juliana agreed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the death of Joe Ryan, and testify against Brendan at his trial. In exchange, the prosecutor would recommend the judge sentence her to time served. I think that's the biggest thing for me.

This is somebody who was an active participant in a very cold, brutal double murder and who shot a guy dead.

Right.

This just seems far too lenient.

Yeah, so part of what we do as trial lawyers is Monday morning quarterback. No matter whether she served 1 year or 10 years, she's getting deported. And she gives us Brendyn Banfield.

Months later, news outlets would learn about Juliana's disturbing statement.

The bulk of these details become public when we got a copy of Juliana's proffer. We were the first to report what she told police. And now this story is a bombshell.

Juliana had an incredible story to tell, but after so many lies before, would a jury believe her now?

January 2026, nearly 3 years after the murders of Christine Banfield and Joe Ryan, Brendan Banfield's trial began.

Let's go ahead and bring the jury in.

Christine's friends watched the live stream.

What are you thinking just going into this trial?

Going into it, wasn't necessarily sure what to expect. There's always, like, a little bit of, like, nervousness because what if things don't get presented correctly and somehow he gets off?

Steve Descano was the Fairfax County commonwealth Commonwealth's Attorney.

The evidence that we were able to gather told a pretty clear story and most—

and pretty much matched what Juliana had told us, including the blood patterns at the scene, the positioning of Joe's body, and the catfishing scheme. Descano's Chief Deputy Jenna Sands led the prosecution, outlining Brendan's plan in her opening statement.

He would show up, kill the guy, kill his wife, pretending that it had been that guy. That was the plan. They put it into action.

To prove her case, she put on a blood spatter expert who testified about the drops of blood on Brendan.

I observed what appears to be small blood droplets on his arm.

According to the prosecution, that meant those blood droplets had fallen from the knife as Brendan stabbed Christine, and the blood puts Brendan Banfield standing over Christine, stabbing her in the neck, in the neck until she died. So the blood is really what told the story of this crime scene?

Absolutely.

But the full story of that morning would come from the prosecutor's star witness, Juliana.

She was able to put us in the room. She was able to tell us what happened. She was able to give us the reasons why.

As Juliana entered In court, reporter Drew Wilder noticed Brendan's reaction.

He just watches her glide across the courtroom floor all the way to the witness stand. He could not take his eyes off of her.

Juliana told the jury how her relationship with Brendan turned sexual and how he talked about ending his marriage to Christine.

He used to say that he, um, She didn't seem to care about where he was, what he was doing. She didn't seem to care about him at all.

Did he ever talk about getting a divorce with her?

No, he basically said divorce was not an option.

What did he say?

He mentioned his plan to get rid of her.

And Brendan decided Juliana was going to help. According to prosecutors, he bought her a gun and taught her how to shoot it.

At the end of October of 2022, did you visit a shooting range?

Yes.

Prosecutors showed the jury this photo Brendan took of Juliana in action.

There are any number of experiences that a host dad may have with an au pair. Going to a gun range is not necessarily one of them.

No, it— he had never been to the range with his wife. He himself hadn't been to the range for months. So this was not a regular occurrence that he thought, oh hey, I'll bring my new friend along to help me with.

What unfolded on that February day, Juliana said, went exactly according to plan. Christine was in bed while Brendan got up early. He turned off Christine's phone and hid it in a drawer so she couldn't call for help. Then he drove to McDonald's.

So as Brendan waited in the bathroom of He waited for Juliana to make a call when Juliana was in the driveway with the Banfields' child, ostensibly going to go to the zoo that day. But in reality, she was just waiting for Joe Ryan to show up.

Once Juliana called Brendan, he returned to the house. Then he took his daughter into the basement and headed upstairs with Juliana to find Christine and Joe.

When I got to the bedroom, Brendan said, She yelled, "Police officer!" And she yelled back at Brendan saying, "Brendan, he has a knife!" That's when Brendan first shot Joe.

Juliana said Christine screamed and turned to her with a command.

She said my name.

She told me, "Juliana, call 911!" That's when Juliana made that first brief call to 911.

But that wasn't part of Brendan's plan, so he motioned to her to hang up and asked her to grab a towel from the bathroom.

