MURDERED: Christine Banfield & Joseph Ryan

February 24, 2000, 23, 7, 47, 32. That few seconds of 911 call that came into Fairfax County might not sound like a lot. I mean, the caller hung up right where it cut off after that groan. So it tells a first time listener almost nothing, but that call would turn out to be everything. Prosecutors say those few seconds are among the strongest pieces of evidence that a man named Joseph Ryan was murdered. And if that's true, then he was lured there and executed as part of the same plan that got Christine Banfield killed. You can be the judge, but the legal systems already made up its mind and two people are now serving time related to one of these sickest, most twisted, premeditated plots I've ever heard of. A real reminder of crime junkie life role number one. You never really know anyone ever. I'm Ashley Flowers and I'm Britt. Let's dive into the case crime junkies. After that odd 911 call came in, the dispatcher in Fairfax County, Virginia, tries calling the number back, but no one answers. And because it came from a cell phone, they can't pinpoint where to send police. So they're kind of just stuck until 15 minutes later when the same phone number calls back. And this time, a frantic young woman is on the line. I'm going to go to the police station and I'm going to go to the police station. Okay. You're on a stable workway, are you on stable workway, what's your most number? Okay, and what's your name and what's going on? My name is Brandon Bantiel, I'm a federal agent, this is my house, so there's somebody here. I shot him because he stabbed her, he's leading to get several marks on her neck. Okay, so what I need you to do is apply direct pressure directly to where she's leading from, okay? And then it becomes, so just add more contact to what it's already there. How old is the person? The person that's bleeding? Okay, so the person that you shot, where it is? I don't know, I don't know him. Okay, where is he though? He's here, he's on the ground. Okay. Okay. And the person that he stabbed, where are they now, are they still not in the hospital? I have something to tell you. EMS and Fairfax County police head to the bandfield's home, a large brickfront colonial tucked into a quiet cul-de-sac in the D.C. suburb of Herndon. Bear let in and let upstairs by the family's opair, she is who called 911 and she directs them to the main bedroom where they see the bed is stripped with bloody linens on the floor. Two guns are on the bear mattress and Brendan is kneeling on a towel beside the bed next to his naked wife, 37-year-old Christine Bandfield, and he's using his bare hands to stop the bleeding that's coming from stab wounds in her neck. And lying atop a dog bed against the bed frame, the officers see the stranger that Brendan said he shot. Under the dog bed by his head, they find Christine's underwear ripped at the crotch and nearby is what's believed to be one of her shirts with a jagged cut down the back. The paramedics go to each person but the man is already beyond saving. They're still hope for Christine though, she is breathing, so EMS rushes her to an ambulance waiting outside while responders inside try to get a handle on this chaotic scene, including Tending to Brendan, who seems unable to even stand on his own. Right here, the officer standing closest to Brendan mouths in the direction of the body camp. He doesn't know. He says it twice, but it's not totally clear what he means, because Christine was still alive at the house. It's not like he's saying he doesn't know that she's passed, but I mean, it's possible that anyone with medical training would know that her injuries were bad, likely not survivable. Brendan is escorted out to his front lawn, they want to get him in an ambulance to make sure that he's not injured at all. He's limping a little, but he says he doesn't know what's wrong. He seems to just kind of be in shock as he hangs his head and steers at the ground. They check him out, but Brendan is basically physically unharmed, although he thinks maybe the stranger struck him once, but when they get to the hospital, he overhears someone talking about his wife for students. Check what? The status of his wife, huh? The doctor stays with Brendan as he cries, and she offers to try and answer any questions he has. So, I think that she's got a lot of blood loss, so I think that she died of blood loss. Her air load was actually okay, I'll call the medical camera, of course, and we'll do an autopsy and make sure we know certain. I mean, those were enormous wounds, and you know, they're really good. - There are so many. - Yes, and the nap is not compressible, so it's not possible really to stop all the blood loss. And her airway seems like in the midline, okay, she was able to be intubated. Everything that was possible to be done was done for her right away. You did a wonderful, you know, you did everything that was possible. It's not a survivable injury. - Brendan had just turned 38 the day before this. Now he's a widower and a single dad to his and Christine's four year old daughter. Police want to give him some space, but they need to know what happened. Except Brendan isn't just gonna be an open book. Like, I don't know if you caught it on the 911 call, but he said that he was a federal agent. Works for the Internal Revenue Service, IRS, Criminal Investigation Division. So he knows the life rule that we preach. Always get a lawyer, right? He has already given a little bit of information, like kind of jumbled in the 911 call and a little bit to first responders. Basically, what they put together is that an intruder was attacking his wife. He shot the intruder and he confirms that the two guns that were sitting on the mattress were his. But that is about all he's ready to say. Police aren't totally in the dark, though, because while Brendan was at the hospital, the family's opair and the band feels little girl who she nannies for are at the police station. Her name is Juliana Perez-Mogliani's, a 22-year-old Brazilian woman who came to the U.S. through an opair program nearly a year and a half prior, like back in October of 2021. And since then, she had been living with the bandfields, caring for their daughter. Tell me about the family. I don't have any complain about them. They are amazing. They're always amazing. Dispist, ever. They always dreamt really well as a family. We always did things like family. What about the relationship between mom and dad? Oh, they are really good with each other. They are a super stable. I never seen anything like, you know, it's because seeing anything is deposit. They are super, I don't know. That's where they get along well. They are friendly. You don't seem to fight very