RECAP: Brendan Banfield's lawyer begins calling witnesses in au pair murder trial
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Brendan Banfield's lawyer began calling witnesses during his double murder trial Wednesday, aiming to poke holes in the arguments the prosecution has laid out so far in the national and international headline-grabbing case.
Banfield, a former federal agent with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), is accused of killing his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man, Joe Ryan, in an elaborate plot using a fetish website to lure a man and stage a home invasion. According to investigators, Brendan Banfield was having an affair with Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the family's au pair, when he allegedly planned this scheme so the two could run off together.
The defense began the day by calling Fairfax County Police officers who were among the first to respond to the initial call.
WATCH BELOW:
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 beginning of the video showed officers entering the Reston, Va., home and encountering a gruesome scene.
Due to its explicit nature, the video was shown only to the jury, witness, lawyers, and judge. However, the public seating area could still hear the audio.
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.
On Wednesday, Banfield's lawyer called a blood stain expert to the stand, less than 24 hours after the prosecution called on their own expert on this subject.
Prosecutors argued 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 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.
Banfield's lawyer then moved to two digital forensic experts, witnesses he said in his opening statement would refute a key part of the prosecution's argument.
Peres Magalhaes said on the stand she and Brendan Banfield created an account on a fetish website, FetLife, to lure a man to the house to stage a home invasion.
She also said they made this account, and a fake email address to sign up for the website, on Christine Banfield's computer to make it look like Mrs. Banfield created and communicated on the account, out of anticipation of a police investigation into her death. The former nanny also said they only used this account when Mrs. Banfield was in the house because they were worried about investigators looking into when her cell phone would ping while they were communicating with other users.
Banfield's lawyer, however, has insisted Christine Banfield was, in fact, the person who actually used this account and communicated with Joe Ryan.
The defense's digital forensics experts share this 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 those questions would be hearsay or speculation.
Additionally, Det. Miller also said on the stand he could not definitively prove Christine Banfield was actually using her computer when there was activity on the FetLife account.
Banfield's lawyer is expected to call more witnesses Thursday.
The weather could soon play a factor.
Before ending the day, the judge asked the jury to check their schedules to see if they could come in on Friday, in case trial dates have to be canceled next week because of snow.
PLAY-BY-PLAY: WEDNESDAY TESTIMONY
- The jury is listening to Fairfax police body camera video on the day Christine Banfield and Joe Ryan were found.
- Brendan Banfield is seen crying as he listens to police body camera footage when he learns his wife is dead.
- The court is in recess until 11:55 a.m.
- Court resumes at 11:56 a.m.
- Defense calls a Fairfax County Police officer, who also responded to the initial call, to the stand to discuss body camera footage and details on when the officer arrived at the crime scene.
- Defense calls LeeAnn Singley to the stand, a forensic scientist who focuses on blood stain pattern analysis.
- Judge denies defense a 5-minute recess to find evidence.
- Court on recess for a lunch break. will return at 2:05 p.m.
- Court resumes at 2:05 p.m. LeeAnn Singley continues testimony.
- Brendan Miller, Fairfax County Police Department detective in the child exploitation section, is called to the standat 2:18 p.m.
- Miller served as a digital forensic examiner, also.
- Miller is added as an expert witness and released from the witness stand.
- Harry Lidsky, a private investigator and digital forensic examiner, is called to the stand at 2:28 p.m.
- The court is in recess for the afternoon break.
- Lidsky is dismissed from the stand for the day.
- Jury is dismissed at 4:15 p.m. The jury will begin at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, citing the potential snowstorm that can affect trial timing.
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.
The trial is expected to last up to four weeks, though the judge has remarked it has moved more quickly than anticipated.
TIMELINE | Alleged affair to murder trial: A timeline of events in Virginia's Brendan Banfield case
The alleged partner takes the stand
Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the family's au pair with whom Banfield was having an affair at the time of the alleged double murder, has admitted to her role in the killings and is cooperating with authorities as part of a plea agreement.
She claimed Banfield told her of his plans to kill Christine, got her to learn how to shoot a gun, and told her where to park on the day of the planned killings.
During her testimony, she said Brendan Banfield created the FetLife profile on Christine Banfield's computer, and he only used it when she was home because he was anticipating detectives investigating her death would be able to see where her cell phone was pinging. She also said they stopped communicating with other users on the website who wanted to meet in person before coming to the house.
