Brazilian Au Pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes and her charge leave the Banfields’ Fairfax County, Virginia, home but turn around when Peres Magalhaes realizes she forgot their bagged lunches.
Arriving at the house, the au pair sees a car she doesn’t recognize and a man she doesn’t know entering the house. Confused, she calls her employer, Brendan Banfield, who tells her to stay in the car, and that he will be right there.
Banfield is at the house in minutes, and they enter the house together. The au pair takes her 4-year-old charge to the basement. Brendan Banfield goes upstairs to find his wife.
Banfield finds his wife, Christine, nude, and a man he doesn’t know, holding a knife to her throat. Banfield tells the man to put the knife down, but he starts stabbing the 37-year-old mother. Brendan Banfield carries a gun as an IRS Special Agent, and he draws his service revolver shooting the man in the head.
The intruder is wounded and down on the ground. Banfield calls for Peres Magalhaes telling her to get his personal gun, a Glock, out of the bathroom safe. At Banfield’s direction, shoots Joseph Ryan in the heart as he is lying on the ground.
Police say it appeared that Christine Banfield had been posted on an adult fetish website., but investigators say they believe it was all a ruse. Someone else created the profile on the Adult Fetish website, pretending to be Christine Banfield.
In fact, investigators believe Ryan’s murder was part of an elaborate plan to kill Christine Banfield so her husband, Brendan, and their Brazilian live-in Au Pair, could be together. Investigators found pictures of Banfield and the au pair together in the Banfield bedroom, and Peres Magalhaes’ clothes were found hanging in Banfield’s closet, not her own.
Joining Nancy Grace:
Additional Guest
- Amanda Rieman – Virginia Attorney, AC RIEMAN LAW; IG: @acriemanlaw
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[Feature Photo: Juliana Peres Magalhaes/Fairfax County Police Department and Christine Banfield/Handout]
