An affair with a live-in nanny that led to two brutal deaths. That’s what prosecutors believe happened in one Fairfax home in 2023. And years later, the full salacious story will be laid out in trial.
The trial of Brendan Banfield starts Monday morning and is expected to last four weeks. It will be streaming live on WUSA9+. Learn how to watch here.
On Feb. 24, 2023, police were called to the Banfield family home on Stable Brook Way for a stabbing and a shooting around 8 a.m. Brendan Banfield, an IRS special agent, had told police he shot a man who had stabbed his wife, Christine Banfield.
When they arrived, police found Christine Banfield, nude and stabbed multiple times, in an upstairs bedroom, investigators said. Nearby, they found a man named Joseph Ryan shot multiple times. Brendan Banfield, along with the family’s au pair, then-22-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and the Banfields’ then-4-year-old daughter, were also inside the home.
It wasn’t until October of that year that police arrested Peres Magalhaes for shooting and killing Ryan. Then in September of 2024, Brendan Banfield was arrested for murdering both his wife and Ryan. Police believe the two conspired together to kill both.
Peres Magalhaes, who is from Brazil, accepted a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter a month after Brendan Banfield was arrested. And Monday, nearly three years after the crime, his trial begins. He’s facing four counts of aggravated murder, one count of using a firearm to commit a felony, two counts of child abuse with disregard for life and one count of child cruelty. Peres Magalhaes has agreed to testify against him.
Here’s a recap of where things stand.
What We Know
Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes were having an affair for months before the deaths, prosecutors allege. And in court, Peres Magalhaes’ attorney referred to her as Brendan Banfield’s “girlfriend, live-in lover.” Records in court showed newly framed photos of the two on a nightstand in the bedroom of the Banfield home, shortly after the killings.
According to prosecutors, Brendan Banfield told Peres Magalhaes he wanted to get rid of his wife, and the two allegedly started plotting her murder.
The two are accused of luring Joseph Ryan to the home through a post on an adult sexual fetish website called Fetlife. The attorneys alleged that the conversations confirmed they would be doing a violent sexual role play and Ryan brought a knife with him.
At an April 2024 hearing for Peres Magalhaes, prosecutors showed records that two months before the shooting, Peres Magalhaes and Brendan Banfield visited the Silver Eagle Group Shooting Range. A few weeks later, Brendan Banfield also purchased a gun, which was eventually used to shoot Ryan, Senior Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan said.
Peres Magalhaes allegedly tried to back out, but Brendan Banfield said it was too late, she told prosecutors.
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, two 911 calls were made from Peres Magalhaes’ phone. The first came in at 7:47 a.m. and quickly hung up. Groans could be heard as the 911 operator says, “Fairfax County 911, what’s your emergency?” in the the eight-second audio obtained by WUSA9.
Fifteen minutes later, the second call was made. In that call, Brendan Banfield told dispatchers he shot a man who had stabbed his wife.
Fairfax County Police found that Ryan had been shot twice, by different guns. Peres Magalhaes admitted to shooting Ryan, and said Brendan Banfield told her to do so.
The child abuse and cruelty charges were brought after the initial murder charges. Prosecutors allege that Brendan Banfield acted criminally toward their daughter, who was home during her mother’s death.
Investigators conducted a 30-minute forensic interview with the Banfields’ daughter after the incident, but a judge blocked the statements from being used as evidence in the trial.
Opening Statements and Testimony
Prosecution’s Opening Statements
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Jenna Sands laid out a timeline in her opening statements. In August 2022, Banfield began an affair with his live-in nanny, a 22-year-old from Brazil, Juliana Peres Magalhaes. By the fall, they were in love, Sands said, and that’s when Brendan Banfield told Peres Magalhaes that he wanted to get rid of his wife.
Divorce was not an option, Sands said, because he didn’t want to share custody of the pair’s 4-year-old daughter.
“He thought Christine was a terrible mother,” Sands said. “He wanted her out of the picture.”
Sands alleged that Brendan Banfield considered hiring a hitman but thought it was too risky before coming up with the plan that eventually took her life.
He used her email address to set up an account on Fetlife, a sexual fetish website, Sands alleged, and made a post asking for someone to fulfill a “stranger rape fantasy.” That’s when he allegedly, as Christine, started chatting online to TacoSupreme7000. Behind the account was a stranger named Joseph Ryan.
After a full month of talking to Ryan online, he allegedly agreed to come to the home and play out this fantasy, that he would come to the house while she was asleep, cut off her clothes, tie her up and rape her. It was Brendan Banfield’s birthday.
Ryan apparently agreed not to meet her ahead of time, to bring a knife, and to leave his phone in the car.
“Most importantly, he was not to stop,” Sands said. “Even if she looked terrified, even if she was calling for help, he was to follow through.”
That morning, Peres Magalhaes left with the child, carrying a gun bought for her by Banfield, Sands said. Banfield took and turned off Christine’s phone, and turned off the lock on the front door. He reportedly left and waited at a nearby McDonald’s, she said. And when Ryan arrived at the home, he allegedly returned and shot him in the head. At some point, Peres Magalhaes called 911, but it was too early, so she hung up after just eight seconds. Using the knife Ryan brought, he allegedly stabbed Christine several times in the neck. He apparently told Peres Magalhaes to shoot Ryan again, this time in the chest. Then, 15 minutes later, she called again, this time to report the incident.
“While Juliana presents us with the narrative, the story we wouldn’t necessarily know but for her details, it is the blood evidence that you can rely upon without a doubt,” Sands said.
“The blood cannot lie,” Sands continued. “And the blood puts Brendan Banfield standing over Christine, stabbing her in the neck until she died.”
