Jan. 15, 2026
Au Pair Affair Murder Trial: Frustrated Au Pair Tells Defense “I am not going to do this” As Prosecution Shows Jurors Bloody Crime Scene Photos
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RSS Feed The au pair at the center of the Brendan Banfield aggravated murder trial finished a grueling day of cross examination late Wednesday, and at times she grew visibly frustrated with the line of questioning. 25-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhães repeatedly told Banfield’s defense attorney that she could not remember key moments in the planning and lead up to the murders. Thursday’s testimony began with detectives describing the bloody aftermath of the master bedroom, as jurors took in photos and descriptions of the murder weapons, bloodied clothing and crime scene.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Thursday, January fifteenth, and the old pair in the so called O Pair affair double murder trial has rapped her testimony and we got a few problems. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. It got testy, didn't get nasty, but you could tell she got annoyed at times. The defense seems to make the points they want to make, but there are some bigger things at play. But first of all, I was surprised she wasn't up there longer.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: I was surprised that they rapped at the end of the day yesterday, because yes, this is key her testimony, Juliana Perez Mahales. Her testimony key to the prosecution, and it's key to the defense too, because they needed to destroy or at least question her credibility, and they made some headway doing just that yesterday.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: From disobserver, let me ask.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: This, if the jury doesn't believe this woman is does that mean they would have to vote for an acquittal. What I'm saying is, can you be sitting on that jury and go, I don't believe that woman at all and still find him guilty.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: I don't know that's the answer, because we're listening and we're hearing now what they are presenting. Their prosecution is presenting some blood evidence. But yeah, based on his version of events, he would have had blood on him, So it would be a very significant amount of evidence that would be needed to forensically tie him to the actual murder because without hurt credible testimony, this case is very flimsy.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: So and a reminder, Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield are dead. These two are dead. Christine Banfield, the husband of Brendan excuse me, the wife of Brendan Banfield, who is on trial for killing wife. And Joseph Ryan, a stranger who was lured to the house who they plan to frame, according to prosecutors, for the death of Christine Banfield, and then shoot the man. He's the hero, but instead he's on trial for double murder. There's this is where we are now, Roes, we got a lot of details. This was a very I mean, this was a drawn out It took them a while to come up with the plan and then to execute this very complicated plan. But she is the one who was giving us all these details about the plan. And right now, Robes, there are questions about her motives. We've known that from the beginning, But they're trying to say this is all set up by a woman who wants to save her own ass.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: That's right, because for more than a year she had the same version of events that Brendan did. She claimed that the scene was exactly as they described it, that they don't know what was going on between Christine Banfield and this stranger, but that when he walked in, he was defending his wife by killing the attacker, and the attacker was stabbing his wife. She stood by that story for more than a year, and then right before her trial was about to start, and right as we started hearing, as they were reading it in court yesterday, the letter she was writing to Brendan and his mom, she was getting more desperate, she was getting more depressed, she was becoming suicidal.
00:03:31
Speaker 3: And then this plea deal lands.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: In her lap moan she basically gets out of jail once she testifies against Brendan Boom.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: Sweet plea deal. Gonna get to go back to Brazil, be free, and might even make a little money along the way. We are going to get into why that was also a big deal. We found out about some negotiations, she's having to possibly sell her story. So Rodes, I guess as we go through here, there were two key issues. One you just mentioned the letters. Two, I think is what I just mentioned about her making a deal. So let's go with these two issues here. Let's start with the letters. First of all, there were a ton of excerpts, and I thought this was effective. He forced her to read her own words tons of times.
00:04:24
Speaker 3: Woo.
00:04:25
Speaker 2: John Carroll is the name of the defense attorney, and we have been describing him as just warm and fatherly, grandfatherly as he's asking tough questions. So it's interesting she was getting so annoyed and so frustrated because his point that he was trying to make. How can you be the person who's creating this narrative of what happened and not remember where you were when it happened, not remember who wrote what email. These are significant moments in your life where you are doing something so secretive and so illegal, and you were setting up someone to get murdered? Would you not remember who did it and when you did it and where you did it?
