Jan. 14, 2026
"Au Pair Affair" Murder Trial: The Au Pair Takes the Stand
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RSS Feed The prosecution’s star witness began testifying Tuesday afternoon. Amy and T.J. go over what the 25 year old au pair told jurors, giving a graphic and detailed version of the planning and execution of the murders of Brendan Banfield’s wife, Christine and an unsuspecting stranger, Joseph Ryan. Juliana Peres Magalhaes is key to the prosecution’s case, but there are sure to be fireworks later today when the defense begins its cross examination of Magalhaes.
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00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey, there are folks. It is Wednesday, January fourteenth, and on day one of testimony in the so called O Pair affair murder trial. The O Pair is on the stand and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Roabe.
00:00:28
Speaker 1: No doubt, this has to be the most important witness of this trial. I supposed to go maybe two months. This is the witnesses. Yes.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Day one, we already saw the old pair take the stand, and everyone was waiting to see. After a series of detectives and emergency workers took the stand, We're like, when.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Is she coming? When is she coming in?
00:00:49
Speaker 3: It was after lunch that we finally saw the old pair take the stand, and she looked She looked nervous, she looked emotional, she lived tiers of time. Yeah, she looked like she was up there under duress almost.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: And so the scenario is that this woman twenty five years old is sitting in a room now a mere feet away on the witness stand from the guy that she was involved in an affair with and the guy she is now testifying against as the guy who orchestrated what is a more complicated murder plot than even I realized before this trial started.
00:01:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has gotten into all the details about just the evolution of their relationship than an idea that was suggested about getting rid of his wife, the plan that was in place, and then the execution of that plan.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: It is a lot to unpack.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: So we're going to get you caught up here and tell you this as this recording here on Wednesday morning, that the old pair and tay your name for me again, Juliana Perezel.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: She said it so fast. She's Brazilian.
00:02:00
Speaker 3: I am not great at Portuguese, but it was mahalais something like that.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: Juliana Perez. Makala is twenty five years old. She's going to be back on the stand and giving testimony today. The prosecution started with direct yesterday, so we haven't even gotten to cross examination. So let's go back to the crime and I gotta kind of tell it step by step. Robes not all the details here, but what we're talking about is Brendan Banfield. It's his name. He is accused in the double murder of his wife, Christine and a stranger by the name of Joseph Ryan. So we go back to February of twenty twenty three, is when this happens. He wants to get rid of his wife, and according to prosecutors, he hatched a plan in which he lured Joseph Ryan, a totally unsuspecting stranger, to the house, thinking Joseph Ryan think he was answering an ad and coming to play out a sexual fantasy with this woman. Brendan Banfield's plan was to come in, catch this going on, kill the man, and then kill his wife. Then have the man, Joseph Ryan, take the fall for the murder of his wife, and then Brendan Banfield would be the hero for coming in and trying to save his wife. Did I get the story right?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: And in the midst of all that, Brendan Banfield had been having an affair with the oh pair in the house, right under the woman's nose, and she was a part of this entire plot, and she is now turned on Brendan Banfield. What did I leave out? I just want to get everybody caught up. Are we good? Oh?
00:03:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you did a really good job of just getting a detailed summarization of the plan because it is very specific and unusual.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Never heard of it before in my life.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: So it didn't work out, so we start jury selection just took one day on Monday, so trial started yesterday of testimony, Yes, they went through a couple of detective and some of the investigative stuff. But yes, she gets up on the stand and ropes. I guess I don't know what people will first think of. And let's be fair here and be honest. Twenty one year old Brazilian OH pair. What comes to mind? Maybe for some people based on culture, based on movies and things. You see, she looked like what an elementary school teacher had glasses on, long hair and just kind of yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker 3: There, yeah, yeah, she wasn't some hot sex pot of a O pair coming in with a Brazilian bikini.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: And no, she was not oozing that.
00:04:38
Speaker 3: Yes, it was more just sweet young girl next door who wants to be a kindergarten teacher. That would be how I would describe her demeanor, her look. So yes, it wasn't when you hear Brazilian O pair. But in an affair, you have an idea of who you think you're looking at, and she does not fit that visual that you might have in your mind.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, just wanted to get clear on I guess kind of setting the scene in the areas today. But yes, she's kind of soft spoken. English clearly not her first language, and she struggled with understanding some of the questions and some words sometimes, and she didn't use a lot of words in some of her descriptions. So I was taken robes when she first started talking about the relationship just how much of one she did not have with him when she first came. She said she barely even spoke to him. It was all with the wife.
