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How an IRS agent lured his wife and an unsuspecting man to their murders · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm your host and welcome to today's deep dive.
• 0:03
  So I want you to just picture a really quiet
• 0:07
  morning in Herndon, Virginia.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right, and I am your expert today, And yeah, Herndon
• 0:12
  is this incredibly peaceful, leafy suburb. It's the kind of
• 0:16
  place where you just feel totally safe.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So picture that perfectly safe suburb and imagine a
• 0:22
  four year old girl sitting in a basement, just safely
• 0:24
  watching cartoons on a tablet. Right, But then just one
• 0:27
  floor above her, a nightmare is unfolding. Two people are
• 0:31
  violently killed, and it's all part of this supposed self
• 0:34
  defense story that well, it just seems almost too heroic
• 0:38
  to actually be true.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: It is. It's the ultimate collision of two completely different realities.
• 0:42
  You have this bubble of pristine safety, and then inside
• 0:45
  it a scene of just unimaginable calculation and violence.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's exactly our mission for today. We are
• 0:50
  going to completely unpack how a federal agent, a guy
• 0:53
  specifically trained and investigating financial crimes, allegedly weaponized his professional knowledge.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And he didn't just use his knowledge, he weaponized his
• 1:02
  wife's own laptop.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Rate yes, her laptop and an online kink community all
• 1:08
  to basically orchestrate a double homicide.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: You might be wondering, you know, how does a standard
• 1:15
  arrangement for childcare just hiring at ou pair? How does
• 1:18
  that spiral into a massive, deadly conspiracy?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Right? It sounds like a movie.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: It really does. But what stands out here isn't just
• 1:26
  the violence. It's the themes of hidden lives and the
• 1:31
  incredible power of digital deception.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, totally, the illusion of control. We are going to
• 1:36
  get into the exact mechanics of this catfishing plot, which
• 1:38
  is just mind blowing, But no spoilers yet. We need
• 1:42
  to save the how for a bit later.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to start at the beginning to really
• 1:45
  understand the players before the crime.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Even happens, right, because you have to see the outward
• 1:49
  appearance of this family to understand the well, the hidden
• 1:52
  rot inside their marriage. Let's start with Christine Banfield.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, So Christine was thirty seven years old and she
• 1:58
  was a pediatric eye.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Which is I mean that takes a very specific kind
• 2:03
  of person. Her entire professional existence was centered around empathy.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: That is a really crucial baseline for us to establish
• 2:10
  pediatric intensive care is arguably one of the absolute most
• 2:15
  emotionally taxing environments in all of medicine.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: It can't even imagine, right.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: You are dealing with fragile, critically ill children every single day,
• 2:24
  and you have to be the emotional anchor for these
• 2:26
  completely devastated parents.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: And from what we know from the sources, her friends
• 2:31
  and colleagues all saw her exactly that way. She was warm,
• 2:34
  she was selfless, and just a deeply devoted mother to
• 2:38
  her own four year old daughter.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: She was basically in the business of preservation and care.
• 2:42
  She was the bedrock of that family.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that's Christine. Now on the other side of
• 2:46
  the marriage, you have Brendan Banfield. He's in his late
• 2:49
  thirties and he is a special agent.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Specifically with the IRS, right, the Criminal Investigation Division, Yes, exactly.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So he carries a badge, he has a government issued firearm.
• 2:58
  He projects this total image of a dedicated law enforcement officer.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Let's let's just think about the psychology of an IRS
• 3:05
  criminal investigator for a second.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Go ahead, unpack that for us.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Well, their entire skill set revolves around, you know, finding
• 3:12
  hidden assets. They audit complex ledgers, and they fundamentally understand
• 3:17
  the punitive nature of financial loss.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Right, they look for the exact things that people are trying.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: To hide exactly so to the neighbors in Herndon, Brendan
• 3:24
  is this ultimate image of stability. He's a federal agent,
• 3:28
  but behind closed doors, the marriage was just strained to
• 3:31
  the absolute breaking point.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: The sources mentioned he harbored a really deep toxic resentment
• 3:37
  towards Christine. He actually complained to other people calling her
• 3:41
  lazy and saying she was not a good.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Mother, which is such a stark contrast to how everyone
• 3:46
  else saw her.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. But okay, hold on, I'm struggling
• 3:49
  with this part. If you are deeply unhappy in your marriage,
• 3:53
  you know, you call a lawyer, you file for divorce.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Right, That's what a normal person does.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Why does a federal agent, someone who literally enforces
• 4:00
  the law, decide that murder is the logical next step.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: It comes back to that exact financial mindset we were
• 4:07
  just talking about Brendan. He deeply feared the financial ruin
• 4:11
  of a.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Divorce and losing custody, right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Yes, losing custody of his daughter too. For someone whose
• 4:17
  entire career is built on tracking assets and panalizing financial loss,
• 4:22
  divorce isn't just a sad, emotional end to a relationship.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: How did he view it? Then?
