FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Closing arguments are set to begin Friday in the double murder trial of Brendan Banfield, a day after his testimony shed light on the moments during and after the alleged double murder, as well as revealed he met a woman with whom he previously had an affair on what prosecutors called a fetish website.

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Banfield, a former federal agent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is accused of orchestrating a complex plot to kill his wife, Christine, and another man, Joe Ryan, by creating a fake account to catfish Ryan and stage a home invasion.

Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield did this so he could run off with the family's au pair, with whom he was having an affair.

DAY 10 - CLOSING ARGUMENTS

• Jury released to begin deliberations
• Defense continues closing arguments
• Court resumes

Around 11:38 a.m. the judge stops Banfield's attorney's closing arguments for a morning break

• The state redirects their additional closing arguments
• Defense wraps closing arguments
• The defense presented that Juliana took a deal for a lesser sentence and began talking to streaming platforms in exchange for money. "Her entire story has been bought and paid for, first with her freedom and now a little on the back end," Banfield's attorney said.
• "She [Juliana] was a pawn in trying to get to my client," the defense told the jury during closing arguments," defense stated.
• The defense has shifted focus to Juliana telling the jury the au pairs kept saying "I don't know" in questioning. "Her role has grown in importance for this case," the defense stated.
• The defense presented confirmation bias or a "rush to judgement" during closing arguments
• "This about the truth," the defense stated.
• During closing arguments, deferens told the jury that a lot of evidence was not tested immediately after the killings.
• "Did anyone ever test the blood on the gun?" defense asked.
• "In this case I might ask why wasn't their fingerprints done or even DNA of this gun safe that we hear Juliana foes into the back bathroom and talk about getting," the defense presented in closing arguments.

Defense begins closing arguments

• "Please be thoughtful in your deliberations but at the end of the day I don't think that there can be any reasonable doubt that Mr. Banfield has committed each and every one of the offense that we have put before you today," the Commonwealth said.
• Prosecutors doubled down on the inconsistencies with bloody handlike smears between Joe Ryan and Christine Banfield
• Christine Banfield died as a result of seven stab wounds to her neck. She suffered massive blood loss, the knife Brendon used to kill her was a kitchen knife with an approximately 4-in blade the kind you use for chopping up vegetables. This was the knife that Joe Ryan brought because Anastasia asked him to," the prosecutors told the jury.
• "There has been a plethora of evidence to help you meet your burden in this case."
• "Brendan Banfield killed Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan," the prosecution presented. "He was in love with Juliana," the prosecutor added

Commonwealth begins closing arguments

• Jury enters the court to begin hearing closing arguments and instructions

RELATED | Defense, prosecution rest in au pair affair murder trial; closing arguments set for Friday

During the two days Banfield took the stand in his own defense, he categorically denied that he conjured any such plan.

Instead, the former IRS investigator testified he shot Ryan because he thought Ryan was stabbing Christine, a similar claim he told police in 2023.

Banfield said he entered the bedroom and saw Ryan holding Christine from behind on the floor. He then yelled he was a police officer, and Ryan was under arrest, according to Thursday's testimony.

John Carroll, Banfield's lawyer, then asked when he decided to shoot Ryan. Ryan said he made that decision after “It appeared he did a very forceful stab towards Christine.”

Banfield then recounted his efforts to save his wife and shared what he claimed were some of her final words to him.

“She was holding her neck. She told me she couldn’t see, and I asked her to let me see,” Banfield said on the stand. “Christine told me that she was bleeding out and that she was sorry and she loved me.”

The defense wrapped questioning after a little more than two hours on Thursday, before the prosecution took over.

Fairfax County Deputy Commonwealth's Attorney Jenna Sands peppered Banfield with questions about specific details on his wife's injuries.

Sands asked, "When did he stab her those other five times?”

“The knife is inside of her hair. I can’t tell the movement. I can’t tell how that is,” Banfield replied.

Sands, again, asked Banfield how many times he saw Ryan stab Christine.

“We know from the medical examiner and you know because you got to hear it she was stabbed seven times and got an eighth cutting wound, correct?" Sands asked.

“I didn’t know the exact number off the top of my head, but yes, that sounds familiar,” Banfield responded.

The prosecution also asked questions related to what Banfield said his wife told him before paramedics took her to the hospital.

“Okay, well, she had to get five more wounds at some point," Sands said. "And you’re telling us when you get into the room, she’s capable of speech, correct?”

Banfield simply replied, "Yes."

During his testimony on Wednesday, Banfield admitted he had multiple affairs before his tryst with the family's au pair. He told the jury Christine knew about at least two of his extramarital relationships.

The prosecution focused one line of questioning on how he met one of the women with whom he had an affair, leading to this exchange:

Sands: “One of those affairs is with a woman named Danielle who you met on a fetish site searching for sugar babies, is that correct?”

Banfield: “I would not call it a fetish site.”

Sands: “Okay, what would you call it?”

Banfield: "An arranged relationship.”

After Banfield finished his testimony, the prosecution called his supervisor at the IRS to the stand.

On Wednesday, Banfield testified he had an important work meeting that could help him get a promotion on the day of the killings.

