Court documents have shed light on the disappearance and alleged murder of a woman in L.A. that gained attention through the pleas of her brother, a writer for “Saturday Night Live.”
Writer Jimmy Fowlie spoke out after his sister Christina Downer went missing last December, and on Monday her boyfriend was charged with her murder. A woman described by prosecutors as his girlfriend was charged with accessory after the fact for allegedly helping him dispose of the body.
A series of restraining-order requests reviewed by The Times reveal accusations of threats of violence and blackmail, and hint at acrimony and breakups.
Downer is believed to have been slain on or around Sept. 19, 2025. Although her body has not been recovered, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office has charged her longtime boyfriend, actor and aspiring R&B artist Delorean Bijon Brandon, 41, and Brandon’s former on-again, off-again girlfriend Kaylee Markowski, 34, in connection with Downer’s killing.
“More than a year has passed since Christina Downer vanished and her family and friends have dealt with uncertainty amid the profound loss of someone they loved so much,” Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan J. Hochman said in a news release. “Although Ms. Downer has not been located, we are charging two individuals today who are accused of playing a role in her death and disappearance and we will hold them accountable for their actions.”
Weeks before Downer’s alleged murder, records indicate Brandon petitioned an L.A. court for a restraining order against Markowski. In the petition, filed Sept. 2, 2025, Brandon alleged that Markowski became violent when he broke up with her and tried to move out of her home to be with Downer, at one point threatening to shoot him. He included alleged instances of harassment that dated back to early 2022 when he said Markowski keyed his car “because she was upset that I was with Christina.”
In the petition, Brandon also requested protection for Downer, alleging that Markowski had “tried to take jobs away from Christina” and sent emails and social media messages threatening her. On the same day the request for a temporary restraining order was filed, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied it pending a court hearing scheduled for Sept. 23.
But on Sept.18, one day before prosecutors allege Downer was murdered, Brandon filed a waiver and voluntarily canceled the hearing, which closed the case.
One year earlier, Downer had petitioned the court for a restraining order against Markowski.
On Sept. 5, 2024, Downer filed a request with a Los Angeles court alleging that Markowski had been harassing her since Christmas Day 2023, writing, “She calls us n—, threatens to beat me up, stole my spare key and copied it, threatens to break into my home, stole his zip drive and has been black mailing me with the videos on the zip drive, actually sent a topless video of me in my home to people I don’t know while attacking my reputation, put airtags on boyfriends car, calls from blocked numbers, threatens to keep releasing personal videos from this stolen zip drive of me.”
She added, “Mentally, this has done irreparable damage.”
Downer requested in the petition that her orange tabby cat, Pumpkin, be returned. She wrote that she found the cat and claimed that she and Brandon decided during their “first split” that the cat would stay with him because Downer was traveling. During their separation, Brandon moved back in with Markowski, she wrote, and moved out again a month before Downer filed the request. “She won’t give the cat back,” she wrote. “I fear for his safety.”
Both Brandon and Markowski were arrested last week and booked at the Metropolitan Detention Center with bail set at $2 million each. It is not clear if they are being represented by attorneys. If convicted as charged, Brandon faces life in state prison. Markowski faces up to three years in county jail.
Last year, just before Christmas, Downer’s ex-husband requested a welfare check when he hadn’t heard from her. Brandon told police that she had moved out several months earlier, leaving behind everything she owned including her car and dog. By Dec. 22, her family was convinced something was terribly wrong, and her brother Fowlie shared a missing person flier on his Instagram, writing that she had last been seen in Koreatown.
In the months after she was reported missing, Downer’s phone washed ashore on the beach in Santa Monica, and the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division took over the investigation. Early this month, investigators searched an Airbnb in Joshua Tree in connection with Downer’s disappearance, according to the LAPD. It is not clear what, if anything, investigators found at the location.
In an April post, Fowlie wrote, “We have reason to believe that in the weeks before she went missing, her phone and social media were compromised. The individual(s) in possession of her phone used it to hide the fact she was gone, to ask for money, and to create a false narrative that she was going ‘off the grid.’ I am sharing this because I believe that whoever is responsible is hoping to erase her in every way possible.”
Brandon also is charged with assaulting his wife, who is not named in the district attorney’s news release, on two separate occasions in 2022.
Brandon also requested a restraining order against another woman in 2022, claiming she had threatened to shoot him and his then-fiancé.
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
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