VA Husband and Au Pair Charged with Double Murder of Wife and Another Man | Brendan Banfield

Love and Murder is a weekly true crime podcast featuring murder cases

Now part of the Darkcast Network. Welcome to Indie Podcasts with a Dark side. On the morning of February 24, 2023, a frantic 911 call came in from a Herndon, Virginia neighborhood. The call came in at 7:49am but when the dispatcher answered, the line went dead. 13 minutes later at 8:02am the same number called back. This time two voices could be heard. 24 year old Brazilian au pair Juliana Pere Magalis sounded panicked and hyperventilating. She told the dispatcher, a friend of mine is hurt. But before she could explain further, another voice took over the call. Her employer, 39 year old Brendan Banfield, quote, I just shot a man. He was attacking my wife. Welcome lambs. Welcome to Love and Heartbreak, to Homicide, your weekly true crime podcast telling you of relationships that turn to homicide. I am your host Kai and today I’m bringing you a case of the Nanny Did It. But is that all there is to this case? Before we begin, I want to thank the sponsors of Love and the LaM Patreon Patreons. You are the backbone of this show and you help keep every episode going. I also want to thank my return in lams, even if you’re not a LAM Patreon yet, thank you so much for your continued support as well because with your listenership the show is still able to continue and these cases are able to get out there. If you’re a new lam, thank you for visiting. Take a load off, take your coat off, put your feet up, take a listen all the way to the end and if you like it, don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss any more cases. If everybody didn’t know, you can also subscribe on our patreon for free. Patreon.com loveandmurder you do get some benefits for subscribing for free, but if you want to be a sponsor of Love and Murder, then just go ahead and choose any one of the bonus tiers that we have there so you can get intro free episodes. So basically all of this you don’t get in Patreon ad free episodes, case extras, bonus episodes and so much more. Patreon.com uh, forward/loveandmurder.