00:05:26
Speaker 3: Yes, she said, her main relationship was with Christine, the wife, and she you know, when we first got into this story, it wasn't clear if the young girl was the daughter of Christine and Brendan, because they kept saying his daughter, but no, they were the parents and that.
00:05:41
Speaker 2: Young girl was her daughter.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: And so yeah, she mainly And that's not atypical when you have a nanny or a no pair, Usually they are dealing more with the mom and the daughter and the dad might just you know, be there in a outward role.
00:05:57
Speaker 2: And that's how she described it.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: And they didn't get into it. I didn't hear we were watching this together. So maybe this is by design by the prosecution when they say the relationship changed. She said something about the relationship between her and Brendan Banfield changed in August of twenty twenty two. It became a sexual relationship. They didn't really get into like what happened, Yeah, how it happened. Yeah, they didn't at all. I would have been interested. It just was that she said it became sexual. It became a physical relationship ten months after she began working for the family.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: But I would have liked to have known how that evolved.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Long it took Right, isn't the defense going to take that up? I would think, But you can't go from wasn't talking to him at all? Sexual relationship? So what happened in the middle, something happened.
00:06:44
Speaker 3: Yes, we would hope that the defense would fill in those blanks, because that was a huge blank that we did not get. And yes, she did say that once it became sexual, that was in August, by October, she said. In those months, and that's just a couple of months, he's talking about marrying her, he's talking about having kids with her, he's talking about having a future with her.
00:07:07
Speaker 2: In just a matter of months.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: What happened. Yeah, the defense has to get into this because right now as a durer, we always put ourselves in that position. I'm sitting here like wait, what, yes, what happened? What is going on in the house. And she was incredibly complimentary about Christine. Yes, she had very high glowing things.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: She was a little bizarre.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: She did say then that Brendan would complain about Christine, saying that she was a terrible mother and he just didn't respect her at all. She was an icy you nurse, by the way, just one of the most amazing professions out there. So a neonatal icy you nurse. I mean, everyone can draw their own conclusions. Brendan had his. And then you heard from the A pair, which was very interesting to hear her be so complimentary of the wife. But yes, she said by October, so that's what two months he talks about wanting to get rid of his wife.
00:08:00
Speaker 1: Marriage, or at least that she recalled. He kept saying marriage is not an option, and divorce was excuse.
00:08:05
Speaker 2: Me, what I say, marriage is not an option? Maybe that was a Freudian slip twice.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: Divorce guy talking here, y'all forgive me that divorce was not an option. But she specifically said money was a factor and the kid was a factor.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Yes, she said that he did.
00:08:21
Speaker 3: Divorce was not an option because she Christine, his wife would end up with more money than him, and that was not okay by him, and he did not want his daughter being influenced by her. He said she was a terrible mom. He wanted full custody, so he said he knew he wouldn't be able to get that through divorce, so divorce was not an option.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: He needed to get rid of her.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: So he starts talking about a potential plan and look, some of the details she starts to give robes are I mean, they are pretty detailed, talking specifically about Yes, he considered a hit man, but then thought that wouldn't be a good idea because it could trace back to me. And like the options they started going through, it is really chilling and somebody's going to have to fill in some blanks. Rolls. How do you go from a woman you don't even speak to in the house to having a sexual relationship to wanting to marry and have kids with her and get rid of your wife? This was you? You counted it up in the first ten months. Yes, of her being an alpair there, Yes, what happened?
00:09:23
Speaker 3: We need to know, because that is an accelerated timeline, and to then immediately trust this woman, by the way, and tell her you're going to murder your wife before you even do it.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: October, November, December, January.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: So she said, for three months, he's talking about his plans, he's going over what he could do, what he might do. And it was in January that he settled on this fet life account where this is some website where you go to find or complete fetishes you have. And so he was basically interviewing under Christina's name, Christine's name on her computer, using pictures of his wife, trying to find somebody to have a violent sexual fantasy with her so that he could set up this murder plot.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: And he had.
00:10:06
Speaker 3: She said that she testified that he turned down several people because rightfully, so they wanted to meet in person first to have you know, a safe experience, say hey, we can trust each other, and then go through with this violent you know, I put that in air quotes sexual fantasy.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: I thought that was an interesting and important detail, like, Okay, that's that's a believable thing. Like he was paying that close of attention and that makes sense.
