Veronica Mazzica

Thanks for having me.

So prosecutors say Brendan wanted out of his marriage with Christine so he could start a life over with the family au pair who looked after their daughter.

She was a young Brazilian woman by the name of Juliana Perez Magalhaes.

And prosecutors say that Brendan and Juliana lured Joe Ryan, who was a complete stranger, to the Banfield's home by posing as Christine on a fetish website and setting up a sexual encounter.

When Ryan came to the house for that encounter, the prosecution says that Brendan shot him, stabbed Christine, and then staged the scene to make it look like Ryan had attacked his wife.

And he had shot Ryan to try and stop the attack.

So, yeah, definitely very complicated.

Yeah, so the prosecution's case has been much more technical since then.

They've called a series of timeline witnesses to try and corroborate Juliana's story, like the manager of the gun range where she said Brendan took her shooting.

Otherwise, it's been mostly forensic experts testifying about the crime scene.

Possibly the idea here is that the jury might wonder about Giuliana's credibility, but physical evidence can't be explained away.

attorney tried to paint a picture of a messy investigation, pressing all of the prosecution's expert witnesses on what was tested and what was not and the integrity of the crime scene.

The defense strategy here is to create doubt for the jury.

Yes, this is the third time that Susan Embert has stood trial for the death of her husband.

So, Veronica, what did the jury decide?

After about three and a half hours of deliberation over two days, they came back with a guilty verdict.

So Jake's daughter, Rachel Embert, and daughter-in-law, Catherine, both gave victim impact statements to the court.

Catherine talked about how Jake's son has dealt with his death.

Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 28th, and her defense attorney says they do plan to appeal, citing concerns of the 911 call that was played in court.

So the police released several surveillance images of the suspect the day after the shooting.