The jury in the aggravated murders trial of Brendan Banfield, accused of plotting with his family’s au pair to kill his wife and another man, returned a verdict.
WATCH LIVE: Jury reaches decision in ‘au pair affair’ murders trial
A Fairfax County jury on Monday found Brendan Banfield guilty of aggravated murder in the killings of his wife and another man in the family’s Herndon, Virginia, home in February 2023.
The panel of 12 jurors began deliberating midday Friday on whether Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, conspired with his family’s au pair, with whom he was having an affair, to kill his wife and pin it on a stranger.
Banfield now faces life in prison with no chance of parole after his conviction on both counts of aggravated murder.
He was also found guilty of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony and child endangerment, as his 4-year-old child was home during the killings. Judge Penney Azcarate scheduled sentencing for May 8.
‘It’s monstrous’
Prosecutor Jenna Sands told the jury Banfield was in love with his family’s Brazilian au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães. Sands argued the two of them staged an elaborate scheme to lure Joseph Ryan to the home to get rid of Banfield’s wife, Christine, and blame her killing on Ryan.
“It’s really challenging to try to put yourself in someone like Mr. Banfield’s mind, and I don’t know that I want to try that hard, to be completely honest. I think that he was obviously hoping for a life with Juliana, and he didn’t see a way to accomplish that without executing his wife,” Sands said during a news conference after Monday’s verdict.
According to the prosecution and Magalhães, who testified against Banfield after taking a plea deal, Banfield and the au pair created an account on a fetish website impersonating Christine and lured Ryan to the home with promises of rough sex.
During her testimony, which spanned two days, Magalhães detailed her sexual relationship with Banfield, his desire to “get rid of his wife” and the elaborate scheme he came up with to do so.
After creating the profile on the platform FetLife, Magalhães testified she and Banfield would both post to the site from Christine’s laptop, and they were careful to post only when Christine was home.
“He knew that we needed to have some alibis,” she said on the stand.
On the morning of the killings, Magalhães left the home with the Banfields’ child and waited in her car for Ryan to arrive. Brendan Banfield had left earlier and was waiting at a nearby McDonald’s for her to call.
“They got Joe Ryan into the house, and then they shot him,” Sands said during closing arguments. “Brendan stabbed Christine, let her bleed out on the floor, and then dripped, smeared and wiped her blood on Joseph Ryan’s body to make it look like he had attacked Christine. Then they called the police.”
During trial, Magalhães testified that Banfield shot Ryan in the head, and the au pair shot Ryan in the chest.
“It’s monstrous. I mean, that’s really what it is. It’s monstrous,” Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said. “I’ve been doing this job for a while, and I can tell you that this defendant stood out to me highest above all the other murder cases that we’ve done in my six years here.”
The fate of the au pair
Magalhães was initially charged with murder in October 2023, eight months after the killings and nearly a year before Banfield himself was charged.
“We did not authorize charges against Brendan Banfield until after we got the blood analysis done, that is what we were waiting for. And it wasn’t until two months after we got the blood and we indicted Brendan for these crimes, that Juliana decided to proffer and cooperate with us,” Descano said, adding the prosecution was prepared to go to trial without Magalhães’ testimony.
As part of her plea deal, Magalhães’ charges were downgraded to manslaughter. While she could be sentenced to as little as the time she has already served, she faces up to 10 years in prison.
“This is the work of being a prosecutor. She still is taking accountability for homicides,” Descano said. “Juliana, by testifying, answered a lot of questions, not only for us, but for the jury. Let’s not forget how important her testimony may have been to some of those jurors. So her still facing up to 10 years in prison is very, very significant and well worth the cost to make sure that Brendan Banfield was convicted for a crime where it is a mandatory life sentence.”
Defense attorney John Carroll questioned Magalhães’ motives for cooperating, saying she told prosecutors what they wanted to hear. Carroll argued Brendan Banfield’s DNA was not discovered on the knife that was used to kill Christine Banfield, and that prosecutors failed to produce evidence that corroborated their “catfishing” theory.
The defense also referenced conversations Magalhães had before the trial with a media company about selling her story for a documentary, further attempting to cast doubt on her testimony.
Banfield’s attempt to defend himself comes up short
The other key witness in the case was Banfield himself, who took the stand in his own defense.
Sands, who used to practice as a defense attorney, said she was surprised by that decision.
“I think I would have counseled against him taking the stand. But, you know, Mr. Carroll didn’t have a lot to work with,” she said.
Banfield told jurors he rushed home after receiving a call from his au pair, heard sounds coming from his bedroom, identified himself as police when he saw Ryan holding a knife to Christine, then shot Ryan when he saw him stab her.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever been more panicked in my life,” Banfield testified. “I was hoping to de-escalate the situation. I did not want to shoot him. I wanted him to let her go.”
During cross examination, Sands pressed Banfield for details about his story and his feelings toward his au pair and his wife.
“I think that everyone has commented on what was so obvious — that he was not truthful, that he was cold, that he behaved oddly in response to questions that should have elicited emotion, that he never spoke of himself as Christine’s husband, that he didn’t speak lovingly of his wife, that he showed absolutely no human emotion that we expected to see of someone in his position.”
After Monday’s verdict was delivered, Banfield, dressed in a gray suit and navy blue tie, again expressed little emotion.
“My hope with this is that he realizes he didn’t get away with it,” Descano said. “You can see a lot of things that he set up trying to get away with it, thinking that he was going to beat the system, trying to outsmart everybody. I hope he thinks that, and most of all, though, I hope he thinks about his wife and Joe, and about what a heinous thing he did, because that’s something that he is rightfully going to have to live with for the rest of his life.”
WTOP’s Nick Iannelli speaks with Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano after a jury delivered a guilty verdict in the trial of Brendan Banfield.
The Associated Press and WTOP’s Jessica Kronzer and Neal Augenstein contributed to this report.
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