Joseph Ryan stabbed Christine Banfield to death at their Virginia home

Now that we got the housekeeping out of the way, grab your butts, grab your apple juice and let’s get into this Love and Murder. When police arrived at the home they walked into a, ah, bloody crime scene Upstairs in the bedroom they found 37 year old pediatric nurse Christine Banfield bleeding from multiple stab wounds to the neck laying next to her was 38 year old Joseph Ryan, a mixed martial arts enthusiast. Uh, dead from two gunshot wounds, one to the head and one to the chest. The entire room was covered in blood and a knife. Two guns and a bag of fetish sex accessories were scattered around. According to police reports, she was undressed while Joseph remained fully clothed. First responders transported Christine to the hospital where she later died from her injuries. Four year old Valerie, the Banfield’s daughter who was present during this entire ordeal, was found unharmed in the basement. So basically, she didn’t witness what was going on, but she was in the basement. She was in the house when all of this was happening. Police took Brendan and Juliana in for questioning, where they told police what happened. According to them, uh, they had come home to find Ryan attacking Christine, so Brendan shot him in the head. Now, Brendan gave his brief statement and then refused to speak with investigators again. But Juliana did the opposite. During a nine hour interview, Juliana told police that she was on her way to the zoo with the baby. But then she’d realized that she’d left their lunches in the fridge and went back to the house. When she got there, she said she saw a man with a bag entering the house through the front door. When she saw that, she called Christine, who had been inside the home alone. But Christine didn’t pick up. So she called Brendan, who had just left for work. He immediately called back. When he got there, they walked into the bedroom together and found Joseph standing over a kneeling Christine with a knife to her throat. Juliana said that’s when Brendan shot Joseph in the head. And I guess she was scared that Joseph would become a zombie because, I mean, he was shot in the head. But as she said, she was scared he would attack again. So she went to the bedroom safe, got a gun and shot him in the heart. So that doesn’t make sense to me, and I’m not even an investigator. The case should have ended there a husband defending his wife. But this is love and murder. And detectives weren’t convinced. Neither was Kai, because some of that explanation didn’t make any sense to me. Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said, quote, we still have a lot of work to do to identify who exactly. We have to prove it. Who exactly shot and killed our male descendant? So it said descendant, but I’m not sure if he meant defendant because it said descendant in his quote. Um, so continuing with the quote, Joseph Ryan and who exactly stabbed Christine Banfield to death? We know what our 911 caller, the husband, told us, but we have a lot of work to do to substantiate that claim or to otherwise identify the person responsible for that crime. And both crimes, there was no forced entry whatsoever. This was not a home invasion. Here’s what I could say right now with certainty. He did not force entry into the home. I do not know exactly what the nature of his presence in the home is all about just yet, but we’re working hard to determine that. We don’t think he is necessarily a stranger. Also, the entire scene, uh, looked staged. So this started a 19 month investigation into what actually happened here. Christine Banfield had been married to IRS Special Agent Brendan Banfield since 2015. They lived in a multi million dollar home with their young daughter. And in 2021, they hired an au pair, Juliana, to help care for their child. So this wasn’t the first au pair. This was actually the second. I don’t remember what happened with the first one. Maybe their contract was over, but this was the second time she had an au pair in the house. A patient of Christine’s remembered her as a caring person who told him that she was planning on hiring a South American nanny and wanted her to feel at home away from home. During the investigation, life went on for Brendan. He had a funeral for Christine and continued raising their daughter. In October 2023, investigators served a search warrant on the Banfield home. They found, uh, that after Christine’s funeral and just eight months after her death, Juliana had moved into the master bedroom with Brendan. During a search of the house, investigators found her clothes in Christine’s closet and pictures of Brendan and Juliana together in intimate poses framed on the nightstand. Now, part of you being a lamp Patreon is, like I said, you get case extras. So some of these pictures are going to be in, uh, the Patreon. So these two people were currently acting as if they were a couple. And it hasn’t even been a year since Christine’s death. During the investigation, police found out that by August 2022, Brendan and Juliana had started having a fear. This was just a very short time after she’d come to live in the Banfield home. And also something that either of them had failed to mention. Uh, during their police interviews, they took romantic trips to New York City, sent intimate messages and began plotting to, quote, get rid of Christine. And, oh, I forgot this case is still ongoing. And I normally say that in the beginning, so I’m going to say it here. This case is still ongoing. So everything that I’m saying here from this, uh, point onwards and from this point before is all alleged. So I do want to put that in there. Almost forgot to do that.

