Jan. 30, 2026
Au Pair Affair Trial: VERDICT WATCH; Who Do Jurors Believe? The Au Pair or the Husband?
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RSS Feed Two very different closing arguments in the double murder trial of Brendan Banfield. The defense ended strong, poking holes in the au pair’s testimony, saying none of it can be trusted, first because she has every incentive to cooperate with the prosecution and second, because the digital forensics don’t support the au pair’s and prosecution’s catfishing narrative. The prosecution sped though their closing, going through the evidence they presented, point by point, finishing in less than 20 minutes. There was no storytelling and little emotion, and ended with this conclusion: either you believe the au pair or you believe Brendan Banfield.
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00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Friday, January thirtieth, and the case is in the hands of the jury in the so called O Pair affair murder trial. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We have just been listening to the closing arguments this morning. Totally different approaches by the attorneys. We'll get into that, but rogues we've been watching. This has been a national fascination in a lot of ways, and as of this moment, been about two hours as we record this, the jury has been deliberating this man's fate. Wow.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: I know we have been watching every moment of testimony for the past three weeks and to hear the closing arguments this morning, to hear both attorneys some up their cases, we had some strong reactions based on all the testimony we've heard, and you think about how unbelievable this trial was. To hear from the O pair herself and then to hear from the husband himself and have their dueling testimony be at the heart of this case, and the jurors, according to the prosecution, literally has to decide who they believe.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Don't know how effective that strategy was. We will get into that because as we are recording this, folks. We just had a lunch in which we sat and we couldn't come up with where we fall. If we were a juror and we were forced to take a vote, we don't really know which way we would go. We'll get into what we think this jury is going to do, but yes, you're up on it by now. Brendan Benfield accused of killing his wife and a stranger in a plot in which he arranged for him to come over and then take the fall for his wife's death, but end up murdering them all in a plan he hatched with the O pair that he was in an affair with at the time. The pair O pair testified in this trial that there was this elaborate plot. Brendan Bamfield testified it wasn't the case at all. She's just trying to get out of jail, so she did anything the prosecution would tell her. Okay, we're all caught up, good, so here we are roll. This is it. This is the last thing that the jurors get to hear from either side. Closing arguments. The prosecutor went first, Defense went next, Then the prosecution got a rebuttal. The prosecution went up twice and still took a quarter of the time probably that the defense did and his what did you think about that strategy? She was very quick.
00:02:27
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was shocked that her first her closing arguments, this is her last chance to convince the jury that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Brendan Banfield is a diabolical double murderer. Right, And she took less than twenty minutes and basically very quickly, very hurriedly, kind of just went check check check, check, check check. And she she was leaning in on the notion that come on, you and I we know this is let's just use our common sense, like come on, So she was that was her attitude. It was kind of like, yeah, we get it, like you're not gonna fall for this, right, And I just don't know that that It wasn't effective for me. I was turned off by it.
00:03:18
Speaker 1: Well, we kept saying evidence, what evidence did she lean on? And she didn't. She leaned on a circumstantial case. And I think her closing arguments robe confirmed for me what I was suspicious about during the case, that this is just circumstantial, that they don't have hard evidence that there is not a smoking gun. And when you have all of this on the line and you decide to take fifteen minutes just to say, yeah, this is a jury instruction, do this and you're all going to convict him, right, I mean, come on, we know like that just doesn't Every answer was come on, that doesn't make sense. Well, why didn't he do this? Really? Maybe I know in that situation what I would. It was kind of just it was all circumstantial. Her closing today, if I was a juror, it hurt because this was an opportunity to the questions I have, bring them home for me. Her last two witnesses duds, one of them an embarrassment, and then this closing. They did not have a strong last couple of days.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: She seemed shaky. She seemed like maybe she knew she didn't have the strongest case and was trying to almost posture like obviously, obviously we know he's guilty. It was that was her attitude. And I also think about this. The reason why it took investigators or police more than a year to arrest Brandon Brendan Banfield was because they needed to have the au pair tell the story that they needed her to tell and that could be the truth. I'm not saying it isn't in order for them to have enough to arrest Brendan Banf And what we saw in court today I'm sorry these past few weeks confirms that. And what we heard from her in her closing arguments confirms that. Then, Nanny, if you don't believe the old pair, they don't have a case and they knew that from the beginning.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about this now, Sweart about the old pair. Go back to that for a second. Did they had done all of this investigative work before they turned her? Correct? Meaning, if your case was strong enough and you had enough evidence to arrest this guy, then you would have arrested him based on evidence. And there's a reason, yes we're here now. That for me as a juror listening.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: To that, and normally you would think, and I know there is no normal, that's a silly word, but typically you would see police arrest both co defendants at the same time. You wouldn't have them arrest the one and keep that person in behind bars for more than a year up until two weeks before the trial, and lean on them so heavily and offer them this deal where hey, you could be facing life in prison. You could be going to prison for the rest of your life. And I know you're only twenty three years old, but your life is over now. Or if you testify against your lover, and here's the version events that seems to fit. If you testify to this, you can get out of jail immediately with time served, to go back to your home country. Oh and by the way, you've got plenty of media paying for and we heard the defense kind of detail this today and they're closing arguments, paying for your commissary, paying for the little things that prisoners need to just get around in prison. So you've got media companies throwing money at you. Now, you've got Netflix offering you a potential deal. You've got book deals in the works. Yeah, all of a sudden, instead of being in prison for the rest of your life, you're free and you can actually profit off of this.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: Well, everything we're talking about is circumstantial. Yes, all that makes me think, yeah, she has an incentive to lie, But that's just me jumping to a conclusion based on circumstances, not based on any freaking evidence, which is my problem today. And the prosecution her closing didn't button up things that I had left open. Questions we have about timing and fet life and who set up this account, and why does it appear that the fet life account is being used while Brendan in and the old pair are gone. Explain that to me. All she kept saying about the digital evidence is, well, we don't know for sure who was behind that device unless she were sick. You were sitting right there next to the person. But Rob, she's treating the jurors like they're stupid. We understand that, ma'am, But there are other circumstances that lead us to believe that we could say pretty surely who was on the laptop. She never landed that. She never even tried to.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Yes, And the defense did actually in their closing arguments talking specifically and actually went through and I appreciated this. Dates and timestamps of where Brendan and his devices were outside of the home. Juliana and her devices were outside of the home, and the only person who was at home with devices was Christine, And in those moments there were several instances where those were the times where Christine's devices went on to fet life accessed that suspect Gmail account accessed another messaging surface that was associated with the fet life account that has not been accounted for, and that is the reason why the defense had two forensic experts say we cannot support the cat fishing theory.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: Do it for me, then account for that for me as a juror. You're trying to reconcile that the prosecution is saying this account was set up by Brendan Banfil and the olpair as a part of a cat fishing scheme. I have digital evidence that shows Christine Banfield was the one using fet life. Help me reconcile them, babe. If Christine knew about it and was operating it, how can I vote him guilty?