When I, when I was bringing him the towel, he got on top of her, and that's when I first saw him stab her with a knife.

Where in her body was he stabbing her?

Her neck.

Amidst the chaotic, bloody scene, Juliana said she noticed something.

I'm telling Brendan that Joe is moving, he's behind you. And that's when I fired the shot too.

Who did it?

Joe.

Joe Ryan was dead. Juliana said Brendan kept stabbing Christine.

He was still stabbing Christine, and he got her blood in a handful of blood, and he starts dripping on Joe's body.

After he stabbed Christine 7 times, Brendan staged the scene to make it look like Joe had done it, moving Joe's body into that strange funeral pose with his arms folded. He then asked Juliana to call 911 the second time.

The au pair had told a harrowing tale.

Still, Juliana wasn't done. In fact, the fireworks were just about to begin.

I was nervous for her about cross-examination.

You were charged with murder because you shot someone. Am I wrong?

Brendan Banfield's au pair and lover had told the jury a chilling story of what happened in his bedroom that morning, but she wasn't off the stand just just yet.

Juliana was the linchpin of the prosecution's case.

Kristen Gibbons Fadden is an attorney and legal analyst for NBC News.

But the defense was really effective in trying to kind of poke holes in her and really try to neutralize Juliana as a witness.

All right, cross-examination.

Brendan's defense attorney, John Carroll, zeroed in on that plea agreement. The so-called sweetheart deal meant she might walk free once the trial was over.

They came to her, they went through her attorney, and they offered that deal that she now stands, um, to have taken.

The defense argued that Juliana only changed her story after a year to save her skin and avoid her own murder trial.

Are you asking the ladies and gentlemen of the jury to believe that you came out during that time frame because you wanted the truth to be known versus any time the year before that?

Well, the fact that I took a year to accept my plea, it does not mean that I didn't have an intention to show the truth before. It does not mean that.

The defense attorney peppered her with questions about specific moments in her story, like when those chats on the fetish website happened And who typed them? Was it Juliana or Brendan?

I do not remember. Again, I do not remember that.

In fact, on more than 40 occasions, her memory seemed to fail her.

Well, I do not remember. I said I don't remember. How can I tell you? I do not remember the date.

I mean, with all due respect, you don't remember a lot of details.

Yeah.

So her selective memory was something that the defense effectively capitalized on in order to neutralize Juliana, to show show the jury that she just cannot be believed.

But the defense landed its biggest blow with this: Juliana was looking to profit from her story. Streaming outlets thought the tale was made for TV. One even offered to pay her for an interview. The attorney had Juliana read emails she'd written to her mother in Brazil.

Can you, um, read the highlighted portion to the ladies and gentlemen on the jury?

Yes, it says working in a bar, right? I had a video call with a producer and they want to make a movie or documentary about my case. So I'm thinking about $10,000, which would be around $55,000 in our money. Helps and it's good, but I want to negotiate. My house, I think I know I can make, you know, more than $25,000.

So now not only does she reap the benefits of the plea agreement if she gets up here and tells whatever story that she's telling, She's also got some money waiting for her on the back end when she gets out of here. That has to tell the jury that this witness, the star witness of the prosecution, is a little tainted.

How was this playing in the courtroom?

It didn't look good.

Juliana ended that letter to her mom with these words. We do deserve something.

And what is it you deserve something for?

Probably not. It'd be true.

You were charged with murder because you shot someone. Am I wrong?

No, I'm not.

And so why would you deserve something because of that?

He was able to automatically switch the script on her and turn Juliana, the prosecution's witness, into a cold-blooded killer.

What did you think of Juliana's testimony?

I think she came off callous. Yeah.

Did she seem to give off any feelings of, I'm scared, I hate that I did this, I'm remorseful, I got caught up in this, not— I can't believe I was so stupid?

I don't think— I don't think I saw any ounce of remorse.

Once Juliana stepped down, Brendan's defense attorney attacked the core theory of the prosecution's case: catfishing.

Catfishing is a theory that requires a conclusion that Christine Banfield gave up her devices.

Carol called Brendan Miller, the detective who originally examined Christine's laptop and phone.