often. No, I never seem to be fighting. Never seem to fight? No, at home, everyone is calm and we talk. We don't yell. We don't, you know, don't have fights. I never did. When you say fights, do you mean yelling fights for physical? Yeah, or fights, yeah. Can you do a verbal or physical? No, never. I never heard anything. Juliana tells police that Friday was supposed to be a normal day. Brendan had left for work early and Christine planned for Juliana to take their little girl to a zoo in D.C. it opened at 8 a.m. So they headed out at around 727.30 a.m. But before they even left the street, Juliana realized that she had forgotten their lunches. So she was just going to run back in. But then she saw an unfamiliar gray Jeep pull into the driveway like before she could. And a man that she had never seen before parked, got out carrying a backpack or something, and walked inside like he owned the place. Now she said she tried calling Christine, who was still inside, but it went straight to voicemail. So that's when she called Brendan, who was at a nearby McDonald's. He tries calling Christine to, same thing, got her voicemail. So he came home and all three went in together. Juliana, Brendan, and the little girl. Now Juliana said that she heard a slapping or like a spanking type noise upstairs. So the two adults told the four year old to stay in the basement while they went up to investigate. But by the time they got upstairs, what she says they walked in on was a shirtless man over a naked Christine on the floor. And before she even fully realized what was happening, Brendan was standing in front of her in the doorway with his gun, like his service weapon drawn. And they were yelling to each other. It didn't really understand what they were saying. It was too fast. And Brendan said, drop the knife. Please drop the knife. That's what I heard. And the strange guy was saying, drop the gun. Drop the gun. They were yelling at each other. And then the guy-- she said, like, drop the gun. I'm going to kill her. And he had-- and when he said it, I was-- for me, I didn't believe that somebody was going to do that. I was OK. And I don't know what he did. When he started, I covered my ears. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see or hear anything, because they were getting serious. I guess. He was saying, I'm going to kill her. He kept saying that. Then he didn't want to see that, but he started stabbing her with the knife. And when I saw that, I just closed my eyes. I never seen that. So what's happening? And then Brendan shot him. And I wasn't even more scared. She says Brendan then told her to go open his safe and grab his other gun so that she could be his backup while he helped Christine. Now, Giuliana knew how to handle a gun, because Brendan had taken her to a shooting range before. So she did what he asked. And then I got the gun. OK. And he was trying to help Christine with the turn back. And he was putting on, and he was reacting. So he was going to do something with Brendan also. And then I shot him also. I did. Detectives knew there were two shots to their male victim, one in the head, one in the chest. And they knew there were two guns found on the bed. But this is the first time that they get confirmation that both Giuliana and Brendan shot this guy, basically, to stop a threat as Giuliana put it. But they didn't actually stop it. Christine had been stabbed in the neck six times, yet even more cuts on her neck and shoulder bruises on her arm and hands and legs and chin, and an abrasion on her wrist, possibly from being restrained. And it looks like the male victim had come with both restraints and intentions. His pants are undone, and he has a backpack with him. In that backpack, police find zip ties, chains, padlocks, clothespins, electrical tape, serran wrap, a gag, lube, and strangely, a single apricot. OK, but I mean, the timing alone, he had to have been lying in wait for Giuliana's leave. You would think that, right? Because everything happened so quickly. Yeah. But they're actually able to identify this guy from his car and his cellphones as 39-year-old Joseph Ryan from nearby Springfield. And in his wallet, they also find a receipt from Walmart, timestamped 713 that morning. And that had just three items on it. So toothpaste, the same lube that was in his backpack, and apricots. Based on that drive from Walmart, the earliest that he could have arrived at that house is 725. So he's at the store before this, not stalking the house. And if this was some highly planned attack, why does it seem so amateur? I mean, he did nothing to hide his identity. He parked his Jeep right in the driveway. His wallet is there in the room. And Brendan and Giuliana didn't know him at all. Not that anyone can tell, but there are other reasons that this just doesn't sit right as a random crime. I mean, this is an affluent low crime neighborhood in general. There are no signs of forced entry to this house. And the house has a smart lock system that, as far as they can tell, no one tampered with. So how would this guy have gone in unless someone from the house let him in? Unfortunately, the only people that they can't ask about this are Joe and Christine. But they do have their phones. Now, they find Christine's downstairs in the drawer of this bar cart that's like pushed up against the wall. And Joe's is right there in his Jeep. Now, on Christine's phone, they see one of the open apps is the smart lock system showing that the front door lock had been disabled. And Joe's phone makes it clear that he knew that that door would be unlocked. It turns out that Joe had been messaging someone called Anastasia 9 on FET life, which is this social networking site for people in the BDSM and Kinks. And Anastasia 9 appeared to be Christine, at least based on the profile selfie pic of her in a bathing suit. Just her body, no face. Now, she described herself as a married woman. who cheated before, whose husband was too gentle for the rough roleplay that she craved. She wanted an aggressive dawn. No dates, no coffee, just sex. Anastasia 9 and Jo had started talking back in late January, but they'd recently moved their conversations to an encrypted app and actually planned an encounter, basically a violent fantasy where she would play a sleeping woman and Jo would play an intruder who forces himself on her. Now they picked that Friday because Anastasia 9 said that her husband was going to be at a town, and her instructions were specific. Come over at around 7.20am, park in the driveway, leave your phones in your car, the door's going to be unlocked, my dog is going to be put away in the basement. He was to come upstairs, pin her down, restrain her, cut her clothes off with a knife, blindfold