00:10:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was like, well, obviously we can't meet in person because Christine would not be meeting them in person because he was setting this all up. So he finally finds Joseph Ryan, who agrees to complete this rape fantasy with a knife without meeting in person first, which is interesting. I mean, that seems so scary. Who I mean, he obviously wasn't thinking about possibly being set up in some sort of situation. But yes, she talked about how Brendan absolutely like went into details about looking at the knife and the chains being used, and no matter how much I screamed, no matter how much I tell you to stop, keep going. I mean, this is some scary stuff.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: So, as a part of this plan, Brendan Banfield was supposed to be at a certain lay they said McDonald's. He was waiting essentially for a signal from her to come back. I thought, Robes that again, this is the day of the killing. He's waiting on a signal from the old pair that for him to come back, and that Joseph Ryan has come to the house, that the little girl was in the house and they were keeping her occupied in the basement with an iPad. Yeah, like, specifically, a part of the plan was for the little girl to be distracted by watching something on an iPad. Well, a lot of this was going on.
00:11:49
Speaker 3: This is so bizarre and in terms of the planning, I thought this was fascinating too, because yes, all the details that the nanny was testifying to does make her story seem more believable.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: But she also testified that she.
00:12:01
Speaker 3: And Brendan got new phones, new Apple idea accounts, he went through the neighborhood looking for surveillance cameras like those doorbell and ring cameras. They said, yes, he changed his morning routine so it would be believable that he would be at McDonald's on that morning. He sorted leaving earlier to go out for breakfast, like, oh, this is just what I do. And she said that he had soundproof windows installed in the house days before this plan murder. Those are all I mean speaking directly to premeditation. And she gave a very detailed account of that, which was interesting.
00:12:36
Speaker 1: So she gives the signal again, according to her testimony, gives a signal he comes back to the house, He comes into the house, have this right on the steps hero robes. She says that she and Brendan Banfield go into the bedroom where in the bedroom this man Joseph Ryan is assaulting Christine. She's naked, yes, because he is whatever his mind, he's thinking, this is exactly what this woman wanted.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brendan told him that she wanted her clothes cut off by the knife first. So there she is naked, and he is like, I hate to say it, but raping her but thinking it was consensual rape.
00:13:15
Speaker 2: If that makes any sense.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: It doesn't. But yes, I get what you're saying, but to a lot of folks doesn't make any sense. So this is playing out in front of them. So now Brendan right shoots kills Joseph Ryan, and this is where it really gets eerie for me. Shoots and kills Joseph Ryan, or he goes dow at least shoots him and he goes down.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: Because Christine says Brendan he has a knife.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: He has a knife. So again, according to the scenario for prosecutors, at least ropes the scene we are seeing here, only two people in the room actually know what's going on for real. Christine actually thinks she's being assaulted and raped and attacked. Joseph Ryan thinks he's therefore sexual experience. Ever, they are having that honest experience that they don't realize is completely wrong. So these two walk in. Brendan shoots Joseph. This is what scares me, rogues that Christine right now is alive. Yeah, and she's alive, and.
00:14:14
Speaker 3: Well, she tells Juliana to call nine one one. She thinks, my husband's just come in, save me, save me, thank God, call nine one one and Juliana, this is so interesting, and the nine one one operators testify this. She does call nine one one when Juliana tells her to just probably is scared and goes for it. And then Brendan looks at her, according to Juliana, and like tells her, are what are you doing?
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Hang up? So she hangs up the phone.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: And they actually played that nine to one one hang up in court yesterday as well. So hangs up, and this is where it robes just gets. Christine is alive, thinking she has just survived a near death experience or a sexual assault, and what happens her rescuer kills her.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Yes, according to Juliana, she goes to get towels and comes back and it's just she's crouching down and she can barely look, but she sees Brendan stabbing Christine in the neck repeatedly. She said she was covering her ears and covering her eyes as it was happening. That just tells you what that scene was like. But then at some point she admits she then shoots Ryan one more time, Joseph Ryan, one more time with the gun that she says Brendan gave her that they went to gun ranges to practice shooting just in case something went wrong. So she admits to firing again at Joseph Ryan. But to hear her describe what she saw, that was just gutting.