Brendan Banfield allegedly told Juliana he wanted her gone before murder

So now back into what we were saying, which was allegedly, in the months before the murder, Brendan had told Juliana that, quote, it would be so much easier for us if she was not around. Brendan and Juliana went to a firing range together. Then, on January 28, 2023, Brendan bought a Glock 43X handgun at a shooting range. The same gun Juliana used to shoot Joseph. On October 13, 2023, police arrested Juliana and charged her with second degree murder. For nearly a year, she stayed in jail and refused to talk to officers, that is. But she was singing like a bird in jailhouse phone calls to Brendan and his mother. In one phone call, Juliana told Brendan, I hope you’re not just staying with me because you’re afraid I’m going to turn against you. Then, in a, quote, tape conversation found on his mother’s phone, Brendan complains to his mother that Juliana couldn’t, quote, keep her GD mouth shut on calls from Dale. Then Brendan’s mother speaking with Juliana on a recorded jail line. I keep pointing out, recorded jail line, warning her that snitches get stitches. No, that’s not what she said. But she did say, quote, snitches don’t last long in jail. So it’s like I always say, record everything you’re saying, everything you’re doing, and even go a step further and just record everything you’re thinking, too, I guess. The investigation continued, and Brendan was arrested on September 16, 2024, on. On four charges of aggravated murder and one charge of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano said, quote, early last year, a, uh, double murder devastated two families and shocked our entire community. We will put forward the strongest case possible at trial. When Brendan appeared in court, his lawyer, John F. Carroll, argued, quote, the evidence just doesn’t add up. But judge Penny Ascarate disagreed, denying him bail. Brendan’s trial was then scheduled to start on February 3, 2025. Then, two days before jury selection for her own October 2024 trial, Juliana took a plea deal. That is the sound of inevitability. So, with the plea deal on October 29, 2024, she pled guilty to manslaughter in exchange for. For her testimony against Brendan. Wow. As part of her deal, prosecutors agreed to recommend her release after Brendan’s trial, providing, uh, that she fully cooperated. Her sentencing date was set for March 21, 2025. After Brendan’s trial, when Judge Askarat asked her in court, Are you entering your guilty plea because you’re, in fact guilty of this offense? Juliana said, quote, yes. Attorney Deschano described her plea agreement as, quote, a significant step forward in this case, and it is an important development in our pursuit of justice for the victims and their families. In the meantime, the investigation continued. Now, after the search of the Banfield home, detectives had uncovered a digital trail. After searching the Banfield home computer, Brendan allegedly made a fake profile for his wife on a bondage website, FetLife.com this site catered to BDSM and kinky sexual practices. Now, as investigators said, there was not, quote, one iota of evidence that she, Christine, was into knife play, binding, bdsm. They also traced where her profile photo came from. Months before the murder, Christine had sent a picture of her in a one piece bathing suit to her husband. Hours later, this picture was uploaded as her profile picture on FetLife. Now, how diabolical. Just think about that. How diabolical is that you send your husband something intimate, saying, you know, hair, babe, I was just thinking about you. Something like that. You know what I’m saying? Then this dude allegedly takes that and uploads it and uses it in this way. What a piece of sh. Allegedly. Using the name Anastasia9, Brendan, uh, started chatting with a user named Joseph Ryan, a man with an interest in live action, role playing and bdsm. The reason the police realized that this wasn’t actually Christine was because they noticed inconsistencies in the communication style. The messages differed from, uh, the way Christine typically spoke. And this was through their investigation. Talking with family and friends, Anastasia9 discussed rough sex and experimenting with blood play with Ryan. Blood play is when one person deliberately cuts another, of course, with consent. In the chats, Anastasia9 also said that she cheats on her husband, quote, whenever she wants to. And I keep using the username because I want you to make sure that you differentiate that this is not actually Christine talking. This is between Brendan and Juliana taking turns pretending to be Christine, allegedly. After this discovery, investigators also found that both Brendan and Juliana had replaced their phones days before the murder. Through encrypted telegram messages, Juliana, uh, posed as Christine, seducing Ryan into coming over for a consensual sexual encounter involving restraints and and a knife. Ryan basically thought he was meeting a willing partner. Instead, he was walking into a trap. At 7:17am as Ryan got to the house, Brendan was waiting at a nearby McDonald’s, ready to rush back as soon as he got Juliana’s call. The couple left a baby in the basement. And headed upstairs. Brendan allegedly called out, quote, police officer before opening fire on Joseph. Christine was stabbed repeatedly. When Joseph tried to move, Juliana shot him in the chest, making sure he died. Now, remember, she walked all the way to another room, to a safe, got out the gun, I don’t know if she had to enter a code and everything like that. Got out a gun, went back and shot him in the chest. Then the COVID up, uh, began. According to forensic experts, Brendan smeared Christine’s blood onto Joseph’s body to make it look like he had killed her before being shot in self defense. This conclusion came after a blood splatter analysis of the crime scene had been done. The report revealed that Joseph’s body had been repositioned after he was shot. His arms had been moved, and then Christine’s blood was smeared on him. Juliana testified with her plea deal that Brendan had, quote, lured Joseph to the house. Allegedly, he told her to call Joseph, pretending to be Christine, to confirm details, quote, that both parties were willing participants. Quote, Ryan likely believed he was meeting Christine Banfield to have a, ah, consexual sexual encounter involving restraints used on her, her clothing being cut off with a knife he brought and other violent sexual role play. Brendan then gave, uh, Juliana a gun that he’d bought a month earlier and also told her to call Christine’s phone when she saw Joseph walk into the house. And after that, he allegedly told her to call him saying, quote, there was a strange man at the house and she was scared. That call to Christine went straight to voicemail because before Brendan had gone to work that morning, which we all know, he didn’t go to work. He was just pretending he had turned off her phone and put it in the kitchen drawer. Then, uh, when everything went down, Juliana, quote, saw Joseph move in and shot him. On December 16, 2022, Brendan was indicted on additional charges of felony child abuse and, and neglect and felony child cruelty due to having their toddler at the house. While everything went down, one thing prosecutors have questioned was why Brendan didn’t shoot Joseph until he was already stabbing Christine. Because if you remember, one thing that Juliana had said in her initial interview with police is that when they went into the room, they saw Christine kneeling and Joseph over her with just a knife to the neck. But by the time everything went down, Christine was stabbed in her neck. So the question is, why did you wait till he started stabbing her in the neck to shoot him? And then even though Joseph was down, why did Juliana feel the need to go and get another gun and shoot him again? And finally why did they wait 10 minutes before calling 91 1? Because they called. If I remember correctly, they called like, three times and hung up. And then, uh, either the third or the fourth time, that’s when they finally started talking on the phone. So what was going on? This is everything that the prosecutor is asking. And a medical examiner also testified that the first bullet had actually partially blinded Joseph. So that’s what I was saying in the beginning. Like, he was shot in the head. You saw him move.