00:09:17
Speaker 2: Because now how could he have planned this elaborate catfishing scheme and murder If Christine is the one who was accessing her fet life I'm simplified.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: I think we said this maybe if she was in control of that fet life account, is this game over? If you believe that she knew about it or was operating it. Does this mean he's not guilty and you have to vote that way? Babe?
00:09:43
Speaker 2: It means there's reasonable doubt. I think that's where I am because I can honestly say I don't know, and that's a problem for the prosecution.
00:09:52
Speaker 1: But you don't know if she knew about the account or not.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: I am so confused, right, and I cannot come up with I can't come up with a scenario that makes me feel confident beyond a reasonable doubt that it was only Brendan and Juliana vio Pier who had access to the Gmail, the fet life and the messenger service.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: Where I have no confidence that they were in control. I don't have confidence that Christine was in control. So do I send the man to prison for the rest of his life based on a coin toss of who I believe him or her? Because both of them are problematic witnesses.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: And yes, the truth is probably somewhere in between. But the problem, the big problem for the prosecution, well, they've got a lot of problems, but your star witness, who you need the jurors to believe to make this version of events, to make this narrative work, is problematic because she's been massively incentivized to say whatever the prosecution tells her to say, period point blank. That's kind of undeniable.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: She shot a guy, she shot a guy the fatal shot and he died. She's convicted of murder as we speak right which nvicted, and she's going home free. Done. That is a hell of an incentive life in prison or I get to go home today and I need to get on the stand and say what do you need me to say? Not sure? I can say that, no problem.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: And then when she was cross examined she didn't remember anything, not a guy ida. I don't know. I don't know. That was problematic for me because I'm thinking to myself, if you are really now telling the truth and now actually coming clean, why can't you remember the details that you would need to know if the scenario in which you want us to believe happened, you would have remembered.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: When did you set it up? Don't know where were you in the house, don't know who grabbed Christine's laptop? Can't remember when did you put it back? Don't know how long did you have it? Can't remember were you in the basement? Not sure we're in the kitchen now, No, where's Christine think she was upstairs?
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Who wrote this email? Who wrote that? I don't know? I don't remember every time. That's a problem.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: A problem.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: That is a problem. And look for the prosecution to say that it was up to the jury who they believed more, that's also a problem. Like that was how she was like, that was her big thing. I can't remember that one big moment.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Damn it. What was that moment when she said and then she said yes, she said, what was that line? Oh my god, please please please, because we said if if you were a politician, you would clip it right there and run that against her time and again on television she said something we could not believe. They said that the defense is accusing us of da da da da da, And then she said, yes that it was unreal, but she made but your point. She was saying to the jury, you gotta pick the side Juliana or Brendan. She really laid it out to them, like this case is not about evidence. It's about whether or not you believe him or believe her shit.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: And look, that might be true, but she's basically at that point shooting herself in the foot saying, yeah, our evidence, we've got nothing. Our evidence sucks. So really it's kind of who you believe. I was like, why are you acknowledging that your evidence is like She didn't mean to say that, because the breast before she was talking about how great her evidence was, and then in the next breath she was saying, well, basically, you just have to decide who you believe, Juliana or Brendan.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: By the way, she said that in some of her last breaths. This was some of the last stuff she said to the jury. Who you going to believe?
00:13:32
Speaker 2: Who?
00:13:32
Speaker 1: You got so hard? She almost a got twenty.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: Five year old who wants to go back home and doesn't want to be in prison anymore.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: You know, she or the guy who's been married for nineteen years to a woman, has had no history of violence, no history of domestic violence, no history of anything violent in his background.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: And lots of history of affairs.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: And this was the one with a twenty one year old for six weeks and all of a sudden he wants to plot this murder. Oh what stay with us, heer, folks. We will now get into we come back after the break. The brilliance that we thought from the defense, the guy who everybody has been kind of hard on because he's had some difficulties.
00:14:14
Speaker 2: He's a little fuddled, he's a little unorganized.