00:15:44
Speaker 1: And she was on the stand for the last several hours of the day. She's expected to be back on the stand today to continue the direct and then maybe we'll get to cross examination. Will absolutely be keeping an eye on that. But stay here, folks. All she's saying, all these details he's giving us, well, some will tell you there's a very good reason you shouldn't believe a single thing coming out of her mouth. Stay here, all right, We continue here on Amy and TJ with the case of Brendan Banfield, man accused of double murder and the murder of his wife, and an unsuspecting man by the name of Joseph Ryan who was there, who thought he was there for a sexual fetish hook up, but actually he had been lured there by Banfield, according to prosecutor, so that he could kill them both and then frame the man for the murder of his wife. Robes. I don't know as far as they told what four or five, six, seven weeks they're even estimating for this. Did you hear an estimate of how long they think this witness the old pair is going to be on the sand.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: No, but I can imagine this is going to take some time. Days.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: I can't imagine they would be done today, just to think what the defense needs to do in cross examination, And they've already given us a.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: Very specific indication of.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: What they're going to do and what they're going to say during cross examination, because they need to dismantle her credibility completely, and if they can do that, they have a shot at actually getting a not guilty verdict.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: And some will say some will tell you they told us in opening statements why you should not believe this woman, and if they deliver at least on some of the things they said in the opening. Then you have to pay attention because this woman again has incentive to make sure she does whatever the prosecutors want her to do.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: Yes, And by the way, just the timeline of the arrests is fascinating. So this murder takes place in February. She's not arrested until October of that year, so months and months later, and they say she moved in. She was living in that master bedroom and was sleeping in that bed and had a pick sure of her and Brendan on the nightstand. She had her clothes in Christine's former closet. I mean she was taking over basically that life that Christine lived, and for I guess months they claim she was saying and telling Brendan that prosecutors were forcing her or telling her to remember things differently, to say things happened differently.
00:18:26
Speaker 2: They're making me lie. So if they can bring that.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: Up and somehow call her out on statements she made to Brendan which are completely different than the statement she's making in court today or yesterday, that will be interesting.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: How long is that gap February to October? It was? How many months is that as we count them up in six s.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: It's eight nine months, So eight.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: Nine months between the killing and her being arrested. And the argument they're making on the defense is that how long it took them to convince her to come up with this story and to go along with it. And now she has a deal. It appears in place. She hasn't been sentenced, right, they're waiting till this is over to sentence her. But it appears she's going to be getting time served and gets to go back home to Brazil.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean to go from having a second murder degree, second degree murder charge that's what she was initially charged with. I mean she admits to firing a shot at Joseph Ryan and looking at you know, decades behind bars potentially to now just getting credit for time served. And after this trial is over, after her testimony is done, she just gets to go back to Brazil free. So yeah, that's about as good of a sweetheart.
00:19:43
Speaker 2: Deal as I can imagine. That's a get out of jail free card.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: And you can, oh, you better believe the defense is going to have to dismantle her on the stand. This is going to be problematic. They are going to change but challenge, but they are arguing absolutely that she is lying and making all this up to save her own button.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: And she lied.
00:20:04
Speaker 3: If she she lied at one point, we know that either she lied initially when she told police, what she told police and what she told investigators, or she's lying now. But the point is can you believe? And which version can you believe? Or should you believe? That's some powerful stuff from a defense attorney. So this cross examination is going to be fascinating. Will we get to it today, we don't know, but certainly this is going to be. Probably the most explosive part of this entire trial is when the defense attorneys have their go at her.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: In Fairfax County. If we didn't say Fairfax County, Virginia. Again, we're recording this early expecting her back on the stand today. It's not they started nine or ten ten am. It's ten am on this one, so ten am Eastern time is when this trial will start again. We will keep a close eye on this one. We will hop back on with any updates as always. Top right corner of your Apple podcast app where you have our show page, little button says follow click that you can make sure all of our updates come right to you. But for now on behalf of my dear robot, I am t J. Holmes. We will talk to you soon, including them on the Morning Run, as you can expect to see in the feed posting here short
00:21:15
Speaker 2: H
Speaker 1: Hey, there are folks. It is Wednesday, January fourteenth, and on day one of testimony in the so called O Pair affair murder trial. The O Pair is on the stand and with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ.
00:00:28
Speaker 2: Roabe.
00:00:28
Speaker 1: No doubt, this has to be the most important witness of this trial. I supposed to go maybe two months. This is the witnesses. Yes.