00:05:10
Speaker 1: That is in the when and where and how and who it has to do with someone set up they say, a false fet life account. Fet Life, if you don't know, I assume you don't, is apparently a website where you can go on and find other people who are like minded in that S and M world and want to set up whatever sex scenario. Fine, but they set up, according to prosecutors, this account in her name. To do it, they had to retrieve her laptop without her knowing it. So the lawyer, the defense attorney is saying, hey, o pair, where how did you get the laptop, where did you go, how did long did you have it? And who actually was on the if you're doing it. She had no answers to anything.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: She couldn't remember.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: And in fact, you know, the other point of this that made it all the more I would think memorable in the moment is they had to take the laptop while Christine, the wife was at home stressful time.
00:06:14
Speaker 3: That would be.
00:06:15
Speaker 2: Imagine that you're sneaking and stealing someone's computer, who is in the home, who if they catch you, You literally have no reason why you would have their computer, and what you're doing is setting up their death.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: It's key to the crime. And she has no idea who took it, who put it back? Who actually physically signed up for it. Where were you in? She has no idea.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Who was reading the messages back and forth to these folks that they were conversing with on fet life. They were trying to find the right person to set up for a murder, and that involved not needing that person ahead of time, which is it's good to know that some people actually are taking safety in mind and say, yeah, before we do this, you know, violent or like full violent I guess sex act.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: Let's meet in person and make sure that we don't have.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: Trust issues before we do this fairly non conventional violent sex act together.
00:07:16
Speaker 1: Let's go to Starbucks for coffee before I come over and fake raping you with a knife.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: Literally, that is apparently how it works.
00:07:23
Speaker 2: And so they were running into roadblocks because people were actually going about it in this safe way.
00:07:29
Speaker 1: It's nice to know these fetish just do it in a safe.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: Mindful way before I end up, yes, cutting your clothes off with a knife and gagging you.
00:07:38
Speaker 3: Let's let's se yeah, sure, have a drink. Let me see that we're both good with this.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: But I get it.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: They had to go through several different folks to find the person and it ended up being Unfortunately for Joseph Ryan, he ended up agreeing to carry out this sex fetish without.
00:07:55
Speaker 3: Meeting up in person.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: But you would think again conversing with people asking very violent specific things.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: Who wrote the email? Who read the email? She couldn't remember anything he wrote.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: He read a few. He went through a few of the notes that had to be written to other people, and he said, well, who wrote this one? Was it you or was it Brendan? Don't know? Who wrote this? Don't know? Said can you tell by the way you write? Who writes like that? Who types like that? Don't know?
00:08:24
Speaker 2: And she ended up getting at one point so annoyed she said, I Am not going to do this. And when she got defiant like that, the defense attorney went to the judge and said help. She just said, she's not going to do this anymore. What should we do?
00:08:38
Speaker 1: So this was a moment at least it would have left an impression on the jury. She couldn't remember anything. Now, I thought it might have been I'm putting myself in the position of the juror the time of the moments that turned me off most is when she tried to explain things that didn't need explaining. Where she's almost talking to him like he's stupid talking to her. Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, don't you know what it's like this. It's called brain block when you have trauma, sometimes it tries the brain is trying to protect you from that terrible memory. So it's da da dada. She went on, And I was a little turned off by it. Maybe the jurors were, but this is where your guy, the defense attorney, I thought he had a good response to that too. So wait a minute, I thought, the trauma, you forget things after the trauma happened. Wait, you forgot everything leading up to the trauma?
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Yes, he said, Would you not remember anything before the trauma?
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Yes? I thought like that was on his toes at the moment, because when he said, I was like, oh, yeah, that's not how trauma works. You don't forget your whole life before the traumatic thing happened. You forget the moment the trauma happened, or maybe something immediately after. He made a good point. She didn't have an answer for that either.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: She didn't, and her frustration and her demeanor was a huge turn off. I'm just saying in terms of being a jur and looking at it. From that perspective, I'm supposed to believe you, supposed to believe that you're telling the truth now, But you've only remembered the things that the prosecutions say happened, and you're not remembering the details that would make me believe that you're actually saying what happened based on your memory, based.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: On actual events.
