Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - GLAM AU PAIR, 23, PLOTS STAB DEATH OF BOSS’ WIFE?

Episode Date: June 8, 2024

Brazilian Au Pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes and her charge leave the Banfields' Fairfax County, Virginia home but turn around when Peres Magalhaes realizes she forgot their bagged lunches.  Arriving at the house, the au pair sees a car she doesn't recognize and a man she doesn't know entering the house. Confused, she calls her employer, Brendan Banfield, who tells her to stay in the car, that he will be right there. Banfield is at the house in minutes, and they enter the house together. The au pair takes her 4-year-old charge to the basement. Brendan Banfield goes upstairs to find his wife.  Banfield finds his wife, Christine, nude, and a man he doesn't know, holding a knife to her throat. Banfield tells the man to put the knife down, but he starts stabbing the 37-year-old mother. Brendan Banfield carries a gun as an IRS Special Agent, and he draws his service revolver shooting the man in the head. The intruder is wounded and down on the ground. Banfield calls for Peres Magalhaes telling her to get his personal gun, a Glock, out of the bathroom safe. At Banfield's direction, shoots Joseph Ryan in the heart as he is lying on the ground.    Police say it appeared that Christine Banfield had been posted on an adult fetish website., but investigators say they believe it was all a ruse. Someone else created the profile on the Adult Fetish website, pretending to be Christine Banfield.  In fact, investigators believe Ryan's murder was part of an elaborate plan to kill Christine Banfield so her husband, Brendan, and their Brazilian live-in Au Pair, could be together.  Investigators found pictures of Banfield and the au pair together in the Banfield bedroom, and Peres Magalhaes' clothes were found hanging in Banfield's closet, not her own.    Joining Nancy Grace: Amanda Rieman - Virginia Attorney, AC RIEMAN LAW; IG: @acriemanlaw  Barry Golden– Former Senior Inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service, Owner of Golden Consulting and Investigations Dr. Heidi Green – Clinical Psychologist, Trauma Specialist,  and Author: ‘The Path to Self-Love and World Domination; IG: @drheidigreen Dr. Jan Gorniak – Medical Examiner, Clark County Office of the Coroner/Medical Examiner (Las Vegas, NV), Board Certified Forensic Pathologist Alexis Tereszcuk – CrimeOnline.com Investigative Reporter, Writer/Fact Checker for Lead Stories; X: @swimmie2009 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Breaking news tonight. Did a glamorous au pair, just 23, scheme an elaborate murder plot where her boss-turned-lover's wife is found stabbed dead? And just how did a complete stranger,

who happens to be a bondage and discipline fetishist, end up shot dead on the floor beside the wife? Good evening, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories, and I want to thank you for being with us. This morning at 7.49 a.m., we received a cell phone 911 call that was an open line hang-up. That call was captured and noted, and 13 minutes later at 8.02 a.m., we received a cell phone 911 call from the very same cell phone and two persons communicated with our 911 call taker. The husband of this home, who I am not going to identify beyond identifying him as a husband, and the au pair who resides in this home, who I'm not going to identify beyond describing her as an au pair.

At that 802-911 cell phone call, the husband and the au pair communicate with the 911 call taker. The husband tells the 911 call taker that he just shot a man inside of his home. And the husband tells the 911 call taker that the man who he had just shot had stabbed his wife.

Okay, I've got so many questions just based on what I just heard. So how did this loving and faithful wife that we know of end up stabbed dead in the family home, and then a complete stranger who happens to be into bondage and discipline. What's he doing in the home? And he's dead. Now, another thing I find highly curious, and let me just go straight out to Barry Golden, former senior inspector for the U.S. Marshals Service, owner of Golden Consulting and Investigations. Barry, when you've got a double homicide, typically sheriffs, and you were just hearing the chief of the Fairfax County Police, Kevin Davis speaking. Normally, they give you more information and you rarely hear them say the husband, who I'm not going to name, and the au pair, who I'm not going to name.

