MURDERED: Christine Banfield & Joseph Ryan

12:27Ashley Flowers:Oh, I don't have anything to complain about them. They are amazing. They've been always amazing. the sweetest ever. They always treat me really well as a family. We always did things like family.

12:48Brit Prawat:What about the relationship between mom and dad?

12:51Ashley Flowers:Oh, they are really good with each other. They are super stable. I've never seen anything disgusting or anything. It's deposit. They are super I don't know how to say it. Super. They get along well. They're friendly. You don't see them fight very often? No. No. I never see them fight. Never see them fight? No. They're at home. Everyone is calm. We talk. We don't yell. We don't have fights. We never do. When you say fights, do you mean yelling fights? Yeah. Or physical fights? Or fights. Okay. Yeah. So you're a real or physical? No, never. Never heard anything. Okay.

13:38Brit Prawat: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 7.20, 7.30 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.

14:21Brit Prawat:So that's when she called Brendan, who was at a nearby McDonald's. He tries calling Christine, too. 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.

15:04Ashley Flowers:And they were yelling to each other, 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 that strange guy was saying, drop the gun, drop the gun. They were yelling at each other. and then he, the guy, he 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 okay. And I don't know what he did. it can't when started I kind of I covered my ears I closed my eyes I I didn't want to see or hear anything because they were getting serious I guess like it he was a block you were he kept saying that

16:17Ashley Flowers:But then he, I didn't want to say that, but he started stabbing her with the knife. And when I saw that, I just closed my, I never seen that. So what's happening? And then Brendan shot him.

16:42Ashley Flowers:and I was even more scared.

16:45Brit Prawat: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, Juliana 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,

17:03Ashley Flowers:and he was trying to help Christine with the tear neck, and she was bleeding a lot. And he was reacting, so he was going to do something with Brendan also. And then I shot him also. I did.

17:23Brit Prawat: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 Juliana and Brendan shot this guy. basically to stop a threat, as Juliana put it. But they didn't actually stop it. Christine had been stabbed in the neck six times. She had 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.

18:05Brit Prawat:His pants are undone, and he has a backpack with him. In that backpack, police find zip ties, chains, padlocks, clothespins, electrical tape, saran wrap, a gag lube, and strangely, a single apricot.

18:20Ashley Flowers:Okay, but I mean, the timing alone, he had to have been, like, lying in wait for Juliana's leave.

18:26Brit Prawat: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 cell phones 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?

19:04Brit Prawat: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 Juliana 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 gotten in unless someone from the house let him in? Unfortunately, the only people that they can't ask about this are Joe and Christine.

19:48Brit Prawat: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.

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21:31Brit Prawat:It turns out that Joe had been messaging someone called Anastasia9 on FetLife, which is this social networking site for people into BDSM and kinks. And Anastasia9 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 role play that she craved. She wanted an aggressive dom. No dates, no coffee, just sex. Anastasia Nine and Joe 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 Joe would play an intruder who forces himself on her.

22:21Brit Prawat:Now, they picked that Friday because Anastasia Nine said that her husband was going to be out of town. And her instructions were specific. Come over at around 7.20 a.m., 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 Nine had even asked Joe 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.

23:00Brit Prawat:Everything police were being fed fit together neatly. This woman, married to a federal agent, was 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 Joe. 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 Joe seemed to be concerned, this was supposed to be just, like, two adults meeting up for a first-time encounter.

23:40Brit Prawat: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. I mean, he had some criminal history, but like nothing major. And while Joe didn't have a spouse or 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. Loved ones describe someone compassionate and kind. But, I mean, people are more than one thing. And Joe also had an interest in BDSM and rough sex role-playing.

24:19Brit Prawat:which he tried to engage in responsibly. You can see it through his chat history with Anastasia Nine. Since the plan involved gagging her, Joe set up a nonverbal stop 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, Joe contacted this person to make sure nothing about their experiences was 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.

25:01Brit Prawat: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 kink, 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 wheelhouse.

25:27Ashley Flowers:So this would have been like a real zero to 60 for her.

25:29Brit Prawat: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.

25:47Ashley Flowers:Then, no.

25:49Brit Prawat:That's what I'm saying. I cannot imagine a world where you work with people who have been the victim of sexual assault. See firsthand 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 going to 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 kink shaming like this was not her kink. And that is what becomes painfully obvious when police look at her life as a whole.

26:27Brit Prawat:Christine Banfield and Anastasia Nine 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 Goodell 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?