00:10:14
Speaker 2: And so that is when the defense attorney suggested that she read through, basically the talking points of the prosecution to remember or to create the version that she was now testifying to.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: And that's a powerful suggestion.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: A powerful suggestion, and the timeline is powerful. They made these points rogues that some of her letters, like you felt bad for I mean, she sounded desperate in jail. She's been sitting there for almost a year. Oh, it was awful. And then all of a sudden everything flipped. I guess because she knew she was about to get out of jail. That could change your mood right significantly. But does that mean she would have had to Well, again, she ain't the point, and she put it out there. I'm here now because the truth needs to be out there, and I want to tell the truth. And he said, you had a year. So why was it not until this.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Day, right before your trial, right when prosecutors offered you a sweet, hard deal. Then all of a sudden, at that point, suddenly the truth was important.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: And you mentioned as well, and we both said, if you're sitting in again, folks were only putting ourselves, not as journalists but as jurors. Put yourself in that position, and as jurors. You said that moment was kind of a turnoff, as she was getting combative. The other moment that might have been a turnoff robes If you want credibility here and again, give the defense attorney credit for this because he caught it. He wasn't expecting it. When she said they deserve something woo. She wrote in one of her letters about deserve like they deserve some money for this because.
00:11:45
Speaker 3: He said we deserve something.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: It was a letter from her or back and forth with her family, and there on the stand she kind of was defiant and doubled down and said, yep, I deserve He was in this moment fun not meaning to be, but he said a very common sense thing.
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, when you say we, that means you you deserve something. But aren't you admitting to murder. So you murdered somebody, and yet you deserve something for the murder.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: I thought it was good.
00:12:16
Speaker 3: It was brilliant actually.
00:12:18
Speaker 1: Because he seemed dumbfounded. Genuinely, Yes, I deserve something. He said, you shot somebody. Why do you deserve? What the hell did you get?
00:12:26
Speaker 2: And she's like, not because of the murder, but because of what I've been through. But she's been through what she's been through admittedly because she shot someone.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: So he made that point. So these were the parts that were I guess you could argue problematic. And they went on, I don't know how it sits with you, eh, I mean, you're sitting here listening to somebody who says, just want to tell the truth, and then you hear all these letters she's writing back and forth to producers, talking about I want to negotiate more. I want more than that. Oh if I take this deal from Netflix, then I'll lose out. She sounded like a didn't sound like somebody said in jail.
00:13:00
Speaker 3: She sounded opportunistic.
00:13:02
Speaker 2: Yes, and the Netflix information was for me very problematic in terms of her credibility. Looking at it again through the lens of a juror, I'm hearing Wait, this girl has completely changed her story a year later because she's going to get out of jail. Now she's negotiating with television producers and actually getting an entitled attitude about what she's owed or what she deserves.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: That's problematic.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: Conjurers are human beings. I mean, you can help, but sit there. I know they got a job to do, but I'm looking at I'm looking at something that doesn't sound feel right to me. You try to judge it fairly, but still some of those were a problem. We'll stay with us here, folks. It wasn't all bad for the prosecution having the O Pair up on the stand. Why the digital trail now is going to be such a big deal in how the old pair could help them make their case. Stay here and.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone as we talk about the All Pair affair murders trial that has just been captivating this country this week because the details coming out. Having the All Pair herself take the stand, we don't see cases like this very often, and knowing that the majority of the prosecution's case relies so heavily on what the O Pair is now saying happened on that day, that February day in twenty twenty three. All eyes are on her, her demeanor, how she reacted to the cross examination. It was a spectacle to see her testify, and how she handled the cross examination was not great for the prosecution. I think the defense made some significant headway in terms of chipping away at her credibility and whether or not she is to be believed and questioning her motives for testifying.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a big part of it.
00:15:07
Speaker 1: We've been watching this whole thing together, But do you get a center, you have a feeling. I mean, she was such a dominant part of the first week of testimony here, But have you heard anything yet that's building up a evidence case against him? I mean it's just it's early maybe, but right now he said she said versus evidence.
00:15:30
Speaker 3: That is the majority of the case.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Now this morning, we should point out we've been watching some of the testimony and they've had detectives come back up on the stand, and the impact is pretty much the visual. I mean, they the jury is seeing crime scene photos. They're seeing the blood stains, they're seeing the bloody knife, they're seeing the gun used. So it brings the weight of the crime in the forefront. You just see the violence and the blood and just the aftermath that it feels devastating to see that. But I have yet to hear that. We've seen the clothing that Brendan was wearing. They showed his bloodied jeans and blood marks on his jacket.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: But the problem is he was there.