her, and gag her. Anastasia 9 had even asked Jo for a photo of everything he was bringing, including a knife. It's the exact one detectives found in the bedroom. The same one used to kill Christine. Everything police were being fed fit together neatly. This woman, married to a federal agent, was a living a double life. She invited the wrong man into her home and into her bed and she paid the ultimate price. Her husband was so close to being the hero, but he just couldn't save her in time. Except for every part of the story that makes sense, there are 10 that don't. I mean, take Jo. Like, what on earth is his motive here? The communications have made it clear that there wasn't some like ongoing affair. As far as Jo seemed to be concerned, this was supposed to be just like two adults meeting up for a first time encounter. What the hell happened? He doesn't seem like some violent guy who got carried away. When they dig into his background, the man that they discover doesn't match the scene that they found him in. When he had some criminal history, but like nothing major, and while Jo didn't have a spouser kids, he was devoted to the family he did have. His grandparents raised him, and when they got older, he became one of their primary caregivers. He was at his mom's side through cancer treatment. Love ones described someone compassionate and kind, but I mean, people are more than one thing, and Jo also had an interest in BDSM and rough sex role playing, which he tried to engage in responsibly. You can see it through his chat history with Anastasia 9. Since the plan involved gagging her, Jo set up a nonverbal stock signal and asked about her boundaries, so he wouldn't overstep. Our reporter Nina even spoke to a former partner of his, and she told us that during the Me Too Reckoning, Jo contacted this person to make sure nothing about their experiences with bothering her even in hindsight. And it wasn't, but I mean, he was mindful about it. Exactly. Now, as far as we know, he didn't have any other encounters that got out of hand or instances where he just like snapped, like that wasn't him. And none of this was like Christine. Everyone agrees that she was a devoted nurse, mom, wife, and not like a mom can't have a king, but like as far as they could tell, Christine had never even been unfaithful. I mean, they check years worth of her data. I mean, back to the mid 2000s, there is nothing. No flirtations, no affairs. Not even like mainstream porn, let alone anything in Anastasia 9's real house. So this would have been like a real zero to 60 for her. And of all things, to have some sexual assault fantasy, it makes even less sense when you realize that she had spent her career doing some of the hardest work in medicine. She was a pediatric ICU nurse when she died. But before that, she was a sexual assault nurse examiner. Oh my God, then oh, this one's saying, I cannot imagine a world where you work with people who have been the victim of sexual assault. See, first hand, the trauma of that, the brutality of that, the way that it can destroy people. And then we're like supposed to believe that like, that's the fantasy she lands on. Like her first time ever cheating on her husband and this is how, like she's gonna have a good time on a Friday morning at 720, like with some stranger. And like listen, don't anyone dare come for me, like I'm kingshaming. Like this was not her kink. And that is what becomes painfully obvious when police look at her life as a whole. Christine Banfield and Anastasia 9 do not feel like the same person. Detectives go on an all out digital blitz, pulling terabytes of data off dozens of devices. And piece by piece, they start to rebuild the life of this Anastasia 9 account. They also build out a portrait of everyone who lived in the Banfield house. But before they even do, there are hints about what they're going to find. As Fairfax County detective, Thomas Gadell told us, there were red flags from the beginning. The rehearsed sounding law enforcement lingo that Juliana kept using when she talked about what happened. She had to stop a threat, remember? He got the vibe like she had practiced that story. So investigators started asking hyper-specific questions about body positioning. Where was the man's head, his hands, the knife? And what Juliana ultimately described is a man who was defenseless by the time she shot him. In the way she tells it to them, he was partially like on his back moaning. The knife wasn't even near him. It was on the floor away from him. That means that the shot she fired could be considered murder. They could have charged her right then in there, but they didn't. Instead, they begin collecting their mountain of evidence while at the same time keeping an eye on Brandon and Juliana, who are staying in a hotel since the house was a crime scene. And interestingly, that very first night, when they go to the hotel, there's this undercover officer in the lobby who overheard something that stopped him cold. Brandon's daughter asked Juliana two questions. Can she call her mommy now? And is Juliana gonna marry her daddy? The first answer is yes, she can call her mommy as for marrying her daddy? Juliana says, I wish. Now, in her interview with police, Juliana had described her relationship with Brandon as strictly professional, but like doubt it. Because on Juliana's phone, detectives find a trove of photos documenting her relationship with Brandon. In some, she slapped an emoji sticker on his face, but it's like undeniably him. Friends, she'd sent them to confirm. Juliana and Brandon had been involved since summer 2022. Was Christine suspicious at all that something like this was going on? Unlikely, like she and Brandon had been together since college. They'd been married nearly like 13 years. He had actually cheated on her before, like this long-term affair that she had learned about that sent them to counseling. But they stayed together. And on paper, they'd worked through it. However, police learned that Brandon had other affairs that Christine likely never knew about. And that probably includes Juliana, because Christine recently encouraged her to extend her opair contract. A friend of Christine's told us that she actually thought Brandon and Juliana's dynamic was cute, like she thought they had a big brother, little sister thing, but like, obviously, that's not true unless this is Game of Thrones. And it seems like she was completely in the dark about what was happening right under her nose in her own home. And that home is where investigators began to trace the creation of the Anestation 9 fet life account. It started with a brand new Gmail account being created in early January. Then on January 17th, that email registered the Anestation 