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Day one, we already saw the old pair take the stand, and everyone was waiting to see. After a series of detectives and emergency workers took the stand, We're like, when.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Is she coming? When is she coming in?
00:00:49
Speaker 3: It was after lunch that we finally saw the old pair take the stand, and she looked She looked nervous, she looked emotional, she lived tiers of time. Yeah, she looked like she was up there under duress almost.
00:01:07
Speaker 1: And so the scenario is that this woman twenty five years old is sitting in a room now a mere feet away on the witness stand from the guy that she was involved in an affair with and the guy she is now testifying against as the guy who orchestrated what is a more complicated murder plot than even I realized before this trial started.
00:01:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has gotten into all the details about just the evolution of their relationship than an idea that was suggested about getting rid of his wife, the plan that was in place, and then the execution of that plan.
00:01:45
Speaker 2: It is a lot to unpack.
00:01:48
Speaker 1: So we're going to get you caught up here and tell you this as this recording here on Wednesday morning, that the old pair and tay your name for me again, Juliana Perezel.
00:01:58
Speaker 2: She said it so fast. She's Brazilian.
00:02:00
Speaker 3: I am not great at Portuguese, but it was mahalais something like that.
00:02:04
Speaker 1: Juliana Perez. Makala is twenty five years old. She's going to be back on the stand and giving testimony today. The prosecution started with direct yesterday, so we haven't even gotten to cross examination. So let's go back to the crime and I gotta kind of tell it step by step. Robes not all the details here, but what we're talking about is Brendan Banfield. It's his name. He is accused in the double murder of his wife, Christine and a stranger by the name of Joseph Ryan. So we go back to February of twenty twenty three, is when this happens. He wants to get rid of his wife, and according to prosecutors, he hatched a plan in which he lured Joseph Ryan, a totally unsuspecting stranger, to the house, thinking Joseph Ryan think he was answering an ad and coming to play out a sexual fantasy with this woman. Brendan Banfield's plan was to come in, catch this going on, kill the man, and then kill his wife. Then have the man, Joseph Ryan, take the fall for the murder of his wife, and then Brendan Banfield would be the hero for coming in and trying to save his wife. Did I get the story right?
00:03:15
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: And in the midst of all that, Brendan Banfield had been having an affair with the oh pair in the house, right under the woman's nose, and she was a part of this entire plot, and she is now turned on Brendan Banfield. What did I leave out? I just want to get everybody caught up. Are we good? Oh?
00:03:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you did a really good job of just getting a detailed summarization of the plan because it is very specific and unusual.
00:03:46
Speaker 2: Never heard of it before in my life.
00:03:48
Speaker 1: So it didn't work out, so we start jury selection just took one day on Monday, so trial started yesterday of testimony, Yes, they went through a couple of detective and some of the investigative stuff. But yes, she gets up on the stand and ropes. I guess I don't know what people will first think of. And let's be fair here and be honest. Twenty one year old Brazilian OH pair. What comes to mind? Maybe for some people based on culture, based on movies and things. You see, she looked like what an elementary school teacher had glasses on, long hair and just kind of yeah.
00:04:27
Speaker 3: There, yeah, yeah, she wasn't some hot sex pot of a O pair coming in with a Brazilian bikini.
00:04:35
Speaker 2: And no, she was not oozing that.
00:04:38
Speaker 3: Yes, it was more just sweet young girl next door who wants to be a kindergarten teacher. That would be how I would describe her demeanor, her look. So yes, it wasn't when you hear Brazilian O pair. But in an affair, you have an idea of who you think you're looking at, and she does not fit that visual that you might have in your mind.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: Okay, thank you, just wanted to get clear on I guess kind of setting the scene in the areas today. But yes, she's kind of soft spoken. English clearly not her first language, and she struggled with understanding some of the questions and some words sometimes, and she didn't use a lot of words in some of her descriptions. So I was taken robes when she first started talking about the relationship just how much of one she did not have with him when she first came. She said she barely even spoke to him. It was all with the wife.
00:05:26
Speaker 3: Yes, she said, her main relationship was with Christine, the wife, and she you know, when we first got into this story, it wasn't clear if the young girl was the daughter of Christine and Brendan, because they kept saying his daughter, but no, they were the parents and that.
00:05:41
Speaker 2: Young girl was her daughter.
