Defense tries to poke holes in au pair’s confession in double murder
On the first day of the defense’s arguments in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Wednesday, the attorneys of Brendan Banfield started by attempting to have the entire case thrown out, arguing the prosecution knowingly presented false testimony against his client.
Banfield is charged with aggravated murder in the 2023 deaths of his wife Christine Banfield and another man, Joseph Ryan. Prosecutors say Brendan killed them both as part of an elaborate plot with the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, to kill his wife and blame it on Ryan.
Defense attorney John Carroll filed a motion to dismiss, saying at the end of the prosecution’s case, “It was at that point, when they rested, that this became incumbent upon me to make this motion.”
Carroll cited a report from detective Brendan Miller, who testified at the behest of the defense Wednesday, which stated that an email account and an account with a website used for setting up sexual encounters was created by Christine Banfield.
Peres Magalhães later told police she was the one behind those accounts — a confession that came after Miller wrote the report.
Nonetheless, it was an issue Carroll honed in on when Miller took the stand.
“I was able to determine that it was her phone used in the creation of that account based on a variety of returns,” Miller said.
“And did you make any conclusions at that time that she had not given up her devices?” Carroll asked.
“I had nothing indicating loss of dominion and control at that time,” Miller responded.
Under further questioning, Miller acknowledged his findings did change upon Peres Magalhães admission.
Prosecutor Jenna Sands asked Miller if he could “conclusively opine as to who was behind the screen” based on the activity of Christine Banfield’s phone. He said he could not.
“When you wrote this report that Mr. Carroll has referenced, you used the phrasing ‘Christine did this. Christine did that.’ Is that correct?” Sands asked.
“Yes,” Miller said.
He also testified that he can’t determine who is behind a screen at all times without some form of corroboration.
Judge Penney Azcarate rejected the defense’s argument that prosecutors knowingly allowed false statements to be used in court. From there, the defense rehashed police body camera video of the immediate aftermath of the killing, including the moments when Brendan Banfield learned his wife was dead.
The defense also used its own blood spatter analyst to try to poke holes in the theory that Banfield was able to drip his wife’s blood over Joseph Ryan’s body to connect him to her death.
Defense expert LeeAnn Singley disagreed with testimony from a prosecution witness the previous day, who said blood drops on Ryan’s arm appeared to have been dripped from above.
“Once you’ve classified it as a certain mechanism, you’ve excluded everything else,” Singley said. “I didn’t feel there was enough information here for me to do that, and this target surface, it would be inappropriate, I believe, to do that, because the target surface was not ideal for being able to do that.”
After the trial broke for lunch, Singley returned to the stand and was eventually cross examined by Sands about her decision not to make a solid determination of how the drops got there.
Singley agreed that none of the options have been excluded.
She also conceded it was at least possible the blood droplets on Ryan’s arm did get dripped onto him, even if she didn’t agree with the conclusion of the prosecution’s expert that that’s actually what happened.
The case resumes at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. It’s also possible the trial continues Friday — normally a day off for the jury — because of the judge’s concern about the impending snowstorm this weekend. Azcarate said it would be her decision to decide whether the courthouse would be closed for inclement weather.