Fairfax County Double Murder

[Anonymous]

He is supposed to report all discharges of service weapon but was not put on leave until AP's arrest. IRS would have known he fired gun just from news accounts. Can someone clarify why he was not put on leave immediately? Or was it excused but facts in October were contrary to his statements to IRS? If he had to account for his actions in work context, curious what was said. VA would be able to subpoena his work records, yes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim smearing is really making my blood boil. BB has not only committed double murder but also is humiliating his poor wife in the process. Imagine how awful this must be for her family.

I wish him nothing but a slimy place to rot in prison. I hope he gets assaulted daily once he finally goes to jail.

Do you not understand how trials work? It’s not the defense’s job to provide a story. It’s their job to poke holes in the prosecution’s story. The defense doesn’t have to prove anything except the prosecution is wrong.

For AP's trial, the state will be able to show that she admitted to firing on JR when he was on the floor writhing in pain, and that she shot him and he bullet killed him.

In VA, 2nd degree murder "generally includes murders that were committed in the 'heat of the moment,' without any form of planning or premeditation, but with malice. Malice can mean many things. It could mean the accused was reckless in his or her conduct, the offender intended to cause injury, or the conduct had a very high risk of causing another person's death and the offender simply did not care."

When someone has been shot in the head, a jury is not going to see them as a significant threat to AP's safety. There has never been any evidence that JR was in the process of attacking BB or CB or AP AFTER he was shot in the head. I believe there has been a statement from AP that JR "moved" and then she shot him.

That would qualify as malice and support 2nd degree murder. A man who has been shot in the head may very likely move in pain.

Most likely, AP's lawyers will tell her not to testify. Her defense will be based completely on her lawyer's ability to paint a picture that JR was still an on-going threat to AP's safety or someone else's safety when she shot the gun.

It's going to come down to whether the jury believes that JR, suffering from a bullet to the head, was still a threat to anyone. The forensics on exactly where the bullet went through his head, where JR was when he was shot (i.e. was he on the ground when AP pulled the trigger?) and what the medical experts say his functioning was, as well as AP's own words in her statement to police ==> that will be what the jury will use to decide AP's case.

All of the other details are irrelevant. The only thing that matters for 2nd degree murder is whether VA prosecutors can show evidence of legal "malice" in pulling the trigger on a guy who was already shot in the head.

If VA can show that JR was on the ground and the bullet came from above him, I think that would be enough for a jury. If he was standing up and staggering around when she pulled the trigger, it gets a little more difficult, but I still think a jury could find that she was guilty. Her initial statement and the medical function testimony becomes more important in that case.

[Anonymous]

The word from the hearing was "torn" I believe.

JR still has no motive to stab her in the neck. None.

BB and AP had a lot of motive and actions supporting charges higher than 2nd degree, perhaps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If BB had not fired his service weapon, am I correct in understanding he would not be on leave? He has not been charged, so that seems to have been the key factor. Since there was another gun in home, seems like a poorly considered element of plan, unless he did plan to be on extended paid leave? He was not put on leave prior to AP's arrest in October. Can anyone with fed experience explain this more? What if he is not arrested for years, will his paid leave just continue or is there any kind of end date?

He HAD to use his service weapon b/c that's the only gun he would have on his body as he was supposedly going to work. If he used any other gun, the question would be: how did you have time to go to the safe to get your other gun? By using his service weapon, he makes it look like he stumbled across something unexpected and he had to react in a second with the only weapon he had.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim smearing is really making my blood boil. BB has not only committed double murder but also is humiliating his poor wife in the process. Imagine how awful this must be for her family.

I wish him nothing but a slimy place to rot in prison. I hope he gets assaulted daily once he finally goes to jail.

Do you not understand how trials work? It’s not the defense’s job to provide a story. It’s their job to poke holes in the prosecution’s story. The defense doesn’t have to prove anything except the prosecution is wrong.

For AP's trial, the state will be able to show that she admitted to firing on JR when he was on the floor writhing in pain, and that she shot him and he bullet killed him.

In VA, 2nd degree murder "generally includes murders that were committed in the 'heat of the moment,' without any form of planning or premeditation, but with malice. Malice can mean many things. It could mean the accused was reckless in his or her conduct, the offender intended to cause injury, or the conduct had a very high risk of causing another person's death and the offender simply did not care."

When someone has been shot in the head, a jury is not going to see them as a significant threat to AP's safety. There has never been any evidence that JR was in the process of attacking BB or CB or AP AFTER he was shot in the head. I believe there has been a statement from AP that JR "moved" and then she shot him.