Brendan Banfield’s trial has been pushed back from February to October 2025

What did you think was about to happen? The walking dead. Why’d you have to run to another room, undo the safe to get the gun? You know, uh, why did you have to do all of that when Brendan already has a gun and he’s licensed to carry a gun? Because of the job he does. He already had a gun. Why did you feel like you had to run clear across the house? I don’t know how far it was, but still, you had to run to another room, a, uh, safe, and run back and shoot him. That didn’t make sense. Deputy Commonwealth Attorney Kelsey Gill said, quote, this is not what a person in that situation would do unless they were trying to cover something up. However, during his court hearing, Brendan, uh, didn’t answer any questions, but instead, pled the fifth, quote. In the weeks and months prior to that date, did you engage in an adulterous relationship with the defendant? This is a question one of the prosecutors asked him, quote, I’ll take the Fifth. This was Brendan, quote, what information were you aware of that someone was likely to come to your home that day? I’ll take the fifth, quote. Did you use your IRS firearm to shoot Joe Ryan? I plead the Fifth. After this indictment, Brendan’s trial was then pushed back from February 3, 2025, to October 20, 2025. Chief Davis said, quote, I suspected from the very beginning and I went to the scene of that double murder, that there was going to be a lot of twists and turns to this investigation. And the twists and turns are still ongoing. It’s my expectation that we will eventually be able to hold more than just one person accountable for this crime. Juliana’s mother, Marina Perez Souza, said that her daughter came to the US From Brazil as part of an au pair exchange program. She had applied to extend her visa and ended up living in the US for two years. In a June email written to her mother, Juliana said, I am tired of this place, this situation. I am unhappy, and nothing makes me happy. I just want to get out of here and go back home to be with you guys. We will Be together soon. With God’s grace, Mommy. Marina says that she believes that her daughter, who she calls Little Rare Jewel, acted in self defense to protect her family and herself, and that she should not be in jail. They are saying horrible things about my daughter, but it’s not true. She wouldn’t hurt a fly. I pray for the prosecutors and the judge to understand who is guilty in this case, because it is not Juliana. Christine was a dedicated nurse, mother and wife who was betrayed in the worst possible way. In a, uh, September 2021 Instagram post, Christine had shared just how deep the bond between au pairs and the children they care for can be. She described her daughter’s former au pair as, quote, her best friend, her sister, her third parent, her everything. And she went on to say, quote, a lot of people don’t understand the au pair program, but this is it right here. It is opening your home and your heart up to someone with big dreams of changing their life while in America. And in the process, they change your life more than you could measure. Joseph was lured to his death thinking he was meeting a woman for a consensual encounter. As Banfield’s trial approaches, uh, prosecutors are preparing for one heck of a trial. And with Juliana now testifying against her former lover, it seems like the truth about that bloody mourning will finally be exposed. I do want to point out that one of Brendan’s defenses is that he wasn’t in a relationship with Juliana, but that, you know, it was just a fling here and there, and Juliana was actually on dating sites talking to a bunch of other men. That’s one of the defenses that came out already. To which my question would be, hmm. The pictures that were on your nightstand and her clothes in her closet kind of tells a different tale, don’t you think? And being that this trial was pushed back to October, I will definitely keep this in my update file and keep you informed. And I actually think with this case, I may just follow the trial and post at, uh, the end of every day to keep you informed of it in real time. So that’s not till October, so I’ll basically just need to prepare for it. But I think that’s what I’m going to do with this trial. But I’m going to ask you first, would you like me to do that, or would you like me to wait for the trial to finish and then just sum it up? So which one would you like? That’s the poll that I’m going to go ahead and put out. Do you want me to cover the Trial day by day in October, or do you want me to wait for the entire trial to be over and then do a summary update episode?

