Feb. 2, 2026
VERDICT in Au Pair Affair Murder Trial: Brendan Banfield GUILTY On All Counts
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RSS Feed After nine hours of deliberating, the jury in the Brendan Banfield trial found Banfield guilty of all four charges, including two counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of his wife Christine and a stranger he lured to his home, Joe Ryan. Banfield looked stunned as the verdict was read aloud. The court quickly moved forward, scheduling his sentencing date for May, where the 40 year old former IRS agent will face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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00:00:10
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. Did is a busy Monday, February second, and we have a verdict and they so call old pair a fair murder trial. And it does seem that the jury believed the old pair. And with that, welcome to this once again, Roam's another breaking news edition of Amy and TJ. We've been watching this for weeks now, this trial, folks have been keeping their eyes on it for years. Really, we got the.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Verdict guilty on all counts, unanimous decision. Jury took what just shy of nine hours to determine Brendan Banfield's fate, but it was we've weighed in what we thought might happen. This was not what I expected.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Across the board, guilty on all counts. And the more they went, the longer he went with deliberations, I guess, the more we might have thought that maybe there is some discord in that room. But it was unanimous. Were two counts of aggravated murder, guilty on those, another count of using a firearm and commission of a felony guilty, and account of child endangerment guilty on all counts. We have been watching this a short time ago. Roves, there was a lot that was made because we cameras were in the courtroom about how he appeared, even when he testified, how he appeared almost robotic, very stoic, not emotional, even talking about his dead wife at times. Saw something different from him today.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: Yet he looked defeated.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: I think before he really believed that he had a shot. And my guess is because the jury didn't come back with a quick verdict. They deliberated about three and a half hours on Friday, so they did not come up with a verdict. So you're thinking he's probably over the weekend thinking that's a good sign. You know, they didn't all of a sudden immediately say guilty unanimous.
00:02:05
Speaker 3: Right, So he's sinking I got a shot. I got a shot.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Then he comes back into court on Monday today and we're at the end of the day four thirty and that's when we find out.
00:02:16
Speaker 3: The jury has reached a unanimous verdict.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: So he's had nine hours plus the weekend to think maybe maybe, maybe maybe I'll.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: Get out of prison, and there was a chance. Here we are on this Monday. Yes, he was guilty on all counts. I guess not necessarily a lot of drama. Ultimately Robes, But there was some pretty high drama before we found out about the verdict because the bailiff, they say, goes in and checks on the jury at a certain time, checks on him at four to say, hey, you all want to keep going and go late into the evening or you want to wrap it up. So we were expecting Robes they some kind of an answer to that they're going to go home, because if they did, then we knew we could kind of check out, if you will, so we kept eye on it. But the guy goes at four and checks on him, and he doesn't necessarily give them a straight answer.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Right, They're like, can you just give us fifteen more minutes and we'll let you know. So that means that there definitely were there was at least a holdout. There could have been a few holdouts, people who weren't sure about We don't know which charge, any of the charges, but clearly they weren't all on the same page. Necessarily they said give us fifteen minutes. They knew they were close. I have never been on a jury, so I have no idea, and I imagine they're all different, probably depending on the different types of people than personalities.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: You have in the deliberation rooms. But I can't.
00:03:43
Speaker 2: Imagine the pressure they're putting on one person or maybe a couple of people to try and get everybody on the same page.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: You know, it's possible as well. I didn't think about this until you were saying it possible. They had the verdict and they were just getting their paperwork in order.
00:03:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never know.
00:04:00
Speaker 1: Cloud they need fifteen minutes and then they go back. The bailiff does go back at four fifteen to check on them again, and then they say we need five minutes.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: Now.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: At this point, we're thinking, okay, they are not going home, and I guess rogues we all and we were watching Core TV there coverage has been great, so thank you all for the live coverage. But they at this point the writing started to be on the wall.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: It seemed at least yes, And so we were on the edge of our seats waiting for what the jury was going to decide, and all eyes were on Brendan Banfield as he was waiting. That's just an unthinkable situation to be in. But you and I both said when the verdicts were read, he didn't have any immediate emotional reaction, but his face fell just ever so, and it almost had a soft, stunned, sad look on it. But it wasn't dramatic, it wasn't emotional, but it was still present.