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: He viewed divorce as this unacceptable loss of assets. It
• 4:31
  was a loss of total control.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this with an analogy. It's like Brendan
• 4:36
  viewed his life as a literal ledger.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it right.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Because divorce puts him deep in the red financially. It
• 4:43
  strips him of his assets. So instead of just taking
• 4:46
  the hit, he looks for a horrific loophole to keep
• 4:49
  his accounts intact exactly.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: He wanted to wipe the debt without paying the penalty.
• 4:54
  He wanted to game the very system he was sworn
• 4:56
  to protect.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: And into this highly combustible, just re zentful environment enters
• 5:01
  Juliana Perez Muggal Aise.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Right, So let's talk about Juliana in October twenty twenty one.
• 5:06
  She's a twenty five year old Brazilian woman who comes
• 5:08
  to the US as an O pair.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about that old pair dynamic for a second,
• 5:12
  because it's so unique. You aren't just an employee showing
• 5:15
  up for a shift.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. You live in the house your visa,
• 5:19
  you're housing. Basically, your entire life in this completely foreign
• 5:22
  country is entirely tied to this one family.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: So the power imbalance there is just massive.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It really is. At first, you know, it's a totally
• 5:30
  standard arrangement. She handles household tasks, she helps with childcare.
• 5:34
  But by August twenty twenty two, things shift dramatically.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Julian and Brundan start this secret.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Affair, right, and the real turning point happens on a
• 5:42
  trip they took to New York City with a young daughter.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: August twenty twenty two.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Right, Yes, that trip is where Brendan first says the
• 5:50
  quiet part out loud. He explicitly tells Juliana that divorce
• 5:54
  is quote not an option, and he actually brings up
• 5:57
  the idea of getting rid of Christine.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: This is where my mind just kind of short circuits.
• 6:01
  But how does a twenty five year old o pair
• 6:03
  who just came here to take care of a toddler
• 6:06
  go from that to co signing a literal murder plot.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: It's a massive leap, yeah, right, but it requires looking
• 6:12
  at the mechanics of well enmeshment and grooming. Grooming, Yeah,
• 6:17
  when you are isolated in a foreign country and you're
• 6:20
  living in the home of the older man. You were
• 6:23
  having an affair with a man who represents authority, financial stability,
• 6:26
  and your romantic future. Your reality gets completely warped.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Wow, So he was her whole world exactly.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: In her later testimony, Juliana actually explained that she basically
• 6:38
  lost herself in the affair. She said she set aside
• 6:41
  her own morals because she just became entirely consumed by
• 6:45
  his reality.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So she adopted his problem, which was Christine, as her
• 6:49
  own existential threat precisely.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: But you know, having the motive to get rid of
• 6:54
  Christine wasn't enough, especially for an investigator like Brendan, right.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Because he knows exactly how criminals get. He knows that
• 7:01
  if you hire a hit man, you leave a money trail.
• 7:03
  If you use burner phones, they leave cell tower pings.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: Right, and suspicious accidents are always investigated heavily. So he
• 7:10
  needed a method that kept his hands completely legally clean.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: He needed a scenario where the crime would essentially appear
• 7:17
  to solve itself exactly.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: A hit man always leaves a trail back to the
• 7:21
  person who paid them, So Brendan realized he didn't need
• 7:25
  a hit man, he needed a fall guy.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: He needed someone to just walk into his house legally,
• 7:30
  armed with a completely established motive that had absolutely nothing
• 7:34
  to do with Brendan Banfield.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: And that is exactly where the digital deception comes in.
