A Northern Virginia man accused of murdering his wife tapped into a BDSM fetish dating website to lure a patsy who'd play an unwitting role in getting his spouse "out of the picture,” the suspect's au pair lover and co-defendant said.
Juliana Peres Magalhães, a Brazilian au pair who worked for suspect Brendan Banfield and victim Christine Banfield, told prosecutors that he opted for double-murder over divorce as they carried on an extramarital affair.
“And then I asked him, ‘Are you gonna divorce her?’” Magalhães told prosecutors on Oct. 25, 2024, in interview footage aired by NBC Washington on Tuesday.
“And then he said, ‘That’s not what I’m thinking about.’ And then he explained that he was thinking about finding a way to just get rid of her, out of the picture."
Brendan Banfield went on to FetLife.com — a BDSM and fantasy dating website — and created a fake profile, pretending to be Christine Banfield and seeking a man to come to her Fairfax County home be carry out a rape fantasy, Magalhães told prosecutors.
That's how he allegedly snared Joseph Ryan, 39, who believed he was in contact with Christine Banfield but was really communicating with Brendan Banfield or Magalhães, prosecutors said.
They set up Ryan to come to the Banfield home with a knife to attack Christine, who was there alone while Brendan Banfield and Magalhães were nearby, prosecutors said.
“We told him before that it was kinda part of the game, where the person gets in the bedroom and then I would act like scared, like, try to run or try to scream or if the person starts doing something, she would just get kinda freaked out and try to resist but it was like ‘part of the game,’” Magalhães said.
The staged attack gave Brendan Banfield and Magalhães the opportunity to murder Christine and then kill Ryan in a phony act of self-defense, prosecutors said.
Magalhães pleaded guilty to manslaughter for her role in the double-slaying.
Brendan Banfield is accused of fatally stabbing his wife and shooting Ryan.
The plot was months in the making with Brendan Banfield going as far as installing new, sound-cancelling windows at the home-turned murder scene, according to Magalhães.
The au pair even recalled testing the sound one day.
“And then I went outside in the driveway and he went up to the bedroom, and then he started like screaming and yelling to see if I could like hear anything outside,” she said.
"I couldn’t really hear, like, much."
Brendan Banfield is set to go on trial in October, while Magalhães is expected to be sentenced after that.
Brendan Banfield's attorney could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.