00:16:14
Speaker 2: He claims to have been trying to help his wife, so he had her blood all over him. So I don't know how they're going to, from an evidence standpoint, prove that the blood he got on him was from murdering her versus from trying to help her.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a different version. We were all in here. I fired a gun at this guy who was doing this thing. Yes, everything on him, he can explain away, Well, there's blood on Yeah, I told you I was in the room and I shot a guy, and then I tried to help my wife. I don't know how you get around that, the way they get around it. Two things right, One you got the old pair, so if you believe her, all right, he's done. And two robes fet life. I'm cure. I'm gonna have to check out this website at some point yet, just out of research purposes, but ropes the whole foundation of their case is that he set up a murder plot. Key to the murder plot was luning Joseph Ryan to the house. There is a question of whether or not Brendan Banfield actually had anything to do with setting up that account, and there's even questions if Christine Banfield herself was the one doing it. Now where are we after the old pair in because we haven't gotten the digital stuff yet, right.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: And that's going to be a boon for the defense we're expecting, just because we do know that detectives that were once working on this case that were moved off believed after doing the digital forensic work that they do for a living, they determined they believe that Christine is the one who set up the account.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: And if a jura believe that this is a dune.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: It's a done deal.
00:18:00
Speaker 2: That is the case, yes, because if you have that, in combination with the O pair not being able to give me detailed memories of who set up the account, when the account was set up, who wrote what emails? Because for me to believe her version, I would need to believe that she was sure about who did what when, and she clearly was not. So that gave me a lot of doubt about her ability to convince me the juror that she and Brendan set up that fet life account. Because yes, as you point out, that is key to believing these murder charges or to convicting Brendan Banfield of these murder charges.
00:18:43
Speaker 3: You have to believe that.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: He and the O pair set the fat Life up, that life account up to frame Joseph Ryan and murder his wife.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: Because if you answer the question of no, I don't believe he set it up, then that means and is crime meditate anything?
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Then I was trying to think of another version, like could he but no, they're.
00:19:07
Speaker 3: Not saying this.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: Could he say that he found out about the fat Life account and then he stormed in he got up. I mean, I don't know if there could be another, but like, they're not even giving that as a as an option.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: All right, this is the last question I have for you in putting yourself in the position of the juror. Do you struggle with why would this woman go through all this to make up a pretty elaborate story like this is a lot to pin on Brendan Banfield for the sake of getting yourself out of you. This is an elaborate, detailed story, and so as a juror, even if I don't really believe everything she's saying, even if I'm not convinced of the digital evidence, am I convinced like that she would make all of this complicated, detailed story up. That also seems improblem.
00:19:59
Speaker 2: You make a point, and so I don't know as a juror how you weigh both of those questions that are reasonable to have. I think you can reasonably question her motives but also at the same time question her ability to be, in a sense, the mastermind of this new plot, unless, like the defense is saying, the prosecution came up with this and fed it to her and now she is just regurgitorney because I don't think anyone will believe that she, at the age of twenty one or twenty two when this was going on, would be able to come up with this while sitting in jail ruminating.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: And that makes sense. There you go. She just essentially give me the form. I'll sign it. Whatever the details are, I'll study them and repeat them in court for you if you want me to. Okay, I would buy that as a juror. Boy, I swear, I swear if we ever get called for a jury, we're gonna send them back to this episode. Listen to this one.
00:20:57
Speaker 3: Who's gonna want us on a jow Nobody is going to.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: We would mess up a jury room.
00:21:03
Speaker 3: You would hang a jury. I know that much.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah we.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: Might.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: I might be able to be convinced. I'm like, I just want to go home. But no, I know you would hang a jury. I know you would.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: All right, folks, well, we wanted to hop on the trial. As we record this. They're about to go into or maybe at lunch right now, but we're keeping an eye on it and anything else jumps out, we would jump back on and give you any significant updates as always. Top right corner of your Apple podcast app, where you see our show page, you see that button it says follow hit that you can get our updates coming right to you. But for now on behalf of Amy Robot, come TJ Holmes, talk y'all sooner
Speaker 1: Hey, that folks. It is Thursday, January fifteenth, and the old pair in the so called O Pair affair double murder trial has rapped her testimony and we got a few problems. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ Robes. It got testy, didn't get nasty, but you could tell she got annoyed at times. The defense seems to make the points they want to make, but there are some bigger things at play. But first of all, I was surprised she wasn't up there longer.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: I was surprised that they rapped at the end of the day yesterday, because yes, this is key her testimony, Juliana Perez Mahales. Her testimony key to the prosecution, and it's key to the defense too, because they needed to destroy or at least question her credibility, and they made some headway doing just that yesterday.