00:14:17
Speaker 1: Incredibly, but he might be a damn good defense attorney. Stay here all right, continuing here on Amy and TJ. The jury has been deliberating as of this recording about two hours in the old Pair affair murder trial happening in Fairfax County, Virginia. Brendan Bamfield on trial closing arguments for today. Who knows how long this jury is going to deliberate? I always say, and they always say it, if it's coming up on a vacation or a weekend, don't be surprised to get a quick verdict because they're trying to get out of there.
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this one's tough. All this one is tough. And you know, we talked before the break. We teased at least that we were going to talk about how impressed we were with the defense attorney and his closing argument. So you had the prosecution go less than twenty minutes in her closing arguments in a very different approach. The defense attorney was up for an hour and a half, Yes, so he had to take a break in between, or at least the judge asked for a break in between, which I thought was unusual. I've never seen a closing argument broken up like that. But yes, he went for an hour and a half and where the prosecution just kind of was like, he wove this story. He was a storyteller, and he made things make sense, and he tried to explain some of the question marks that a lot of us had after the testimony, after Brendan Banfield's testimony, and he wove it together, and he gave a version to the jury that was digestible.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: Yes, when points came up that I wondered about, I didn't have to ask the question out loud. He explained there was blood evidence. He said, well, yeah, it had that way because of this, this, this, and it could have been this. He gave another option. The prosecution left me hanging, just said what the evidence was, but didn't have an explanation for it. It could be this, or it could be that he filled in a blank where she left the blank for me to figure out on my own. That works.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: I appreciate, Yes, I agree, and I appreciated the fact because one of my big questions is I'm one of the things I've had a hard time getting over from a common sense or just why would it happen that way standpoint? And I think jurors do imagine that why would Joe Ryan stab Christine when a gun is trained on him? And the defense attorney clearly he actually said, so, why would Joe Ryan stab Christine Banfield? He said, maybe he was scared, he was angry, he had a gun pointed on him at him. He freaked, he panicked, he was pissed. He thought this woman set me up, you know, or this police. Maybe he thought he was gonna kill everybody, you know. Maybe he was gonna get out of there by Yeah, now he's caught. He's got a man saying police with a gun on him. He's desperate.
00:17:09
Speaker 1: Desperation works for me, and I don't, I don't, never had me. He gave a scenario in a very a room that's small on close proc this was a scary, terrifying situation, and he clearly was surprised. I think everybody there understands. If anybody didn't have any idea what was going on in that room, it was Joe Ryan. He gave a scenario robes and it made sense. But in that whole scenario, the defense attorney explained something about the knife that you and I want, what the actual hell there were no there was no evidence, no DNA, nothing on that knife from Brendan Banfield. And there were also no wounds on Brendan Banfield's hand. So he is accused of violently stabbing his wife seven times with this knife.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: No it.
00:17:56
Speaker 1: Look, if you watch any true crime, you've seen enough of these stories. The person who does the stabbing oftentimes has their hand all cut up in a lot of ways. Okay, maybe it didn't happen this time, but how does he get his DNA off the knife but still have Joe Ryan's and blood and everything else on it.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: I'm telling you that was jaw dropping to me in this closing argument by the defense to imagine that Joe Ryan's hands were cut up, they had knife injuries that would be consistent with someone stabbing another person, and he had all of the different blood on him. So how did Brendan Banfield manage to stab his wife, not get any DNA on that knife, and not get any wounds on his hand? Doing that seven times? And they were deep and we heard about just what types of wounds she was contending with in her neck, seven of them. That's hard to imagine. When I heard the defense attorneys say that, you know you start to go into this logical part of your brain and you just think, wait, that doesn't make sense. How could he have pulled that off? And that little amount of time. I don't know what the time was between when they called nine one one and when police and paramedics arrived, just.
00:19:07
Speaker 1: When the moaning was important. That's why that moaning nine one one call.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: Whether it was the dog or whether it was Joe Ryan. But I and like, it's just confusing to me how And by the way, Christine didn't die right away. She died in the hospital. So I'm wondering if Brendan really did stab her and kill her, is he panicked now that she's going to survive, that she's going to survive and tell the real story. I was thinking about all of that too. Why not make sure she's dead first before you call nine one one?
00:19:36
Speaker 1: There was another good point. Wow, I didn't think about that scenario the other one. And this was the one that finally for me. The timing of the steps twelve twenty four to twelve forty one, excuse me, seven twenty four to seven forty one. They're able to track Juliana's movement. They know he's at McDonald's the morning of the killing. They know her their's surveillance video. No, that's not in question. They are tracking her based on her whatever watch or something. Her steps stop at seven point twenty four because she's outside in the car with the child. She doesn't move again until seven forty one. Brendan Bamfield is not at the house between seven twenty four and seven forty one. Somebody in the house is using the laptop for the fat Life account. Please tell me what's up. So does that either mean she just happened to discover it on her laptop the very morning that the man was coming to for this fetish or was it her account? Babe?
00:20:36
Speaker 2: Was she communicating with him?
00:20:38
Speaker 1: Babe?
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Well, I know that's incredibly difficult to try and explain to fit the prosecution's theory.