I was the digital forensics examiner for this case.

The defense showed the jury the detective's report where he noted he found no evidence of catfishing in the case.

What were your conclusions in your executive summary that you wrote?

That based on the digital evidence I had at the time and the facts known at the time, it indicated that the device owner was responsible for the activity on the device.

And that device owner?

Christine Banfield.

The detective said Christine's laptop and phone were often active at the same time, one used to access the fetish site, the other to shop for things Christine had an interest in.

This was a pivotal point because essentially what this means is that there was no mastermind homicide and that in fact Joseph Ryan did come there and murdered Christine Banfield.

But the detective's report didn't sit well with leadership in the police department, according to Brendan's attorney. He called former Commander Patrick Bruch.

What was it like being on the stand?

I mean, having to testify I'd say it's highly unusual for the defense to call a deputy chief, particularly one that didn't have direct interaction in any sort of interview or collect any evidence in a case such as this.

Bruce testified that he reviewed Detective Miller's report on the forensics.

And so his conclusions were not agreeable to you?

I wouldn't word that that way.

How would you word it?

I would I would worry that his analysis was incorrect.

Bruch asked that Detective Miller be removed from the case, and he wasn't the only one. Carroll said other detectives were taken off the case too.

Important ones that were removed in part because they didn't agree with the people that peddled the catfish theory. John Carroll saying that inside Fairfax County Police, if you weren't behind the catfish theory, We're getting you out of the way.

He's painting a pretty bad picture of this department.

It looks messy. It looks really messy.

John Carroll's theme was very clear. This case is about confirmation bias. And by confirmation bias, what he means is that the prosecutors had in mind the story that they wanted to tell. And the story that they wanted to tell was that Brendan Banfield was the mastermind behind these double homicides.

The defense attorney had tried to knock down two pillars of the case against Brendan. Juliana's testimony and that catfishing theory. But he had another witness up his sleeve.

Your Honor, I call Brendan Banfield.

Mr. Banfield, if you want to go ahead and take the stand.

Was that a surprise?

We had a feeling Brendan was going to take the stand, but it's always a surprise when a defendant takes the stand in their own defense.

Brendan's attorney started by asking him about Christine and their life together. Brendan said they'd met in college when they were both 18 and had been together ever since.

For the most part, we were pretty inseparable. We didn't break up at any point.

Did you love your wife?

Very much.

Did you want to continue your marriage with your wife?

Yes.

He was able to testify about his love for Christine Banfield, which I think was very effective.

Still, Brendan admitted he was no perfect husband. He confessed to sleeping with other women during their marriage but said Christine had been unfaithful as well.

Were you aware of her affairs?

Yes, I was also aware that she had affairs.

Brendan said his affair with Juliana began in August 2022 when Christine was out of town. Juliana and Brendan were in the kitchen, he said, and she started telling him about her time on the dating apps.

During this time, she, uh, when she was talking about different people, she was described people that she was interested in, people that were taller, people that were older. And it appeared to me that she was, along with the photos, that the screenshots that she had shown me of people that she had matched with, that she was basically describing me. Um, also, I guess when we were having this conversation, we were sitting at the, at the, uh, island in the kitchen. Um, and she scooted her seat closer to mine a couple times.

And so what did you do at that point?

I did not stop her advances. She came with me into my bedroom.

He effectively painted to the jury that Juliana was someone who was overly, overtly, and intentionally obsessed with him. He essentially painted her as the aggressor in this relationship.

He admitted their sexual relationship continued for months after that, but he said it was just a fling, nothing more.

Did you ever create any sort of a plan with Juliana?

No, there was no plan. That is absolutely crazy.

What's more, he said he'd never heard of Joe Ryan or the FetLife website until after the murders, and he insisted he was never into rough sex, but Christine was.

I know that Christine had an affair where She was involved in a BDSM relationship for a month or two.

And how did you know to talk to her about that?

I observed her with bruises, several of them on her body that I was unaware that she had previously.

Brendan then gave his account of what happened on that February morning in 2023. He said at that point, his affair with Juliana was the last thing on his mind. He was more focused on work, headed to a big meeting with his boss at the IRS.

