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A Fairfax County judge refused to dismiss the case against Brendan Banfield on Wednesday as his attorneys opened their defense by accusing prosecutors of knowingly presenting false testimony.

Banfield is charged with aggravated murder in the 2023 deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, and Joseph Ryan. Prosecutors allege Banfield and the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, devised an elaborate plan to kill Christine and frame Ryan.

Defense attorney John Carroll sought dismissal after prosecutors rested their case, arguing that the request became necessary once the state finished presenting its evidence.

Carroll focused on a report by detective Brendan Miller concerning an email account and an account on a website used to arrange sexual encounters. Miller initially wrote that Christine Banfield had created the accounts based on activity tied to her phone.

Peres Magalhães later admitted to police that she was behind the accounts. That admission came after Miller completed his report.

Testifying at the defense’s request, Miller said the available records led him to determine that Christine’s phone had been used to create an account. At the time, he said, investigators had no indication that she had surrendered control of her devices.

Miller acknowledged that his findings changed after Peres Magalhães confessed. He also told prosecutor Jenna Sands that phone activity alone could not conclusively establish who was operating the device.

Under questioning, Miller confirmed that his report described Christine as taking certain actions. But he said investigators generally cannot determine who is behind a screen without corroborating evidence.

Judge Penney Azcarate rejected the defense’s claim that prosecutors knowingly allowed false statements to be introduced in court.

The defense then replayed police body-camera footage from the immediate aftermath of the killings, including the moment Banfield learned that his wife had died.

Attorneys also called blood-spatter analyst LeeAnn Singley to challenge the prosecution’s theory that Banfield dripped Christine’s blood onto Ryan’s body to connect Ryan to her death.

A prosecution expert had testified the previous day that drops on Ryan’s arm appeared to have fallen from above. Singley said the available evidence was insufficient to classify the blood pattern that definitively, in part because Ryan’s arm was not an ideal surface for reaching such a conclusion.

During cross-examination, Singley agreed that none of the possible explanations had been ruled out. She also conceded that the blood could have been dripped onto Ryan’s arm, although she did not agree that the evidence established that scenario.

The trial is scheduled to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. Proceedings could also continue Friday, typically a day off for the jury, because of concerns about an approaching weekend snowstorm. Azcarate said she would decide whether inclement weather required the courthouse to close.