The Virginia man accused of killing his wife and a stranger admitted Wednesday he had a "relationship" with the Brazilian au pair accused of being his accomplice in the double murder.
Brendan Banfield, under questioning by his lawyer, said his affair with Juliana Peres Magalhaes began in August 2022, a little less than a year after he and his wife, Christine Banfield, hired her to watch their daughter, who is now 7.
"I did not stop her advances," Banfield, 40, testified, referring to Peres Magalhaes, who is 25.
But Banfield, who is also accused of trying to pin his wife's murder on the second victim, Joseph Ryan, insisted he did not conspire with Peres Magalhaes to commit a double murder.
“I think that it’s an absurd line of questioning for something that is not serious that a plan was made to get rid of my wife,” he said. “That is absolutely crazy.”
Banfield is expected to resume his testimony Thursday morning.
Banfield, a former agent with the IRS, has pleaded not guilty and could face life in prison if he is convicted.
Throughout the trial, Banfield has appeared focused, and he could be seen taking notes. He took the stand in Fairfax County, Virginia, after prosecutors called their final witnesses. His testimony had been delayed for two days by the blizzard that buried a large swath of the country over the weekend.
Banfield said he met his wife when they were 18-year-old freshmen at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.
"For the most part, we were pretty inseparable," he testified. "We were always planning for the future."
Asked whether he loved his wife, Banfield answered, "Very much."
Banfield also admitted that he and his wife had engaged in affairs and had gone into couples counseling to save their marriage.
He said his affair with Peres Magalhaes began on a night when his wife and daughter were visiting relatives in New York — and he was home with the au pair.
Peres Magalhaes, he said, was texting him with complaints about her dating life. He said that when she joined him in the kitchen, she showed him "quite a few screenshots" from her dating app and discovered that most of the men she matched up with had either his first name or names similar to his, like Brandon or Brennan.
Last week, Magalhaes testified that Banfield was trying to avoid a divorce as their affair developed. She said they used Christine Banfield’s laptop to set up a fake account on the BDSM website FetLife.com.
They used the account, Peres Magalhaes said, to persuade Ryan to come to the Banfield home for what he believed to be a fake-rape fantasy with Christine Banfield.
The plan, according to Peres Magalhaes, was to tell police they shot Ryan after he stabbed Christine Banfield.
Peres Magalhaes was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder eight months after the February 2023 killing. In 2024, she pleaded guilty to the downgraded manslaughter charge.
Brendan Banfield's attorneys have contested her testimony, questioning her motivation for taking a plea deal and highlighting the letters she wrote after she was arrested in October 2023.
Her letters painted a picture of someone who was frustrated with Brendan Banfield for not visiting her enough and who feared spending the rest of her life in prison.
The defense also tried to raise questions about Peres Magalhaes' mental health, having her read a letter in which she mentioned depression and suicidal ideation.
They accused prosecutors of leveraging her vulnerable position as an immigrant — far from her family — to flip her against Banfield.
And they took aim at the "catfish theory" put forward by prosecutors by grilling the forensic experts who contend Banfield and Peres Magalhaes hooked Ryan by posing as the slain woman on a sexual fetish site.
Banfield was indicted in the killing of his wife and Ryan nearly a year after Peres Magalhaes was charged in connection with the double homicide.
He was charged with four counts of aggravated murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the killings on Feb. 24, 2023, according to an official.
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Magalhaes dialed 911 and said a friend had been hurt, a police official previously told reporters.
Brendan Banfield then took the phone and told a dispatcher that an “unknown male” had entered his home, the official said.
"There's somebody here. I shot them," Banfield told a dispatcher in a 911 call that was played at the trial. "He stabbed her. There's several marks on her neck. What do I do?"
Christine Banfield was found fatally stabbed in an upstairs bedroom, the police department said in a news release at the time. Ryan, who had been fatally shot, was discovered nearby, the department said.
CORRECTION (Jan. 28, 2025, 7:15 p.m. ET): The subheadline on a previous version of this article misstated the accusations against Banfield. He is accused of killing his wife and a stranger, not of killing his wife and the woman with whom he was having an affair.