27:15Brit Prawat: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. I mean, 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 and there, but they didn't. Instead, they begin collecting their mountain of evidence while at the same time keeping an eye on Brendan and Juliana, who are staying in a hotel since the house was a crime scene.

28:08Brit Prawat:And interestingly, that very first night when they go to the hotel, there is this undercover officer in the lobby who overheard something that stopped him cold. Brendan's daughter asked Juliana two questions. Can she call her mommy now? And is Juliana going to 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 Brendan as strictly professional. But, like, doubt it. Because on Juliana's phone, detectives find a trove of photos documenting her relationship with Brendan.

28:54Brit Prawat: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 Brendan had been involved since summer 2022.

29:06Ashley Flowers:Was Christine suspicious at all that something like this was going on?

29:09Brit Prawat:Unlikely. Like she and Brendan 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 Brendan had other affairs that Christine likely never knew about. And that probably includes Juliana because Christine recently encouraged her to extend her au pair contract. A friend of Christine's told us that she actually thought Brendan and Juliana's dynamic was cute. Like, she thought they had a big brother-little sister thing.

29:48Brit Prawat: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 Anastasia 9 FetLife account. It started with a brand new Gmail account being created in early January. Then on January 17th, that email registered the Anastasia 9 FetLife profile. That same day, Christine took that bathing suit selfie and sent it to her husband. And within a few days, the Anastasia 9 account was chatting with multiple other FetLife accounts, telling them she had a sexual assault fantasy.

30:32Brit Prawat: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. 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 Anastasia Nine were still working out the details Thursday night, February 23rd.

31:19Brit Prawat:Early the next morning, Friday, at 5.47 a.m., 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, Anastasia Nine sent a final reply. Okay, I'll be waiting for you. And what's wild is over the course of weeks, at the same time that the FetLife 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.

32:05Ashley Flowers:I mean, that doesn't sound like two sides of the same person. that sounds like two completely different people.

32:10Brit Prawat:Especially when police find out Brendan and Juliana took trips together. And each time that they were gone, the FetLife account would go dark.

32:21Ashley Flowers:Even though Christine was home with her devices. And you'd think that this would be like the perfect time for her to be accessing that account.

32:28Brit Prawat: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. Yeah. On top of that, Not long before the killings, Brendan and Juliana both got new phones and iCloud accounts set to sync 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.

33:11Brit Prawat: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 Sands, 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.

33:39Ashley Flowers:I mean, how?

33:40Brit Prawat:That was the Occam's razor version, I think. Like the whole catfishing 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 like 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.

34:24Brit Prawat: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.

35:04Brit Prawat:So they decide to roll the dice. And in October 2023, they decided to charge Juliana with Joe's murder.

35:12Ashley Flowers:Why just Joe?

35:13Brit Prawat:Because 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.

35:35Ashley Flowers:But this is like the surefire, solid choice.

35:38Brit Prawat:This is what they have. This is what they know they can use to hold her. They're in for another shock, though, when 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.

36:02Ashley Flowers:Are they sleeping in the room where Christine and Joe died? Like the bedroom?

36:08Brit Prawat:Christine who is the vibe. Yes, they are.

36:10Ashley Flowers:Oh, my God.

36:11Brit Prawat: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. She 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?

36:53Brit Prawat: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 co-workers don't seem to like him much, but not because he's threatening. He's just sort of like there, easy to forget. I mean, Fairfax Commonwealth's attorney Steve Descano referred to him as a walking saltine. But he's mommy's saltine, and I imagine she will do anything to protect him. So, as prosecutors gear up, investigators go back to the beginning.

37:37Brit Prawat: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.

38:17Brit Prawat:And when an officer lifted Joe's top hand to check for a pulse, a swath 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.

38:58Brit Prawat: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 Juliana's arrest, They finally charge 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.

39:47Brit Prawat: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'd cheated before her, but I doubt she knew how much. And now she is probably no longer feeling special. She's feeling used. So Juliana agrees to plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter and testify against Brendan. In exchange, prosecutors will recommend time served.

40:27Ashley Flowers:Time served, like the time that she's been in since they first arrested her. That's what, like a year?

40:32Brit Prawat:Well, I mean, by the time they actually get to Brendan's trial, it's going to be a little bit more than that. But 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.

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41:58Brit Prawat:According to Juliana, the murders of Christine Banfield and Joe Ryan weren't impulsive. Planning 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 Juliana 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.