• 7:39
  This is the architecture of the trap.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into this because this is the catfishing element.
• 7:44
  In late twenty twenty two, they create a fake profile
• 7:46
  on a website called Fetlife.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: But before we even talk about what they did on there,
• 7:51
  we really need to explain what Fetlife actually is. It's
• 7:54
  central to how this entire trap worked.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Right. So, Fetlife is a social networking site that's designed
• 7:59
  for BDS, kink and fetish lifestyles.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: And it is absolutely vital to understand that Fetlife operates
• 8:05
  on a very strict culture of consent.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Right. It's not just a free for all, No, not
• 8:10
  at all.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It's a community built around heavily established boundaries and very
• 8:14
  explicit roleplay scripts. Because the acts people are discussing can
• 8:18
  be extreme, the safety protocols are incredibly rigid.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, So they create this account under the username Anastasian nine,
• 8:26
  and the terrifying part is they pretended to be Christine.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: They hijacked her identity completely.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: They used her identity to project this fake persona of
• 8:35
  a woman who harbored a dark fantasy for a home
• 8:38
  invasion roleplay.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Which is specifically known in that community as consensual non
• 8:43
  consent or CNC WOW.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: So by weaponizing that CNC concept, Brendan was basically exploiting
• 8:50
  the exact rules that were designed to keep people in
• 8:53
  that community safe.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: That's exactly it. The profile specifically sought out men who
• 8:57
  were willing to play the role of a violent and
• 8:59
  true and the instructions they sent out were unbelievably.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Exact, Like what did they tell this person to do?
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: They told him to bring a knife, bring rope, arrive
• 9:08
  at a very designated time, enter through an unlocked front door,
• 9:11
  and then follow a highly specific violent script once he
• 9:14
  got inside the bedroom.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And someone actually answered that call. The victim in this
• 9:18
  trap was a thirty nine year old man from Washington,
• 9:20
  d C. Named Joseph Ryan.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: Right Joseph Ryan. He had interests in art, he practiced
• 9:24
  martial arts, and he volunteered an animal rescue.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And from the source material, he had absolutely no criminal
• 9:30
  history of violence and.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Zero according to his family, he was a gentle, respectful
• 9:37
  person who was highly boundary conscious, and honestly, that is
• 9:41
  exactly why a platform like fet life appealed.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: To him, because of the rules and the consent.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Yes, over weeks of messaging, he genuinely, truly believed he
• 9:50
  was corresponding with Christine Banfield. He thought he was negotiating
• 9:54
  a safe, heavily orchestrated fantasy environment.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting but also terrifying. Brendan
• 10:02
  is a federal investigator. He's trained to find digital bridcrumbs.
• 10:05
  Oh yeah, Why would he use his wife's actual physical
• 10:09
  laptop to set this up? I mean he tracks digital
• 10:11
  footprints for a living. Why would he do that?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Because that is the absolute core of his plan. You
• 10:16
  have to look at how digital forensics actually.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Work, right, break that down for us.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: When investigator sees a computer, they look at something called
• 10:23
  the MSS dress right, that's the unique hardware identifier for
• 10:26
  that specific machine, and they also look at the local
• 10:28
  IP address that gets assigned by the home router. If
• 10:31
  Brendan had used like a burner laptop from a random
• 10:34
  coffee shop, investigators would immediately see a disconnect.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: They'd say, wait, this didn't come from this.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: House exactly, but by using Christine's actual laptop on Christine's
• 10:44
  home Wi Fi network, he is actively planting an ironclad
• 10:48
  digital footprint that points squarely at her.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, so he's essentially reverse engineering the crime scene.
• 10:54
  His arrogance as an investigator and made him think he
• 10:56
  could just build the perfect puzzle for the cops to solve.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: It's a great way to phrase it. He wanted the
• 11:01
  police to seize her laptop, find the Anastasia nine profile,
• 11:05
  look at the router logs, and conclude exactly what he
• 11:08
  wanted them to conclude, which.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Is that the victim had the secret dark life. She
• 11:13
  negotiated this violent encounter from her own bedroom. The role
• 11:16
  play went wrong, and then Brendan, the heroic husband, had
• 11:19
  to step in.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: And save her exactly. He wasn't just finding a hit man,
• 11:22
  he was importing a fall guy. By weaponizing the strict
• 11:26
  consent rules of the kick community, he ensured Ryan would
• 11:29
  show up armed and ready to act out a script.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: A script that would look exactly like an attempted murder.
