True Crime Society - Fetish Crimes

MICHAELA RYLAARSDAM
Californian wife and mom-of-three Michaela Rylaarsdam (31) has been arrested and charged over the death of Michael Dale (55) in 2023. It is alleged his death happened following a consensual BDSM session that Michael paid for.

Michaela’s pseudonym for her spicy online life is/was Asshley Sincal. Brandon is said to have helped her run that business. She has 11k followers on Instagram and also had an OnlyFans account.

In 2023, a man from Escondido, California, Michael Dale (55) contacted Michaela through an online advertisement for an escort business.

They texted back and forth in March and April 2023. One request that Michael made was for Michaela to wrap him in Saran wrap like a mummy.

He also requested that Michaela glue women’s boots to his feet and put his head in a plastic bag. He agreed to pay Michaela more than $11,000 in exchange for her services. Michaela later told investigators that she had not engaged in fetish behavior before this incident.

Michaela and Michael met on Monday April 17, 2023 at around 6pm. Michael ‘appeared intoxicated.’ “Despite that fact, Rylaarsdam decided to spend the next several hours with Dale and engaged in fetish behavior at Dale’s request,” the affidavit reads.

Michaela captured the encounter on her phone. Footage showed that Michael had his head inside a plastic bag for eight minutes, as well as other clips of him struggling to breathe after duct tape and plastic bag and Saran wrap were placed over his mouth, the filings state.

Michael’s arms and legs had been bound with plastic meaning he was unable to remove the bag or wrappings from his head, according to the affidavit.

According to the San Diego Union Tribune, as Michael lay unresponsive, Michaela performed a ‘sex act’ nearby, creating content for her OnlyFans page.

The OF footage was shot just moments before she called 911. When authorities arrived, Michaela was performing CPR on Michael.

The house that Michael was living in was a share house. One female roommate said that Michael had been living there for under a week before his death. She would later move out of the house because she was so traumatized.

It seems that Michaela called for help and the roommates came out. One man said that he saw Michael on the floor, wearing sweatpants. He was wrapped in plastic from the hips down. That man said that Michaela was ‘super freaked out.’

Michael was taken to hospital, and he was declared brain dead the next day.

His cause of death was linked to deprivation of oxygen to the brain according to the coroner.

‘The evidence showed that he hired her to perform bondage acts and fetish acts,’ said Deputy District Attorney David Jarman told the San Diego Union Tribune.

‘There is no indication that he asked her to obstruct his breathing, asked her to put tape over his mouth, asked her to put a plastic bag over his head.’

Now, almost two years later, Michaela has been charged with second degree murder. This means that she allegedly showed a conscious disregard for human life, rather than first-degree murder, which must show an express intent to kill.

To prove a second-degree murder charge, prosecutors have the burden to prove that the defendant had implied malice — that she intentionally committed an act, and the natural and probable consequences of that act were dangerous to life. The person had to have known it was dangerous, and that even if she didn’t intend to kill, she deliberately acted with conscious disregard for life.

The DA noted that the bag — which he said had additional tape around it — was there for at least eight minutes.

“I can say the case was investigated thoroughly, and the investigators left no stone unturned,” he said.

Michaela’s attorney said the evidence will show that she “caused 911 to be called, gave CPR and cooperated with police.”

“I think there was no intent to kill and no attempt to cover this up,” he said. “And she acted appropriately when she realized this was a problem.”

He said consent is not necessarily a defense to homicide, but it is “certainly a mitigating factor.”

“There is definitely a consensual element — not only something he consented to, something he was actively seeking,” the attorney said.

THE MURDERS OF CHRISTINE BANFIELD AND JOSEPH RYAN

The second case we are going to discuss is the murder of Virginia woman Christine Banfield. Christine was murdered in 2023 by her husband Brendan as part of a plan so that he could be with the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes. Brendan and Juliana used a fetish website to set up the scene prior to the murder. Another man named Joseph Ryan also died as part of their plan. There is a lot going on here!

As some background, Christine grew up on Long Island and graduated from Quinnipiac University with a nursing degree in 2007. Brendan studied accounting at St. Joseph’s University on Long Island. He launched a children’s math tutoring center in Moriches, N.Y.

The couple had one child together, Valerie. In 2019, the family moved to Virginia.

Christine worked as a nurse and patient advocate and was much loved by her patients.

“She was an angel for me,” recalls Rodrigo Valderrama, a COVID patient at the suburban Virginia hospital where Christine worked.

He remembers waking up from a weeks-long coma to see Christine’s beside his bed:

“She shaved me; she helped me set up a Zoom call with my family.

Brendan worked in the IRS criminal division as a special agent.

Christine told Rodrigo that she and Brendan had been planning to hire an au pair from South America. “She wanted me to recommend restaurants in the area,” Rodrigo said. “That was her personality—she wanted the au pair to feel at home.”

Online comments indicate that Christine and Brendan had used the services of au pairs previously. They previously had a Brazilian au pair. She and Christine became so close that Christine was in the woman’s wedding party, and Valerie was the flower girl.

Christine was active on social media. She regularly posted in a neighborhood Facebook group, seeking recommendations for a backyard landscaper, a “doll hospital” to repair her daughter’s toy and a dog-boarding facility for the family’s husky.