That just makes me want to know who are they more than ever. Yes. Well, we now know that the husband was a federal law enforcement officer and a person trained. So when that person finds out that an unknown male is in his house, okay, you're a trained law enforcement officer. If you're like most law enforcement officers, wherever you go, you take your firearm with you

and you go back to the house, you're gonna wonder who is this guy? Is he robbing? Is he doing something to my wife? So there are a lot of questions that I have. What happened in those seconds when he arrives back at the house and then goes upstairs? What did he hear? What was going on? Were there screams? And then what happens when he gets to the door? A lot of those answers right now haven't really been filled in. We kind of jump when he gets to the door. A lot of those answers right now haven't really been filled in. We kind of jump from he arrives at the house to he's in the bedroom. Okay. Barry Golden, you're perfect for these questions. With me, an all-star panel. I'm going

to get to everybody in just one moment. Barry Golden, a former senior inspector with the U.S. Marshal Service. And let me tell you something. You want something done, you call the U.S. Marshals. They will find your guy no matter where they are or woman. Barry, but another question I'm asking is why is L.A. law enforcement withholding the name of not only the husband, but the 23-year-old au pair. Well, at that point in time when that chief of police gives that statement, that's probably early on, that same day, an hour or hours right after the incident. So they want to keep some of that information close to their chest right now. It's early in the investigation, so they don't want to identify everybody at that point in time.

Okay, gotcha. Okay, I will accept that right now. Yeah, I will accept that. I think you're right about that. They didn't really understand what was happening or what they had a hold of. Guys, take a listen to more from Chief Kevin Davis, Fairfax County. The first 911 call came from what we now know to be the au pair cell phone. That 911 call was an open mic we now know to be the au pair cell phone that 911 call was an

open mic nothing discernible on that call was a quick hang up we noted that call 13 minutes later from the same 911 from the same cell phone a 911 call was made and on the phone was first the au pair communicating with us and then she apparently handed the phone to the husband the husband communicated with us and that's when the husband told phone to the husband. The husband communicated with us and that's when the husband told us that he shot and killed a man inside of his home. And that's when the husband told us

that the man who he shot and killed was stabbing his wife. Oh man, Alexis Tereshuk joining me. CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. This is very complex. So I just want to take it one step at a time. So the husband comes home for whatever reason. He goes in the home as Barry Golden pointed out,

something led him to pull his weapon, to draw his weapon. But there were two 911 calls. The first one, nobody said anything and then hung up. And then there was a second 911 call. Is that correct? That's exactly right. There was a 911 call and it had an open line, which meant that the operator could hear, but nobody was communicating, saying, you know, please come help me. There's been a break-in. Somebody's being shot or murdered. So they immediately, that will automatically send the police officers, the operator will send the police officer to the home. An open 911 call is very suspicious. Thirteen minutes later, they get a second call, and it is from the au pair's phone.

And this is where the husband has said, I have shot somebody because they were stabbing my wife. Hello, Sister Reschuk is joining us from CrimeOnline.com. What can you tell me about the area? I've got Fairfax County. I looked at an aerial shot and some other information. It looks like it's pretty swank. This is a very nice area.

It's in Northern Virginia. It's a suburb of Washington, D.C. Excellent schools, large homes, a quiet neighborhood, not at all known for crime that, you know, is known a little bit north of there in Washington, D.C. Fairfax, Virginia is a very safe, very family oriented area. Very wealthy, too. from this jurisdiction. Amanda, oh, you can find her at acreman.law, R-I-E-M-A-N. Amanda, the reason I'm asking about the area, I don't care necessarily from where the victim hails, but when you've got a really upscale, high-priced neighborhood like this. I mean, have you seen the homes in that neighborhood? They're mega mansions. This is where the politicians and a lot of rich people live that have to go into D.C. to work. The reason that is important to me right