00:20:46
Speaker 1: So tell me how they explained it. Did you ever hear them account for that or did they just keep saying well, since nobody was right there, we don't know exactly who was using it, Or do they say well, Juliana probably got back in the house.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: They didn't specifically that, They did not specifically address that. And to know that Juliana, Juliana didn't have any steps would also imply that she wasn't back in the house, and they could also see where her devices were, so that's a tough one to get around. I just also thought one of the most effective lines from the defense attorney was when he talked about Juliana and her testimony. He said her entire story has been bought and paid for. And when he said that, that landed for me. I just thought, there's really no other way to put it. And it was so interesting to hear in the rebuttal the prosecution getting the final world word. She kept saying, why would she do this for ten thousand dollars, meaning that's how much Netflix was offering to pay her for her story. She wouldn't do all of this for ten thousand dollars, No, lady, she did this for her freedom. So she didn't acknowledge, and I thought that was really not smart on her end, because anyone you treat us like we were stupid, obviously the jury is our thinking. No, she's tested buying against Brendan. Yeah, okay, maybe she might make money down the line, but that wasn't her motivation. Her motivation was freedom. Her motivation was freedom, period.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: You just helped thank you. I thought you were piecing it together. Oh she remembered. That was it, Babe, His line about the story being bought and paid for the rebuttal, She got up there said, you know what the defense accuses us. They say her story has been bought and paid for. Yes, you're right. That was it. That was it.
00:22:35
Speaker 2: And then she went on to say, so was she really? But would she really do all of this for ten thousand dollars?
00:22:40
Speaker 1: And that's what I was saying, was hilarious. They say she's been bought and paid for? Yes? And then she continued, but that was It was enough of a beat that it landed for me that, oh she's acknowledging. Does she mean to do that?
00:22:56
Speaker 2: You looked at me and you said, did she just say yes to that? And I was like, yep, she really just did that. And we thought, man, can you imagine if you were running for office and you made a speech, you would literally just take that clip and just air it over and over again in your paid commercial to convince everybody like, yeah, here's the truth. She said it herself.
00:23:14
Speaker 1: Accidentally let it out. This has been a doozy, and we both said, look, if you have been falling along with us. As we've been following on this trial. We have essentially, Robes listened to ninety plus percent of the testimony in this trial. We have seen just about all of it. And as we sit here today, we never really can't predict what a jury is going to do, so we will predict what we would do, Robes, if you were on that jury, walk in as soon as we walk in, after we get the case, and we take that straw vote right now, everybody, before we go over with evidence, let's just show a hands. Who thinks he's guilty, who thinks he's not guilty? Your hand is going where?
00:23:55
Speaker 2: So I think right now I would be in the not guilty camp, but not because I don't think he didn't do it. I think he very well may have done it, but I don't think the state proved that he did it the way they said he did it beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:24:09
Speaker 1: Same thing, first vote, not guilty. All right, going through the evidence, I don't know where we'll land, but I am open. It's just too much of a question, and I have too many questions about credibility of one of your witnesses, which you're admitting I have to send this man to jail for the rest of his life based on testimony that was bought and paid for from a witness who has every incentive to lie, who actually can't remember a damn thing, and actually wasn't that convincing or or apologetic or sympathetic or remorseful on the stand.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: Her testimony was not credible enough for me to send a man to prison for the rest of his life. I just don't think there was enough actual evidence to back up her version against his version for me to feel comfortable as a juror.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: I'm willing to listen to my fellow jurory. I want to listen to another argument by all means, But right now this is a tough one. What do you think that was what we would do? What do you think this jury is going to do right now? Official prediction is.
00:25:16
Speaker 2: Either I think it's either hung jury or not guilty. I don't think they're going to come back with a guilty verdict.
00:25:22
Speaker 1: I'm going with hung. How did we do on the predictions on Walshin Diddy? I think I was wrong on Walt.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: I think I was wrong on both. So don't listen to what we're saying. But I just look, because you know, the interesting thing is the folks who are making these decisions also don't have legal backgrounds. They're like you and me. Perhaps maybe we've seen more trials than most and have watched outcomes more often than not. And I will say, having watched them for the last three decades, usually mostly jurors come back with guilty verdicts. I mean that has been my experience at least. It does take a lot a very good defense attorney a lot of times to put enough doubt in juror's minds for them to question what a prosecutor what a police officer was telling them. But in this case, you have two detectives who work with the Fairfax County Police Department flat out, flat out testify for the defense and throw the prosecution's theory in the mud. And for me, those two guys were so credible. I don't think Juliana was that credible, and I don't even know if Brandon was that credible, But those two forensic digital forensic experts were credible enough that that for me is the reason why I would vote not guilty.
00:26:38
Speaker 1: Right now, you say credible enough, they were the most overwhelmingly credible people on the stand as far as the detectives go, because so many of them were up there trying to defend their work, trying to justify why they did this, or that they had a dog in the fight. They did have a side that they have picked. I got two guys up here saying, I'm just going where the evidence goes, and it tells me that prosecution theory is bull. Those were two very credible witnesses. We didn't even mention them until here at the end that that might tip the scales.