That meeting was scheduled for 9:30 that day. Um, this was a particularly important, important meeting for me.

He said everything changed when he was at McDonald's and Juliana called him saying there was a strange car in the driveway, so he drove He drove back home, secured his daughter in the basement, and headed upstairs to the bedroom. Then he heard noises.

I was emotional at that point. While Christine and I had had affairs, we had never seen each other with anyone. Hearing what I thought was sex was— Upsetting.

But he said as he opened the door, he saw something much more frightening.

Joe Ryan was behind her, looking directly at me as I opened the door.

Brendan said that's when he took action and yelled, police!

Christine said, Brendan, he has— Brendan, he has a knife.

Brendan testified he then told Joe to drop the knife.

And what was his response?

He told me to drop my gun.

What were you thinking in terms of Joe Ryan with a knife to Christine's neck?

I was extremely terrified. Um, I don't know that I've ever been more panicked in my life.

And so what were you thinking that you needed to do?

I was hoping to de-escalate the situation. I did not want to shoot him.

Christine began moaning, he said, and that's when he realized Joe had stabbed her twice.

It appeared that he did a very forceful stab towards Christine, and Christine kind of spun away from him. This kind of had Joe now like on his, on his knees, kind of facing Christine, of which I saw him do a downward stabbing stroke. And that is when I— and that's when I fired at him.

After he shot Joe, Brendan said he then placed his hands on Christine's neck to try and stop the bleeding.

Christine told me that she was bleeding out and that, um, that she was sorry and that she loved me.

Um, and what did you tell her?

Uh, it was at this point that there was another shot. Um, and I looked up and I saw that Juliana had my other firearm, and I was stunned that Juliana had shot.

With Joe dead and Christine fighting for her life, he told Juliana to call 911.

It was a situation I was never— I was never expecting, never expected to be in, would never want anyone to be in.

With that, it was time for cross-examination, and prosecutors were ready.

It was fantastic. We knew that he was lying. It was really quite a gift.

Would it be enough to swing the jury? Christine's friends couldn't believe what they heard coming out of Brendan's mouth at trial.

When Brendan took the stand, he was like on a smear campaign, I feel like, of Christine.

Yeah.

And that was his testimony. Was the most difficult.

I had to mute it sometimes. I was annoyed. It was very annoying.

He said that Christine had had prior affairs. He said that Christine had been involved in BDSM lifestyle. Investigators say that they found no evidence that either of those things were true. What do you think he was trying to do there?

Well, he wanted to make it more plausible that Christine had solicited Joseph Ryan to to come to the home for a fake rape scenario.

On cross-examination, the prosecutor turned the focus back to Brendan's affairs.

One of those affairs was with a woman named Danielle, who you met on a fetish site searching for sugar babies.

Is that correct?

Uh, I would not call it a fetish site.

Okay.

What would you call it?

An arranged relationship.

What did that tell you about him?

Well, first and foremost, that he was familiar with using the internet to find relationships, which we did not have any evidence of his wife having done.

It showed that he has a habit of going on to some sites like these.

He was at least familiar with it.

The prosecutor also showed the jury all those love letters Brendan had written to Juliana after she'd been arrested.

And in this one you're discussing baby names for your future children with her.

That is something that she wanted to talk about.

What I wanted to prove through those letters was that he loved Juliana and that he loved her enough to kill for her.

So you're making it clear this is not just another random fling?

Exactly.

Jenna Sands also pointed out a big problem with Brendan's account of that morning. The medical examiner identified 7 stab wounds on Christine But Brendan said he only saw Joe stab her twice.

I'm, I'm only positive of the 2.

Okay, so you've got 2, so there's 5 more. When did he stab her those other 5 times?

The knife is inside of her hair. I can't tell the movement. I can't tell how that is, how that is looking at that time.

Of course, prosecutors were convinced it was Brendan who stabbed his wife all 7 times. After an hour of questions, Sands concluded her cross-examination.

Nothing further, Judge.

But she had one more witness waiting in the wings, someone who could refute a key part of Brendan's story— that big work meeting he said he had the morning of the murders.