9 fet life profile. That same day, Christine took that bathing suit selfie and sent it to her husband. And within a few days, the Anestation 9 account was chatting with multiple other fet life accounts, telling them she had a sexual assault fantasy. But over and over, there was a blocker. Every guy wanted to meet in person first, like it's too dangerous not to, right? Like, it could be anyone behind that keyboard, right? But there was one person who agreed to forego the face-to-face meeting. And that was Joe. Now, this had to have seemed risky to him, because he kind of tried to arrange an in-person meeting first. But in the end, he settled for a long late night call through an app three days before the murders. Maybe that call put him at ease. But there's no recording, so we may never know. What we do know is that Joe and Anestation 9 were still working out the details Thursday night, February 23rd. Early the next morning, Friday, at 5.47 AM, Christine's phone was used to disable the front door lock. About an hour later, her phone gets shut off. But the conversation with Joe kept going from Christine's laptop. He said that he was running behind. At 6.48, Anestation 9 sent a final reply. OK, I'll be waiting for you. And what's wild is over the course of weeks. At the same time that the-- that life account stuff was being accessed or used from her laptop, her phone was doing like completely ordinary things, shopping for scrubs, researching vacations, looking up TV shows. I mean, that doesn't sound like two sides of the same person that sounds like two completely different people. Especially when police find out Brendan and Juliana took trips together. And each time that they were gone, the Fet Life account would go dark. Even though Christine was home with her devices, I think that this would be like the perfect time for her to be accessing that account. If you're going to have a liaison with a stranger, do it while your husband is away, rather than while he is just like grabbing breakfast at McDonald's. On top of that, not long before the killings, Brendan and Juliana both got new phones and eye cloud accounts set to sink almost nothing. Like their old cloud accounts were wiped clean. So investigators quickly land on a theory. Brendan and Juliana did not interrupt a home invasion. They orchestrated one. Using a fake online persona to lure Joe to the house, then they killed him and Christine and staged it so that Joe would take the fall, which is diabolical. Well, it is also so convoluted that when police lay it out for prosecutors, the reaction is basically like, no way. I mean, don't get me wrong. They were suspicious. But when we spoke with the Commonwealth's chief deputy, Jenna Sans, she told us that at the time it seemed more likely to them that Christine and Joe were having an affair. And Brendan and Juliana walked in on them and killed them. How? That was the Occam's razor version, I think. The whole cat fishing thing is just so overcomplicated and digital evidence has limits. Christine was always in the house with Brendan and Juliana or both, like when the account was active, so they can't prove who was using any given device. They needed more. But when you're talking this much forensic evidence more takes time. And since prosecutors don't think that there was a public threat, the priority was getting it done right, not fast. But Fairfax Police Chief, Kevin Davis told us that the department was keeping close tabs on the Banfield family the entire time. So they got to watch as Brendan, his daughter and Juliana move right back into the house where Christine and Joe were killed, along with Brendan's mother, who becomes kind of like his mouthpiece while he stays quiet. The problem though, is after a few months, they start to worry that Juliana and Brendan are a flight risk. They see that Juliana has applied for a new Brazilian passport to replace the one that they confiscated. And Brendan started learning Portuguese. But Juliana is, I think, the bigger concern, because Brazil generally won't extradite its own citizens. If she makes it home, they might never get her back. So they decide to roll the dice. And in October 2023, they decide to charge Juliana with Joe's murder. Why just Joe? Well, that's what they can prove. Like in her initial police interview, she admitted that he was incapacitated when she shot him that second time. And according to the medical examiner, that second shot is the one that killed him, although I mean, the first shot that Brendan fired at a downward angle, by the way, could have been fatal as well. Now, don't get me wrong, they think that there's way more to this story. But this is like the surefire solid. This is what they had. This is what they know they can use to hold her. They're in for another shock, though, with they make the arrest and go back into the Banfields house with a search warrant. Christine has essentially been erased. Her photos are gone from the bedroom, replaced by pictures of Brendan and Juliana together. Her clothes are gone from the closet. And Juliana's are hanging in their place. Are they sleeping in the room where Christine and Joe died? Christine? Christine, who is the vibe? Yes, they are. Oh, my God. And her arrest only makes it clearer how deep she is in with Brendan. Once she is sitting in jail, they are monitoring all her communication. Yeah. Obviously, letters, emails, she's exchanging with Brendan, exchanging with his mom, her loved ones in Brazil. We and Brendan are planning for the future at this point, planning a family of their own. All while Brendan's mother is funding Juliana's legal defense, like, I love my kids, but how is his mother supporting this? I don't know. It seems so toxic. Listen, I kept looking for the thing like, oh, like, did Christine's friends hate this guy? Like, was Brendan abusive? Like, there had to have been signs, right? In this case? Not really. I mean, he was actively cheating. We know that, but like, I think he hit it well. No one in Christine's life so far has been like, oh, I always had a bad feeling about that guy. If anything, Brendan barely registers for most people. His coworkers don't seem to like him much, but not because he's threatening. He's just sort of like, they're easy to forget. I mean, Fairfax commonwealth's attorney, Steve Daskano, referred to him as a "walking sultan," but he's mommy's sultan, and I imagine she will do anything to protect him. So as prosecutors gear up, investigators go back to the beginning. Problem is, they know the crime scene was compromised almost immediately. I mean, first responders were trying to save Christine, checking Joe's vitals coming and going. The knife was stepped on and kicked. It was chaos, but luckily they have