00:27:08
Speaker 2: I think it does, because also it's not good for their careers. It's not good for them to not agree with what their supervisors wanted them to come to. Those supervisors clearly wanted them to reach a conclusion that they didn't reach, and I thought that was admirable that they stuck to their guns based on their experience and their expertise and did not let a supervisor or someone higher up with in the police department kind of twist their arm into saying something different. That gave them so much more credibility because there's no incentive for them career wise to take the stances they've taken.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: Folks will keep an eye Verdict Watch is officially underway. We will hop back on if anything happens tonight. But if they don't get a verdict tonight, they will be going home for the weekend and coming back on Monday and trying again. We shall see if they try to get out of there before the weekend roads. But folks, we always appreciate you going along with us on TJ. Holmes will behalf of my dear Amy Robock. Thank you for listening, and again, uh keep an eye on our feet. We will let you know if something else happens to that.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: H m hm
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Friday, January thirtieth, and the case is in the hands of the jury in the so called O Pair affair murder trial. Welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. We have just been listening to the closing arguments this morning. Totally different approaches by the attorneys. We'll get into that, but rogues we've been watching. This has been a national fascination in a lot of ways, and as of this moment, been about two hours as we record this, the jury has been deliberating this man's fate. Wow.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: I know we have been watching every moment of testimony for the past three weeks and to hear the closing arguments this morning, to hear both attorneys some up their cases, we had some strong reactions based on all the testimony we've heard, and you think about how unbelievable this trial was. To hear from the O pair herself and then to hear from the husband himself and have their dueling testimony be at the heart of this case, and the jurors, according to the prosecution, literally has to decide who they believe.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Don't know how effective that strategy was. We will get into that because as we are recording this, folks. We just had a lunch in which we sat and we couldn't come up with where we fall. If we were a juror and we were forced to take a vote, we don't really know which way we would go. We'll get into what we think this jury is going to do, but yes, you're up on it by now. Brendan Benfield accused of killing his wife and a stranger in a plot in which he arranged for him to come over and then take the fall for his wife's death, but end up murdering them all in a plan he hatched with the O pair that he was in an affair with at the time. The pair O pair testified in this trial that there was this elaborate plot. Brendan Bamfield testified it wasn't the case at all. She's just trying to get out of jail, so she did anything the prosecution would tell her. Okay, we're all caught up, good, so here we are roll. This is it. This is the last thing that the jurors get to hear from either side. Closing arguments. The prosecutor went first, Defense went next, Then the prosecution got a rebuttal. The prosecution went up twice and still took a quarter of the time probably that the defense did and his what did you think about that strategy? She was very quick.
00:02:27
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I was shocked that her first her closing arguments, this is her last chance to convince the jury that the state proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Brendan Banfield is a diabolical double murderer. Right, And she took less than twenty minutes and basically very quickly, very hurriedly, kind of just went check check check, check, check check. And she she was leaning in on the notion that come on, you and I we know this is let's just use our common sense, like come on, So she was that was her attitude. It was kind of like, yeah, we get it, like you're not gonna fall for this, right, And I just don't know that that It wasn't effective for me. I was turned off by it.
00:03:18
Speaker 1: Well, we kept saying evidence, what evidence did she lean on? And she didn't. She leaned on a circumstantial case. And I think her closing arguments robe confirmed for me what I was suspicious about during the case, that this is just circumstantial, that they don't have hard evidence that there is not a smoking gun. And when you have all of this on the line and you decide to take fifteen minutes just to say, yeah, this is a jury instruction, do this and you're all going to convict him, right, I mean, come on, we know like that just doesn't Every answer was come on, that doesn't make sense. Well, why didn't he do this? Really? Maybe I know in that situation what I would. It was kind of just it was all circumstantial. Her closing today, if I was a juror, it hurt because this was an opportunity to the questions I have, bring them home for me. Her last two witnesses duds, one of them an embarrassment, and then this closing. They did not have a strong last couple of days.
00:04:19
Speaker 2: She seemed shaky. She seemed like maybe she knew she didn't have the strongest case and was trying to almost posture like obviously, obviously we know he's guilty. It was that was her attitude. And I also think about this. The reason why it took investigators or police more than a year to arrest Brandon Brendan Banfield was because they needed to have the au pair tell the story that they needed her to tell and that could be the truth. I'm not saying it isn't in order for them to have enough to arrest Brendan Banf And what we saw in court today I'm sorry these past few weeks confirms that. And what we heard from her in her closing arguments confirms that. Then, Nanny, if you don't believe the old pair, they don't have a case and they knew that from the beginning.
00:05:15
Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about this now, Sweart about the old pair. Go back to that for a second. Did they had done all of this investigative work before they turned her? Correct? Meaning, if your case was strong enough and you had enough evidence to arrest this guy, then you would have arrested him based on evidence. And there's a reason, yes we're here now. That for me as a juror listening.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: To that, and normally you would think, and I know there is no normal, that's a silly word, but typically you would see police arrest both co defendants at the same time. You wouldn't have them arrest the one and keep that person in behind bars for more than a year up until two weeks before the trial, and lean on them so heavily and offer them this deal where hey, you could be facing life in prison. You could be going to prison for the rest of your life. And I know you're only twenty three years old, but your life is over now. Or if you testify against your lover, and here's the version events that seems to fit. If you testify to this, you can get out of jail immediately with time served, to go back to your home country. Oh and by the way, you've got plenty of media paying for and we heard the defense kind of detail this today and they're closing arguments, paying for your commissary, paying for the little things that prisoners need to just get around in prison. So you've got media companies throwing money at you. Now, you've got Netflix offering you a potential deal. You've got book deals in the works. Yeah, all of a sudden, instead of being in prison for the rest of your life, you're free and you can actually profit off of this.
00:07:01
Speaker 1: Well, everything we're talking about is circumstantial. Yes, all that makes me think, yeah, she has an incentive to lie, But that's just me jumping to a conclusion based on circumstances, not based on any freaking evidence, which is my problem today. And the prosecution her closing didn't button up things that I had left open. Questions we have about timing and fet life and who set up this account, and why does it appear that the fet life account is being used while Brendan in and the old pair are gone. Explain that to me. All she kept saying about the digital evidence is, well, we don't know for sure who was behind that device unless she were sick. You were sitting right there next to the person. But Rob, she's treating the jurors like they're stupid. We understand that, ma'am, But there are other circumstances that lead us to believe that we could say pretty surely who was on the laptop. She never landed that. She never even tried to.