00:01:00
Speaker 3: From disobserver, let me ask.
00:01:02
Speaker 1: This, if the jury doesn't believe this woman is does that mean they would have to vote for an acquittal. What I'm saying is, can you be sitting on that jury and go, I don't believe that woman at all and still find him guilty.
00:01:20
Speaker 2: I don't know that's the answer, because we're listening and we're hearing now what they are presenting. Their prosecution is presenting some blood evidence. But yeah, based on his version of events, he would have had blood on him, So it would be a very significant amount of evidence that would be needed to forensically tie him to the actual murder because without hurt credible testimony, this case is very flimsy.
00:01:50
Speaker 1: So and a reminder, Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield are dead. These two are dead. Christine Banfield, the husband of Brendan excuse me, the wife of Brendan Banfield, who is on trial for killing wife. And Joseph Ryan, a stranger who was lured to the house who they plan to frame, according to prosecutors, for the death of Christine Banfield, and then shoot the man. He's the hero, but instead he's on trial for double murder. There's this is where we are now, Roes, we got a lot of details. This was a very I mean, this was a drawn out It took them a while to come up with the plan and then to execute this very complicated plan. But she is the one who was giving us all these details about the plan. And right now, Robes, there are questions about her motives. We've known that from the beginning, But they're trying to say this is all set up by a woman who wants to save her own ass.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: That's right, because for more than a year she had the same version of events that Brendan did. She claimed that the scene was exactly as they described it, that they don't know what was going on between Christine Banfield and this stranger, but that when he walked in, he was defending his wife by killing the attacker, and the attacker was stabbing his wife. She stood by that story for more than a year, and then right before her trial was about to start, and right as we started hearing, as they were reading it in court yesterday, the letter she was writing to Brendan and his mom, she was getting more desperate, she was getting more depressed, she was becoming suicidal.
00:03:31
Speaker 3: And then this plea deal lands.
00:03:33
Speaker 2: In her lap moan she basically gets out of jail once she testifies against Brendan Boom.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: Sweet plea deal. Gonna get to go back to Brazil, be free, and might even make a little money along the way. We are going to get into why that was also a big deal. We found out about some negotiations, she's having to possibly sell her story. So Rodes, I guess as we go through here, there were two key issues. One you just mentioned the letters. Two, I think is what I just mentioned about her making a deal. So let's go with these two issues here. Let's start with the letters. First of all, there were a ton of excerpts, and I thought this was effective. He forced her to read her own words tons of times.
00:04:24
Speaker 3: Woo.
00:04:25
Speaker 2: John Carroll is the name of the defense attorney, and we have been describing him as just warm and fatherly, grandfatherly as he's asking tough questions. So it's interesting she was getting so annoyed and so frustrated because his point that he was trying to make. How can you be the person who's creating this narrative of what happened and not remember where you were when it happened, not remember who wrote what email. These are significant moments in your life where you are doing something so secretive and so illegal, and you were setting up someone to get murdered? Would you not remember who did it and when you did it and where you did it?
00:05:10
Speaker 1: That is in the when and where and how and who it has to do with someone set up they say, a false fet life account. Fet Life, if you don't know, I assume you don't, is apparently a website where you can go on and find other people who are like minded in that S and M world and want to set up whatever sex scenario. Fine, but they set up, according to prosecutors, this account in her name. To do it, they had to retrieve her laptop without her knowing it. So the lawyer, the defense attorney is saying, hey, o pair, where how did you get the laptop, where did you go, how did long did you have it? And who actually was on the if you're doing it. She had no answers to anything.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: She couldn't remember.
00:06:02
Speaker 2: And in fact, you know, the other point of this that made it all the more I would think memorable in the moment is they had to take the laptop while Christine, the wife was at home stressful time.
00:06:14
Speaker 3: That would be.
00:06:15
Speaker 2: Imagine that you're sneaking and stealing someone's computer, who is in the home, who if they catch you, You literally have no reason why you would have their computer, and what you're doing is setting up their death.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: It's key to the crime. And she has no idea who took it, who put it back? Who actually physically signed up for it. Where were you in? She has no idea.