00:04:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a way that was easily discernible. It doesn't if you would have seen that guy in a freeze frame, not having any idea who he was, you would go, what's wrong with that guy? It was there. This was a real emotional moment, and he didn't I don't think, right, I'm just going through the process of what we just saw in court. He came in, the jury comes in, They pretty immediately read the verdicts. They did ask for the jury to be pulled, right, so they all had to say out loud yes, yes, yes, They send them back to the jury room and then some housekeeping. But did he ever speak? The judgeral spoke to.
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Him, right, No, the judge never spoke to him.
00:05:38
Speaker 2: In fact, when he did or sorry, when the judge when she did address the defense asking questions, and he looked I remember directly at his defense attorney. He did not open his mouth, he didn't even attempt to speak, and there was very little interaction, if any at all between his lawyer and Brendan Banfield and his lawyer. He looked pretty pretty shocked and stunned as well. I do think they thought they had a shot at it. I mean that lawyer. He was up there in closing arguments for an hour and a half and he made some really good points. The big issue, the one that the jury clearly couldn't overcome, I would imagine, is the one that a lot of us had just there was no viable option because in order for us to believe Brendan Banfield story, we had to believe that Joe Ryan came there to kill his wife. And nothing suggested that, nothing pointed to that.
00:06:35
Speaker 3: And that was a very tough hurdle to get over.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: You know, doubt, it's reasonable, not beyond all doubt. They say that all the time, and I'm sure every single person you're supposed to should have doubts, but do they rise to the level. And it's tough. And you were the one that pointed that I was a thing for you. Why even if he's there with a guy who walked in that said police, you're the first thing you're going to do is kill the person, and so you could just clearly be shot.
00:07:05
Speaker 3: That does not.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: Make any sense, it makes sense. So that for me was something he couldn't explain away, and that was what I was looking for. I'm sure that's what durors were looking for when he took the stand. Now, looking back, I really don't think he Even if he hadn't taken the stand, I don't think that would have made a difference, because Juliana the ou pair Juliana Marclais her testimony. Even if you didn't like her, and even if she seemed frustrating that he she conveniently couldn't remember anything that made her look bad.
00:07:37
Speaker 3: Still, the story she told.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: I can understand why the defense didn't want her voice to be the only one the jurors heard. I understand why he wanted to give his version of events to counter her version of events.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Do you remember how much detail she gave about what happened in that bedroom?
00:07:56
Speaker 4: Uh?
00:07:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean she she gave.
00:07:58
Speaker 2: I mean she obviously just her second language, so it doesn't it didn't feel as clear as maybe the way Brendan had to explain it.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: But she's stuck to the narrative that, yes.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: But that he was literally on top of her and killed her. Right, That's why he had to testify. Yes, you got to some kind of way counter that statement.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Someone is testifying who once said she loved you and would do anything for you and would die for you, and is now sitting up there testifying that you brutally, savagely stabbed your wife to death in front of her there. So I given that having that be the only narrative that jurors heard from the only other person who was in the room, it makes sense that he needed to be because someone put it this way, there are only two people who know what Sorry, there were four people who know what happened in that room. Two of them are dead and one of them is testifying. So what do you do if you're the defendant, you have to defend yourself.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: You have to counter that. At this point, this has been one of the wildest well not necessarily just trials, I think just schemes or crimes that you're ever going to hear that. A man who has been married for nineteen years was it, has a child in the house, has an no pair twenty one years old, has an affair with her for six to eight weeks, and hatches a scheme in which he creates a fake profile on fetlife dot com in order to lure a stranger over to the house for a fantasy rape, fetish sexual encounter with his wife, so he could then kill that man, kill his wife, and then take credit as the hero who killed the man who came in and killed his wife. That's the story.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: And so yes, the jury convicted him of doing all of those things. And if you think about it, this is a guy who looks like your next door neighbor, who was an IRS agent, who had a government issued gun, a government issued car. He was somebody who was supposed to uphold the law and someone who you would trust. And by looking at him, seeing what his life was up until that moment, you would have no reason to think he was capable of something that maniacal. But that is evil, that is twisted. That is killing an innocent person to murder your wife so that you can right off into the sunset with a twenty one year old.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: That is as evil as it gets.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: And to think that he trusted a twenty one year old, a twenty two year old with this elaborate plan.