42:35Brit Prawat: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, and Brendan would get to play this heroic husband who tried to save her.

42:55Ashley Flowers:How did he even think of something like that?

42:58Brit Prawat:Well, Juliana says 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 Closer, 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 Banfields got new windows installed. Police figured that's just like a routine house renovation thing.

43:36Brit Prawat:Whatever. But Juliana says that Brendan upgraded to triple pane near soundproof windows, then tested them by standing in the bedroom and screaming while she listened outside. Even the windows were 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 Joe 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.

44:17Brit Prawat: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 Joe pull in. That's when she called Christine's dead phone to create a record of her trying to warn her.

44:59Brit Prawat: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 headed up. And in the bedroom, Christine was on the floor with Joe 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.

45:39Brit Prawat:A man who believed that her fear was fake, just like part of the fun. Joe was 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. Right? Like her husband is here. She is safe. Thank God. But that relief was short-lived. Brendan shot Joe in the head and Christine told them to call 911. one. Now, for some reason, Juliana dialed before Brendan gave the go ahead.

46:23Brit Prawat: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 Joe 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.

46:59Ashley Flowers:He wanted her to be implicated.

47:01Brit Prawat:More of a reason for her to stay silent. She watched Brendan drip Christine's blood onto Joe'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 Goodell 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 him. But Brendan is not going down without a fight.

47:47Brit Prawat: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 Joe 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. Joe's DNA couldn't be eliminated from the handle, and Christine's couldn't be eliminated from the blade. Brendan's DNA is nowhere.

48:22Ashley Flowers:Yeah, but Juliana said he was already dripping blood on Joe to stage it, so he was basically controlling where his DNA went.

48:30Brit Prawat:Yes, but Joe also had a puncture wound on his thumb, which the defense says could have happened when like a hand slipped down onto the blade like mid-stab. We know that like knives can get slippery. Brendan didn't have a scratch on him. And those blood-free gaps between Joe's fingers that I pointed out, according to the defense, that just shows that Joe's hand was like clenched, like shut as he's like gripping the knife when Christine's blood got there. Oh, and Christine's blood on Brendan's clothes? That's a nothing burger, they say. A husband just trying to help his dying wife. While a mix of Christine and Joe's blood on the back of Brendan's jacket shows, they say, that Joe hit Brendan from behind.

49:13Brit Prawat:The defense also takes aim at the investigation itself. Key evidence was never tested for DNA. Major bloodstains in the carpet, the gun safe, even Brendan's personal gun. How does that happen in a double homicide? Well, I mean, 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 shitstorm at the Fairfax County PD. because it turns out the department's own digital analyst had actually pushed back on the catfishing theory.

49:59Brit Prawat: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, overlapped. So his initial conclusion was that Christine was in control.

50:17Ashley Flowers:But isn't that what other investigators think shows the opposite? Like, that it's not her?

50:22Brit Prawat: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 Anastasia 9 account used with Joe.

51:07Brit Prawat:That text was still in her messages. So if Brendan and Juliana were running the account, wouldn't they have, like, deleted it? Then there were some ground rules that Anastasia 9 accounts 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.

51:34Ashley Flowers:I mean, or if they're trying to make it seem, like, more legit?

51:38Brit Prawat: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 sweetheart 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.

52:20Brit Prawat:The FetLife 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.

52:38Ashley Flowers:Netflix? Who's calling Netflix? When did they get here?

52:41Brit Prawat:She'd been shopping her story to producers 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, still be in the works, even though her lawyer stopped her from signing anything before Brendan's trial. Now, meanwhile, you got to remember, this whole time that 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.

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54:21Brit Prawat: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 alleged 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. Then he and Juliana got involved in August 2022 when Christine and their daughter were out of 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.

55:04Brit Prawat:He says Juliana was jealous of Christine, didn't want to deal with it anymore, and told him that she was seeing other people.

55:10Ashley Flowers:Well, that obviously didn't stick because why is she having Christine's daughter call her mommy the night her mom died, was killed?

55:17Brit Prawat:It doesn't track. But according to Brendan, they were still off on the morning of February 24th, 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 7 that morning.

55:58Ashley Flowers:Another lie. Didn't you say her phone was turned off earlier that morning?

56:01Brit Prawat: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.

56:09Ashley Flowers:Then why would she stash it downstairs in a bar cart drawer?

56:12Brit Prawat:It makes no sense. So 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.

