The Brazilian au pair mistress of a Virginia federal agent and father accused of killing his wife described the twisted rape plot they allegedly hatched to try to frame the slaying on another man, as she took the stand Tuesday in the murder trial.
Juliana Peres Magalhães, 25, told the courtroom how she and married dad, Brendan Banfield, a former IRS special agent, created a fake account on a fetish website to find a man they could pin the wife’s murder on, setting it up as a violent home invasion, Fox News reported.
Using photos of the tragic wife and mom, Christine Banfield, the pair lured Joseph Ryan to the Banfield’s home in the leafy suburb of Herndon, Virginia, in February 2023, Magalhães testified.
In opening statements, prosecutors said Brendan posed as his wife and gave Ryan specific instructions detailing a violent rape fantasy to play out.
“Brendan created the narrative that Christine desperately wanted to be raped. Posing as Christine, he told Joe what to do: Come to the home,” prosecutor Jenna Sands told the court, Fox reported.
“The door will be unlocked. Christine will be asleep in bed. Come straight upstairs, cut off her clothing, tie her, rape her. Simple and fun,” she said.
On the morning of the alleged murder, Magalhães sat in her car near the home with her boss’s daughter and waited for Ryan to arrive.
When he arrived, the nanny called Christine as part of the alleged plot, knowing that Brendan had turned off her phone. She then called her lover, who was waiting in a nearby McDonald’s, and told him there was an intruder in the home, she testified.
Brendan soon returned to the family home, where he and Magalhães allegedly left the Banfields’ young girl in the basement while they went upstairs to the bedroom — where an unknowing Christine thought she was being attacked by Ryan.
Christine screamed that he had a knife, the nanny testified, and Brendan shot him with his service weapon, in an alleged attempt to look like he had saved his wife from an intruder.
“When I got to the bedroom, Brendan yelled, ‘Police officer,’ and Christine’s first reaction – it was the first time I heard her say anything at that point – and she yelled back at Brendan, saying, ‘Brendan, he has a knife,’ and that’s when Brendan first shot Joe,” Magalhães told the courtroom.
She then described how she covered her eyes and ears on the other side of the bed, while Brendan allegedly climbed on top of his wife and stabbed her in the neck.
“I had put my hands on the carpet, and as soon as I felt blood, I just removed my hands from the carpet,” Magalhães said, adding that blood also soaked into her socks and shoes.
Brendan allegedly staged the crime scene to look like a home invasion gone wrong, while Magalhães called 911 and told cops Ryan stabbed Christine, prosecutors said.
Meanwhile, the father allegedly conspired to create an “alibi” by changing his routine in the weeks before the murders, anticipating the investigation and ensuring he would be at a McDonald’s at the time of the staged break-in.
“[Brendan] knew that we needed to have some alibis. He knew that he needed to change his routine a few weeks prior. So it wouldn’t be odd that he wasn’t, you know, just at McDonald’s on that day, specifically,” Magalhães testified.
Magalhães had earlier described how the couple became intimate in August 2022.
“He mentioned his plan to get rid of [Christine]. Initially, he didn’t know what he would do. He just mentioned that he would think about it [and] let me know when he thought about it,” the nanny said.
Banfield’s attorney, John F. Carroll, did not respond immediately to requests for comment.
In court on Tuesday, he told the judge that Magalhães had been arrested in October 2023 purely to “flip her” against his client.
The Brazilian national pleaded guilty to manslaughter in October 2024 and will be sentenced after Brendan’s trial.
If found guilty, the former IRS special agent faces the possibility of life in prison.
His trial is expected to last roughly four weeks.
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