00:10:41
Speaker 3: It flies in the face of logic.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: You know, it was so ridiculous that I had a hard time. I was saying, well, nobody's going to do that after six weeks with some random twenty one year old from Brazil. I look, men, we're guilty of doing some really, really stupid stuff in the name of lust. But that was just over six weeks, and I had an elaborate plan to kill my wife and a stranger, not just one murder too that the story was so silly that it made me doubt.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: Yes, And then to do it on your birthday.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: To do it when you know your wife's parents are coming into town and think they're going to see their daughter and their granddaughter, and you've got a birthday plan to take.
00:11:25
Speaker 3: Off with your daughter somewhere.
00:11:27
Speaker 2: It just I thought there's no way somebody would do that and time it like that and do it in that way.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: It seemed impossible. And yet a jury said he's guilty.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: They said he's guilty. He was in court, what would you say five minutes tops that this took for this to happen, and they carried him out. We do know though, when he will be in court again. Also, we do know where the old pair is headed. Stay here, all right, we continue here on Amy and TJ Robes. How long do you get it before the movie is made about this.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: Oh, they're probably in the works right now, because look, we already know that Netflix has reached out to Juliana Marcalais because they wanted to do something I don't know, we don't know exactly what it was, but they were already offering her ten thousand up to twenty five thousand dollars for her participation in some sort of Netflix film. So yes, I think that is one hundred percent happening sooner rather than.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Later, and she will probably be cashing those checks at the Bank of Brazil because she is out of hair. They gave her the okay, she cut her deal, she's gone, it's done. It's over. The woman who by all accounts fired the fatal shot that killed mister Joe Wright.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I have to say that was a huge part of my doubt, and that was one of the main reasons why I felt like maybe one durer because you only need one, would hold out for a not guilty verdict because Juliana Marclay's got such a sweetheart deal.
00:13:07
Speaker 3: She basically paid with what a year.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Two years in prison for murder for admitting to murdering someone and then testifying against who she claimed was the mastermind. You literally end up with just two years behind bars. That's that's hard to then take that person's testimony credibly because you know they are so incentivized to say whatever they need to say to secure their freedom.
00:13:37
Speaker 1: We haven't seen, don't know if we will hear anything from these jurors, but I would be fascinating to hear what they were hung up on, to hear what they had difficulty with, and hear how close they might have come to this not being the same type of verdict. I think I got it right. There was some back and forth in the court robes about his sentencing hearing. I think they finally settled on early May. Happened there we go, so he will be back for that.
00:14:02
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm saying they settled on May eighth.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons was the prosecution said they want to have a little bit of time because they said they will have victim impact statements and those are always just, you know, gutting to hear, but important for the court and important for the judge to hear when determining sentencing. But with two aggravated murder charges he is facing, obviously he will never ever get out of jail.
00:14:29
Speaker 1: I think, isn't this mandatory life? I believe aggravated murder I believe they're in Virginia. This is a life in prison, I believe, without possibility to parole. Aggravated murder is a special not legal here, but special circumstance if you will. You can only have aggravated murder if you kill two people as a part of the same event within a three year period.
