The trial of a former IRS officer accused of killing his wife and another man got under way Tuesday with opening statements and testimony from the prosecution’s star witness — the Brazilian au pair Brendan Banfield was having an affair with at the time of the murders.
Prosecutors contend that Banfield stabbed his wife to death then shot Joseph Ryan, a man he and au pair Juliana Peres Magalhães catfished into the home to serve as a scapegoat for Chrstine Banfield’s murder, WDCW reports.
Magalhaes pleaded guilty in 2024 to manslaughter and agreed to testify against her former lover, as CrimeOnline reported. In their original version of the story, Peres Magalhães told investigators she left the Herndon, Virginia, home of Brendan and Christine Banfield, where she was a live-in au pair, at about 7:30 a.m. on February 24, 2023, to take the couple’s 4-year-old daughter to the National Zoo. She turned around and went back, she said, because she’d forgotten their lunches and saw a strange car in the driveway.
She said she tried to call Christine Banfield, but she didn’t answer, so she called Brendan Banfield, who was already on his way to work. He rushed to the house, and the two entered a second floor suite, where, they said, they found a stranger had attacked Christine, stabbing her multiple times. Brendon shot the stranger with his service weapon, but he was still alive, so he told Peres Magalhães to go get another gun from a gun safe in the bathroom so they could shoot him again. She did, and she shot the man, later identified as Ryan, in the chest.
But the story prosecutors laid out in their opening remarks on Tuesday was quite different, WDCW said. Attorneys said that Banfield, using his wife’s email address, created a profile on the fetish website FetLife and sought someone for a “stranger rape” fantasy, evening settling on Ryan and spending more than a month conversing with him online to set up the fantasy.
Banfield, they said, told Ryan to come into the house through an unlocked door, tie up Christine Banfield and rape her, not stopping “even if she looks terrified,” prosecutors said.
They said Banfield used his wife’s phone to unlock the door and then hid it in a drawer on the day of the murders. Instead of heading to work, he went to a nearby McDonald’s while Peres Magalhães waited down the street with the daughter. When the two saw Ryan arrive, they went back to the home and found him with Christine Banfield in the bedroom.
Banfield shot Ryan and then stabbed his wife over and over, manipulating her body to make it look like Ryan was killed while attacking her.
For their part, defense attorneys say the original story is the true one and that Peres Magalhães’s testimony is suspect because she agreed to a plea deal.
General testimony on Tuesday included the assistant chief medical examiner and police officers who responded to the 911 call at the the home. And then came Peres Magalhães, who testified that Banfield planned the murder for months and he began the process during a trip they took to New York in October 2022.
Banfield told her, she said, that divorce wasn’t an option because Christine Banfield “wasn’t good” for the couple’s daughter and that she would get more money than him in any divorce. He initially thought of using a hitman but dropped that idea because he thought it would be uncovered too easily.
Then he found FetLife and set up the fake profile for his wife.
On the morning of the murder, she testified that the two of them watched from down the street until their chosen patsy entered. Banfield identified himself as a police officer, and his wife shouted that her “attacker” had a knife and to call 911. Peres Magalhães started to do that, she said, until Banfield told her to stop. Then he shot Ryan and stabbed his wife to death.
When both Ryan and Christine Banfield were dead, the pair called 911.
Peres Magalhães’s testimony will continue on Wednesday.
Brendan Banfield is charged with aggravated murder and child abuse and endangerment charges. He faces a maximum of life without parole if convicted.
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[Featured image: Julana Peres Magalhães and Brendon Banfield/Fairfax County Police Department]