• 11:35
  That is just chilling, it really is.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So the trap is fully set, right.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Let's move to the execution of this illusion. February twenty fourth,
• 11:43
  twenty twenty three. Let's walk minute by minute through the
• 11:46
  morning the plan was triggered.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: It starts with this manufactured sense of normalcy. Juliana, the
• 11:52
  au pair pretends she is taking the four year old
• 11:54
  daughter to the National Zoo, but she.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Doesn't actually leave the house, right.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: No, Brendan establishes a aulse alibi for himself too. He
• 12:02
  tells his irs supervisors that he is heading to Baltimore
• 12:05
  for an undercover operation.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so on paper, neither of them are supposed to
• 12:09
  be at the house. But where is Brendan Actually.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: He is actually just waiting at a nearby McDonald's.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Just sitting in a McDonald's parking.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: Lot, yes, waiting for the trap to spring. And then
• 12:19
  Joseph Ryan arrives in his sev.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: And Ryan fully believes he's just there for this consensual roleplay.
• 12:25
  He has no idea what he's walking into. So what
• 12:27
  does Juliana do.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: Juliana initiates the stage panic. She calls Brendan and plays
• 12:33
  the role of the terrified O pair. She says, I
• 12:35
  don't know who is that. Please come here.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I'm scared and that call is so crucial, right, because
• 12:40
  it creates a verifiable digital record exactly.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: It makes it look like Brendan is being summoned back
• 12:46
  to the house to protect his family from a random intruder.
• 12:50
  He isn't lying in wait, legally, he is responding to
• 12:54
  an emergency.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, So Brendan rushes back, and this is where the
• 12:58
  horrifying reality of the crimesne begins. What happens to the
• 13:02
  four year old child.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: She is placed in the basement with a tablet to
• 13:06
  keep her out of sight.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, just think about that. You are about to
• 13:10
  orchestrate a double homicide and you literally just sit a
• 13:13
  toddler down in the basement with a cartoon.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: It's beyond cold. Meanwhile, Joseph Ryan goes upstairs, fully expecting
• 13:20
  a consensual role play with Christine.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: But Christine Banfield is completely unaware of any of this.
• 13:25
  She doesn't know about the fat life profile, she doesn't
• 13:27
  know about the script. She is just in her bedroom, right.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: It's this unimaginable collision of realities. Ryan thinks he is
• 13:34
  fulfilling a fantasy, and Christine thinks she's the victim of
• 13:37
  a random, terrifying home invasion.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: And then Brendan and Juliana intervene. Brendan uses the very
• 13:44
  knife that he instructed Ryan to bring, and he fairly
• 13:47
  stabs Christine multiple times.
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Yes, and then both Brendan and Juliana shoot Joseph Ryan.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Wait, both of them shoot him.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, In fact, Juliana shoots Ryan while while he is
• 14:00
  in a prone, completely non threatening position on a dog
• 14:03
  bed in the room.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean, imagine looking at this from
• 14:06
  a bird's eye view. It's like this macabre stage play
• 14:09
  where the lead actress doesn't even know she's in the
• 14:11
  production and the.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Villain is actively directing the scenes while the police are
• 14:15
  literally on the way.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: That proximity to the violence is just it's deeply disturbing.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It is. The plan required both plotters to look their
• 14:23
  victims right in the eye. Brendan's stabbing the mother of
• 14:26
  his child, and Juliana is shooting a man lying defensively
• 14:29
  on a dog bed.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: So the blood is spilled, and now they have to
• 14:31
  stage the aftermath before the cops get there.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Right, they arrange Ryan's body to look like he was
• 14:36
  the primary attacker. They specifically place the knife near him
• 14:40
  to frame him for stabbing Christine.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Let's contrast, the two nine to one one calls they made,
• 14:44
  because this really highlights the staging.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: Oh, the nine one one calls are a massive red flag.