00:06:43
Speaker 2: Who was reading the messages back and forth to these folks that they were conversing with on fet life. They were trying to find the right person to set up for a murder, and that involved not needing that person ahead of time, which is it's good to know that some people actually are taking safety in mind and say, yeah, before we do this, you know, violent or like full violent I guess sex act.
00:07:07
Speaker 3: Let's meet in person and make sure that we don't have.
00:07:09
Speaker 2: Trust issues before we do this fairly non conventional violent sex act together.
00:07:16
Speaker 1: Let's go to Starbucks for coffee before I come over and fake raping you with a knife.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: Literally, that is apparently how it works.
00:07:23
Speaker 2: And so they were running into roadblocks because people were actually going about it in this safe way.
00:07:29
Speaker 1: It's nice to know these fetish just do it in a safe.
00:07:32
Speaker 2: Mindful way before I end up, yes, cutting your clothes off with a knife and gagging you.
00:07:38
Speaker 3: Let's let's se yeah, sure, have a drink. Let me see that we're both good with this.
00:07:43
Speaker 1: But I get it.
00:07:45
Speaker 2: They had to go through several different folks to find the person and it ended up being Unfortunately for Joseph Ryan, he ended up agreeing to carry out this sex fetish without.
00:07:55
Speaker 3: Meeting up in person.
00:07:56
Speaker 2: But you would think again conversing with people asking very violent specific things.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: Who wrote the email? Who read the email? She couldn't remember anything he wrote.
00:08:08
Speaker 1: He read a few. He went through a few of the notes that had to be written to other people, and he said, well, who wrote this one? Was it you or was it Brendan? Don't know? Who wrote this? Don't know? Said can you tell by the way you write? Who writes like that? Who types like that? Don't know?
00:08:24
Speaker 2: And she ended up getting at one point so annoyed she said, I Am not going to do this. And when she got defiant like that, the defense attorney went to the judge and said help. She just said, she's not going to do this anymore. What should we do?
00:08:38
Speaker 1: So this was a moment at least it would have left an impression on the jury. She couldn't remember anything. Now, I thought it might have been I'm putting myself in the position of the juror the time of the moments that turned me off most is when she tried to explain things that didn't need explaining. Where she's almost talking to him like he's stupid talking to her. Yeah, I don't remember. Yeah, don't you know what it's like this. It's called brain block when you have trauma, sometimes it tries the brain is trying to protect you from that terrible memory. So it's da da dada. She went on, And I was a little turned off by it. Maybe the jurors were, but this is where your guy, the defense attorney, I thought he had a good response to that too. So wait a minute, I thought, the trauma, you forget things after the trauma happened. Wait, you forgot everything leading up to the trauma?
00:09:29
Speaker 2: Yes, he said, Would you not remember anything before the trauma?
00:09:32
Speaker 1: Yes? I thought like that was on his toes at the moment, because when he said, I was like, oh, yeah, that's not how trauma works. You don't forget your whole life before the traumatic thing happened. You forget the moment the trauma happened, or maybe something immediately after. He made a good point. She didn't have an answer for that either.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: She didn't, and her frustration and her demeanor was a huge turn off. I'm just saying in terms of being a jur and looking at it. From that perspective, I'm supposed to believe you, supposed to believe that you're telling the truth now, But you've only remembered the things that the prosecutions say happened, and you're not remembering the details that would make me believe that you're actually saying what happened based on your memory, based.
00:10:13
Speaker 3: On actual events.
00:10:14
Speaker 2: And so that is when the defense attorney suggested that she read through, basically the talking points of the prosecution to remember or to create the version that she was now testifying to.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: And that's a powerful suggestion.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: A powerful suggestion, and the timeline is powerful. They made these points rogues that some of her letters, like you felt bad for I mean, she sounded desperate in jail. She's been sitting there for almost a year. Oh, it was awful. And then all of a sudden everything flipped. I guess because she knew she was about to get out of jail. That could change your mood right significantly. But does that mean she would have had to Well, again, she ain't the point, and she put it out there. I'm here now because the truth needs to be out there, and I want to tell the truth. And he said, you had a year. So why was it not until this.
