Crime News / Published 2026-10-31

LAPD Arrests Two Over the Killing of an SNL Writer's Sister

The Los Angeles Police Department said two people had been arrested for the murder of Christina Downer, the sister of a Saturday Night Live writer; the reports give ages and bail but no charge.

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Conceptual editorial illustration; not a photograph of the people or event described.

THE SHORT VERSION

  • The Los Angeles Police Department announced Friday that two people had been arrested for the murder of Christina Downer, the sister of Saturday Night Live writer Jimmy Fowlie.
  • Deadline names them as Delorean Bijon Brandon, 41, described as Downer's boyfriend, and Kaylee Nicole Markowski, 34; both are held on $2 million bail.
  • The LAPD says Downer was reported missing in December 2025 after her ex-husband asked for a welfare check, and that her phone washed ashore in Santa Monica; neither report describes a charge, a motive or a cause of death.

What the LAPD announced

The Los Angeles Police Department said on Friday that two people had been arrested for the murder of Christina Downer, the sister of the Saturday Night Live writer Jimmy Fowlie. The Hollywood Reporter reported the announcement that evening, and Deadline published its account of the same arrests. Neither story says a charge has been filed, and neither carries a comment from either person arrested or from a lawyer representing them. Both are short newsroom reports rather than court records.

The two are Delorean Bijon Brandon, described by both outlets as Downer's boyfriend, and Kaylee Nicole Markowski. The Hollywood Reporter gives no ages. Deadline reports that Brandon is 41 and Markowski is 34, and that officers took both into custody on Thursday, the day before the department announced the arrests. Both pages name the same pair and the same relationship.

The case began as a missing-person report

Downer's family reported her missing on 18 December 2025. The department's account, which The Hollywood Reporter quotes at length, says she “was reported missing after her ex-husband requested a welfare check when he had not heard from her for an extended period of time”. Deadline gives the same date and attributes the report to the family rather than to the police. The Hollywood Reporter puts the detail inside the department's quotation marks; Deadline reports it in its own voice.

Brandon told investigators that she had moved out several months earlier and left all her belongings behind, including her vehicle and dog. Both outlets carry that detail in almost the same words, and both trace the case's turn to her cellphone, which washed ashore on Santa Monica Beach. Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter describe the order of events the same way: the ex-husband asked for the check, and the family then reported her missing. The department has not said what led detectives from the phone to the two names.

What detectives say the two did

In its statement, the department said its robbery-homicide division took the case once the phone was found, and that detectives used “various investigative techniques” to identify the pair. The statement holds the two “responsible for Downer's murder, the disposal of her body, and the concealment of their involvement”. The Hollywood Reporter prints the passage as the department released it.

The statement gives no motive, no cause of death and no account of where Downer's body was found; neither outlet reports that her remains have been recovered. Deadline summarizes the allegation in its own words, writing that the two were taken into custody “for allegedly murdering and disposing of her body, before concealing their involvement”. That is the outlet's description of the suspicion, not a charge.

Booking details and a bail figure

Deadline reports that both are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center and that each is held on $2 million bail, booked on suspicion of murder. The Hollywood Reporter does not report a bail figure or a holding facility. Neither page names a defense lawyer, and neither says when either person will appear in court. Deadline's page links its own earlier stories on the disappearance and on the April announcement, so its coverage of the case reads in sequence.

The Hollywood Reporter adds one line about what happens next: the division will present the case to the district attorney's office in Los Angeles County for filing consideration, and the investigation is still ongoing. That is the furthest either page goes. Prosecutors have not announced a decision, and neither outlet reports an arraignment date. It is the only procedural detail either page gives, and it sets the next step without attaching a date to it.

What Fowlie said while she was missing

Fowlie posted about the search on 22 December 2025, four days after the family reported her missing, and asked for help finding his sister with several photographs of her. Deadline reports that he searched her Koreatown neighborhood that month and told friends and followers they were “worried that she isn't safe”. Both pages date the appeal to late December. The Hollywood Reporter gives the day, 22 December; Deadline describes the same search without one.

In April he wrote that the case had changed. He said that “the LAPD has informed our family that Christina is no longer alive, and the case has officially transitioned from a missing person to a homicide investigation”. He also said he believed her phone and social media had been compromised, and that whoever held the phone used it “to ask for money, and to create a false narrative”. “I am sharing this because I believe that whoever is responsible is hoping to erase her in every way possible”, he wrote. He did not say in that post who he believed had taken the phone.

What is confirmed, and what is not

The confirmed record after Friday is short. Two people are in custody, their names are public, Deadline has their ages and a bail figure, and the department says the investigation continues. Neither page reports a charging decision, an arraignment, a motive or a cause of death, and neither says whether Downer's remains have been found. The two pages were published within twenty minutes of each other on 30 October, Deadline at 5:29 p.m. and The Hollywood Reporter at 5:48 p.m.

Both stories rest on the LAPD's announcement, run to a few paragraphs and add no interview of their own beyond Fowlie's earlier posts. The case now goes to prosecutors for a filing decision. Both pages also leave out how old Downer was and what she did for a living, details a police release would normally carry. Related coverage on this site includes the end of Criminal Minds: Evolution, Hello Sunshine's staff cuts and Bobby Wright's obituary.

Sources & reporting limits

  1. LAPD Arrests Two for Murder of Christina Downer, Sister to 'SNL' Writer Jimmy Fowlie — The Hollywood Reporter
  2. LAPD Arrests 2 In Connection With Killing Of 'SNL' Writer Jimmy Fowlie's Sister — Deadline
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