56:22Ashley Flowers:Because you've got to sell the lie.

56:23Brit Prawat:And that's when Juliana called. 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.

56:46Ashley Flowers:Or you didn't want Joe to get startled and stop and have her realize that this was all a setup.

56:52Brit Prawat: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.

57:31Brit Prawat: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.

57:58Ashley Flowers:And did he say anything to you? He did.

58:05Brit Prawat:He told me that she was hers, that she was hers and that she gave herself to me. And Christine kind of yelled, moaned at this point also.

58:22Ashley Flowers:Okay, I'm sorry. You said she was hers? She was his. Sorry. She was his. Can you say the whole statement?

58:33Brit Prawat: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.

58:45Ashley Flowers:Okay. And I'm sorry, I interrupted. What happened then?

58:53Christine kind of yelled or moaned and both.

58:59Brit Prawat: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. But it's also hard to remember what words to use if it didn't really happen.

59:25Ashley Flowers:I feel like the only glimpse I saw of something real was when he was talking about Christine, like, moaning.

59:31Brit Prawat: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. When Joe brought the knife down toward her again, Brendan fired one shot at his head.

59:53Ashley Flowers:Wait, how many times was she stabbed?

59:55Brit Prawat: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 service weapon drawn, watching his wife get stabbed again and again and again? 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.

1:00:30Brit Prawat: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 him. She's talking with six knife wounds to her neck. Dying words, Britt. 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.

1:01:08Brit Prawat: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.

1:01:51Brit Prawat: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 this 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 bled fast and hard. Prosecutors point out that Brendan knew that, that those 15 minutes weren't chaos or panic or confusion.

1:02:39Brit Prawat:It was the time he needed to stage the 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. And 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.

1:03:23Brit Prawat:And after that, Brendan Banfield is found guilty on all counts. According to NBC4 Washington 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.

1:04:07Brit Prawat: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.

1:04:32Ashley Flowers:She will eventually come to terms with the fact that her father, the person who was meant to protect her above all else, used her and put her directly in harm's way.

1:04:42Brit Prawat: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 this 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. But more than anything, she loved her daughter. She was warm and kind, the type who made others feel comfortable, and she was honest.

1:05:26Brit Prawat:So when Brendan tried to recast her as someone else, her family knew better.

1:05:32Ashley Flowers: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.

1:05:57Brit Prawat: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.

1:06:10Ashley Flowers:And in all this, I still can't believe that Juliana got off with time served.

1:06:14Brit Prawat:So, actually, that didn't happen. Prosecutors recommended it as promised, but in a huge win for this case, the judge decided Juliana 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 Juliana lied about what happened. Here's his aunt, Sangeeta.

1:06:56Ashley Flowers:He didn't just take Joe and Christine from us. He tried to erase the truth of who they were. And in doing so, it inflicted further harm on the people who loved them. They're right.

1:07:08Brit Prawat:because what Brendan did, what Juliana 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 Juliana 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 would give him the chance?

1:07:55Brit Prawat: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 partner's 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. Narcissist. Now, I'm not a psychologist. I'm not going to try and diagnose a man that I've never met.

1:08:34Brit Prawat: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, and 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.

1:09:16Brit Prawat:So listen to them. I mean, words can get distracting. You should feel loved and appreciated. 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.

1:09:54Ashley Flowers:Before we wrap up, I want to share something special happening with the Crime Junkie Fan Club this month. One of the things we're most proud of is that by being members, our fan club helps us support meaningful causes all year long. And this June, we're making an even bigger impact together. For every eligible new or reactivated Crime Junkie fan club membership purchased during the month of June, AudioChuck is donating$10 to Time Out Youth, up to a total of$20 ,000. That means every qualifying membership helps contribute$10 to an organization doing incredible work. Time Out Youth's mission is to support LGBTQ plus youth by offering vital programs, fostering unconditional acceptance, and creating safe spaces for self-expression through leadership, community support, and advocacy.

1:10:36Ashley Flowers:If you've been thinking about joining the Crime Junkie Fan Club to access all the benefits, now is a great time to join and make an impact. You can sign up using the link in our show notes. And if you'd like to learn more about Time Out Youth and the impact they're making, we've linked their website as well.

1:11:02Brit Prawat:you can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com

1:11:08Ashley Flowers:and you can follow us on instagram at crimejunkie podcast we'll be back next week with a brand new episode

1:11:49Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an Audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

1:12:22Ashley Flowers:to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.