• 14:49
  Juliana makes an earlier call, but there's no talking. It
• 14:53
  just features background moaning.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: So when police heard it, it didn't sound like a
• 14:56
  plea for help. It sounded like an accidental pocket dial exactly.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: But then you have Brendan's call, and his call is
• 15:04
  completely different.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: It's basically a cinematic performance, right, Yes, he.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Claims there's this terrifying home invasion and he had to
• 15:11
  use legal force to save his wife. When the police
• 15:15
  finally arrive, they find Brendan applying pressure to his wife's.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Neck wounds, playing the hero.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly, playing the devastated heroic husband.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so that leads us to the unraveling of all
• 15:26
  this section four, because this perfect plan hits the messy
• 15:30
  reality of forensic science.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: Right. And initially, the Fairfax County Police actually believe the
• 15:35
  self defense narrative because you know, it looks convincing at
• 15:39
  first glance.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: But the cracks in the story start to mount pretty quickly.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Yes they do. First of all, there was absolutely no
• 15:44
  forced entry. The front door was.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Fine, right, because Ryan was told it would be unlocked exactly.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Right, and Ryan's suv was parked perfectly normally in the driveway.
• 15:53
  A frantic home invader doesn't usually parallel part.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Nicely, good point. And then there's the bizarre nine to
• 15:58
  eleve nd timeline we just talked about. So the police
• 16:01
  start digging into the digital forensics.
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: And just like Brennan wanted, they discover the Anastasia nine
• 16:06
  fet life account on Christine's laptop.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: But here's where his plan fails. He reverse engineers a
• 16:12
  digital crime scene. But what does this mean for his
• 16:15
  mastermind narrative when it comes to the physical evidence.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: This is the best part. Did his federal agent training
• 16:21
  fail him? Yes, fundamentally, because white collar crime is not
• 16:25
  red collar crime.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: Let's blame that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Well, he knew how to fake a digital trail, but
• 16:31
  he didn't know how to fake blood spatter. The physical
• 16:33
  forensics completely destroyed his story.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: Because blood spatter analysis is basically geometry.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Yes, the experts analyzed the cast off patterns and the
• 16:41
  droplets in the bedroom and they proved mathematically that the
• 16:44
  person holding the knife during the stabbing was not Joseph Ryan.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Wow, so the angles pointed directly to someone else in
• 16:51
  the room.
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: They pointed squarely at Brendan. The physics of the blood
• 16:55
  proved Ryan didn't do it.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: That is incredible. So the science breaks the case wide open.
• 17:01
  Let's talk about the arrests, because there's a big gap
• 17:03
  in the timeline here, right.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Juliana is arrested first in October twenty twenty three. She's
• 17:10
  charged with second degree.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Murder, but Brendan isn't indicted until nearly a year later,
• 17:15
  in September twenty twenty four. Why the delay.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It's the classic prisoner's dilemma dynamic.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Ah okay, the police are squeezing her exactly.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: When you isolate co conspirators, the pressure of jail time
• 17:26
  usually shatters their loyalty. They thought they were bound by
• 17:30
  this intense love affair, but a murder charge changes.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Everything, and she eventually breaks.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: She does. She gives a massive four hour statement to investigators.
• 17:39
  She admissed to the affair, and she lays out the
• 17:41
  entire plot.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: What does she say exactly?
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: According to the sources, she told them quote, I withheld
• 17:46
  the truth for a long time. I just couldn't deal
• 17:48
  with this anymore.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: So she pleads to involuntary manslaughter in October twenty twenty four,
• 17:53
  specifically to testify against Brendan.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Yes, but there's one bizarre detail we have to mention
• 17:59
  here about their behavior after the murders.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Oh right, the bedroom.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, after the murders happened, Juliana actually moved into Brendan's bedroom.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: The same master bedroom where the murders took place.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: That is just chilling, And investigators even found a framed
• 18:14
  photo of the couple on his nightstand.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: It's just such arrogance. They really thought they got away
• 18:18
  with it.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: They did, But that confession from Juliana leads directly to
• 18:23
  the courtroom collision in twenty twenty six.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Let's get into the trials. Brendan's trial happens in January
• 18:29
  and February of twenty twenty six. The media is calling
• 18:32
  it the ou pair.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Affair, and Juliana takes the stand for three full days.