00:05:43
Speaker 3: And so yeah, she mainly And that's not atypical when you have a nanny or a no pair, Usually they are dealing more with the mom and the daughter and the dad might just you know, be there in a outward role.
00:05:57
Speaker 2: And that's how she described it.
00:05:58
Speaker 1: And they didn't get into it. I didn't hear we were watching this together. So maybe this is by design by the prosecution when they say the relationship changed. She said something about the relationship between her and Brendan Banfield changed in August of twenty twenty two. It became a sexual relationship. They didn't really get into like what happened, Yeah, how it happened. Yeah, they didn't at all. I would have been interested. It just was that she said it became sexual. It became a physical relationship ten months after she began working for the family.
00:06:30
Speaker 2: But I would have liked to have known how that evolved.
00:06:32
Speaker 1: Long it took Right, isn't the defense going to take that up? I would think, But you can't go from wasn't talking to him at all? Sexual relationship? So what happened in the middle, something happened.
00:06:44
Speaker 3: Yes, we would hope that the defense would fill in those blanks, because that was a huge blank that we did not get. And yes, she did say that once it became sexual, that was in August, by October, she said. In those months, and that's just a couple of months, he's talking about marrying her, he's talking about having kids with her, he's talking about having a future with her.
00:07:07
Speaker 2: In just a matter of months.
00:07:08
Speaker 1: What happened. Yeah, the defense has to get into this because right now as a durer, we always put ourselves in that position. I'm sitting here like wait, what, yes, what happened? What is going on in the house. And she was incredibly complimentary about Christine. Yes, she had very high glowing things.
00:07:25
Speaker 2: She was a little bizarre.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: She did say then that Brendan would complain about Christine, saying that she was a terrible mother and he just didn't respect her at all. She was an icy you nurse, by the way, just one of the most amazing professions out there. So a neonatal icy you nurse. I mean, everyone can draw their own conclusions. Brendan had his. And then you heard from the A pair, which was very interesting to hear her be so complimentary of the wife. But yes, she said by October, so that's what two months he talks about wanting to get rid of his wife.
00:08:00
Speaker 1: Marriage, or at least that she recalled. He kept saying marriage is not an option, and divorce was excuse.
00:08:05
Speaker 2: Me, what I say, marriage is not an option? Maybe that was a Freudian slip twice.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: Divorce guy talking here, y'all forgive me that divorce was not an option. But she specifically said money was a factor and the kid was a factor.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Yes, she said that he did.
00:08:21
Speaker 3: Divorce was not an option because she Christine, his wife would end up with more money than him, and that was not okay by him, and he did not want his daughter being influenced by her. He said she was a terrible mom. He wanted full custody, so he said he knew he wouldn't be able to get that through divorce, so divorce was not an option.
00:08:41
Speaker 2: He needed to get rid of her.
00:08:42
Speaker 1: So he starts talking about a potential plan and look, some of the details she starts to give robes are I mean, they are pretty detailed, talking specifically about Yes, he considered a hit man, but then thought that wouldn't be a good idea because it could trace back to me. And like the options they started going through, it is really chilling and somebody's going to have to fill in some blanks. Rolls. How do you go from a woman you don't even speak to in the house to having a sexual relationship to wanting to marry and have kids with her and get rid of your wife? This was you? You counted it up in the first ten months. Yes, of her being an alpair there, Yes, what happened?
00:09:23
Speaker 3: We need to know, because that is an accelerated timeline, and to then immediately trust this woman, by the way, and tell her you're going to murder your wife before you even do it.
00:09:33
Speaker 2: October, November, December, January.
00:09:35
Speaker 3: So she said, for three months, he's talking about his plans, he's going over what he could do, what he might do. And it was in January that he settled on this fet life account where this is some website where you go to find or complete fetishes you have. And so he was basically interviewing under Christina's name, Christine's name on her computer, using pictures of his wife, trying to find somebody to have a violent sexual fantasy with her so that he could set up this murder plot.
00:10:06
Speaker 2: And he had.
00:10:06
Speaker 3: She said that she testified that he turned down several people because rightfully, so they wanted to meet in person first to have you know, a safe experience, say hey, we can trust each other, and then go through with this violent you know, I put that in air quotes sexual fantasy.
00:10:25
Speaker 1: I thought that was an interesting and important detail, like, Okay, that's that's a believable thing. Like he was paying that close of attention and that makes sense.
