When a Brazilian au pair moved to Virginia, it seems like she focused on two things: a relationship and killing people.
24 year old Juliana Peres Magalhaes used to work as a live-in nanny in a two-story home on Stable Brook Way in Herndon, Virginia.
Herndon is a medium-sized town in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Heather Banfield, 37, and Brendan Banfield, 39, gave her care of their young daughter.
Now, she could go to prison for the next few years, but that seems very unlikely.
Authorities in Fairfax County said that Magalhaes pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter on Tuesday.
The defendant will not have to go to trial because of the plea deal. She may also be able to punish her alleged partner in crime.
Christine Banfield and Joseph Nathan Ryan, 39, who died with her on that day, were both killed. At first, Magalhaes was the only person suspected of killing them.
The au pair was caught and charged with murder in the second degree in October 2023 for Ryan’s death. But that calculation would change in the end.
In February 2023, the killing at Stable Brook Way took place. After that, police did nothing for a few months while they looked into it.
One supposedly strange thing that detectives saw would become very important to the case as a whole: the widower and the nanny started showing affection for each other and living together as a couple.
Photo evidence—newly framed pictures of the two alleged conspirators together—helped this turn of events in at least two ways.
One of these pictures, which was put up in Banfield’s bedroom after the murders, shows the husband and the au pair hugging each other, with the nanny’s head resting on the shoulder of the IRS agent. They are both smiling.
The cocked grins did not last long.
Crime and the law
The au pair pleads guilty to manslaughter in a case of sex fetish killings, so her boyfriend, an IRS agent, has to go to trial by himself.
From Colin Kalmbacher,
17 hours ago
Below, from left to right, are Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhaes from the Fairfax County Police Department. The house where the murders of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan happened (WTTG).
When a Brazilian au pair moved to Virginia, it seems like she focused on two things: a relationship and killing people.
24 year old Juliana Peres Magalhaes used to work as a live-in nanny in a two-story home on Stable Brook Way in Herndon, Virginia.
Herndon is a medium-sized town in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Heather Banfield, 37, and Brendan Banfield, 39, gave her care of their young daughter.
Now, she could go to prison for the next few years, but that seems very unlikely.
Authorities in Fairfax County said that Magalhaes pleaded guilty to one count of manslaughter on Tuesday.
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The defendant will not have to go to trial because of the plea deal. She may also be able to punish her alleged partner in crime.
Christine Banfield and Joseph Nathan Ryan, 39, who died with her on that day, were both killed. At first, Magalhaes was the only person suspected of killing them.
The au pair was caught and charged with murder in the second degree in October 2023 for Ryan’s death. But that calculation would change in the end.
In February 2023, the killing at Stable Brook Way took place. After that, police did nothing for a few months while they looked into it.
One supposedly strange thing that detectives saw would become very important to the case as a whole: the widower and the nanny started showing affection for each other and living together as a couple.
Photo evidence—newly framed pictures of the two alleged conspirators together—helped this turn of events in at least two ways.
One of these pictures, which was put up in Banfield’s bedroom after the murders, shows the husband and the au pair hugging each other, with the nanny’s head resting on the shoulder of the IRS agent. They are both smiling.
The cocked grins did not last long.
On the left is a picture of Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhaes next to his bed (NBC Washington via Fairfax County Police). From Christine Banfield’s Facebook page, on the right.
Brendan Banfield was charged with four counts of aggravated murder and one count of using a gun to commit a felony last month.
That day, Magalhaes was the first person to call 911. Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said that the first time she called 911, it was a “open line hangup” at 7:49 a.m. After thirteen minutes, Magalhaes called again and said her friend was hurt.
Then Brendan Banfield called to say he had shot Ryan and that the other man had stabbed his wife inside their home.
Back in September, when Brendan Banfield was charged, more information came to light. At this point, police think Ryan was tricked into going to the Banfield house and playing a part by a fake profile on a sexual fetish website.
Police say the person who made that profile, which is called a “catfish,” was pretending to be Christine Banfield. In the end, Ryan was found in the bedroom with Christine Banfield. He was supposed to be the scapegoat. They would both die there.
Ryan was no longer seen as “necessarily a stranger” by the police. His car was parked on the driveway right next to the two-car garage. The sexual fetish website clue filled in the blanks.
Davis told the press the day of the killings, “There was no forced entry at all.” “They did not break into my house.”
Right now I know for sure that he did not break into the house via force. “Right now I do not know exactly what his presence in the house is all about, but we are working hard to find out.”
Prosecutors say they found messages between the two victims on a fetish website. One of the messages set up a meeting for the day of the murder.
But police say that the way the fake Christine Banfield profile talked to Ryan did not match how she really spoke, based on what friends and family said about her.
Because of what happened on Tuesday, many details or maybe even new or different accounts of how the double murder happened at the house on the tree-lined lot in Herndon will have to stay secret for a while.
The woman Juliana Peres Magalhaes admitted to killing Joseph Ryan with a gun on February 24, 2023, in the early hours of that day.
“Today’s agreement is a big step forward in this case, and it is a big step toward justice for the victims and their families,” said Steve Descano, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax County.
“A lot of the information that led to this agreement can not be shared right now because the other defendant is going to be tried for a crime soon.”
In this case, the stories have had to be different.
To hear the story the accused had been telling for months: At about 7:30 a.m. that day, Magalhaes left the house with the Banfields’ daughter by his side. This was right after Christine Banfield bought their zoo tickets.
The au pair then told the police that she went back because she forgot to get their lunches and saw a car in the driveway that she did not know.
Magalhaes said she called Brendan Banfield because Christine Banfield did not answer the phone when she called. He was at a nearby McDonald’s at the time and quickly ran home.
The husband/father, daughter, and au pair came into the house. They said that Ryan was upstairs in a bedroom with Christine Banfield, who was naked and had been stabbed several times in the neck.
Then Brendan Banfield shot Ryan with a gun that he already had. Then, the husband gave the au pair the code to a safe in the bathroom closet and told her to get another gun from there.
When asked, Brendan Banfield said he was the one who killed Ryan, but Magalhaes later said she used the second gun to shoot the man in the chest who was already dead.
Another story supposedly went in a different direction: the au pair said at first that she and Brendan Banfield were not dating, but later her lawyer confirmed that they were.
The two said in their story that they had to act in self-defense, but investigators were suspicious right away.
Now, it seems very likely that Brendan Banfield’s story about the killings is completely made up by him.
According to a report from WRC, an NBC affiliate in Washington, D.C., Magalhaes was given a plea deal in exchange for her promise to help the police catch Brendan Banfield.
In fact, the prosecutors told the judge in charge of the case that they plan to recommend a very light sentence for her—time served, which would end when the widower’s trial is over.
Magahlhaes could get up to 10 years in state prison, according to the law. The hearing to decide her sentence is set for March 21, 2025.
The trial for Brendan Banfield is set for February 3, 2025. They want to put him in prison for life if they are found guilty.