Let me know your thoughts on this case in the comments below

And that is the case of the au pair and the husband who allegedly wanted his wife out of the way. So I guess he would start his life with the au pair who’s now he’s saying in his defense, it was just a fling. Let me know your thoughts on this case in the comments below. I would love to hear from you. This is a crazy case. The ups and downs, the rights and lefts, the twists and the twists and turns. To me, all of the evidence is pointing. And I’m going to say allegedly because the case is still ongoing. So is pointing to exactly what Juliana is saying. And she is talking. She is talking because she don’t want to be in there. She’s been in jail a year longer than Brendan, uh, has been in jail. And I don’t know, maybe she’s seeing that he’s turning on her, so she decided to turn on him. Not really sure what’s going on there. This is all my opinion, but either way. And you know, also, I forgot the other diabolical thing is the baby was there. Like, I understand she was in the basement and everything, but she was still there. Your wife wasn’t doing anything. Uh, she wasn’t cheating. Even though you tried to portray her as this cheating person. And then imagine she’s just at home while she just sent her child to the zoo with the nanny and somebody just literally breaks into the house. And now she’s thinking she is about to get sexually assaulted violently. He has a knife to her neck and everything like that. This is what’s going through her head before she’s murdered. And then Joseph, uh, on the other hand, is thinking he’s just meeting somebody from online. I’m pretty sure if he had survived the encounter, you know what I’m saying, he would have been mortified to find out what these people were using him for, allegedly. And thinking that this woman thinks he’s there to sexually assault her. Mortified. This whole case is just diabolical. Tell me what you think about it in the comments below. And that is all that I have for you in this episode. Leave your comments below and I will read it in a future episode. And, uh, don’t forget that you can sign up to the patreon for free, patreon.com forward/loveandmurder. Or you can become a sponsor of Love and Murder. And with a sponsorship, you do get bonus episodes just depending on which tier you choose. Starting at the $3 a month tier, you do get case extras. So, like, for instance, whenever this trial comes out, the trial video, you can actually watch it into Patreon. And I know you can search it up yourself, but what I do is I search everything for you from all the different avenues, from all the different aspects of the Internet, even stuff that I probably have to pay for to get, and I put them all in one space for you so you don’t have to do the work yourself. I did all the work for you, so those are the case extras that you get. So, like, when, like I said, when this trial starts, I’ll be having the videos of the trial in the Patreon, so you could actually follow the trial along as well as hear my thoughts on it. So that’s one of the benefits for becoming a sponsor of love and murder, patreon.com forward/loveandmurder. Otherwise, if you like my retelling of the case, don’t forget to give me five stars on whatever platform you’re listening on. If you’re on a platform that can give five stars. And as we end each full episode, I want to remind you that it’s say it with me now. All, uh, love and no murder, y’all. Thanks for listening. Thanks for joining me. Stay tuned for my commercial guest, and I’ll see you later. Bye.

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