A Brazilian au pair testified that her employer planned a double murder using a man he lured from a BDSM website as a patsy to avoid a divorce, prosecutors alleged at the first day of his trial Tuesday.
Brendan Banfield, 40, is accused of killing his wife, Christine Banfield, and a stranger named Joseph Ryan, whom he allegedly planned to frame for his wife's murder. Fairfax County prosecutors have used the Banfields' Brazilian au pair as a key witness in the case against him.
Juliana Peres Magalhaes, 25, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter for her role in the double murder plot and agreed to testify against Brendan Banfield, with whom she was having an affair while working as the couple's au pair.
Peres Magalhaes took the witness stand Tuesday to testify against Banfield, saying he confided in her as early as October 2022 that he wanted to "get rid of" his wife and that divorce wasn't an option. He was worried about money and custody of the couple's daughter, who was 4 years old at the time of her mother's death.
Prosecutors allege that Banfield created a profile on FetLife.com, a BDSM and kink community site, to connect with Ryan. Posing as his wife, in February 2023 Banfield allegedly invited Ryan to come to their home for a fake rape scenario involving chains and a knife.
Brendan Banfield used his wife's laptop to create the account, according to Peres Magalhaes' testimony. Christine Banfield, an ICU nurse, would throw her backpack containing her laptop by the door, which was how they were able to access her computer, Peres Magalhaes told the court.
"He always made sure for us to make sure to log in on the account when she was home, so it would have, you know, throughout the investigation it'll be ... very clear that, like, whenever she was using the profile, she was home," Peres Magalhaes said.
The account was made in January 2023, after, Peres Magalhaes said, she and Brendan Banfield made at least two visits to a shooting range.
Ryan was instructed not to stop "even if she was calling for help," lead prosecutor Jenna Sands said in her opening statement Tuesday.
According to the prosecution's case, Brendan Banfield left their home for a short time and instructed Peres Magalhaes to wait to signal when Ryan arrived.
He disabled the lock and confirmed Ryan's arrival while his wife was still sleeping, Sands said, then planned to arrive back while Ryan was in the bedroom with his wife.
"Brendan enters the bedroom, first shooting Joe in the head, picks up the knife that Joe had brought and stabs Christine repeatedly in the neck," Sands said. "He directs Juliana to shoot Joe a second time with her gun, this time the bullet enters Joe's chest with Christine dead or dying."
Peres Magalhaes was arrested eight months after calling 911 to report the incident, with prosecutors initially charging her with second-degree murder.
Brendan Banfield is charged with aggravated murder in the death of his wife and Ryan, and faces additional charges of child abuse and felony child cruelty. He faces life in prison if convicted on the murder charges.
John Carroll, Brendan Banfield's defense attorney, has contested the government's assertion that his client posed as his wife on the BDSM website. He told the court in his opening statement that he would present digital forensics that would show Christine Banfield directly engaged with Ryan on the site.
The defense's account of the day is significantly different from the government’s case. Carroll accused the prosecution of using Peres Magalhaes' vulnerable position of being an immigrant away from her family to have her testify against his client.
"You'll hear there were at least four or five times during that year leading up to Brendan Banfield being charged, where they came to her, they went through her attorney, and they offered that deal that she now stands to have taken," Carroll said.
Carroll also referenced a disagreement among investigators on the theory that Brendan Banfield acted as a "catfish," a term for using someone else's identity online to lure someone into a relationship. He accused the police department of reassigning members of the case who disagreed with the theory.
Brendan Miller, a former digital forensic examiner with the Fairfax County Police Department, said last year that he concluded, after analysis of Christine Banfield's devices, that she communicated with Ryan directly. He was transferred out of the digital forensics unit but a former Fairfax County commander testified the reassignment was not punitive.
The "lies" from Peres Magalhaes are the center of the narrative offered by the prosecution, Carroll said Tuesday.
"I understand the situation that she's in, and I understand the fact that she's away from home, and she's young, and she depended on people," Caroll said. "And she's also depending on the Commonwealth, and they've put her in this situation, and she's accepted it gladly."