00:10:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he was like, well, obviously we can't meet in person because Christine would not be meeting them in person because he was setting this all up. So he finally finds Joseph Ryan, who agrees to complete this rape fantasy with a knife without meeting in person first, which is interesting. I mean, that seems so scary. Who I mean, he obviously wasn't thinking about possibly being set up in some sort of situation. But yes, she talked about how Brendan absolutely like went into details about looking at the knife and the chains being used, and no matter how much I screamed, no matter how much I tell you to stop, keep going. I mean, this is some scary stuff.
00:11:15
Speaker 1: So, as a part of this plan, Brendan Banfield was supposed to be at a certain lay they said McDonald's. He was waiting essentially for a signal from her to come back. I thought, Robes that again, this is the day of the killing. He's waiting on a signal from the old pair that for him to come back, and that Joseph Ryan has come to the house, that the little girl was in the house and they were keeping her occupied in the basement with an iPad. Yeah, like, specifically, a part of the plan was for the little girl to be distracted by watching something on an iPad. Well, a lot of this was going on.
00:11:49
Speaker 3: This is so bizarre and in terms of the planning, I thought this was fascinating too, because yes, all the details that the nanny was testifying to does make her story seem more believable.
00:11:59
Speaker 2: But she also testified that she.
00:12:01
Speaker 3: And Brendan got new phones, new Apple idea accounts, he went through the neighborhood looking for surveillance cameras like those doorbell and ring cameras. They said, yes, he changed his morning routine so it would be believable that he would be at McDonald's on that morning. He sorted leaving earlier to go out for breakfast, like, oh, this is just what I do. And she said that he had soundproof windows installed in the house days before this plan murder. Those are all I mean speaking directly to premeditation. And she gave a very detailed account of that, which was interesting.
00:12:36
Speaker 1: So she gives the signal again, according to her testimony, gives a signal he comes back to the house, He comes into the house, have this right on the steps hero robes. She says that she and Brendan Banfield go into the bedroom where in the bedroom this man Joseph Ryan is assaulting Christine. She's naked, yes, because he is whatever his mind, he's thinking, this is exactly what this woman wanted.
00:13:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, Brendan told him that she wanted her clothes cut off by the knife first. So there she is naked, and he is like, I hate to say it, but raping her but thinking it was consensual rape.
00:13:15
Speaker 2: If that makes any sense.
00:13:17
Speaker 1: It doesn't. But yes, I get what you're saying, but to a lot of folks doesn't make any sense. So this is playing out in front of them. So now Brendan right shoots kills Joseph Ryan, and this is where it really gets eerie for me. Shoots and kills Joseph Ryan, or he goes dow at least shoots him and he goes down.
00:13:36
Speaker 2: Because Christine says Brendan he has a knife.
00:13:38
Speaker 1: He has a knife. So again, according to the scenario for prosecutors, at least ropes the scene we are seeing here, only two people in the room actually know what's going on for real. Christine actually thinks she's being assaulted and raped and attacked. Joseph Ryan thinks he's therefore sexual experience. Ever, they are having that honest experience that they don't realize is completely wrong. So these two walk in. Brendan shoots Joseph. This is what scares me, rogues that Christine right now is alive. Yeah, and she's alive, and.
00:14:14
Speaker 3: Well, she tells Juliana to call nine one one. She thinks, my husband's just come in, save me, save me, thank God, call nine one one and Juliana, this is so interesting, and the nine one one operators testify this. She does call nine one one when Juliana tells her to just probably is scared and goes for it. And then Brendan looks at her, according to Juliana, and like tells her, are what are you doing?
00:14:36
Speaker 2: Hang up? So she hangs up the phone.
00:14:39
Speaker 1: And they actually played that nine to one one hang up in court yesterday as well. So hangs up, and this is where it robes just gets. Christine is alive, thinking she has just survived a near death experience or a sexual assault, and what happens her rescuer kills her.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Yes, according to Juliana, she goes to get towels and comes back and it's just she's crouching down and she can barely look, but she sees Brendan stabbing Christine in the neck repeatedly. She said she was covering her ears and covering her eyes as it was happening. That just tells you what that scene was like. But then at some point she admits she then shoots Ryan one more time, Joseph Ryan, one more time with the gun that she says Brendan gave her that they went to gun ranges to practice shooting just in case something went wrong. So she admits to firing again at Joseph Ryan. But to hear her describe what she saw, that was just gutting.