00:14:50
Speaker 4: As they say, yes, but yeah, very specific, very specific there in Virginia. Aggravated murder is obviously the most severe form of homicide. And yes, it's it's determined as the wilful, deliberate, and premeditated killing of a person under those special circumstances that you were just talking about it.
00:15:07
Speaker 3: And yes, a conviction carries.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: A mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: So a lot of this is just the moment for these victims.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: I don't know if we'll hear from the I know the mom of Joe Ryan has been outspoken leading up to the trial. Just can you imagine, So your child is murdered and now the person who police say murdered your child is claiming that your son is actually the sexual deviant, that your son is actually the evil murderer.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: So not only did he.
00:15:39
Speaker 2: Take his life, but he took his reputation or at least put a huge question mark over your son's morality and credibility, and that has to just be so extremely painful.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: She'll be there. I don't know if you saw the clip of her. Yeah, she'll She'll be there.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: And then we have our Christine's parents, so you know the they were I mean just hearing that they were coming to visit their daughter that day, the day they get to Virginia to find out that their daughter has been murdered.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a surreal situation.
00:16:12
Speaker 2: So it's likely we will hear from several family members and that will certainly be quite the day on May eighth, and the judge wanted to get it in because she said, hey, I'm I'm retiring July.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: First.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: I want to get she's been in a hurry this entire trial. But you can when she said she was retiring in July, that reads she's seen enough. She's seen a lot, but this will probably be one of her final cases.
00:16:34
Speaker 3: In what a case to go out on.
00:16:36
Speaker 2: So we appreciate you as always listening to us, and we thank you.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: I'm Amy Roebuck alongside my partner t J. Holmes. I'll talk to you sent
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. Did is a busy Monday, February second, and we have a verdict and they so call old pair a fair murder trial. And it does seem that the jury believed the old pair. And with that, welcome to this once again, Roam's another breaking news edition of Amy and TJ. We've been watching this for weeks now, this trial, folks have been keeping their eyes on it for years. Really, we got the.
00:00:34
Speaker 2: Verdict guilty on all counts, unanimous decision. Jury took what just shy of nine hours to determine Brendan Banfield's fate, but it was we've weighed in what we thought might happen. This was not what I expected.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: Across the board, guilty on all counts. And the more they went, the longer he went with deliberations, I guess, the more we might have thought that maybe there is some discord in that room. But it was unanimous. Were two counts of aggravated murder, guilty on those, another count of using a firearm and commission of a felony guilty, and account of child endangerment guilty on all counts. We have been watching this a short time ago. Roves, there was a lot that was made because we cameras were in the courtroom about how he appeared, even when he testified, how he appeared almost robotic, very stoic, not emotional, even talking about his dead wife at times. Saw something different from him today.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: Yet he looked defeated.
00:01:40
Speaker 2: I think before he really believed that he had a shot. And my guess is because the jury didn't come back with a quick verdict. They deliberated about three and a half hours on Friday, so they did not come up with a verdict. So you're thinking he's probably over the weekend thinking that's a good sign. You know, they didn't all of a sudden immediately say guilty unanimous.
00:02:05
Speaker 3: Right, So he's sinking I got a shot. I got a shot.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: Then he comes back into court on Monday today and we're at the end of the day four thirty and that's when we find out.
00:02:16
Speaker 3: The jury has reached a unanimous verdict.
00:02:18
Speaker 2: So he's had nine hours plus the weekend to think maybe maybe, maybe maybe I'll.
00:02:25
Speaker 1: Get out of prison, and there was a chance. Here we are on this Monday. Yes, he was guilty on all counts. I guess not necessarily a lot of drama. Ultimately Robes, But there was some pretty high drama before we found out about the verdict because the bailiff, they say, goes in and checks on the jury at a certain time, checks on him at four to say, hey, you all want to keep going and go late into the evening or you want to wrap it up. So we were expecting Robes they some kind of an answer to that they're going to go home, because if they did, then we knew we could kind of check out, if you will, so we kept eye on it. But the guy goes at four and checks on him, and he doesn't necessarily give them a straight answer.