now is because it lowers my suspect pool. If there's anything amiss about the husband's story then I've got to think of a suspect pool and in an enclave like that a lot less suspects. You don't have people selling crack on the street. You don't have protesters out in front of the house. You don't have a homeless camp one block away. It really reduces the number of potential suspects if the husband's story doesn't pan out. He's also a father, by the way, hence the au pair. What about the neighborhood? So the neighborhood in Fairfax, Virginia is Northern Virginia. NOVA is the abbreviation for it. And NOVA kids, NOVA parents, they're all a little upscale. And the reason why is because jobs are close to DC. It borders our nation's capital and the nation's capital pays a

lot more money than other areas in Virginia, whether that's Southwest Virginia or the South. And so because of this higher income, you end up having people who can afford nice things. They can afford a live-in nanny, an au pair who is living with them, who is taking care of their four-year-old child. And so this is something that probably shocked the neighborhood. It probably sent chills up people's spine because these neighbors that they've known, perhaps there's never even been an HOA issue or a trash can that's not been drugged back to the garage. So something like this is not only shocking to the neighborhood, shocking to the area, but shocking for this specific venue and that career the people in this uh you know area there's a lot of government workers as the husband was employed there's clearances there's

a lot of thresholds you've got to get through to be able to get to that caliber of job clearance and that caliber of housing and neighborhood. It is very, very out of character for that area as well as the Commonwealth. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Heidi Green, clinical psychologist, trauma specialist, author of The Path to Self-Love and World Domination. Dr. Heidi Green, lying on the floor beside mommy is a bondage fetishist. Now, explain to everybody that may not have handled BDSM murders like a few of us have. What is BDSM? BDSM is essentially a type of erotic role play.

And the people that engage in this sort of activity are mixing pleasure and pain. Okay, you know what? What does BDSM stand for? Bondage, discipline, sadomasochistic is my understanding. What do those four words mean in your world, doctor? So, the bondage is pretty self-explanatory. This is where participants are literally tying each other up. Could be with ropes, could be with tape, but there's this element of restricting one of the participants. And when we have the discipline also sometimes called domination. We're looking at activities where one person is playing the role of a more submissive character and the other person is delivering domination or discipline to that person in the submissive spot. Now, when we're talking about sadism and masochism, we're looking at the difference between sadism,

which is finding enjoyment from inflicting pain onto another person. And really specifically here, we're talking about getting sexual pleasure out of inflicting pain on a partner. And then on the flip side, the masochism, that's where the individual is getting sexual pleasure out of receiving pain. Guys, as much as I would just love to talk about BDSM more, I want to get back to the double murders. Take a listen to Chief Kevin Davis, Fairfax County. The 911 caller that called 911 told us that there was a man inside the home shot and there was a woman inside the home who had been stabbed. Our patrol officers responded immediately. They found a man shot inside the home who was deceased. The woman was still alive.

The woman who had been stabbed was still alive. She was transported to a local hospital and she died at the hospital. So a man was shot and killed inside the home. A woman was stabbed and she died from her stab wounds that occurred inside the home as well. Joining me right now, Dr. Jan Gorniak, a renowned forensic pathologist, former medical examiner in Clark County. That's Vegas. Never a lack of business for the medical examiner in Vegas. Dr. Gorniak, thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. I'm thinking about how these two murders went down.

First of all, you've got the fetishist as he's being called. He's got a name, Joseph Ryan. He is shot dead, which depending on where the gunshot wound occurred on the body could have been instantaneous. We know a special agent shot him, an IRS special agent. Was it a kill shot? Don't know yet. But I want to speak about the female victim, the wife, the mother of a then four- away at the hospital. What is it like? What does a human go through when they exsanguinate? So these are the cases that are low on my list of, you know, cases I quote unquote like to do because you know that stab wounds is not just one and done. So she had multiple stab wounds. And so you're just not going to lay there or stand in front of somebody and let them stab

you. There's going to be a whole lot of movement and trying to get away. Sometimes people even grab the knife and have injuries to their hands. So when someone gets stabbed and they are bleeding mostly internally, say from a stab wound to the heart or to the lungs, it's not a quick death. So they're going to go into shock first. They're going to have internal bleeding. They're going to go into shock and then they're going to go unresponsive. So when I heard the sheriff, I believe it was saying that she was still alive. I'm not sure when we think of alive, that's what she was. I don't think she was talking or communicating with the 911 EMS personnel. I bet she still had a pulse. She's still probably breathing, but shallow,

shallow breathing. And that's why they transported her. But essentially, her heart was still going. She was still breathing. That equals being alive. But I don't think she was alive in the sense that we think of when someone say they were still alive. Alexis Tereschuk, investigative reporter for CrimeOnline.com. Alexis, you have a beautiful boy. I've got the twins.

