The former IRS agent accused of conspiring with his Brazilian au pair to kill his wife and a stranger was found guilty of murder Monday.
The man, Brendan Banfield, 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.
The Virginia jury convicted him on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of using a firearm in committing a felony, and child endangerment after several days of deliberation, including nine hours Monday.
Because of the aggravated murder convictions, Banfield will spend the rest of his life behind bars.
The verdict closed a chapter in a lurid tale set in the Virginia suburbs that got national attention because the double homicide was tied to a fetish website — and because it exposed Banfield and his slain 37-year-old wife, Christine, as swingers.
"There were obviously a lot of salacious details in this case that caused it to get a lot of attention," Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano told reporters after the verdict was read Monday. "But a the end of the day, this case is about two neighbors of ours that were murdered."
Banfield, 40, admitted on the stand that he cheated on his wife with au pair Juliana Peres Magalhaes, 25, and with several other women.
But he 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 on the stand. “That is absolutely crazy.”
Jenna Sands, chief deputy commonwealth's attorney for Fairfax County, had questioned Banfield for the record and said after the verdict that he lacked credibility.
"He was not truthful," she said. "He was cold. He showed absolutely no human emotion that we expected to see in someone in his position."
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Magalhaes dialed 911 and said a friend had been hurt.
Banfield took the phone and told a dispatcher that an “unknown male” had entered his home and attacked his wife.
“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?”
Police found Christine Banfield fatally stabbed in an upstairs bedroom. A man named Joe Ryan, who had been fatally shot, was discovered nearby.
Eight months after the killings, Peres Magalhaes was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder. And in 2024, she pleaded guilty to the downgraded manslaughter charge and told police she and Banfield had concocted a plot to kill Christine Banfield.
Magalhaes testified that Banfield was desperately trying to avoid a divorce, so they used Christine Banfield’s laptop to set up a fake account on the BDSM website FetLife.com.
They used the account to lure Ryan to the Banfield home for what he believed to be a fake-rape fantasy with Christine Banfield, she said.
Banfield testified that Ryan's car was in the driveway of their home and that he yelled “police” when he burst into a bedroom and found his naked wife on the floor with Ryan.
He said that his wife warned him Ryan had a knife and that he opened fire after the stranger boasted, "She gave herself to me!"
“I did not want to shoot him,” said Banfield, who testified that he was armed with his service weapon. “Um, I wanted him to let her go.”
Banfield said he was tending to his wife when he heard a shot and turned to see Peres Magalhaes holding a gun she had retrieved from his safe in the master bedroom.
“I was stunned,” he said.
Banfield insisted he didn't know Ryan and had never heard of FetLife.com before the shooting. He also told the court his wife had expressed “interest in bondage-type situations" but insisted he would never hurt her.
