Bodycam footage showing the behavior of au pair Juliana Peres Magalhaes has been revealed, highlighting her initial story to police in the killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan in 2023.
Both Banfield, 37, and Ryan, 38, were killed at Banfield’s home in a quiet Northern Virginia neighborhood in the early morning hours of February 24, 2023. She had fatal stab wounds, while he had been shot. Christine’s husband, Brendan Banfield, and her family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, were later arrested.
As authorities arrived on the scene, in a video recently released from the Fairfax Police Department, they started asking Magalhaes — a Brazilian au pair who was 22 at the time — “Who is the shooter? Who shot who?”
“Brendan, he’s an officer,” Magalhaes replied, hyperventilating as police brought her outside for further questioning.
“I don’t know what happened. Everything happened too fast,” she continued, telling authorities she was bringing the Banfields’ daughter to the zoo that morning, but had to double back to the house to pick something up first.
She claimed that when she returned to the home, she saw a “strange car” in the driveway and was “scared” with Christine didn’t pick up the phone. Magalhaes said that’s when she called Brendan and told him to come to the house.
“He came here, we went inside. The guy, I don’t know who he is, he was spanking her,” Magalhaes then claimed, saying Brendan went “upstairs first,” before she heard him saying, “Drop the knife! Drop the knife!”
“They were yelling at each other. He was saying … ‘Drop the gun’ … and then said, ‘I’m going to kill her, I’m going to kill her. And he started stabbing her,” Magalhaes then claimed. “I think Brendan shot him, and he asked me help, I shot him too.”
Additional video from Fox News showed her doing breathing exercises with police to calm down, while also drinking water and apologizing for her demeanor.
While Magalhaes was previously charged with second-degree murder, in October she agreed to plea guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Along with her plea came some new details about what allegedly led to Banfield and Ryan’s deaths.
According to ABC News, citing the plea agreement, Brendan allegedly said he wanted to “be rid of” his wife in the fall of 2022, shortly after he began an affair with Magalhaes in August of that same year.
He allegedly kept building out his plans, though Magalhaes said she didn’t believe he would follow through with them and didn’t want to be involved. The planning, however, allegedly continued, with Brendan accused of creating a profile on a sexual fetish website, where he started talking with Ryan.
Per the agreement, Brendan had Magalhaes pretend to be Christine while talking to Ryan over a call, as they set up a time for the pair to have sex with “restraints” at her home. Per WUSA, prosecutors allege “the conversations confirmed they would be doing a violent sexual role play and Ryan brought a knife with him.”
On the day of the murders, Magalhaes and Brendan allegedly waited until Ryan entered the home, before they then entered and brought Banfield’s child to the basement. They claim they found Ryan holding Christine down in the bedroom. Per the agreement, Brendan allegedly then shouted, “Police!” and shot Ryan in the head, before stabbing Christine to death as Magalhaes called 911. Magalhaes also shot Ryan, said prosecutors, after seeing him move.
Brendan initially said Ryan was an intruder who stabbed his wife.
Under the reduced charge of manslaughter, Magalhaes faces up to 10 years in prison. She won’t be sentenced until after Brendan’s trial in February 2024, with prosecutors hoping to see how cooperative she is with them in his case.
Brendan was indicted for the aggravated murders of both his wife and Ryan back in September, following a 19-month investigation.