body cam footage, which they go through frame by frame. And the more they look at Joe, the harder it is to believe he did what Brendan and Juliana say he did. I mean, one of his legs was wedged so far under the bed frame that responders struggled to pull it out. His hands were like folded neatly across his chest, like what detectives call a funeral pose. When an officer lifted Joe's top hand to check for a pulse, a swathe of his skin underneath and in between his fingers were clean, like there was no blood. And that only makes sense if Joe's hands were already folded when blood landed on them, not like he was in the middle of a frenzied knife attack. And blood patterns tell a story. Joe had small round drops on his chest and arms that looked like they fell straight down when he was lying still. But Brendan's clothes tell a different tale. I mean, those stains are longer and messier, the way blood lands on someone who's moving while blood is flying through the air. Bottom line, the blood on Joe doesn't point to him as the stabber. The blood on Brendan does. And when testing confirms that, prosecutors finally have what they need. So in September 2024, almost a year after Julianna's arrest, they finally charged Brendan with Christine and Joe's murders, and ultimately with felony child abuse and cruelty since his daughter was home when it happened. Now, this whole time Julianna's been away, she has not flipped on him. I think she was probably telling herself that cops didn't know the full story, right? Like otherwise, they would have arrested him, but now that he's in a cell too, it's all crashing down. Plus, he stops communicating with her after he's arrested. And she'd also been reading discovery files for her upcoming trial, which detail all of the affairs that Brendan had while he was with Christine, at least all the affairs that they knew about. And she'd likely known that he cheated before her, but I doubt she knew how much. And now she is probably no longer feeling special. She's feeling used. So Julianna agrees to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and testify against Brendan. In exchange, prosecutors will recommend time served. Time served, like the time that she's been in since they first arrested her. That's what? Like a year? Well, I mean, by the time they actually get to Brendan's trial, it's going to be a little bit more than that. They need her. They need her to help lock down the case against Brendan. That's what her testimony will do. So that October, she gives them a full account of what she says happened. According to Julianna, the murders of Christine Banfield and Joe Ryan weren't impulsive. Things started in October 2022 when she traveled with Brendan and his daughter to New York to visit his family. I think Christine had to stay back and work. They had been involved for a few months by then. And Brendan mentioned wanting to get rid of his wife. He told Julianna that Christine was a bad mom who didn't care about his needs. But a divorce would mean custody battles, child support. In his mind, killing her would just be easier. He didn't want to hire a professional, he was worried about the money trail. So instead, he came up with something far more elaborate. Create a fake profile on a fetish site, pose as Christine and lure a man to the house under the pretense of a violent sexual fantasy. They would frame that man for Christine's murder. Brendan would get to play this hero. how it has been who tried to save her. - How did he even think of something like that? - Well, Juliana said she doesn't know where he came up with the idea. But, Chief Deputy Sands later learned that it mirrors the plot of a TV show. The clothes are season one, episode six for anyone interested. And I don't know if Brendan ever saw it, but I watched it, and the similarities are hard to ignore. And as Juliana lays it all out, details that never made sense before finally start to like click into place. Even the things that once meant nothing take on new meaning. Like, months before the murders, the band feels got new windows installed. Police figured that you don't, that's just like a routine house renovation thing, whatever. But Juliana says that Brendan upgraded to triple pain near soundproof windows, then tested them by standing in the bedroom and screaming while she listened outside. Even the windows are planned to make sure nobody would hear her. Brendan was so meticulous about the digital trail too. I mean, they only used Christine's devices when she was home so that everything would be traced back to her location. Juliana says she was the one who did the long call with Jo to get him comfortable before the meetup. And he commented about her having an accent. Because like, I mean, the picture he saw was of a white American woman. But it obviously didn't scare him off because a few days later, he showed up. That morning, Christine was sleeping in with her daughter since she had the day off. Brendan brought the little girl downstairs, handed Juliana his second gun, which she slipped into her hoodie pocket. They disabled the front door lock with Christine's phone, powered the phone off and stashed it in that bar cart drawer. Then Brendan drove to McDonald's while Juliana settled his daughter in the car parked by the house. She waited, she watched Jo pull in. That's when she called Christine's dead phone to create a record of her trying to warn her. And then she calls Brendan and tells him to come home. And according to Washington Post reporter Tom Jackman, this whole time, they put on a show for Brendan's daughter so that she would repeat it to police later. Like, oh no, we forgot the lunches. Look at that strange man going inside. When Brendan got back, they went in through the basement, left his daughter downstairs and had it up. And in the bedroom, Christine was on the floor with Jo behind her and she yelled something like Brendan. He has a knife. And like when you think about what this must have been like for Christine, she woke up to a stranger with a knife trying to sexually assault her, a man who believed that her fear was fake, just like part of the fun. Jo is inside for at least five minutes, probably more before Brendan and Juliana came in. So she is Christine. She is fighting hard, which explains the sheets being ripped off the bed and her bruises. But importantly, this is the thing to focus on. She has not been stabbed yet. Then Brendan walks in. Which in that moment, Christine must have felt so much relief. I write like her husband is here. She is safe, thank God, but that relief was short lived. Brendan shot Jo in the head and Christine told them to call 911. Now for some reason, Juliana dialed before Brendan gave the go ahead. That is when that first