00:11:07
Speaker 2: Day, right before your trial, right when prosecutors offered you a sweet, hard deal. Then all of a sudden, at that point, suddenly the truth was important.
00:11:16
Speaker 1: And you mentioned as well, and we both said, if you're sitting in again, folks were only putting ourselves, not as journalists but as jurors. Put yourself in that position, and as jurors. You said that moment was kind of a turnoff, as she was getting combative. The other moment that might have been a turnoff robes If you want credibility here and again, give the defense attorney credit for this because he caught it. He wasn't expecting it. When she said they deserve something woo. She wrote in one of her letters about deserve like they deserve some money for this because.
00:11:45
Speaker 3: He said we deserve something.
00:11:47
Speaker 1: It was a letter from her or back and forth with her family, and there on the stand she kind of was defiant and doubled down and said, yep, I deserve He was in this moment fun not meaning to be, but he said a very common sense thing.
00:12:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, when you say we, that means you you deserve something. But aren't you admitting to murder. So you murdered somebody, and yet you deserve something for the murder.
00:12:15
Speaker 1: I thought it was good.
00:12:16
Speaker 3: It was brilliant actually.
00:12:18
Speaker 1: Because he seemed dumbfounded. Genuinely, Yes, I deserve something. He said, you shot somebody. Why do you deserve? What the hell did you get?
00:12:26
Speaker 2: And she's like, not because of the murder, but because of what I've been through. But she's been through what she's been through admittedly because she shot someone.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: So he made that point. So these were the parts that were I guess you could argue problematic. And they went on, I don't know how it sits with you, eh, I mean, you're sitting here listening to somebody who says, just want to tell the truth, and then you hear all these letters she's writing back and forth to producers, talking about I want to negotiate more. I want more than that. Oh if I take this deal from Netflix, then I'll lose out. She sounded like a didn't sound like somebody said in jail.
00:13:00
Speaker 3: She sounded opportunistic.
00:13:02
Speaker 2: Yes, and the Netflix information was for me very problematic in terms of her credibility. Looking at it again through the lens of a juror, I'm hearing Wait, this girl has completely changed her story a year later because she's going to get out of jail. Now she's negotiating with television producers and actually getting an entitled attitude about what she's owed or what she deserves.
00:13:29
Speaker 3: That's problematic.
00:13:31
Speaker 1: Conjurers are human beings. I mean, you can help, but sit there. I know they got a job to do, but I'm looking at I'm looking at something that doesn't sound feel right to me. You try to judge it fairly, but still some of those were a problem. We'll stay with us here, folks. It wasn't all bad for the prosecution having the O Pair up on the stand. Why the digital trail now is going to be such a big deal in how the old pair could help them make their case. Stay here and.
00:14:08
Speaker 2: Welcome back everyone as we talk about the All Pair affair murders trial that has just been captivating this country this week because the details coming out. Having the All Pair herself take the stand, we don't see cases like this very often, and knowing that the majority of the prosecution's case relies so heavily on what the O Pair is now saying happened on that day, that February day in twenty twenty three. All eyes are on her, her demeanor, how she reacted to the cross examination. It was a spectacle to see her testify, and how she handled the cross examination was not great for the prosecution. I think the defense made some significant headway in terms of chipping away at her credibility and whether or not she is to be believed and questioning her motives for testifying.
00:15:06
Speaker 3: I mean, that's a big part of it.
00:15:07
Speaker 1: We've been watching this whole thing together, But do you get a center, you have a feeling. I mean, she was such a dominant part of the first week of testimony here, But have you heard anything yet that's building up a evidence case against him? I mean it's just it's early maybe, but right now he said she said versus evidence.
00:15:30
Speaker 3: That is the majority of the case.
00:15:31
Speaker 2: Now this morning, we should point out we've been watching some of the testimony and they've had detectives come back up on the stand, and the impact is pretty much the visual. I mean, they the jury is seeing crime scene photos. They're seeing the blood stains, they're seeing the bloody knife, they're seeing the gun used. So it brings the weight of the crime in the forefront. You just see the violence and the blood and just the aftermath that it feels devastating to see that. But I have yet to hear that. We've seen the clothing that Brendan was wearing. They showed his bloodied jeans and blood marks on his jacket.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: But the problem is he was there.