That would qualify as malice and support 2nd degree murder. A man who has been shot in the head may very likely move in pain.

Most likely, AP's lawyers will tell her not to testify. Her defense will be based completely on her lawyer's ability to paint a picture that JR was still an on-going threat to AP's safety or someone else's safety when she shot the gun.

It's going to come down to whether the jury believes that JR, suffering from a bullet to the head, was still a threat to anyone. The forensics on exactly where the bullet went through his head, where JR was when he was shot (i.e. was he on the ground when AP pulled the trigger?) and what the medical experts say his functioning was, as well as AP's own words in her statement to police ==> that will be what the jury will use to decide AP's case.

All of the other details are irrelevant. The only thing that matters for 2nd degree murder is whether VA prosecutors can show evidence of legal "malice" in pulling the trigger on a guy who was already shot in the head.

If VA can show that JR was on the ground and the bullet came from above him, I think that would be enough for a jury. If he was standing up and staggering around when she pulled the trigger, it gets a little more difficult, but I still think a jury could find that she was guilty. Her initial statement and the medical function testimony becomes more important in that case.

FF Now did a nice job laying out the charges against her too, but the above is why VA has a very strong case against her. As the judge said at the prelim, he does not have to consider motive re: AP.

All the sordid details are attempts to smear and misdirect. They have nothing to do with the elements of the VA statute.

The case against BB is more difficult, thus it is taking longer to build.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was thinking about this and there’s just no chance this random guy, who had set up this meeting with his own name and no apparent attempt to hide anything decided to stab this woman to death and oops was confronted and shot by the husband and the au pair who oops happened to be together and oops immediately replaced her. It’s too insane. I think a jury will agree even if the physical evidence is confusing or limited.

Right, but what happens when he arrives, having planned to cut off a woman’s pajamas and cut her with a knife during a simulated rape, and she isn’t compliant because she has no clue who this stranger is with a knife in her house? Does he think her fighting him off initially is part of the act? Do things get out of hand? We know it got at least as far as her pajamas being cut.

Well... do you really know WHO cut/tore any pajamas? It's possible BB cut them ahead of time. It's also possible CB had them and was planning for them to be part of the role-play... just that she didn't also know that BB was going to show up and shoot JR.

I wonder if CB had an agreed plan with JR (that BB may have known about), and then BB messaged JR separately and suggested that he (BB) could surprise CB by coming to her "rescue" during the scene. Then BB gets rid of his old phone that has the msg trail showing he communicated with JR separately. That may be why JR wasn't alarmed by the sound of someone else in the house.... b/c he was under the impression that BB was going to be there at some point. Maybe the shouts of "put the knife down" and "put the gun down" (if they actually happened) were statements that BB expected as part of BB joining the role-play.

If BB and CB used CB's messaging accounts for all the communications that have been mentioned publicly -- and yet there were OTHER communications that were coming from BB's or AP's phones (that happened to be thrown away 2 days earlier) -- JR could have expected BB in the scene and BB/AP could have suggested a knife be part of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If BB had not fired his service weapon, am I correct in understanding he would not be on leave? He has not been charged, so that seems to have been the key factor. Since there was another gun in home, seems like a poorly considered element of plan, unless he did plan to be on extended paid leave? He was not put on leave prior to AP's arrest in October. Can anyone with fed experience explain this more? What if he is not arrested for years, will his paid leave just continue or is there any kind of end date?

He HAD to use his service weapon b/c that's the only gun he would have on his body as he was supposedly going to work. If he used any other gun, the question would be: how did you have time to go to the safe to get your other gun? By using his service weapon, he makes it look like he stumbled across something unexpected and he had to react in a second with the only weapon he had.

I get that re: the telenovela plot but a lot of LE have other guns in home, as did BB. (Although would the humidity in a bathroom make it better for a gun safe than a bedroom closet, or the laundry room or some other place he could have plausibly "quickly" grabbed it from on the way in?) And your theory of the impression he was trying to give can somewhat be undercut by his directing AP to go to another room to get another gun.

So why not on leave in February? Why October? And was his plan to indefinitely get paid to do nothing?

At some point, if not already, their legal interests and case elements may come into conflict. How does that impact legal fees of her attorney being paid by BB (her mom said family and Brazil not helping pay)?

[Anonymous]

In all these threads, there hasn't been a mention of the 911 automatic callback function in the result of a hangup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The word from the hearing was "torn" I believe.

JR still has no motive to stab her in the neck. None.

BB and AP had a lot of motive and actions supporting charges higher than 2nd degree, perhaps.

What? Sorry not following.