00:08:03
Speaker 2: Yes, And the defense did actually in their closing arguments talking specifically and actually went through and I appreciated this. Dates and timestamps of where Brendan and his devices were outside of the home. Juliana and her devices were outside of the home, and the only person who was at home with devices was Christine, And in those moments there were several instances where those were the times where Christine's devices went on to fet life accessed that suspect Gmail account accessed another messaging surface that was associated with the fet life account that has not been accounted for, and that is the reason why the defense had two forensic experts say we cannot support the cat fishing theory.
00:08:46
Speaker 1: Do it for me, then account for that for me as a juror. You're trying to reconcile that the prosecution is saying this account was set up by Brendan Banfil and the olpair as a part of a cat fishing scheme. I have digital evidence that shows Christine Banfield was the one using fet life. Help me reconcile them, babe. If Christine knew about it and was operating it, how can I vote him guilty?
00:09:17
Speaker 2: Because now how could he have planned this elaborate catfishing scheme and murder If Christine is the one who was accessing her fet life I'm simplified.
00:09:27
Speaker 1: I think we said this maybe if she was in control of that fet life account, is this game over? If you believe that she knew about it or was operating it. Does this mean he's not guilty and you have to vote that way? Babe?
00:09:43
Speaker 2: It means there's reasonable doubt. I think that's where I am because I can honestly say I don't know, and that's a problem for the prosecution.
00:09:52
Speaker 1: But you don't know if she knew about the account or not.
00:09:56
Speaker 2: I am so confused, right, and I cannot come up with I can't come up with a scenario that makes me feel confident beyond a reasonable doubt that it was only Brendan and Juliana vio Pier who had access to the Gmail, the fet life and the messenger service.
00:10:14
Speaker 1: Where I have no confidence that they were in control. I don't have confidence that Christine was in control. So do I send the man to prison for the rest of his life based on a coin toss of who I believe him or her? Because both of them are problematic witnesses.
00:10:32
Speaker 2: And yes, the truth is probably somewhere in between. But the problem, the big problem for the prosecution, well, they've got a lot of problems, but your star witness, who you need the jurors to believe to make this version of events, to make this narrative work, is problematic because she's been massively incentivized to say whatever the prosecution tells her to say, period point blank. That's kind of undeniable.
00:11:00
Speaker 1: She shot a guy, she shot a guy the fatal shot and he died. She's convicted of murder as we speak right which nvicted, and she's going home free. Done. That is a hell of an incentive life in prison or I get to go home today and I need to get on the stand and say what do you need me to say? Not sure? I can say that, no problem.
00:11:23
Speaker 2: And then when she was cross examined she didn't remember anything, not a guy ida. I don't know. I don't know. That was problematic for me because I'm thinking to myself, if you are really now telling the truth and now actually coming clean, why can't you remember the details that you would need to know if the scenario in which you want us to believe happened, you would have remembered.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: When did you set it up? Don't know where were you in the house, don't know who grabbed Christine's laptop? Can't remember when did you put it back? Don't know how long did you have it? Can't remember were you in the basement? Not sure we're in the kitchen now, No, where's Christine think she was upstairs?
00:11:57
Speaker 2: Who wrote this email? Who wrote that? I don't know? I don't remember every time. That's a problem.
00:12:04
Speaker 1: A problem.
00:12:04
Speaker 2: That is a problem. And look for the prosecution to say that it was up to the jury who they believed more, that's also a problem. Like that was how she was like, that was her big thing. I can't remember that one big moment.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Damn it. What was that moment when she said and then she said yes, she said, what was that line? Oh my god, please please please, because we said if if you were a politician, you would clip it right there and run that against her time and again on television she said something we could not believe. They said that the defense is accusing us of da da da da da, And then she said, yes that it was unreal, but she made but your point. She was saying to the jury, you gotta pick the side Juliana or Brendan. She really laid it out to them, like this case is not about evidence. It's about whether or not you believe him or believe her shit.
00:13:01
Speaker 2: And look, that might be true, but she's basically at that point shooting herself in the foot saying, yeah, our evidence, we've got nothing. Our evidence sucks. So really it's kind of who you believe. I was like, why are you acknowledging that your evidence is like She didn't mean to say that, because the breast before she was talking about how great her evidence was, and then in the next breath she was saying, well, basically, you just have to decide who you believe, Juliana or Brendan.
00:13:22
Speaker 1: By the way, she said that in some of her last breaths. This was some of the last stuff she said to the jury. Who you going to believe?
00:13:32
Speaker 2: Who?
00:13:32
Speaker 1: You got so hard? She almost a got twenty.
00:13:37
Speaker 2: Five year old who wants to go back home and doesn't want to be in prison anymore.
00:13:41
Speaker 1: You know, she or the guy who's been married for nineteen years to a woman, has had no history of violence, no history of domestic violence, no history of anything violent in his background.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: And lots of history of affairs.
00:13:53
Speaker 1: And this was the one with a twenty one year old for six weeks and all of a sudden he wants to plot this murder. Oh what stay with us, heer, folks. We will now get into we come back after the break. The brilliance that we thought from the defense, the guy who everybody has been kind of hard on because he's had some difficulties.
00:14:14
Speaker 2: He's a little fuddled, he's a little unorganized.
00:14:17
Speaker 1: Incredibly, but he might be a damn good defense attorney. Stay here all right, continuing here on Amy and TJ. The jury has been deliberating as of this recording about two hours in the old Pair affair murder trial happening in Fairfax County, Virginia. Brendan Bamfield on trial closing arguments for today. Who knows how long this jury is going to deliberate? I always say, and they always say it, if it's coming up on a vacation or a weekend, don't be surprised to get a quick verdict because they're trying to get out of there.