00:15:44
Speaker 1: And she was on the stand for the last several hours of the day. She's expected to be back on the stand today to continue the direct and then maybe we'll get to cross examination. Will absolutely be keeping an eye on that. But stay here, folks. All she's saying, all these details he's giving us, well, some will tell you there's a very good reason you shouldn't believe a single thing coming out of her mouth. Stay here, all right, We continue here on Amy and TJ with the case of Brendan Banfield, man accused of double murder and the murder of his wife, and an unsuspecting man by the name of Joseph Ryan who was there, who thought he was there for a sexual fetish hook up, but actually he had been lured there by Banfield, according to prosecutor, so that he could kill them both and then frame the man for the murder of his wife. Robes. I don't know as far as they told what four or five, six, seven weeks they're even estimating for this. Did you hear an estimate of how long they think this witness the old pair is going to be on the sand.
00:16:54
Speaker 2: No, but I can imagine this is going to take some time. Days.
00:16:58
Speaker 3: I can't imagine they would be done today, just to think what the defense needs to do in cross examination, And they've already given us a.
00:17:09
Speaker 2: Very specific indication of.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: What they're going to do and what they're going to say during cross examination, because they need to dismantle her credibility completely, and if they can do that, they have a shot at actually getting a not guilty verdict.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: And some will say some will tell you they told us in opening statements why you should not believe this woman, and if they deliver at least on some of the things they said in the opening. Then you have to pay attention because this woman again has incentive to make sure she does whatever the prosecutors want her to do.
00:17:41
Speaker 3: Yes, And by the way, just the timeline of the arrests is fascinating. So this murder takes place in February. She's not arrested until October of that year, so months and months later, and they say she moved in. She was living in that master bedroom and was sleeping in that bed and had a pick sure of her and Brendan on the nightstand. She had her clothes in Christine's former closet. I mean she was taking over basically that life that Christine lived, and for I guess months they claim she was saying and telling Brendan that prosecutors were forcing her or telling her to remember things differently, to say things happened differently.
00:18:26
Speaker 2: They're making me lie. So if they can bring that.
00:18:30
Speaker 3: Up and somehow call her out on statements she made to Brendan which are completely different than the statement she's making in court today or yesterday, that will be interesting.
00:18:41
Speaker 1: How long is that gap February to October? It was? How many months is that as we count them up in six s.
00:18:50
Speaker 2: It's eight nine months, So eight.
00:18:52
Speaker 1: Nine months between the killing and her being arrested. And the argument they're making on the defense is that how long it took them to convince her to come up with this story and to go along with it. And now she has a deal. It appears in place. She hasn't been sentenced, right, they're waiting till this is over to sentence her. But it appears she's going to be getting time served and gets to go back home to Brazil.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean to go from having a second murder degree, second degree murder charge that's what she was initially charged with. I mean she admits to firing a shot at Joseph Ryan and looking at you know, decades behind bars potentially to now just getting credit for time served. And after this trial is over, after her testimony is done, she just gets to go back to Brazil free. So yeah, that's about as good of a sweetheart.
00:19:43
Speaker 2: Deal as I can imagine. That's a get out of jail free card.
00:19:46
Speaker 1: And you can, oh, you better believe the defense is going to have to dismantle her on the stand. This is going to be problematic. They are going to change but challenge, but they are arguing absolutely that she is lying and making all this up to save her own button.
00:20:03
Speaker 2: And she lied.
00:20:04
Speaker 3: If she she lied at one point, we know that either she lied initially when she told police, what she told police and what she told investigators, or she's lying now. But the point is can you believe? And which version can you believe? Or should you believe? That's some powerful stuff from a defense attorney. So this cross examination is going to be fascinating. Will we get to it today, we don't know, but certainly this is going to be. Probably the most explosive part of this entire trial is when the defense attorneys have their go at her.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: In Fairfax County. If we didn't say Fairfax County, Virginia. Again, we're recording this early expecting her back on the stand today. It's not they started nine or ten ten am. It's ten am on this one, so ten am Eastern time is when this trial will start again. We will keep a close eye on this one. We will hop back on with any updates as always. Top right corner of your Apple podcast app where you have our show page, little button says follow click that you can make sure all of our updates come right to you. But for now on behalf of my dear robot, I am t J. Holmes. We will talk to you soon, including them on the Morning Run, as you can expect to see in the feed posting here short
00:21:15
Speaker 2: H