Defense Opening Statements
The defense used its opening statement to discredit both the prosecution’s key witness and the investigation.
Defense attorney John Carroll admitted Banfield and Peres Magalhaes had an affair Tuesday morning, but took issue with the government’s theory of the case. He painted a picture of prosecutors pressuring her over the course of her year in prison before Banfield’s arrest.
“The whole reason she was arrested was to flip her against [Banfield],” Carroll said.
According to Carroll, she didn’t want to testify against him, turning down deals several times over the first 11 months she was in prison. But after Brendan Banfield was arrested, she apparently heard that her lawyer wanted to continue the case, and that was the last straw. She took the deal that will present her in front of the court during this trial.
Carroll argued that there was discord amongst investigators over the theory that Brendan Banfield catfished Ryan, pretending to be his wife, Christine, on Fetlife. According to Carroll, Brendan would have needed access to Christine’s devices to catfish as her, which she apparently never gave up.
He also indicated that anyone who disagreed with the theory was removed from the investigation.
“If the line homicide detectives didn’t agree with this theory, they were transferred,” Carroll said. “When this case started, there were 12 people on the homicide squad. As this case goes to trial now, there’s only four of those 12 there.”
911 calls and body-camera footage
Both the eight-second initial call and the longer call were played in court on Tuesday.
The first call came in at 7:47 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2023. In the eight seconds recorded, groans can be heard.
The second call came in at 8:02 a.m. Peres Magalhaes first speaks, sounding breathless and possibly tearful. She says that her friend had been stabbed and was bleeding a lot before Brendan Banfield takes over the call.
Banfield, sitting in a black suit on Tuesday morning, had his head down writing something while they played the recordings. When he said “I shot him” in the recording, he looked up.
“I’m a federal agent. This is my house. There’s someone here. I shot him. He stabbed her,” Brendan Banfield said in the recording.
After that, he appeared to wipe tears from his eyes several times.
Body-worn camera footage was also played for the jury Tuesday morning. The video, which is sealed, showed police responding to the home and finding Christine Banfield and Ryan. Several jurors had their heads in their hands watching the video, with one covering his mouth looking nauseous.
Au Pair Testifies
Au pair Juliana Peres Magalhaes testified that she crouched behind the bed and covered her eyes and ears while Brendan Banfield repeatedly stabbed his wife, Christine Banfield.
While on the stand Tuesday afternoon, she detailed the brutal killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan, and the elaborate planning Brendan Banfield allegedly did all on his own to bring the two of them together through a sexual fetish website.
Au Pair Cross Examination
Defense attorney John Carroll tried to paint au pair Juliana Peres Magalhaes as desperate to get out of jail and an unreliable narrator of the alleged conspiracy during cross examination of the key witness Wednesday.
Peres Magalhaes continued to testify against Brendan Banfield on day two of the high profile murder trial. She worked as an au pair for Banfield and his wife, Christine Banfield, and had an affair with him. Brendan Banfield is accused of murdering both Christine Banfield and a stranger named Joseph Ryan he lured to the house through a sexual fetish website called Fetlife.
Carroll repeatedly pushed Peres Magalhaes for details about the plot, such as where she and Brendan were when they first used Christine’s laptop to set up the email address for the Fetlife account. She responded that she could not remember the date or any details, later saying she blocked it out because of the trauma of the event.
“Your brain has blocked out the details of this plan that essentially your whole future rests on with the Commonwealth?” Carroll asked.
It became tense between Peres Magalhaes and Carroll several times throughout the day.
Analysts and Experts Take the Stand
Fingerprints found on the knife that killed Christine Banfield could have belonged to her husband, Brendan Banfield, an analyst testified Thursday.
The former IRS agent is accused of murdering Christine Banfield and a stranger, Joseph Ryan, back on Feb. 24, 2023. Brendan Banfield had an affair with the family’s Brazilian live-in nanny, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, and allegedly conspired with her to lure Ryan to the house on the sexual fetish website Fetlife to frame him for his wife’s death.
On Thursday, fingerprint examiner Douglas Gudakunst said prints lifted from the knife were found to be inconclusive matches to both Brendan Banfield and Ryan. The prints definitively did not match Christine nor Peres Magalhaes.
Inconclusive means the prints could have belonged to either Brendan Banfield or Ryan, Gudakunst said.
Peres Magalhaes testified that Ryan brought the knife with him to the house. In Telegram messages between Ryan and an account Peres Magalhaes said she and Brendan Banfield created to catfish as Christine, Ryan sent a picture of the supplies he was planning to bring to the Banfield house. In the photograph, there are chains, rope, and the knife.
Lead crime scene investigator Terry Leach said on the stand Thursday that the knife was kicked around and moved by police and fire department personnel trying to save Christine Banfield before it was later discovered under a pile of blankets.
The prosecution believes Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes made an account on Fetlife in Christine’s name and posted an ad for someone to come fulfill a “stranger rape fantasy.” After speaking with several people online, they landed on Joseph Ryan, who allegedly agreed to come to the home and play out the violent fantasy on Christine. Then, Brendan Banfield allegedly came in, shot Ryan, and used the knife he brought to the house to stab Christine to death. Peres Magalhaes said she also shot Ryan when she saw him still moving.
Blood Spatter Expert & Christine Banfield’s Father
The Brendan Banfield murder trial returned to court with a slow start to week two of testimony.
Much of the day was spent with Iris Dalley Graff, a blood stain pattern and forensic analyst, who went through the different blood stains found in the crime scene.
Prosecutors tried to illustrate that the crime scene may have been manipulated through their questions to Graff, but with many objections from the defense and technical issues, the testimony seemed to fall flat. Jury members were restless, moving in their chairs and looking around throughout the entire morning.