call was made. The one that was just a few seconds where you hear like a moan. But Brendan motioned for her to hang up. Like it wasn't time yet. He told her to go get a towel, then to go to the gun safe, even though she had the gun she needed. And then when she came back, Brendan was on top of Christine stabbing her in the neck. Then Jo stirred, so Juliana shot him, like she'd been trained to do. Remember, he took her to the shooting range. And he'd actually bought that second gun just weeks before everything went down. That doesn't feel like it's for protection. He wanted her to be implicated. More of a reason for her to stay silent. She watched Brendan drip Christine's blood on to Jo's body and once the scene was set, 15 minutes later. This is why she had to hang up the call, right? They're not ready, once the scene was set. He has her call 911 again. Detective Gidell noticed something important about this telling of the day. Now unlike Juliana's first interview, which felt scripted and hollow, this time Juliana gives sensory details. Christine's warm blood on her hands. The deafening crack of the gunshot, her account matches the evidence. They finally got it. But Brendan is not going down without a fight. His defense doesn't just say that investigators got it wrong. They say the evidence was read backwards. And that nearly every detail used to make Brendan look guilty points just as easily toward Jo and Christine. And I could spend 10 episodes unpacking everything. But I want to walk you through some of the big points of contention. Starting with the knife. Jo's DNA couldn't be eliminated from the handle and Christine's couldn't be eliminated from the blade. Brendan's DNA is nowhere. Yeah, but Juliana said he was already dripping blood on Jo to stage it. So he was basically controlling where his DNA went. Yes, but Jo also had a puncture wound on his thumb, which the defense says could have happened when a hand slipped down onto the blade like mid-stabbing. We know that knives can get slippery. Brendan didn't have a scratch on him. And those blood-free gaps between Jo's fingers that I pointed out, according to the defense, that just shows that Jo's hand was clenched. It's shut as he's gripping the knife when Christine's blood got there. Oh, and Christine's blood on Brendan's clothes? That's a nothing-burker, they say. A husband is trying to help his dying wife. While a mix of Christine and Jo's blood on the back of Brendan's jacket shows, they say that Jo hit Brendan from behind. The defense also takes aim at the investigation itself. Key evidence was never tested for DNA. Major blood stains in the carpet, the gun safe, even Brendan's personal gun. How does that happen in a double homicide? Well, I'm in the lab decides what gets tested. Some items I guess weren't considered useful. Others like the gun weren't eligible. Still, the defense thinks that adds up to some big unanswered questions. But honestly, the physical evidence in this case is the least of the prosecution's worries. Because this case sets off an internal shit storm at the Fairfax County PD. 'Cause it turns out the department's own digital analyst had actually pushed back on the catfishing theory. He thought that if someone hijacked Christine's devices, there would be a time gap, like breathing room between her normal browsing and the explicit sexual conversations. Instead, he says they basically like overlap. So his initial conclusion was that Christine was in control. But isn't that what other investigators think shows the opposite, like that it's not her? Yes, and to police leadership, they think that this analyst crossed a line. And at the end of the day, data can show what the devices were doing, not who used them. Right. So that guy got reassigned. As did others who apparently clashed with the brass over this case. Now, Chief Davis says that this whole thing was blown out of proportion publicly. But multiple officers say that higher ups pushed the catfishing theory before the evidence backed it up. To the defense, it was textbook tunnel vision. And here's the weird kicker when it comes to digital data. There was a security code text sent to Christine's phone by the chat app that the Anestasia 9 account used with Joe. That text was still in her messages. So if Brendan and Juliana were running the account, when they have like deleted it, then there were some ground rules. That Anestasia 9 account set that don't really make a ton of sense for a frame job. No visible marks, no bodily fluids. Like, if the goal is to lure a patsy, why bother with those boundaries? Like, that only makes sense if Christine is behind the account. I mean, or if they're trying to make it seem like more legit? I don't know. But strip everything away. And really, the most solid thing they have in this case against Brendan is Juliana, the woman who spent a year proclaiming her innocence and pledging loyalty to Brendan. To the defense, she had every reason to make up a story like this. She's miserable in jail. You're going to offer her time served if she gives up Brendan on a silver platter. Like, that is a sweet hard deal. And the defense says, of course, her account matches most of the evidence now, because she got to read all of the discovery. Basically, as Brendan's trial begins, in January, 2026, the defense's case boils down to this. The Fettlife account was Christine's. She was arranging these encounters for herself. Tragically, she got more than she bargained for with Joe. And Juliana is lying her way out of a prison cell, leveraging her testimony and a potential Netflix deal, by the way. Netflix, who's calling Netflix when they get here? She'd been shopping her story to produce hers with Netflix ties, although she was holding out for more after they initially only offered her $10,000. And something like that appears to actually, by the way, By the way, still be in the works, even though her lawyer stopped her from signing anything before Brendan's trial. Now, meanwhile, you gotta remember this whole time, like this is going on, she's been in jail, they've been investigating, Brendan has barely said a word about what happened that day. So imagine the jolt in the courtroom when he takes the stand. When Brendan gets on the stand, he tells the jury he loved Christine and was committed to his marriage, but they had problems, especially around sex. He wanted it more often, and he says that she wanted something very different from what he was into. He alleges that Christine had affairs, and at least one of them involved BDSM, and he knew that she was into that. On his end, most flings stayed casual. When he and Juliana got involved in August 2022 when Christine and their daughter were at a town, but he made it clear to