I don't want the only thing they have of their mother or father are pictures. This little girl is four when her mother is stabbed dead beside, apparently, a bondage fetishist. I mean, all she has, all she's going to have the rest of her life are these pictures. She never got to know her mom at four years old. This is it. She had just such a short amount of time.

So her mom had, they'd hired an au pair, a nanny from Brazil to take care of their family, something so many families around the world do. What do we know about this girl, 23-year-old Juliana Magalhas? 23 years old. She's from Brazil. She came to live with the family. She was their nanny for quite a few months, taking care of the four-year-old daughter.

Mom worked, dad worked. She would play with her. She would take care of her and was really part of the family. She was living in the home. So she became, she traveled with them. She worked with them. She lived with them 24 hours a day. She was really like, you know, a fourth member of the family. So she is the one that called 911. Oh, okay. Got it. What more do we know about the events leading up to a double murder? Listen. Christine Banfield plans a fun day for her four-year-old daughter with a trip to the National Zoo with her Brazilian au pair, Juliana Perez-Mogulis. They leave their Fairfax County, Virginia home, but turn around juliana perez mogulis they leave their fairfax county virginia home but turn around when perez mogulis realizes she forgot their bagged lunches arriving at the house the

au pair sees a car she doesn't recognize and a man she doesn't know entering the house confused she calls her employer brendan banfield who tells her to stay in the car he will get there right away banfield is at the house in minutes and they enter the house together. The au pair takes the four-year-old girl to the basement while Brendan Banfield goes upstairs to the master suite. How did an innocent day at the National Zoo with a Brazilian au pair end up with a double homicide in the family home in this upscale ritzy part of Fairfax County? Okay, back to Alexis Torres, CrimeOnline.com investigative reporter. So let me just start at the beginning as much as I want to rush to the double homicide. So that morning, the mother, Christine, goes to work as an RN. The husband,

we think, goes to work with the IRS. And that's what we think is going to happen. But the au pair, Juliana Margulies, turns back because she realizes she forgot all of the lunches she made for the little girl at the zoo. She gets back, she sees a car she doesn't recognize and a man she doesn't know entering the house. Okay, right there. I got a problem. Alexis Tereschuk, if I see somebody coming in the house, why do you stop outside the house and call the husband? Why would you suspect anything was wrong? Exactly. You would think, oh, maybe he's here to repair the washing machine or something. But she, I guess, had not expected the mom to be home, not expected Christine to be home. And so she called the husband and said something really strange is going on.

There's a car outside. I don't know. He shows up very quickly at the home and the two of them go in the house. Here's the other thing. She takes the daughter into the house where there's a stranger in the house, which also seems very strange. And to hide in the basement, I would think you would want to hide outside with the child so you could get away, not take the child. I mean, if you're that afraid, why not call 911? And where does this guy work?

If he's an IRS agent and I'm guessing he commutes into D.C., how did he get back to the house so quickly? Anyway, just a few questions jumping to mind. So let me make sure I understand this. To Barry Golden, former senior inspector, U.S. Marshal Service. Now, this is where the au pair, for an inexplicable reason, decides she's got to take the baby girl to the basement and hide. You know what? When I see somebody coming in the driveway, I don't go hide in the basement.

I think, oh, it's an Uber delivery. It's an Instacart delivery. Is somebody here to fix the fan? I don't know. But I don't run and hide in the fan. I don't know, but I don't run and hide in the basement. That said, she runs and hides in the basement, and from what I understand, the husband goes upstairs, and then suddenly, this complete stranger, upon seeing the husband, starts stabbing the wife. Why would he do that? He's dead.