On the morning after Mr. Banfield had testified, I received a phone call from the office letting me know that there was an IRS agent who was not subpoenaed in the office to see me. And I spoke with him and he said, hi, I'm Mr. Smith and I am Mr. Banfield's supervisor. And I'd just like you to know that there was no meeting.

This is like a gift.

Oh my gosh, it was crazy. Did you have any plans for the morning of February 24th, 2023?

I did.

I was in Baltimore on unrelated undercover operation on that morning.

Were you scheduled to meet with Mr. Banfield?

I was not.

That had to have been quite a moment for you to be able to put him on the stand and say he was lying.

It was fantastic. We, we knew that he was lying. We didn't have any way to prove it. We had spoken to a number of people at the IRS who had given us similar information. We didn't know that Banfield was going to come out with the "I had a meeting that I was rushing to" story. So when Mr. Smith showed up, it was really quite a gift.

Now the jury would decide Brendan's fate.

How did you feel when the jury got the case?

It was difficult. Like, you're just literally waiting, like, on pins and needles.

After 9 hours of deliberations—

I understand we have a verdict.

Brendan stood stoically as the clerk read the verdict.

We, the jury, on the issue, join 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 as part of the same act.

So jury comes back guilty on all counts.

It was very gratifying, but it just is a reflection of how good of a job the detectives and the trial team did getting the evidence in, getting it ready to go.

Chief Davis was also proud of his department's work.

He says internal disagreements over the case were overblown by the defense.

I think the defense counsel represented it as unhealthy and dysfunctional because he had a very guilty client and he was in the fourth quarter, 2-minute drill of his defense, and he started to throw Hail Marys.

Even the detective who originally doubted the catfish theory changed his opinion after he heard Juliana's story.

For Christine's friends, Katie and Marissa, the jury's decision brought a sigh of relief.

I'm glad they finally saw what all the rest of us had seen, thought, heard for the past 3 years.

Marissa, how about you?

It was surreal. It was surreal.

It felt—

it felt like a finality, but then again, not.

Why?

What I've told people is that at the end of the day, Christine's still going to be gone. Her daughter's going to miss all of these memories with her. It's not true justice. It's just justice in the sense of the legal word, and that's it.

A few days after Brendan's conviction, Juliana faced her own sentencing. Juliana had pleaded guilty to manslaughter for shooting Joe Ryan.

Joseph Ryan was a true victim. Joseph Ryan thought that he was walking into a consensual role play, and he didn't realize he was actually walking into his own death.

He was an unwitting pawn in all of this.

They played him.

That deal Juliana struck with prosecutors meant she might be released to head home to Brazil right after court.

Joe's mother, Deirdre Fisher, addressed the court via Zoom and pleaded for that to not happen.

Do I think or dare hope that there will be justice for Joe's death, for my loss as his mother? I don't believe that's possible.

Then the judge spoke.

The plan did not work without your full involvement. Your actions were deliberate, self-serving, and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life. That is the most serious manslaughter scenario that's court has ever seen. Therefore, I do sentence you to 10 years in the penitentiary.

10 years, the maximum sentence for a manslaughter conviction in Virginia. As for Brendan, he'll get a mandatory life sentence in May for murdering both Joe and Christine.

I mean, it's horrific. It's absolutely horrific to think about what she could have possibly been thinking while that was going on, when a stranger had come into her room.

Given your months of research, given everything that you know about him, Who was— who is Brendan Banfield?

You know, I still don't know. The first thing that came out when the trial started in the comments was that eyes were wide open in disbelief. This guy, this is— this is the guy. This is who masterminded this plot. This is who this young woman fell for.

If it wasn't for Brendan's monstrous crime, he would be remarkably unremarkable.

I feel like the way Brendan approached everything with Christine, it seems like this picture that's been painted of who he is and who he's been is the ultimate betrayal.

Part of me thinks that Brendan did this because she was so much better than him as a person. Like, I think that his own own insecurities made him feel inept next to her. And because he's such a narcissist, there can be nobody better than him, and she was in every way.

What do you think Christine's legacy will be?

Loving mother, adoring mother, a nurse's nurse, an advocate, an educator, a friend.

That's all for this edition of Dateline, and don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, Good night.