Juliana, he's a married man, he wasn't going anywhere. By February 2023, it had pretty much run its course, he said. He says Juliana was jealous of Christine, didn't want to deal with it anymore, and told him that she was seeing other people. Well, that obviously didn't stick, because why is she having Christine's daughter call her mommy the night her mom died, died, was killed. It doesn't track, but according to Brendan, they were still off on the morning of February 24, which he says started earlier than usual. He says he wanted to prep that morning for this big meeting tied to one of his IRS cases. If it went well, he might get a promotion. By the way, spot the lie. His supervisor testifies after him, but I'll give you the goods at the top so you have the right lens in which to view his testimony. What do you know? There was no meeting. The entire foundation of Brendan's story is BS. Cool. But anyway, Brendan says that Christine was awake, in bed with her phone and laptop when he left around seven that morning. Another lie, didn't she say her phone was turned off earlier that morning? He has a response to that. He is claiming that she had it with her. He didn't know if she was actually like doing anything on it. Then why would she stash it downstairs in a bar cart drawer? It makes no sense. When Brendan says that he goes to McDonald's, got breakfast at the drive-thru, then went inside just to use the restroom for more than seven minutes according to surveillance footage. "Because you gotta sell the lie." And that's in Juliana Colton, a strange man had just walked into their house. He tried Christine, got voicemail, headed home. He said that he thought he was probably going to be walking in on an affair, which is why he didn't call 911 initially. That's also why he says he used the basement door to get into the house. The front door would have been noisy and he didn't want Christine to know that she was basically caught. "Or you didn't want Joe to get startled and stop and have her realize that this was all a set up." Yes. Then he says while he was downstairs, the noises which sounded sexual changed. They started sounding forceful. So he drew his weapon and went upstairs to the bedroom where he found Christine naked on all fours, kneeling behind her was a man who he later learned was Joe Ryan. And that guy was fully clothed staring at him and Christine warned him the man has a knife. He told Joe that he was law enforcement and to drop the knife. Joe told him to drop the gun. It was basically like a standoff. And at some point Joe also asked to leave and asked Brendan to leave. Brendan told him that he was under arrest and Brendan tells the jury that he was scared at this point. Never been more terrified in his life and he just repeated that he wanted him to let her go. And then there's this moment where the attorney asks and did he say anything to you? And I need you to hear what he says in his own words. So here is an excerpt from Brendan testifying at his trial from court TV. Did he say anything to you? He told me that she was hers and that she gave herself to me. And Christine kind of yelled at this point also. Okay. I'm sorry. You said she was hers. She was his, sorry. She was his. Can you say the whole statement? He said that she was his and that she gave herself to him. To me is what? She gave herself to me is what he said. Okay. And I'm sorry. I interrupted. What happened then? Christine kind of yelled or moaned and both. And it seems that she went to her left, my right a little bit. Is he fumbling on the stand because there is a lot on the line and he's recounting a very high stress trauma moment, possibly? It's also hard to remember what words to use if it didn't really happen. I feel like the only glimpse I saw of something real was when he was talking about Christine like moaning. And you know that must have been a real moment at some point, no matter who is holding the knife. Brendan says that when Christine moved, Joe lunged toward her with the knife. She cried out and spun away landing on her stomach on the floor. And Joe brought the knife down toward her again, Brendan fired one shot at his head. Wait, how many times was she stabbed? Yeah, something's not adding up, right? She stabbed six times in the neck. What he just described is two. And like, what was he doing? Like just standing there with his surface weapon drawn, watching his wife get stabbed again and again and again? Like, yeah. His explanation is that he was scared to shoot, afraid that he would miss Joe and hit Christine, but his timeline is also murky. Like Brendan says, maybe Joe stabbed her before he got in the room. Maybe it was after like he's not sure. He just knows that after he shot Joe, he moved the knife away from him, sets his gun down and knelt beside Christine. She was still alive. Her own training must have kicked in because she was already applying pressure to her wounds. And she was talking to him. She said telling him that she loved it. She's talking with six knife wounds to her neck. Nine words brick, she loves him and she's sorry. That's when he says Juliana appeared. He says he was focused on Christine covered in her blood. So he directed Juliana to call 911 and to keep an eye on Joe. Now, what he doesn't know at the time, he says is that Juliana got his other gun out of the safe. She knew the code because it was the same one that they used for the front door. According to him, he is on the ground, Christine telling him she loved him. When Joe hit him in the back, another shot rang out and he says that he was stunned, but the way he tells it, he also thought Juliana may have saved his life. It's one of the reasons he fell in love with her, he says. But only after Christine died, that's when things got really serious. And look, you can pick apart every piece of this case. You can argue about the knife DNA. You can question why certain evidence was never tested. You can debate whether Juliana's testimony is credible or self-serving. And Brendan's defense gave the jury reasons to do all of that. But even if you set aside every contested detail, every he said she said, there is one thing that is hard to explain away. And it takes us right back to where the story started, that 15 minute gap between 911 calls. Christine had a blood clotting disorder that made her bruise easily and bleed more than the average person, which means two things. One, she would never have consented to a violent knife play. The risk of uncontrollable bleeding was too high and she knew that about her own body. And two, once she was stabbed, she blood fast and hard. Prosecutors point out that Brendan knew that, that those 15 minutes weren't chaos or panic or confusion. It was the time he needed to stage