He can't tell us. But something stinks. Exactly. Mary, I guess what I'm trying to ask is, if you're a fetishist and you're there for fetish sex, BDSM, tying each other up, fine, have at it, and the husband walks in, why would you stab the wife?

Why wouldn't you just say, oh, I'm sorry, and put your clothes on and leave? This is where this story has probably more questions than answers. Because those few seconds where this husband walks upstairs and he finds his wife, who is nude at the time, and this guy that he doesn't even know. And he has a knife in his hand. And think about this. This is a master bedroom. So you have a large bed. You have furniture around there.

He enters the room. The au pair is downstairs. And she hears someone say, drop the knife. And so she runs upstairs. And so here's a trained law enforcement officer. And I had to really look for it to find it in media outlets. But at that point in time, from what I read, Mr. Ryan had the knife to the throat of the wife. And that's when Mr. Banfield encounters him.

And then from what I read read he starts to stab her on the neck and that's when he shoots the perpetrator in the head at that point probably doesn't kill him but then he falls to the ground but the really confusing part is you're a trained law enforcement officer you're trained in firearms. You train twice a year. Why do you need to ask the au pair, hey, go get the other gun in the bathroom in a safe. This is the code. I don't understand that.

That is just mind-boggling. Why would a trained law enforcement officer need the help of a nanny who's barely trained, has little training in firearms for help. And then not only ask her to go get the gun, Barry Golden, he asked her to come in and shoot Ryan through the heart as he's down. Yes. He is justified at that as a law as just a person. He's justified if he is that in that close proximity of the wife and he still has a knife and he is not dead yet or the action. Look, law enforcement, the standard is shoot to stop the

action. That's why Amanda Riemann joining us, high profile lawyer out of this jurisdiction, Virginia. That is why I'm going through what we know literally line by line, just like I would if I were trying this case in front of a jury. Because each fact is so important. Now, one fact that's come to mind, Alexis told me this earlier, the husband told the nanny, we've been told, to go downstairs with the basement into the basement with a little girl. Okay. That's answered. But why? Okay. How did he know who was home? How did he know it wasn't a friend of the mom's or a repairman or the carpet cleaner? I don't know. Why do you immediately pull your weapon and tell the nanny to go hide in the basement. Okay, that's one thing. But, Amanda, each line significant. Because when the husband tells the nanny, the 23-year-old Brazilian nanny, to go and get his Glock out of the safe and gives her the code

to come shoot the guy in the heart, that's where you lost me. I'm not on board with this story anymore. I'm jumping. I'm out. Something's not right. That one fact. I mean, I had to suspend disbelief a little bit,

but it wasn't so fantastical. I had to reject it. Now it is, Amanda. You know, and I have to disagree with Barry a little bit in his analysis as far as the justification for the shot. So in Virginia, we have something called a self-defense legal defense. So you can assert, hey, I was acting in self-defense, but three elements have to be true. It's a three-pronged analysis. Number one, I reasonably believe. Number two, that that force is necessary.

And three, to protect yourself from an imminent harm from that other person. So if he has already shot the guy in the head, what in the world is necessary that he needs to, hey, it's okay for you to come up from the basement. I've got time to tell you the code to unlock the lock, get my gun, run up the two flights of stairs at a minimum, and now shoot him again. That doesn't make sense, and I don't buy that defensive self-defense. What I was referring to is that the husband could have shot him again right there. He didn't need the help of the au pair. He was justified

with him being, the perpetrator being so close to the wife. If he was right there with his arm around the wife's neck and he already cut her, he is justified in shooting him once or as many times as he needs to to stop that action so the wife is safe.