00:14:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this one's tough. All this one is tough. And you know, we talked before the break. We teased at least that we were going to talk about how impressed we were with the defense attorney and his closing argument. So you had the prosecution go less than twenty minutes in her closing arguments in a very different approach. The defense attorney was up for an hour and a half, Yes, so he had to take a break in between, or at least the judge asked for a break in between, which I thought was unusual. I've never seen a closing argument broken up like that. But yes, he went for an hour and a half and where the prosecution just kind of was like, he wove this story. He was a storyteller, and he made things make sense, and he tried to explain some of the question marks that a lot of us had after the testimony, after Brendan Banfield's testimony, and he wove it together, and he gave a version to the jury that was digestible.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: Yes, when points came up that I wondered about, I didn't have to ask the question out loud. He explained there was blood evidence. He said, well, yeah, it had that way because of this, this, this, and it could have been this. He gave another option. The prosecution left me hanging, just said what the evidence was, but didn't have an explanation for it. It could be this, or it could be that he filled in a blank where she left the blank for me to figure out on my own. That works.
00:16:17
Speaker 2: I appreciate, Yes, I agree, and I appreciated the fact because one of my big questions is I'm one of the things I've had a hard time getting over from a common sense or just why would it happen that way standpoint? And I think jurors do imagine that why would Joe Ryan stab Christine when a gun is trained on him? And the defense attorney clearly he actually said, so, why would Joe Ryan stab Christine Banfield? He said, maybe he was scared, he was angry, he had a gun pointed on him at him. He freaked, he panicked, he was pissed. He thought this woman set me up, you know, or this police. Maybe he thought he was gonna kill everybody, you know. Maybe he was gonna get out of there by Yeah, now he's caught. He's got a man saying police with a gun on him. He's desperate.
00:17:09
Speaker 1: Desperation works for me, and I don't, I don't, never had me. He gave a scenario in a very a room that's small on close proc this was a scary, terrifying situation, and he clearly was surprised. I think everybody there understands. If anybody didn't have any idea what was going on in that room, it was Joe Ryan. He gave a scenario robes and it made sense. But in that whole scenario, the defense attorney explained something about the knife that you and I want, what the actual hell there were no there was no evidence, no DNA, nothing on that knife from Brendan Banfield. And there were also no wounds on Brendan Banfield's hand. So he is accused of violently stabbing his wife seven times with this knife.
00:17:55
Speaker 2: No it.
00:17:56
Speaker 1: Look, if you watch any true crime, you've seen enough of these stories. The person who does the stabbing oftentimes has their hand all cut up in a lot of ways. Okay, maybe it didn't happen this time, but how does he get his DNA off the knife but still have Joe Ryan's and blood and everything else on it.
00:18:11
Speaker 2: I'm telling you that was jaw dropping to me in this closing argument by the defense to imagine that Joe Ryan's hands were cut up, they had knife injuries that would be consistent with someone stabbing another person, and he had all of the different blood on him. So how did Brendan Banfield manage to stab his wife, not get any DNA on that knife, and not get any wounds on his hand? Doing that seven times? And they were deep and we heard about just what types of wounds she was contending with in her neck, seven of them. That's hard to imagine. When I heard the defense attorneys say that, you know you start to go into this logical part of your brain and you just think, wait, that doesn't make sense. How could he have pulled that off? And that little amount of time. I don't know what the time was between when they called nine one one and when police and paramedics arrived, just.
00:19:07
Speaker 1: When the moaning was important. That's why that moaning nine one one call.
00:19:11
Speaker 2: Whether it was the dog or whether it was Joe Ryan. But I and like, it's just confusing to me how And by the way, Christine didn't die right away. She died in the hospital. So I'm wondering if Brendan really did stab her and kill her, is he panicked now that she's going to survive, that she's going to survive and tell the real story. I was thinking about all of that too. Why not make sure she's dead first before you call nine one one?
00:19:36
Speaker 1: There was another good point. Wow, I didn't think about that scenario the other one. And this was the one that finally for me. The timing of the steps twelve twenty four to twelve forty one, excuse me, seven twenty four to seven forty one. They're able to track Juliana's movement. They know he's at McDonald's the morning of the killing. They know her their's surveillance video. No, that's not in question. They are tracking her based on her whatever watch or something. Her steps stop at seven point twenty four because she's outside in the car with the child. She doesn't move again until seven forty one. Brendan Bamfield is not at the house between seven twenty four and seven forty one. Somebody in the house is using the laptop for the fat Life account. Please tell me what's up. So does that either mean she just happened to discover it on her laptop the very morning that the man was coming to for this fetish or was it her account? Babe?
00:20:36
Speaker 2: Was she communicating with him?
00:20:38
Speaker 1: Babe?
00:20:39
Speaker 2: Well, I know that's incredibly difficult to try and explain to fit the prosecution's theory.
00:20:46
Speaker 1: So tell me how they explained it. Did you ever hear them account for that or did they just keep saying well, since nobody was right there, we don't know exactly who was using it, Or do they say well, Juliana probably got back in the house.