[Anonymous]

Curious why some posters refer to BB’s mother as Big Mama or Big Momma? Why the dig at the mother?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was thinking about this and there’s just no chance this random guy, who had set up this meeting with his own name and no apparent attempt to hide anything decided to stab this woman to death and oops was confronted and shot by the husband and the au pair who oops happened to be together and oops immediately replaced her. It’s too insane. I think a jury will agree even if the physical evidence is confusing or limited.

Right, but what happens when he arrives, having planned to cut off a woman’s pajamas and cut her with a knife during a simulated rape, and she isn’t compliant because she has no clue who this stranger is with a knife in her house? Does he think her fighting him off initially is part of the act? Do things get out of hand? We know it got at least as far as her pajamas being cut.

Well... do you really know WHO cut/tore any pajamas? It's possible BB cut them ahead of time. It's also possible CB had them and was planning for them to be part of the role-play... just that she didn't also know that BB was going to show up and shoot JR.

I wonder if CB had an agreed plan with JR (that BB may have known about), and then BB messaged JR separately and suggested that he (BB) could surprise CB by coming to her "rescue" during the scene. Then BB gets rid of his old phone that has the msg trail showing he communicated with JR separately. That may be why JR wasn't alarmed by the sound of someone else in the house.... b/c he was under the impression that BB was going to be there at some point. Maybe the shouts of "put the knife down" and "put the gun down" (if they actually happened) were statements that BB expected as part of BB joining the role-play.

If BB and CB used CB's messaging accounts for all the communications that have been mentioned publicly -- and yet there were OTHER communications that were coming from BB's or AP's phones (that happened to be thrown away 2 days earlier) -- JR could have expected BB in the scene and BB/AP could have suggested a knife be part of it.

Agree the above is likely.

CB was likely dressed when JR arrived then had pjs cut or torn off before stabbing if they did not have blood on them. So that's one element that tracks with testimony and texts thus far. Then sequence gets more murky.

The positioning of the bodies would be important but they had a LOT of time to restage the scene. In other cases there were indications of bodies being moved significantly. I still think she was likely drugged at some point, maybe during the birthday celebrations the night before. Would make her more controllable. JR's understanding of the mutually consented to script played out until the gun was actually fired. Once you are shot in the head, too late for self defense no matter how fit. Once he was on the ground easy for AP to stand over and shoot, little chance of missing.

[Anonymous]

BB seems to have done a good job protecting himself legally and a good one setting up AP. She seems not to have perceived this. The elements of the statute seem to be met and will be hard to refute. She says she walked into another room, that is time to think and not an imminent threat, plus trained LE in room had gun in hand. Motive is not an element of the charges against her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was thinking about this and there’s just no chance this random guy, who had set up this meeting with his own name and no apparent attempt to hide anything decided to stab this woman to death and oops was confronted and shot by the husband and the au pair who oops happened to be together and oops immediately replaced her. It’s too insane. I think a jury will agree even if the physical evidence is confusing or limited.

Right, but what happens when he arrives, having planned to cut off a woman’s pajamas and cut her with a knife during a simulated rape, and she isn’t compliant because she has no clue who this stranger is with a knife in her house? Does he think her fighting him off initially is part of the act? Do things get out of hand? We know it got at least as far as her pajamas being cut.

No, I’m not seeing it. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was thinking about this and there’s just no chance this random guy, who had set up this meeting with his own name and no apparent attempt to hide anything decided to stab this woman to death and oops was confronted and shot by the husband and the au pair who oops happened to be together and oops immediately replaced her. It’s too insane. I think a jury will agree even if the physical evidence is confusing or limited.

Right, but what happens when he arrives, having planned to cut off a woman’s pajamas and cut her with a knife during a simulated rape, and she isn’t compliant because she has no clue who this stranger is with a knife in her house? Does he think her fighting him off initially is part of the act? Do things get out of hand? We know it got at least as far as her pajamas being cut.

No, I’m not seeing it. Sorry.

Not seeing which part, PP?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The victim smearing is really making my blood boil. BB has not only committed double murder but also is humiliating his poor wife in the process. Imagine how awful this must be for her family.

I wish him nothing but a slimy place to rot in prison. I hope he gets assaulted daily once he finally goes to jail.

Do you not understand how trials work? It’s not the defense’s job to provide a story. It’s their job to poke holes in the prosecution’s story. The defense doesn’t have to prove anything except the prosecution is wrong.

For AP's trial, the state will be able to show that she admitted to firing on JR when he was on the floor writhing in pain, and that she shot him and he bullet killed him.

Presumably the defense will try to show that notwithstanding his gunshot wound, she saw him moving towards either the wife or the knife.