That's what I was getting to. Why would he even call the au pair to go get, why does he need help? He's a federal agent trained in firearms. Why would he need the help of a person that's not nearly as trained as he is to, oh, go get the gun and come over here? That part just is mind-boggling to me. I do not understand that, and that's where it really gets muddy. Now, what more are we learning from Chief Kevin Davis about the identity of the guy who's been shot,

not only in the head, but also shot by the Brazilian au pair in the heart? Listen. The male decedent who was found dead inside the home, shot to death, first name Joseph, middle name Nathan, last name Ryan. He's 39 years old. The female decedent who was stabbed inside the home, transported to a local hospital, pronounced dead at the hospital. Her name is Christine Ann Banfield. Christine Banfield is 37 years old. There were two other adults inside the home during this time frame. The two other adults inside the home I previously described as the husband and I previously

described as the au pair. There was a four-year-old child inside the home who obviously we're not identifying. She is unharmed, and she is with the Fairfax County Police Department. Did Joseph Ryan have all the answers? We'll never know because he shot dead in the head by the husband and in the heart by the au pair. But we're learning a little bit from Chief Kevin Davis. Listen. He does not live here.

I stated at the earlier press conference that there was no forced entry whatsoever. This is not a home invasion. He appears, well, here's what I can say right now with certainty. He did not force entry into the home. And I don't know exactly what the nature of his presence in the home is all about just yet. Joseph Ryan is known to Christine Banfield, the pair have reportedly been talking on an adult fetish site.

Banfield has a profile there and in conversations with Ryan, arranged for a round of rough sex at Banfield has a profile there and in conversations with Ryan arranged for a round of rough sex at Banfield's home. What? Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Alexis Tereschuk. So from what we're learning, Joseph Ryan had a profile on a fetishist website and the mother, the wife, the nurse got on the website and made contact with this guy and he shows up like she invites him over to tie her up and have sex, like bundles the baby off with the nanny. I'm just not seeing the connection. I'm just not.

Of course, you can't look at a book and judge it by its cover, but I'm just not seeing it. So does she also, the mom also have a profile on the fetishist site? I'm not sure if the mom herself had a profile. The way that the police have described this is that there was an account that was made from the home. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. to Dr. Heidi Green, clinical psychologist and trauma specialist and author. Dr. Heidi,

very often I hear people say, gosh, he didn't look like a child molester. He was the baseball coach or the soccer coach. You don't know what's going on in people's minds. I mean, I look at this mom and she looks so happy. She's thrilled with her pregnancy. The baby's only four. She loves her job. She's got these big, beautiful smiles in every picture, but photos and posts online can be very deceiving. I'm just having a hard time imagining her bringing in a complete stranger she's never met. And on day one, according to what we've learned on their interactions online on day one, she ends up dead. It's certainly suspicious. And there's a lot that's suspicious here. And when we when we look at things through a psychological lens, so many of the reports that have been made here about people's behavior just doesn't make sense.

And so it's it's hard for me to believe at this point with the information that we've been given that that everything actually happened the way that the husband and the au pair have described it. Because, again, from just a human behavior standpoint, too many things don't add up. I mean, I'm just thinking it through. And, you know, Barry Golden, U.S. Marshal Service, you and I both handle more cases than we can even count. I'm just finding it very difficult to take in what I know about the mom. The likelihood that she hooks up with a fetishist into bondage and domination and on day one they meet and she ends up dead. So strange. I mean, and the guy enters the house and the au pair is outside seeing him walk in the house, and then within a minute or two from the husband arriving and then also entering the house, and now he has a knife,

the wife is naked, and he's in the bedroom upstairs. Those are strange questions, but you have one person who is not talking, and that one person is the husband who is a federal law enforcement officer. He has taken the Fifth Amendment right to silence during court proceedings. If you have nothing to hide, if you walk in there, you find a stranger in your house, and a stranger that has a knife to the throat of your wife, okay, threatening physical harm to kill your wife, and you're justified in firing at this person to stop him from killing your wife, what do you have to hide?

Why wouldn't you give a statement to the police and say, this is what happened, this is what I saw, and this is what I did? There were only two shots fired. I had to really look for this and doing happened, this is what I saw, and this is what I did. There were only two shots fired. I had to really look for this in doing research on this. There was one shot fired by the husband and one shot fired by the au pair. Two shots. As we suspected, all is not as it seems. Apparently, the reputation of this mother has been dragged through the mud. Listen.