this scene and to make sure that by the time help arrived, Christine couldn't tell anyone what really happened and she wouldn't make it. Now Brendan says that he thought Juliana made the first 911 call on her own from the basement while he was already upstairs, and that the groaning sound on the line wasn't Joe Dying, it was the family dog. They say that if the moan was the dog and not a dying man, then the whole theory that Joe was already mortally wounded while they spent that time staging, they say that falls apart. But the jury isn't buying it. They're out for nearly nine hours over two days, and after that, Brendan Banfield is found guilty on all counts. According to NBC4Washington reporter Drew Wilder, Brendan's attorney tried to have the verdict tossed, but the judge didn't go for it. And on June 5th, he was sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The judge told Brendan that his actions were driven by deep Inherent evil, the kind of calculating remorseless evil she'd only seen a couple of times before this in her 18 years on the bench, and she reminded him that he would have been facing the death penalty had Virginia not abolished it just a few short years ago. This case may be closed, but a crime like this will have ripple effects for a lifetime, and I never want people to forget the little girl at the center of all of this. Christine's daughter had lost her mother, and now her father, and the pain that she'll have to reckon with one day is something that people return to again and again at Brendan's sentencing, including Christine's sister Danielle. She will eventually come to terms with the fact that her father, the person who is meant to protect her above all else, used her, put her directly in harm's way. Now the little girl is at the center of a new legal battle. It appears that Brendan's mother and Christine's family are fighting over custody of her. Meanwhile a wrongful death suit filed on Christine's behalf is pending. So much of the story has been about the plot, the legalities, the lies, and the people who did this, and Christine and Joe aren't just names in a case file, they're people. Christine had an infectious laugh, a huge smile, and she loved the simple stuff. Her family's Italian food traditions, 90s boy bands, put more than anything. She loved her daughter. She was warm and kind, the type who made others feel comfortable, and she was honest. So when Brendan tried to recast her as someone else, her family knew better. As Christine's sister, I didn't just lose her. I had to sit and listen to a version of her that did not exist. I knew her in a way that he never could, I knew her honesty, her compassion, her refusal to live with secrets. Hearing him attempt to rewrite her life and her character felt like losing her all over again, piece by piece in a room where she could not defend herself. As for Joe, his best friend Zulu told our reporter Nina that he was goofy and loyal, a reliable friend and a deeply compassionate guy. Like the type of person who did the right thing, even when no one was watching. And in all this, I still can't believe that Giuliana got off with time served. Well, I hit so, actually, that didn't happen. Prosecutors recommended it as promised, but in a huge win for this case, the judge decided Giuliana deserves the maximum, which was 10 years. And at her sentencing, and again at Brendan's, Joe's mom and aunt spoke about the son and nephew that they lost. The rock of the family, a guy who went out of his way to rescue old and injured dogs. They say that Joe wasn't only murdered in that bedroom. His character was assassinated over and over again. Every time that Brendan and Giuliana lied about what happened, here's his aunt, Sanquita. He didn't just take Joe and Christine from us. He tried to erase the truth of who they were. And doing so inflicted further harm on the people who loved them. They're right. Because what Brendan did, what Giuliana helped him do wasn't just about saving themselves. They were selling a story where they were the heroes, but every hero needs a villain. So Joe became the violent predator, and Christine became the immoral cheating wife who brought this on herself. There is zero indication any of that is true. But it's what Brendan continues to tell the world. About Joe and about his own wife, the mother of the child, both he and Giuliana claimed to love so much. And for what? So Brendan could dodge a child support check so he could control everything and hold on to the house, the image, the lifestyle that he wanted to keep while he banged anyone who had given the chance. All told, Christine and Brendan were together for nearly two decades. Like after that much time, you shouldn't have to look over your shoulder or question your partners every move. And I don't know what the red flag was. I don't know what the warning sign was that something like this was even possible. Christine's sister said that she's replayed every moment looking for something that she missed. But Brendan hid so much she doesn't think that anyone really knew him. And during our reporting, we kept hearing the same word to describe Brendan. I'm not a psychologist, I'm not going to try and diagnose a man that I've never met. But it came up so much that it's worth taking a minute to talk about narcissistic abuse. Advocates often describe it as a pattern of emotional and psychological mistreatment that can include gaslighting, blame shifting, constant criticism, humiliation, isolation and more. The through line is control like wearing down another person's confidence, their independence, even their sense of what is real. We don't know if that's what Christine was dealing with. Like obviously, Brendan was unfaithful, but that doesn't tell us how he treated her in the ordinary moments of their marriage. What I do know is that a person tells you who they are through their actions. So listen to them. I mean words can get distracting. You should feel loved and appreciate it. And a person's relationship with themselves is like any other, like what you feed grows. Brendan fed his own ego again and again. And when that's the trade someone keeps making, when hurting the people closest to them stops being the line that they won't cross, the next line gets easier to cross and then the next and then the next. So for our crime junkies listening, above all else, remember that you are valuable. You are not to blame and you deserve to be really loved. You can find all this source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com. And you can follow us on Instagram @crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with the brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio check production. I think Chuck would approve.