BOMBSHELL: Murder Plot Emerges

Police tape at a night scene with blurred officers in the background — Photo: Gorodenkoff / Shutterstock

A woman vanished without a trace, and nearly a year later, her phone washed up on a beach before prosecutors charged her boyfriend with murder.

Story Snapshot

Christina Downer, sister of Saturday Night Live (SNL) writer Jimmy Fowlie, disappeared and was never found alive.
Her boyfriend, Delorean Bijon Brandon, 41, faces a murder charge filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Brandon’s girlfriend, Kaylee Nicole Markowski, 34, faces two felony counts of accessory after the fact for allegedly helping dispose of Downer’s body.
Both were arrested October 30, 2026, and remain jailed on $2 million bail each.

A Disappearance That Took Nearly A Year To Explain

Christina Downer went missing last December, setting off a search that her brother, SNL writer Jimmy Fowlie, spoke about publicly as months passed with no answers. The criminal complaint against Brandon alleges the killing happened on or about September 19, 2025, placing the crime months before her disappearance became widely known. Her body has never been recovered.

Investigators say Downer’s phone eventually washed ashore, months after she vanished, giving detectives a renewed lead in a case that had gone cold. The Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division worked the case for nearly a year before making an arrest, relying on what the department described as a mix of investigative techniques to identify suspects.

Charges Filed Against Boyfriend And His Girlfriend

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced November 2, 2026, that Brandon was charged in case 26CJCF07003 with one count of murder. He also faces two felony counts of injuring a spouse, tied to a separate victim identified as his wife, showing a pattern of alleged violence beyond the Downer case. Markowski, described by prosecutors as Brandon’s current girlfriend, was charged with two felony counts of accessory after the fact.

Prosecutors allege Brandon killed Downer and that Markowski helped dispose of her body afterward, a sequence the district attorney’s office laid out plainly in its charging announcement. The Los Angeles Police Department said detectives determined both defendants were responsible for the murder, the disposal of Downer’s remains, and efforts to conceal their involvement. Both were booked and remain behind bars in lieu of $2 million bail.

A Love Triangle With A History Of Fear

Court filings paint a picture of overlapping relationships well before Downer disappeared. Reporting describes claims of blackmail and documented fear involving the people at the center of the case, suggesting tension had been building for some time. Separate filings reportedly described threats, adding weight to the idea that this was not a sudden, isolated act but part of a strained and volatile situation.

Brandon had told investigators early on that Downer simply moved out months before, leaving behind her car, her dog, and her belongings, according to reporting on his initial statements. That explanation did not hold up as the investigation continued, and detectives ultimately moved toward murder and accessory charges instead of accepting a voluntary disappearance.

Why Cases Without A Body Still Move Forward

Downer’s case belongs to a category prosecutors call no-body homicide cases, where a death must be proven without recovered remains. Courts have long allowed convictions built on circumstantial evidence, including interrupted routines, digital traces, and alleged conduct after the fact, when no corpse exists. A 1959 California case stands as an early example of a conviction secured entirely without a body, autopsy, or murder weapon.

National databases underscore how common unresolved disappearances are, even if they rarely draw this much attention. The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System listed 26,626 unresolved missing-person cases nationwide as of its June 2026 report, though officials caution the figure only reflects cases entered into that specific system. Downer’s case shows how one disappearance, among tens of thousands, can still end in formal charges.

Two Los Angeles residents arrested in connection with the disappearance and presumed death of Christina Downer, the sister of "Saturday Night Live" writer Jimmy Fowlie, have been formally charged.

Details: https://t.co/3SHKMlZmpc pic.twitter.com/rySm2Fi8pw

— WGN TV News (@WGNNews) November 4, 2026

An arrest and a criminal charge are allegations, not proof of guilt, and both defendants are entitled to their day in court. Still, the facts laid out by the district attorney’s office and the Los Angeles Police Department give the public a clear, documented account of how this case has unfolded so far. Families like Fowlie’s are left waiting for a courtroom to decide what happened to Christina Downer.