Virginia au pair and her employer were in a romantic relationship at the time of the crime and for months afterward
Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the Brazilian who was charged along with her Virginia employer in connection with the murders of his wife and an unknown man in February 2023, has pleaded guilty to a lesser crime, according to local news.
The then-22-year-old au pair and Brendan Banfield, a husband and the father of a then-4-year-old daughter, are accused of killing Christine Banfield — Brendan’s wife and Fairfax County NICU employee — and Joseph Ryan, the 38-year-old man who showed up at the Banfields’ home armed with a knife, in Herndon, Virginia, in February 2023.
Magalhaes, now 24, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on Tuesday morning, according to FOX 5 D.C. She was scheduled to stand trial in November.
She was initially arrested in October 2023, about eight months after the killings, when authorities charged her with aggravated murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Virginia authorities arrested Banfield, a 39-year-old IRS employee, in September, more than a year after the murders took place. He is charged with four counts of aggravated murder and use of a firearm in commission of a felony.
Banfield faces a potential life prison sentence for the alleged crimes, while Magalhaes faces a maximum sentence of 10 years for the manslaughter charge, according to FOX 5.
Prosecutors allege the murders stemmed from a scheme orchestrated by Banfield and Magalhaes, who were in a romantic relationship at the time of the crime and for months afterward, before their arrests.
Ryan’s connection to the family or their au pair remains unclear.
“On Feb. 24, 2023, I stood in the middle of a cul-de-sac street in Fairfax County and described the deaths of two persons inside of a residential home. Now, 570 days later, we know the deaths of Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield are, in fact, murders,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said during a September press conference.
When police responded to a 911 call from the residence that day, they found Christine with stab wounds to the neck and Ryan with fatal gunshot wounds in the upstairs bedroom of the home. Authorities took Christine to the hospital, where she was later pronounced dead, Davis said.
Officials recovered a knife and two firearms from the scene.
“We know Brendan Banfield and Juliana Magalhaes were involved in a romantic relationship at the time of the murders,” Davis said during the September press conference. “I will not describe our victim, Joseph Ryan’s, involvement with anyone in the case at the moment because this investigation continues.”
Initially, Magalhaes told police that she and Banfield saw an unknown man, Ryan, holding Christine at knifepoint on the morning the murders took place. She allegedly described him as an intruder. Ryan was apparently fully clothed while Christine was naked in the main bedroom of the house.
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It remains unclear exactly what transpired inside the home that Friday morning, but Magalhaes and Brendan apparently both admitted to shooting Ryan while the man was holding a knife to Christine.
Prosecutors allege that a computer at the Banfield home was tied to an account on a sexual fetish website, the Post reported.
Ryan, the man who reportedly held Christine at knifepoint, also apparently had an account on the website and had been communicating with whoever was accessing the site from the Banfield computer.
Authorities arrested Magalhaes in October 2023 after she moved in to the Banfields’ main bedroom and placed a framed photo of herself with Brendan on a nightstand beside the bed. A grand jury indicted the 23-year-old in April.