00:03:08
Speaker 2: Right, They're like, can you just give us fifteen more minutes and we'll let you know. So that means that there definitely were there was at least a holdout. There could have been a few holdouts, people who weren't sure about We don't know which charge, any of the charges, but clearly they weren't all on the same page. Necessarily they said give us fifteen minutes. They knew they were close. I have never been on a jury, so I have no idea, and I imagine they're all different, probably depending on the different types of people than personalities.
00:03:40
Speaker 3: You have in the deliberation rooms. But I can't.
00:03:43
Speaker 2: Imagine the pressure they're putting on one person or maybe a couple of people to try and get everybody on the same page.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: You know, it's possible as well. I didn't think about this until you were saying it possible. They had the verdict and they were just getting their paperwork in order.
00:03:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, you never know.
00:04:00
Speaker 1: Cloud they need fifteen minutes and then they go back. The bailiff does go back at four fifteen to check on them again, and then they say we need five minutes.
00:04:10
Speaker 2: Now.
00:04:10
Speaker 1: At this point, we're thinking, okay, they are not going home, and I guess rogues we all and we were watching Core TV there coverage has been great, so thank you all for the live coverage. But they at this point the writing started to be on the wall.
00:04:23
Speaker 2: It seemed at least yes, And so we were on the edge of our seats waiting for what the jury was going to decide, and all eyes were on Brendan Banfield as he was waiting. That's just an unthinkable situation to be in. But you and I both said when the verdicts were read, he didn't have any immediate emotional reaction, but his face fell just ever so, and it almost had a soft, stunned, sad look on it. But it wasn't dramatic, it wasn't emotional, but it was still present.
00:04:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a way that was easily discernible. It doesn't if you would have seen that guy in a freeze frame, not having any idea who he was, you would go, what's wrong with that guy? It was there. This was a real emotional moment, and he didn't I don't think, right, I'm just going through the process of what we just saw in court. He came in, the jury comes in, They pretty immediately read the verdicts. They did ask for the jury to be pulled, right, so they all had to say out loud yes, yes, yes, They send them back to the jury room and then some housekeeping. But did he ever speak? The judgeral spoke to.
00:05:36
Speaker 3: Him, right, No, the judge never spoke to him.
00:05:38
Speaker 2: In fact, when he did or sorry, when the judge when she did address the defense asking questions, and he looked I remember directly at his defense attorney. He did not open his mouth, he didn't even attempt to speak, and there was very little interaction, if any at all between his lawyer and Brendan Banfield and his lawyer. He looked pretty pretty shocked and stunned as well. I do think they thought they had a shot at it. I mean that lawyer. He was up there in closing arguments for an hour and a half and he made some really good points. The big issue, the one that the jury clearly couldn't overcome, I would imagine, is the one that a lot of us had just there was no viable option because in order for us to believe Brendan Banfield story, we had to believe that Joe Ryan came there to kill his wife. And nothing suggested that, nothing pointed to that.
00:06:35
Speaker 3: And that was a very tough hurdle to get over.
00:06:39
Speaker 1: You know, doubt, it's reasonable, not beyond all doubt. They say that all the time, and I'm sure every single person you're supposed to should have doubts, but do they rise to the level. And it's tough. And you were the one that pointed that I was a thing for you. Why even if he's there with a guy who walked in that said police, you're the first thing you're going to do is kill the person, and so you could just clearly be shot.
00:07:05
Speaker 3: That does not.
00:07:05
Speaker 2: Make any sense, it makes sense. So that for me was something he couldn't explain away, and that was what I was looking for. I'm sure that's what durors were looking for when he took the stand. Now, looking back, I really don't think he Even if he hadn't taken the stand, I don't think that would have made a difference, because Juliana the ou pair Juliana Marclais her testimony. Even if you didn't like her, and even if she seemed frustrating that he she conveniently couldn't remember anything that made her look bad.