Eventually, Peres Magalhaes said Brendan Banfield settled on Joe Ryan because he agreed to come to the house with a knife and ropes, thinking he was taking part in consensual sexual roleplay.
Banfield's defense argued Peres Magalhaes is an unreliable witness because she could not remember certain details and dates, though he admitted to the affair.
The credibility challenge came to a crescendo when Banfield's lawyer had the former au pair read letters she wrote in jail.
Many of those letter point to her emotional state and desperation in the days and months leading up to her agreeing to a plea deal, which requires her to testify against Mr. Banfield in exchange for a lesser charge.
However, attention quickly turned to one letter she wrote to her family, in which she claimed Netflix offered her $10,000 for exclusive rights to her story, but she wants to negotiate for more money.
"I'm going to sit down talking with them, negotiating. I want a higher amount, especially since my whole life will be exposed to everyone, and they're going to be making a lot of money off of it. We deserve something," Peres Magalhaes said.
Banfield's lawyer asked her why she deserved something after shooting and killing someone, and she clarified that she meant her family needed money for what she had put them through.
Detectives and other county officials on the stand
Officers who responded to the scene took the witness stand early on, alongside a Fairfax County 9-1-1 official and the county's medical examiner, in order to outline what police came across at the Banfield home on the 13200 block of Stable Brook Way in February 2023.
After Peres Magalhaes spoke, more detectives provided a look into the home immediately after the murders and in the months since.
Fairfax County police officer Kenner Fortner took pictures of the vehicles at the home the day of the alleged double murder, the drawer of the bar cart in the kitchen where Christine Banfield's phone was located, as well as portions of the bedroom away from the blood-stained scene.
On the day of the alleged murders, Fortner took photographs of the guest bedroom where Peres Magalhaes was living. The closet was full of her clothes, including lingerie.
Fortner returned to the Banfield home eight months later to execute a warrant. He took pictures of the primary bedroom where Brendan Banfield slept, where you could see Peres Magalhaes' clothes in the shared closet.
Additionally, pictures of Brendan and Christine Banfield were replaced by pictures of Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes, on the bedside table next to the area where Christine Banfield was murdered less than a year earlier.
Detective Terry Leach, the lead crime scene detective, showed crime scene photos so gruesome that they were not shown to the courtroom as a whole. People sitting in the public seating area of the court were able to see some of the crime scene photographs showing blood stains on the carpet and clothes, as well as the gun and knife used.
Leach then showed surveillance video that provided insight into the timeline of events before the alleged double murder.
During her testimony, Peres Magalhaes said Brendan Banfield planned to wait at a nearby McDonald's until she called him to say Ryan had arrived at the house.
The surveillance video at the fast food restaurant showed Banfield ordering food through the drive-thru, then parking his car.
He then could be seen on camera walking inside and entering the bathroom.
About eight minutes later, at 7:37 a.m., he could be seen leaving the bathroom with his phone to his ear, walking to his car, and driving away.
Leach then showed call logs for both Banfield's and Peres Magalhaes' phones, showing the au pair called him at the time he was walking out of the McDonald's bathroom.
Peres Magalhaes also testified on Tuesday that the plan was for both of them to also call Christine Banfield, to make it look like they were trying to alert her, even though her phone was turned off and hidden in the kitchen while she was asleep in the bedroom.
The call logs also confirmed that Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes made outgoing calls to Christine.
Christine Banfield's father and a blood stain expert testify
On Tuesday, the prosecution called the last of their 18 witnesses, concluding with Christine Banfield's father. He testified to his daughter's lifelong medical condition that made her bleed and bruise more easily.
The bulk of that day, however, was spent listening to testimony from a bloodstain pattern expert.
That expert said the blood from some of Joe Ryan's wounds flowed in multiple directions, suggesting he was moved after being shot. She also said Christine's blood appears to have been intentionally spilled onto Ryan's hands and pants, instead of naturally pouring out of a wound.
This seems to support earlier testimony by Peres Magalhaes.
The au pair said Brendan Banfield moved Joe Ryan's body to get Christine Banfield's blood on him after killing them both, to make it look like Mr. Ryan murdered Mrs. Banfield.