However, his supervisor said on the stand there were no such meetings on the schedule that day, and all of the managers who would have any such meeting were out of the state, with one even out of the country.

TRIAL RECAP

The first week of the trial for Brendan Banfield went by quickly, with prosecutors going through five witnesses on the first day before putting his alleged affair partner and accomplice, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, on the stand.

Peres Magalhaes, the Banfield's au pair, painted a picture across two days about her alleged affair with Banfield, and what he told her before they allegedly killed Brendan's wife, Christine, and another man they lured to the house with a fake online dating profile.

She also meticulously went through the steps they allegedly took leading up to the killings.

Evidence submitted in court showed a social media video of Banfield and Magalhaes together, and letters sent to one another after she was arrested.

Case images provided to the court in the weeks following the murders showed photos around the house of Banfield and Magalhaes.

The trial is expected to last up to four weeks, though closing arguments and jury deliberations are set to begin Friday evening.

Banfield's Defense and Witnesses

The defense began Wednesday by calling Fairfax County Police officers who were among the first to respond to the initial call.

During their testimony, Banfield's lawyer played an extended version of their body camera footage showing the moments immediately after the alleged double murder.

The majority of the video focused on the officer who accompanied Brendan Banfield from the home to the hospital, revealing his emotional state while awaiting to hear an update on Christine Banfield, and later, after he learned she died from her injuries.

Banfield's lawyer had emphasized his client's emotional response at multiple points of the trial so far.

Even though the video was not played on the screens in the public seating area, family members of both Brendan and Christine Banfield could be seen wiping away tears. During the live stream of the trial, cameras captured Brendan Banfield wiping his eyes during this part of the testimony.

The next expert witness focused on the blood stains at the crime scene.

Prosecutors argued that Brendan Banfield intentionally placed Christine Banfield's blood onto Joe Ryan's body to make it look like Ryan had killed Mrs. Banfield. Peres Magalhaes, the au pair, also testified this was part of the plan.

During her testimony on Tuesday, the prosecution's blood stain expert said the patterns on Ryan's hands and clothes appear to have been the result of someone dropping it there, and not naturally coming out of a wound. That testimony appeared to support what Peres Magalhaes said on the stand.

However, LeeAnn Singley said she does not agree.

Singley, the defense's blood stain expert, specifically pointed to the blood pattern on Ryan's forearm. She said she could not make any classification on how Christine Banfield's blood got there, in part because of the hair on the skin.

When the prosecution had their turn to question her, however, she also said that does not necessarily mean she can definitively rule out the possibility of the blood being intentionally placed on the forearm.

A witness noted she was concerned after one of her officers heard Banfield's daughter ask Magalhaes after the shooting if she would call Magalhaes her new mother.

The fetish dating account

Banfield's lawyer has also insisted Christine Banfield was, in fact, the person who actually used this account and communicated with Joe Ryan. Magalhaes had told the court that Banfield instructed her to access the fetish account on Christine's computer when he was not at home.

The defense's digital forensics experts share the defense's theory.

Fairfax County Police Det. Brendan Miller said he could not prove Christine Banfield was not in possession of her laptop during activity on FetLife.

However, the defense was unable to get too many other details from the two digital forensics experts they called to the stand.

The prosecution was able to successfully object to many of the defense's questions, with the judge ruling that those questions would be hearsay or speculation.

Additionally, Det. Miller also said on the stand that he could not definitively prove Christine Banfield was actually using her computer when there was activity on the FetLife account.

Private investigator Harry Lidsky told the court that it would've been difficult for Christine to not have control of her electronic devices, though he admitted it would be impossible to prove.

A witness testified that the FetLife account had not been used while Magalhaes and Banfield were away together.

Prosecutors asked Banfield about his past affairs, including moments where he used accounts to search for "sugar babbies," as the commonwealth put it. Banfield denied those actions as a use of a "fetish website," but rather something else.

Banfield takes the stand

Across two days, Brendan Banfield took to the stand to testify for his own innocence.

Banfield told the court he had not concocted a plan to kill his wife, and suggested that Magalhaes was the one who retrieved the gun and shot Christine. He claimed he walked in on Christine having an affair of her own, but had then been attacked by Ryan and shot him in the heat of the moment.

Banfield admitted to the court that he and Magalhaes had an affair, but argued that she was the one who initiated it. He also claimed that it was "crazy" to form a plot to murder his wife and run away with Magalhaes after a "six to eight week relationship."

Banfield admitted to several past affairs, including two that Christine was aware of. Christine had not been made aware of the Magalhaes affair, he said in court.

He admitted to teaching Magalhaes how to use guns, but argued that it was just another activity they would do together.

Prosecutors also had Banfield confirm love letters he wrote to the au pair while she was in jail. In one of these letters, he discussed potential names for babies they wanted to have together.

After Banfield finished his testimony, the prosecution called his supervisor at the IRS to the stand.

On Wednesday, Banfield testified he had an important work meeting that could help him get a promotion on the day of the killings.

However, his supervisor said on the stand that there were no such meetings on the schedule that day, and all of the managers who would have any such meeting were out of the state, with one even out of the country.