00:16:14
Speaker 2: He claims to have been trying to help his wife, so he had her blood all over him. So I don't know how they're going to, from an evidence standpoint, prove that the blood he got on him was from murdering her versus from trying to help her.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a different version. We were all in here. I fired a gun at this guy who was doing this thing. Yes, everything on him, he can explain away, Well, there's blood on Yeah, I told you I was in the room and I shot a guy, and then I tried to help my wife. I don't know how you get around that, the way they get around it. Two things right, One you got the old pair, so if you believe her, all right, he's done. And two robes fet life. I'm cure. I'm gonna have to check out this website at some point yet, just out of research purposes, but ropes the whole foundation of their case is that he set up a murder plot. Key to the murder plot was luning Joseph Ryan to the house. There is a question of whether or not Brendan Banfield actually had anything to do with setting up that account, and there's even questions if Christine Banfield herself was the one doing it. Now where are we after the old pair in because we haven't gotten the digital stuff yet, right.
00:17:39
Speaker 2: And that's going to be a boon for the defense we're expecting, just because we do know that detectives that were once working on this case that were moved off believed after doing the digital forensic work that they do for a living, they determined they believe that Christine is the one who set up the account.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: And if a jura believe that this is a dune.
00:18:00
Speaker 3: It's a done deal.
00:18:00
Speaker 2: That is the case, yes, because if you have that, in combination with the O pair not being able to give me detailed memories of who set up the account, when the account was set up, who wrote what emails? Because for me to believe her version, I would need to believe that she was sure about who did what when, and she clearly was not. So that gave me a lot of doubt about her ability to convince me the juror that she and Brendan set up that fet life account. Because yes, as you point out, that is key to believing these murder charges or to convicting Brendan Banfield of these murder charges.
00:18:43
Speaker 3: You have to believe that.
00:18:44
Speaker 2: He and the O pair set the fat Life up, that life account up to frame Joseph Ryan and murder his wife.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: Because if you answer the question of no, I don't believe he set it up, then that means and is crime meditate anything?
00:19:00
Speaker 2: Then I was trying to think of another version, like could he but no, they're.
00:19:07
Speaker 3: Not saying this.
00:19:08
Speaker 2: Could he say that he found out about the fat Life account and then he stormed in he got up. I mean, I don't know if there could be another, but like, they're not even giving that as a as an option.
00:19:18
Speaker 1: All right, this is the last question I have for you in putting yourself in the position of the juror. Do you struggle with why would this woman go through all this to make up a pretty elaborate story like this is a lot to pin on Brendan Banfield for the sake of getting yourself out of you. This is an elaborate, detailed story, and so as a juror, even if I don't really believe everything she's saying, even if I'm not convinced of the digital evidence, am I convinced like that she would make all of this complicated, detailed story up. That also seems improblem.
00:19:59
Speaker 2: You make a point, and so I don't know as a juror how you weigh both of those questions that are reasonable to have. I think you can reasonably question her motives but also at the same time question her ability to be, in a sense, the mastermind of this new plot, unless, like the defense is saying, the prosecution came up with this and fed it to her and now she is just regurgitorney because I don't think anyone will believe that she, at the age of twenty one or twenty two when this was going on, would be able to come up with this while sitting in jail ruminating.
00:20:39
Speaker 1: And that makes sense. There you go. She just essentially give me the form. I'll sign it. Whatever the details are, I'll study them and repeat them in court for you if you want me to. Okay, I would buy that as a juror. Boy, I swear, I swear if we ever get called for a jury, we're gonna send them back to this episode. Listen to this one.
00:20:57
Speaker 3: Who's gonna want us on a jow Nobody is going to.
00:21:01
Speaker 1: We would mess up a jury room.
00:21:03
Speaker 3: You would hang a jury. I know that much.
00:21:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah we.
00:21:07
Speaker 2: Might.
00:21:07
Speaker 3: I might be able to be convinced. I'm like, I just want to go home. But no, I know you would hang a jury. I know you would.
00:21:12
Speaker 1: All right, folks, well, we wanted to hop on the trial. As we record this. They're about to go into or maybe at lunch right now, but we're keeping an eye on it and anything else jumps out, we would jump back on and give you any significant updates as always. Top right corner of your Apple podcast app, where you see our show page, you see that button it says follow hit that you can get our updates coming right to you. But for now on behalf of Amy Robot, come TJ Holmes, talk y'all sooner