00:07:37
Speaker 3: Still, the story she told.
00:07:42
Speaker 2: I can understand why the defense didn't want her voice to be the only one the jurors heard. I understand why he wanted to give his version of events to counter her version of events.
00:07:52
Speaker 1: Do you remember how much detail she gave about what happened in that bedroom?
00:07:56
Speaker 4: Uh?
00:07:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean she she gave.
00:07:58
Speaker 2: I mean she obviously just her second language, so it doesn't it didn't feel as clear as maybe the way Brendan had to explain it.
00:08:06
Speaker 3: But she's stuck to the narrative that, yes.
00:08:09
Speaker 1: But that he was literally on top of her and killed her. Right, That's why he had to testify. Yes, you got to some kind of way counter that statement.
00:08:19
Speaker 2: Someone is testifying who once said she loved you and would do anything for you and would die for you, and is now sitting up there testifying that you brutally, savagely stabbed your wife to death in front of her there. So I given that having that be the only narrative that jurors heard from the only other person who was in the room, it makes sense that he needed to be because someone put it this way, there are only two people who know what Sorry, there were four people who know what happened in that room. Two of them are dead and one of them is testifying. So what do you do if you're the defendant, you have to defend yourself.
00:08:56
Speaker 1: You have to counter that. At this point, this has been one of the wildest well not necessarily just trials, I think just schemes or crimes that you're ever going to hear that. A man who has been married for nineteen years was it, has a child in the house, has an no pair twenty one years old, has an affair with her for six to eight weeks, and hatches a scheme in which he creates a fake profile on fetlife dot com in order to lure a stranger over to the house for a fantasy rape, fetish sexual encounter with his wife, so he could then kill that man, kill his wife, and then take credit as the hero who killed the man who came in and killed his wife. That's the story.
00:09:47
Speaker 2: And so yes, the jury convicted him of doing all of those things. And if you think about it, this is a guy who looks like your next door neighbor, who was an IRS agent, who had a government issued gun, a government issued car. He was somebody who was supposed to uphold the law and someone who you would trust. And by looking at him, seeing what his life was up until that moment, you would have no reason to think he was capable of something that maniacal. But that is evil, that is twisted. That is killing an innocent person to murder your wife so that you can right off into the sunset with a twenty one year old.
00:10:31
Speaker 3: That is as evil as it gets.
00:10:34
Speaker 2: And to think that he trusted a twenty one year old, a twenty two year old with this elaborate plan.
00:10:41
Speaker 3: It flies in the face of logic.
00:10:43
Speaker 1: You know, it was so ridiculous that I had a hard time. I was saying, well, nobody's going to do that after six weeks with some random twenty one year old from Brazil. I look, men, we're guilty of doing some really, really stupid stuff in the name of lust. But that was just over six weeks, and I had an elaborate plan to kill my wife and a stranger, not just one murder too that the story was so silly that it made me doubt.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: Yes, And then to do it on your birthday.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: To do it when you know your wife's parents are coming into town and think they're going to see their daughter and their granddaughter, and you've got a birthday plan to take.
00:11:25
Speaker 3: Off with your daughter somewhere.
00:11:27
Speaker 2: It just I thought there's no way somebody would do that and time it like that and do it in that way.
00:11:34
Speaker 3: It seemed impossible. And yet a jury said he's guilty.
00:11:39
Speaker 1: They said he's guilty. He was in court, what would you say five minutes tops that this took for this to happen, and they carried him out. We do know though, when he will be in court again. Also, we do know where the old pair is headed. Stay here, all right, we continue here on Amy and TJ Robes. How long do you get it before the movie is made about this.
