Christine Banfield Murder Case: Full Story & Timeline
REDRUM true crime
redrumpodcast
4.6 • 532 Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2026
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the quiet, picture perfect town of Herndon, Virginia, everything about the Banfield family looked… normal. A beautiful home. Childhood sweethearts tuned into a long marriage. A young daughter. And two parents with demanding, high-pressure careers - one working in federal law enforcement, the other caring for critically ill children as a paediatric intensive care nurse.
But on the morning of February 24th, 2023, everything changes. A series of frantic 911 calls leads police to a scene inside the family home that is almost impossible to comprehend. A woman is found with devastating injuries. A man... a complete stranger... lies dead nearby. And in the basement, a four-year-old child is left completely unharmed.
At first glance, it looks like a home invasion gone terribly wrong. But as investigators begin to piece together what really happened inside that house, they uncover a trail that leads them far beyond the front door… into a hidden world of online identities, secret relationships, and messages that raise more questions than answers.
Because the man found inside the home that morning… wasn’t there by accident.
And the deeper detectives dig, the more the story begins to unravel. What starts as a seemingly random act of violence quickly becomes something far more complex... and far more deliberate.
In this episode, we break down the full timeline of events, the key people at the centre of the case, and the evidence that would ultimately lead to one of the most disturbing and calculated murder trials in recent memory.
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SOURCES: https://www.courthousenews.com/defense-attorney-in-double-murder-case-pushes-back-against-catfishing-theory/ https://www.fox5dc.com/news/banfield-murder-trial-defense-begin-presenting-case-wednesday https://www.reddit.com/r/nova/comments/1qrflij/brendan_banfield_the_mcdonalds_defence/ https://people.com/au-pair-made-up-bdsm-murder-plot-defense-attorney-claims-trial-11896564 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/au-pairs-jailhouse-letters-plea-deal-questioned-ex-lovers-bdsm-double-rcna254059 https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/defense-in-virginia-fetish-sex-murder-case-challenges-catfish-theory/3954723/ https://news.sky.com/story/man-on-trial-in-virginia-accused-of-plotting-double-murder-with-brazilian-au-pair-13493962 https://www.courttv.com/news/va-v-brendan-banfield-au-pair-affair-murder-trial/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2026/02/02/banfield-au-pair-murders-verdict/ https://abc7.com/post/new-bodycam-video-revealed-trial-brendan-banfield-hospital-accused-killing-christine-amid-affair-au-pair/18493078/ https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/commonwealthattorney/sites/commonwealthattorney/files/Assets/press%20releases%20master/4.15.2024%20Indictments%20%28Smerk%20-%20Larazo%20Cruz%20-%20Peres%20Magalhaes%29.pdf Video footage of Herndon: Herndon, Virginia | Full Tour (4K) Living in Greater DC | Rick Hartunian
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | A husband comes home to find his wife being attacked. |
| 0:10.2 | He shoots the intruder dead and calls 911. |
| 0:14.5 | A tragic but very simple case of self-defense. |
| 0:18.8 | But this case has so much more than that. It really does have everything. |
| 0:23.6 | There's a fetish website, there's an affair, and a home invasion that is nothing like it first appears to be. |
| 0:32.6 | This is Red Rum. Stories about the true victims of crime. I upload on Mondays and Thursdays, |
| 0:38.2 | so make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode. |
| 0:43.8 | Christine and Brendan Banfield live in Herndon, Virginia, this very charming little town, |
| 0:50.1 | well it feels like a town but has a very vibrant kind of community spirit. |
| 0:56.0 | It's known for its historic charm and it, if you are watching, you can see on screen, but |
| 1:01.4 | if you're listening, very old village shop vibes, it almost looks like a model village in some |
| 1:07.5 | parts. It's beautiful. So the husband and wife duo who have been married for almost |
| 1:12.9 | 20 years at this point in our case, they've moved over here from New York. They are now raising |
| 1:19.2 | their young daughter in Herndon and we're going to refer to their young daughter as Stacey. |
| 1:24.8 | Now her name has not been publicly released. It is out there, |
| 1:28.3 | but all we know for certain at this time, what all that is released to the media and should be |
| 1:34.0 | spoken about is that she's four years old. And again, we're giving her the pseudonym Stacy. |
| 1:39.4 | So Kristen and Brendan, they've been together pretty much their entire adult lives since they |
| 1:43.9 | were kids. |
| 1:44.6 | They were 18 years old when they met and there's only a few months between them. So |
| 1:49.6 | Brendan is just slightly older than Christine. So the three of them live in this beautiful, |
| 1:56.9 | huge American style house. It's double garage, it's got a driveway. I think it's three-story |
... |
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