{"id":445500,"date":"2026-02-02T23:35:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:35:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445500\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T23:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T23:35:11","slug":"brendan-banfield-found-guilty-of-killing-wife-stranger-in-au-pair-double-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/445500\/","title":{"rendered":"Brendan Banfield found guilty of killing wife, stranger, in ‘au pair’ double murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

The former IRS agent accused of conspiring with his Brazilian au pair to kill his wife and a stranger<\/a> was found guilty of murder Monday.<\/p>\n

Brendan Banfield was charged with four counts of aggravated murder and using a firearm in the commission of a felony in connection with the killings on Feb. 24, 2023. <\/p>\n

The Virginia jury convicted him on two counts of aggravated murder, one count of using a firearm in committing a felony and child endangerment after several days of deliberation, including nine hours on Monday. <\/p>\n

Because of the aggravated murder convictions, Banfield will spend the rest of his life behind bars. <\/p>\n

The verdict closed a chapter in a lurid tale set in the Virginia suburbs that got national attention because the double homicide was tied to a fetish website \u2014 and because it exposed both Banfield and his slain 37-year-old wife Christine as swingers.<\/p>\n

Banfield, 40, admitted on the stand that he cheated on his wife with au pair Juliana Peres Magalhaes, 25, and with several other women as well. <\/p>\n

But he insisted he did not conspire with Peres Magalhaes to commit a double murder.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that it\u2019s an absurd line of questioning for something that is not serious that a plan was made to get rid of my wife,\u201d he said on the stand. \u201cThat is absolutely crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Magalhaes dialed 911 and said a friend had been hurt.<\/p>\n

Banfield took the phone and told a dispatcher that an \u201cunknown male\u201d had entered his home and attacked his wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s somebody here. I shot them,\u201d Banfield told a dispatcher in a 911 call that was played at the trial. \u201cHe stabbed her. There\u2019s several marks on her neck. What do I do?\u201d<\/p>\n

When police arrived, they found Christine Banfield fatally stabbed in an upstairs bedroom. A man named Joe Ryan, who had been fatally shot, was discovered nearby.<\/p>\n

Eight months after the killings, Peres Magalhaes was arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder<\/a>. And in 2024, she pleaded guilty to the downgraded manslaughter charge and told police she and Banfield had concocted a plot to kill Christine Banfield.<\/p>\n

Magalhaes testified that Banfield was desperately trying to avoid a divorce. So they used Christine Banfield\u2019s laptop to set up a fake account on the BDSM website FetLife.com.<\/p>\n

They used the account to lure Ryan to the Banfield home for what he believed to be a fake-rape fantasy with Christine Banfield, she said.<\/p>\n

Banfield testified that Ryan’s car was in the driveway of their home and that he yelled \u201cpolice\u201d when he burst into a bedroom and found his naked wife on the floor with Ryan. <\/p>\n

He said his wife warned him that Ryan had a knife and that he opened fire after the stranger boasted “She gave herself to me!”<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not want to shoot him,\u201d said Banfield, who testified he was armed with his service weapon. \u201cUm, I wanted him to let her go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Banfield said he was tending to his wife when he heard a shot and turned to see Peres Magalhaes holding a gun she had retrieved from his safe in the master bedroom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was stunned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Banfield insisted he didn’t know Ryan and had never heard of FetLife.com before the shooting. He also told the court his wife had expressed \u201cinterest in bondage-type situations” but insisted he would never hurt his wife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The former IRS agent accused of conspiring with his Brazilian au pair to kill his wife and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":{"0":"post-445500","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}