00:20:57
Speaker 2: They didn't specifically that, They did not specifically address that. And to know that Juliana, Juliana didn't have any steps would also imply that she wasn't back in the house, and they could also see where her devices were, so that's a tough one to get around. I just also thought one of the most effective lines from the defense attorney was when he talked about Juliana and her testimony. He said her entire story has been bought and paid for. And when he said that, that landed for me. I just thought, there's really no other way to put it. And it was so interesting to hear in the rebuttal the prosecution getting the final world word. She kept saying, why would she do this for ten thousand dollars, meaning that's how much Netflix was offering to pay her for her story. She wouldn't do all of this for ten thousand dollars, No, lady, she did this for her freedom. So she didn't acknowledge, and I thought that was really not smart on her end, because anyone you treat us like we were stupid, obviously the jury is our thinking. No, she's tested buying against Brendan. Yeah, okay, maybe she might make money down the line, but that wasn't her motivation. Her motivation was freedom. Her motivation was freedom, period.
00:22:11
Speaker 1: You just helped thank you. I thought you were piecing it together. Oh she remembered. That was it, Babe, His line about the story being bought and paid for the rebuttal, She got up there said, you know what the defense accuses us. They say her story has been bought and paid for. Yes, you're right. That was it. That was it.
00:22:35
Speaker 2: And then she went on to say, so was she really? But would she really do all of this for ten thousand dollars?
00:22:40
Speaker 1: And that's what I was saying, was hilarious. They say she's been bought and paid for? Yes? And then she continued, but that was It was enough of a beat that it landed for me that, oh she's acknowledging. Does she mean to do that?
00:22:56
Speaker 2: You looked at me and you said, did she just say yes to that? And I was like, yep, she really just did that. And we thought, man, can you imagine if you were running for office and you made a speech, you would literally just take that clip and just air it over and over again in your paid commercial to convince everybody like, yeah, here's the truth. She said it herself.
00:23:14
Speaker 1: Accidentally let it out. This has been a doozy, and we both said, look, if you have been falling along with us. As we've been following on this trial. We have essentially, Robes listened to ninety plus percent of the testimony in this trial. We have seen just about all of it. And as we sit here today, we never really can't predict what a jury is going to do, so we will predict what we would do, Robes, if you were on that jury, walk in as soon as we walk in, after we get the case, and we take that straw vote right now, everybody, before we go over with evidence, let's just show a hands. Who thinks he's guilty, who thinks he's not guilty? Your hand is going where?
00:23:55
Speaker 2: So I think right now I would be in the not guilty camp, but not because I don't think he didn't do it. I think he very well may have done it, but I don't think the state proved that he did it the way they said he did it beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:24:09
Speaker 1: Same thing, first vote, not guilty. All right, going through the evidence, I don't know where we'll land, but I am open. It's just too much of a question, and I have too many questions about credibility of one of your witnesses, which you're admitting I have to send this man to jail for the rest of his life based on testimony that was bought and paid for from a witness who has every incentive to lie, who actually can't remember a damn thing, and actually wasn't that convincing or or apologetic or sympathetic or remorseful on the stand.
00:24:45
Speaker 2: Her testimony was not credible enough for me to send a man to prison for the rest of his life. I just don't think there was enough actual evidence to back up her version against his version for me to feel comfortable as a juror.
00:25:02
Speaker 1: I'm willing to listen to my fellow jurory. I want to listen to another argument by all means, But right now this is a tough one. What do you think that was what we would do? What do you think this jury is going to do right now? Official prediction is.
00:25:16
Speaker 2: Either I think it's either hung jury or not guilty. I don't think they're going to come back with a guilty verdict.
00:25:22
Speaker 1: I'm going with hung. How did we do on the predictions on Walshin Diddy? I think I was wrong on Walt.
00:25:30
Speaker 2: I think I was wrong on both. So don't listen to what we're saying. But I just look, because you know, the interesting thing is the folks who are making these decisions also don't have legal backgrounds. They're like you and me. Perhaps maybe we've seen more trials than most and have watched outcomes more often than not. And I will say, having watched them for the last three decades, usually mostly jurors come back with guilty verdicts. I mean that has been my experience at least. It does take a lot a very good defense attorney a lot of times to put enough doubt in juror's minds for them to question what a prosecutor what a police officer was telling them. But in this case, you have two detectives who work with the Fairfax County Police Department flat out, flat out testify for the defense and throw the prosecution's theory in the mud. And for me, those two guys were so credible. I don't think Juliana was that credible, and I don't even know if Brandon was that credible, But those two forensic digital forensic experts were credible enough that that for me is the reason why I would vote not guilty.
00:26:38
Speaker 1: Right now, you say credible enough, they were the most overwhelmingly credible people on the stand as far as the detectives go, because so many of them were up there trying to defend their work, trying to justify why they did this, or that they had a dog in the fight. They did have a side that they have picked. I got two guys up here saying, I'm just going where the evidence goes, and it tells me that prosecution theory is bull. Those were two very credible witnesses. We didn't even mention them until here at the end that that might tip the scales.
00:27:08
Speaker 2: I think it does, because also it's not good for their careers. It's not good for them to not agree with what their supervisors wanted them to come to. Those supervisors clearly wanted them to reach a conclusion that they didn't reach, and I thought that was admirable that they stuck to their guns based on their experience and their expertise and did not let a supervisor or someone higher up with in the police department kind of twist their arm into saying something different. That gave them so much more credibility because there's no incentive for them career wise to take the stances they've taken.
00:27:39
Speaker 1: Folks will keep an eye Verdict Watch is officially underway. We will hop back on if anything happens tonight. But if they don't get a verdict tonight, they will be going home for the weekend and coming back on Monday and trying again. We shall see if they try to get out of there before the weekend roads. But folks, we always appreciate you going along with us on TJ. Holmes will behalf of my dear Amy Robock. Thank you for listening, and again, uh keep an eye on our feet. We will let you know if something else happens to that.
00:28:08
Speaker 2: H m hm