Nearly a year after Christina Downer disappeared, her actor boyfriend was among two people arrested on suspicion of killing her, Los Angeles police said Friday.
Downer’s brother is “Saturday Night Live” writer Jimmy Fowlie. Los Angeles Police Department officers arrested 41-year-old Delorean Bijon Brandon and 34-year-old Kaylee Nicole Markowski on Thursday following a lengthy investigation that began after Downer was reported missing just before Christmas last year.
Brandon and Markowski are both in the Metropolitan Detention Center, with bail set at $2 million. It is unclear whether they were represented by lawyers.
At first, the disappearance appeared to be a missing person case. Downer’s ex-husband applied for social assistance on December 18, 2025, when he did not hear from her. Downer’s boyfriend, Brandon, claimed she moved out several months ago, leaving behind everything she owned, including her car and dog, according to the LAPD.
A few days later, on December 22, Fowlie posted a missing person’s report on her Instagram account, writing that Downer was missing and the family was concerned for her safety. In a separate post, she shared a photo of Downer and her dog, Rex, and wrote in the caption that her sister was very attached to the dog and was last seen in Koreatown.
“I heard from him on November 26. He was active on social media until December 15,” Fowlie wrote, adding that he last spoke to him on the phone on October 5. In his post, Fowlie said the family had “reason to believe” that his phone and social media had been taken over in the weeks before he disappeared, and that the person who took Downer’s phone had used it to “hide the fact that he was gone” by asking for money to hide it. He had left town and was off the grid.
But when Downer’s phone washed up on the beach in Santa Monica, the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division took over the investigation.
Earlier this month, investigators searched an Airbnb in Joshua Tree in connection with Downer’s disappearance, according to the LAPD. It’s unclear what or what investigators found in the area.