• 18:37
  She details the whole New York trip, the grooming of Ryan,
• 18:40
  the fet life profile, everything.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And then Brendan actually takes the scan in his own defense,
• 18:45
  which seems wild. What was his defense?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: His defense was desperate. He admits to the affair because
• 18:50
  there was too much evidence for that, but he calls
• 18:53
  the murder plot absolutely crazy, so he.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Just sticks to his original nine to one one call
• 18:57
  story pretty much.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: He claims he drive home, yelled police, and shot Ryan
• 19:02
  because Ryan was stabbing his naked wife. He totally denies
• 19:05
  knowing anything about.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: The fet life account, but his alibi gets completely buzzed.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: Doesn't oh entirely. His own IRS supervisor testifies that there
• 19:13
  was absolutely no undercover operation in Baltimore that day.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Wow, so his boss sunk him yep.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: And on February ten, twenty twenty six, after only nine
• 19:22
  hours of deliberation, Brendan is convicted on all counts aggravated murder,
• 19:27
  child endangerment, firearm violations.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: And he faces a mandatory life sentence, with sentencing scheduled
• 19:33
  for May twenty twenty six.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Right, but then we have Juliana sentencing, which happens on
• 19:38
  February thirteen, twenty twenty seven.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: And this is fascinating legally because she had a plea deal, right,
• 19:43
  a plea deal that recommended time served.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: Yes. Usually when a defendant flips and cooperates, the judge
• 19:48
  follows the plea recommendation.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It's rare for a judge to reject a plea recommendation
• 19:52
  like that, but Judge Penny s Askrit imposes the absolute
• 19:56
  maximum of ten years.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: She delivered a blistering rebuke. She called it the most
• 20:00
  serious manslaughter scenario that this court has ever seen.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: She basically said, Juliana's actions were deliberate, self serving, and
• 20:08
  demonstrated a profound disregard for human life. Do you think
• 20:12
  Juliana was just as culpable as Brendan, even if he
• 20:15
  was the architect.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: It's about the balance of justice, really, Yes, Juliana was
• 20:21
  manipulated by an older man, a federal agent, but she
• 20:24
  had a month to.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Stop the plot, right, She could have walked away at
• 20:27
  any time, exactly.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: And she pulled the trigger on a defenseless man. The
• 20:32
  system rewarded her cooperation by lowering the charge, but the
• 20:36
  judge punished her profound lack of humanity with the maximum sentence.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: And the human cost here is just staggering. We have
• 20:43
  to talk about the victim impact statements from Joseph Ryan's family.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Those were incredibly powerful. His mother asked the court to
• 20:50
  affirm that her son meant more than.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Nothing, and his aunt defended his legacy. Right.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she reminded everyone that he was a gentle soul
• 20:57
  who rescued dogs. The family had to endure this false
• 21:00
  narrative that branded him a rapist.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: It's horrific. They lost him twice, once to the murder
• 21:04
  and once to the character assassination. So let's look at
• 21:07
  the aftermath. The Banfield daughter, now older, is essentially orphaned.
• 21:11
  She's being raised by relatives totally shielded from the horrific
• 21:15
  truth of what her dad did.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Right Ryan's family continues to fight the stigma. Juliana faces
• 21:21
  deportation after her ten year sentence, and Brendan awaits a
• 21:24
  life behind bars.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: What began as a plan to free themselves from one
• 21:29
  marriage ended up binding Brendan and Juliana forever in infamy.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: It really did. It's a tragic, full circle ending.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: And it leaves us with a really chilling concept to
• 21:38
  ponder regarding our own digital lives. Think about the digital
• 21:42
  trails we leave behind every day.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: You know, we all assume our online identities are ours to.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Control exactly, but this case proves how easily someone else,
• 21:51
  someone who has physical access to your devices, someone you trust,
• 21:54
  can just hijack your digital voice.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: They can write a narrative you never agree to.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: And use it to literally red right reality. So if
• 22:01
  your laptop was used to speak for you tomorrow, what
• 22:04
  would it say and who would believe it wasn't you