00:12:10
Speaker 2: Oh, they're probably in the works right now, because look, we already know that Netflix has reached out to Juliana Marcalais because they wanted to do something I don't know, we don't know exactly what it was, but they were already offering her ten thousand up to twenty five thousand dollars for her participation in some sort of Netflix film. So yes, I think that is one hundred percent happening sooner rather than.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: Later, and she will probably be cashing those checks at the Bank of Brazil because she is out of hair. They gave her the okay, she cut her deal, she's gone, it's done. It's over. The woman who by all accounts fired the fatal shot that killed mister Joe Wright.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: I have to say that was a huge part of my doubt, and that was one of the main reasons why I felt like maybe one durer because you only need one, would hold out for a not guilty verdict because Juliana Marclay's got such a sweetheart deal.
00:13:07
Speaker 3: She basically paid with what a year.
00:13:12
Speaker 2: Two years in prison for murder for admitting to murdering someone and then testifying against who she claimed was the mastermind. You literally end up with just two years behind bars. That's that's hard to then take that person's testimony credibly because you know they are so incentivized to say whatever they need to say to secure their freedom.
00:13:37
Speaker 1: We haven't seen, don't know if we will hear anything from these jurors, but I would be fascinating to hear what they were hung up on, to hear what they had difficulty with, and hear how close they might have come to this not being the same type of verdict. I think I got it right. There was some back and forth in the court robes about his sentencing hearing. I think they finally settled on early May. Happened there we go, so he will be back for that.
00:14:02
Speaker 3: Oh no, I'm saying they settled on May eighth.
00:14:03
Speaker 2: And one of the reasons was the prosecution said they want to have a little bit of time because they said they will have victim impact statements and those are always just, you know, gutting to hear, but important for the court and important for the judge to hear when determining sentencing. But with two aggravated murder charges he is facing, obviously he will never ever get out of jail.
00:14:29
Speaker 1: I think, isn't this mandatory life? I believe aggravated murder I believe they're in Virginia. This is a life in prison, I believe, without possibility to parole. Aggravated murder is a special not legal here, but special circumstance if you will. You can only have aggravated murder if you kill two people as a part of the same event within a three year period.
00:14:50
Speaker 4: As they say, yes, but yeah, very specific, very specific there in Virginia. Aggravated murder is obviously the most severe form of homicide. And yes, it's it's determined as the wilful, deliberate, and premeditated killing of a person under those special circumstances that you were just talking about it.
00:15:07
Speaker 3: And yes, a conviction carries.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: A mandatory sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
00:15:14
Speaker 3: So a lot of this is just the moment for these victims.
00:15:17
Speaker 2: I don't know if we'll hear from the I know the mom of Joe Ryan has been outspoken leading up to the trial. Just can you imagine, So your child is murdered and now the person who police say murdered your child is claiming that your son is actually the sexual deviant, that your son is actually the evil murderer.
00:15:38
Speaker 3: So not only did he.
00:15:39
Speaker 2: Take his life, but he took his reputation or at least put a huge question mark over your son's morality and credibility, and that has to just be so extremely painful.
00:15:51
Speaker 1: She'll be there. I don't know if you saw the clip of her. Yeah, she'll She'll be there.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: And then we have our Christine's parents, so you know the they were I mean just hearing that they were coming to visit their daughter that day, the day they get to Virginia to find out that their daughter has been murdered.
00:16:10
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a surreal situation.
00:16:12
Speaker 2: So it's likely we will hear from several family members and that will certainly be quite the day on May eighth, and the judge wanted to get it in because she said, hey, I'm I'm retiring July.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: First.
00:16:22
Speaker 2: I want to get she's been in a hurry this entire trial. But you can when she said she was retiring in July, that reads she's seen enough. She's seen a lot, but this will probably be one of her final cases.
00:16:34
Speaker 3: In what a case to go out on.
00:16:36
Speaker 2: So we appreciate you as always listening to us, and we thank you.
00:16:41
Speaker 3: I'm Amy Roebuck alongside my partner t J. Holmes. I'll talk to you sent