Juliana started her live-in job with the Banfields in 2021. One of her friends said that she was excited to travel to America. “Juliana wanted to travel and learn English,” says a friend from Brazil. “She was excited because she just graduated from nursing classes and was coming to live with a nurse, so they had so much in common.” In Virginia, Juliana “seemed so happy,” says her friend. “It was easy. Everything was working perfectly.”

At some point after that, she started a sexual relationship with Brendan. By August 2022, Brendan began expressing “his desire to be rid of his wife,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan would later say.

Investigators would later discover that Juliana sent text messages about her new love with Brendan. They also found photos of the couple on a trip to New York City and lingerie strewn on Brendan’s bed.

Around December 2022, Juliana and Brendan went to a gun firing range to check it out. Brendan would return to the same place to buy a Glock 43X.

The pair started to put together a plan to get rid of Christine so that they could be together. In the weeks before February 2023, Brendan created a profile on FetLife, a website for bondage and role-play enthusiasts. This is where he met Joseph Ryan (39). As some more info into FetLife, this info is from esafety.gov.au:

‘ FetLife is a social network for the fetish/kink community. Once you set up a profile with biographical details and images, you can follow and message other users and add them as friends.’

Juliana and Brendan began to set up a meeting with Joseph. Juliana was posing as Christine during their communication. They used an encrypted messaging app. Joseph agreed to meet with them for “a consensual sexual encounter involving restraints used on her, her clothing being cut off with a knife and other violent role play.”

‘Christine’ agreed to meet up with Joseph on Friday February 24, 2023. The plan was for them to stage a home invasion, using Joseph as the perpetrator as a cover for Christine’s murder.

Brendan went to a nearby McDonald’s and waited for Juliana to call to say that Joseph had arrived at their house.

Juliana’s original story was that she had left the house with Valerie at around 7am that day, and that they were headed for the zoo. She said she turned around after she realized they had forgotten their lunch. She told investigators that when she arrived at the home, there was an unfamiliar car parked there. She said she called Christine, who did not pick up. She then called Brendan. Once he arrived, they entered the house through the basement with Valerie. They thankfully left the child in the basement, and went up to the second floor.

Brendan allegedly called out ‘police officer’ before shooting Joseph in the head and stabbing Christine. Juliana shot Joseph after she saw him moving on the floor. This is all information that we know now. Juliana called 911 at the time and reported that a friend was hurt. Brendan took the phone from her and said that he had fired his service weapon at a man who was stabbing Christine. He said “that an unknown male had entered his home and he had shot them,” authorities said. Juliana told detectives that Brendan had told her to get a second gun from a bathroom and had given her the code to the gun safe.

Juliana said she got the gun and her lawyers would argue that she acted in self-defense to save the family. They also said she was acting on Brendan’s orders.

When authorities arrived, Joseph was pronounced dead at the scene. Christine had been stabbed in the upper body and would soon die from her injuries.

Investigators found no evidence of forced entry. Police described the scene at the home as “horrific” and “appalling.” They recovered a knife and the two guns at the scene.

Police started investigating the murders. By October 2023, eight months after Christine and Joseph were killed, they returned to the home to arrest Juliana.

They found that she had moved her belongings into the master bedroom. This is the room where Christine was stabbed to death.

Her clothes were hanging in the closet and her lingerie was strewn around the bed. There was a framed photo of her and Brendan on the bedside table.

Detectives also found out that Brendan had carried on multiple affairs during his marriage to Christine.

“Multiple, credible women confirmed this fact including one, in particular, who told them that during the course of her affair with this defendant a few years ago he would constantly promise to leave his wife,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan said. “Eventually he told her, ‘It would be so much easier for us if she was not around.’ ”

Eric said forensic analysis indicated the scene had been staged. He said that Joseph’s arms had been moved and smeared with Christine’s blood according to The Associated Press.

It was also found that Juliana called 911 at least two times on the morning of the murders. She ended those calls without speaking to the operator.

In October 2023, Juliana was charged with second-degree murder in regards to Joseph’s death. While Juliana was in the Fairfax County Jail, authorities monitored phone conversations between her and Brendan. In one call, she said to him “I hope you are not just staying with me because you are afraid I’m going to turn against you.”

In September 2024, Brendan was indicted by a grand jury on charges of aggravated murder in the killings of Christine and Joseph.

At the time, John F. Carroll, Brendan’s attorney, argued in court that prosecution’s narrative of what happened was not evidence of the husband killing his wife. “It just doesn’t add up, judge,” Carroll said.

That same month, Juliana took a plea deal. She cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Juliana was due to be sentenced on March 21 – she faces up to ten years in prison. Some reports say that her deal may have included cooperation in exchange for potentially being released from custody on time already served.

We have just learned in the last day that Juliana will now not be sentenced until December 19. We believe this is because

Brendan’s trial was originally scheduled for February 2025. It has now been pushed out to October 2025. He faces four counts of aggravated murder and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony in regards to Christine and Joseph’s deaths. He has also been charged with felony child abuse and neglect and felony child cruelty. His trial is expected to run for around a month.

Juliana’s sentencing may depend on the outcome of Brendan’s trial, hence the date being pushed out.