Investigators say, however, they believe it was all a ruse that someone else created the profile on the adult fetish website pretending to be Christine Banfield. In fact, investigators believe Ryan's murder was part of an elaborate plan to kill Christine Banfield so her husband, Brendan, and their Brazilian live-in au pair could be together. Investigators found pictures of Banfield and the au pair together in the Banfield bedroom, and Perez-Megalese's clothes were found hanging in the Banfield's closet, not her own. Okay, what did I just hear, Alexis Tereschuk? Explain. So after the crime, after these two people are killed in this home, the police spend months investigating. They come back to the house to interview the couple, the dad and the nanny who's still living with them, taking care.

And they realize that the nanny, the au pair, has moved into the main bedroom, the master bedroom where Christine was murdered. Her clothes are hanging in there. And there are framed pictures of the nanny and of the husband together in the room. Like she has just completely moved in and taken over the mom's place in the home. Okay, tell me the status as it is right now, Alexis. So the au pair has been charged with murder,

involuntary murder, I believe. And she is going to stand trial for not the murder of the mom, not Christine, but of Joseph Ryan, the man who is claimed that he had been, he came to have kinky sex with her. But nobody has been charged with the murder of Christine. And it hasn't been stated that Joseph Ryan killed her. And the husband hasn't been charged either. And one other thing I want to say about the guns is that a local gun range, a woman who worked there reported that she had seen the nanny and the

husband at the gun range, learning to practicing shooting months before Christine was murdered. And at the shooting range, the gun that they were practicing with ended up being the murder weapon. How coincidental. And I'm sure that has matched up with ballistics. But guys, so far, only the au pair is charged. Listen to Chief Kevin Davis. We still have a lot of work to do to identify who exactly, we have to prove it, who exactly shot and killed our male decedent, Joseph Ryan, and who exactly stabbed Christine Banfield to death.

We know what our 911 caller, the husband, told us, but we have a lot of work to do to substantiate that claim. He was not charged. He was not accused. He was present at the home. He was involved and we're continuing our investigation. And the status of folks may change over time. But right now he was present inside the home and involved. So, Dr. Jean Gorniak, the last thing mommy sees is the au pair and her husband. Yes. So we know that allegedly the husband shot, you know, Mr. Ryan as he was stabbing the mom. And then the au pair comes in and shoots Mr. Ryan a second time. There are so

many, and I'm not a law enforcement officer, but as a forensic investigator, death investigator, I have so many questions. And like you said, if he was shot twice, where are the projectiles? Because there would be two different projectiles. So I'm just wondering how do they know which shot was the shot that caused his death? And then the timeframe, I think it's going to be if and when they charge somebody with the mother's murder, the time frame of injury between, you know, what could Mr. Ryan have been doing if he was shot, that time frame is going to really play a big part, especially had she got into the hospital sooner, could she have survived because we know there is there was a time lag obviously the husband shot Mr. Ryan and then instead of saying call 9-1-1 my wife is stabbed you tell somebody to go get another gun so that time is missed so there's going to be so many more clues and forensic and evidence that's going to come out that's going to piece this together. Well, this is where I think we're going to get a lot of evidence is from the adult fetish website. Clearly, someone pretending to be the mom, Christine Banfield, goes onto the website and solicits Ryan to come to the home. As soon as we can figure all of that out, we'll have a clearer picture

of how mommy was stabbed dead. We wait as justice unfolds. And now we stop to remember American hero, Georgia State Trooper Jimmy Zaneskar. Just 28 Trooper Zaneskar struck by a vehicle while pursuing a suspect, Atlanta. Studying criminal justice at Georgia Gwinnett College in 2021, he rescued a driver who had driven off a bridge. Recently awarded a merit at the 300 Club for outstanding service. He leaves behind a loving fiance, Natalia, and parents, and his sister and four brothers. American hero, Georgia State Trooper, Jimmy Sinescar. I want to thank all of our guests for being with us tonight, but especially to you for being with us tonight and every night. Nancy Grace signing off.

Good night, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.