On a Friday morning three years ago, a shocking incident occurred in a Northern Virginia home: A pediatric ICU nurse, Christine Banfield, was fatally injured in her room. He had been stabbed several times. 39-year-old Joseph Ryan was with him. He was shot dead.
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The nurse’s husband – IRS special agent Brendan Banfield – told authorities he killed Ryan, who was not identified, after the man attacked his wife.
What prosecutors say actually happened inside the Banfields’ Fairfax County home was the result of something far more convoluted and sinister — a deadly cat-fishing scheme that was motivated by romance and relied on a spiritual website to lure an unsuspecting man to his death.
The plot, they say, was planned and executed by Brendan Banfield and his wife, a Brazilian au pair.
For more on the story, tune in to “Trial” on “Dayline” at 9 ET/8 CT tonight.
Brendan Banfield has maintained his innocence and called the allegations “absolutely insane.” After a three-week trial earlier this year, he was convicted of brutal murder and is expected to be sentenced to life in prison next month.
The au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to murder. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Killing
On the morning of February 24, 2023, Brendan Banfield told a 911 operator that he would come to that horrific incident at his home in Herndon, a suburban community near Washington, DC.
He was stabbed multiple times and was later pronounced dead.
In the dog bed in the corner, Gadell said, they found Ryan. In the basement was the couple’s four-year-old daughter. He was unharmed.
In a statement sent to the police, Peres Magalhaes told the authorities what happened: The au pair was preparing to go to the National Zoo with the Banfields’ daughter when she saw an unfamiliar SUV enter the family’s driveway. So he called Brendan Banfield, who was at a nearby McDonald’s getting breakfast.
“I don’t know who that is,” he explained to Brendan Banfield, the body camera video shows. “Please come here, I’m afraid.”
They put the girl in the basement with the tablet, Peres Magalhaes said, then went upstairs when they heard what he described as “a beating.”
In the room, he said, they saw Christine Banfield on the ground with a man holding a knife above her. Brendan Banfield pleaded with the man to drop the blade, he said, but the suspect refused and began stabbing him.
“I think Brendan shot him,” Peres Magalhaes said.
He told the police that he shot the man.
Brendan Banfield refused to give a statement to police.
Application agreement
In the months after the murder, authorities began to question the duo’s account. The prosecutor in the case, Eric Clingan, told “Dateline” that it doesn’t make sense – Ryan had a knife and Brendan Banfield had a gun, but Ryan refused to drop his weapon.
And Peres Magalhaes never gave a satisfactory explanation for the second 911 call he made on the morning of Feb. 24, Clingan said. In that call that was made 13 minutes before the one that called the police to the family’s home, the person on the phone did not say anything and hung up after a few seconds, he said. But a man’s voice was heard moaning from behind.
“Someone was injured, yet it took 13 minutes” for another call to be made, the prosecutor said. “It didn’t make sense.”
Peres Magalhaes had already admitted to shooting Ryan while he was in what Clingan described as a casual, harmless position; in October 2023, authorities arrested him and charged him with murder. About a year later, after a blood pattern test was completed that identified Brendan Banfield as the person holding the knife in the room, authorities arrested him as well.
He has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and is being held without bail.
Peres Magalhaes also pleaded not guilty to murder. But a few weeks after Brendan Banfield’s arrest, she told authorities she wanted to cooperate, Clingan said, and in a four-hour statement, she detailed Brendan Banfield and his plan to kill his wife, describing her as “lazy” and “not a good mother,” a video of her statement shows.
Peres Magalhaes confirmed what some of the investigators believed about the murder: it was a fishing scheme. In a statement, he said they created a fake user profile on a social media site specializing in occult activities – FetLife.com – using Christine Banfield’s laptop and pretending to be “Annastasia9,” a person who wants to have violent sex dreams with a stranger in her apartment.
Brendan Banfield wanted to find someone who likes to “play with violence” and may be blamed for the murder of Christine Banfield, said Peres Magalhaes.
Ryan was that person, he said.
Authorities had learned that Ryan met other women through FetLife, but described Ryan as someone who respected boundaries and was non-violent, Patrick Brusch, a retired captain with the Fairfax County Police Department, told “Dateline.”
Ryan, Brusch said, “was bitten and hunted.”
Ryan agreed to bring the barricades, rope and knife to the Banfields’ home. Brendan Banfield planned to stab his wife with the knife after shooting Ryan, Peres Magalhaes told authorities.
He agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and testify against Brendan Banfield. In exchange for his cooperation, prosecutors will recommend a prison sentence.
Conviction
Brendan Banfield’s trial began in Fairfax County court in January, nearly three years after the murders of Christine Banfield and Ryan. Peres Magalhaes spoke for the prosecution, telling the judge about his relationship with Brendan Banfield, his plan to kill Christine Banfield and the horrific incident on the morning of February 24.
Brendan Banfield’s lawyer blasted Peres Magalhaes, asking why he took so long to give his account to the authorities and pointing to a gift he received from a broadcast shop in an interview. In an email presented in court, he told his mother he would be offered $10,000 but believed he could negotiate for more than double that.
“We deserve something,” he wrote in the message.
“What should you do?” asked the lawyer, John Carroll.
“Everything we’ve been through,” he said from the stand.
Brendan Banfield also testified, admitting his affair with Peres Magalhaes but denying that he was involved in planning and killing his wife. When she opened her bedroom door and saw Christine Banfield on the ground with a man behind her holding a knife, she said she was “very scared.”
He shot Ryan after seeing him stab him, he said.
However, a prosecution witness was able to refute a key part of Brendan Banfield’s account of that morning. In his testimony, Banfield said he was on his way to a work meeting with his boss when he stopped at McDonald’s and Peres Magalhaes called him about an unfamiliar SUV on the road.
But after that testimony, Brendan Banfield’s manager told authorities that no meeting was scheduled, lead prosecutor Jenna Sands told “Dateline.” In court, the manager testified that he had been in Baltimore when he was undercover.
On February 2, after nine hours of deliberations, a jury convicted Brendan Banfield of first degree murder. Eleven days later, a judge sentenced Peres Magalhaes to the maximum penalty allowed for manslaughter – 10 years in prison.
“Your actions were deliberate, self-centered and showed a disregard for human life,” said Chief District Court Judge Penney Azcarate. “This is the worst case of murder this court has ever seen.”
