Already a dedicated nurse and patient advocate, Christine Banfield seemed to go above and beyond during the pandemic.
“She was an angel for me,” recalls Rodrigo Valderrama, a COVID patient at the suburban Virginia hospital where Christine worked.
He remembers waking up from a weeks-long coma to see Banfield’s kind face beside his bed:
“She shaved me; she helped me set up a Zoom call with my family. The construction project manager struck up a friendship with his nurse, inviting her and her husband, Brendan Banfield, an IRS criminal division special agent, and their then-3-year-old daughter Valerie to a party in a park near Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2021.
Christine told him she was planning to hire an au pair from South America to live with the couple and help with their toddler. “She wanted me to recommend restaurants in the area,” says the Colombian-born Valderrama. “That was her personality—she wanted the au pair to feel at home.”
Yet it was the Banfields’ Brazilian au pair, 22-year-old Juliana Peres Magalhães, who in two 911 calls on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, first alerted police to what they described as “an appalling scene” at the family’s home in Herndon, Va. In a second-story bedroom Fairfax County Police Department officers found Christine, 37, naked except for her socks, bleeding from fatal stab wounds to the neck; she died later that day at a hospital. Nearby was the dead body of Joe Ryan, 39—who authorities say arrived at the house that morning for a prearranged sex date—with gunshot wounds in the head and chest. Also at the blood- smeared scene were Peres Magalhães and Christine’s husband, Brendan, 38, according to police, as well as a bloody knife, two handguns and a bag filled with fetish sex accessories. Valerie, then 4 years old, was found unharmed in the basement.
During a nine-hour interview at the police station, Peres Magalhães confessed to killing Ryan in the chaotic aftermath of a shocking assault on Christine. According to court documents, the nanny said she was in a car with the baby outside the house that morning when she saw a man carrying a bag enter the front door. She called Christine, who was alone inside. When Christine didn’t pick up, Peres Magalhães called Brendan, she said. He had already left for work but quickly returned. Then he and Peres Magalhães walked into the bedroom to find Ryan standing over a kneeling Christine with a knife to her throat.
In Peres Magalhães’s initial account of what happened next, Brendan, who carries a gun on the job, shot Ryan in the head with his service revolver and shouted to Peres Magalhães to get another weapon from the bedroom safe. Fearful that Ryan would attack again, she said she pointed the gun at him and fired the bullet that pierced his heart and killed him. Police, however, were not convinced by Peres Magalhães’s story about interrupting a home invasion and killing an intruder in self-defense.
Investigators soon discovered evidence that Brendan and Peres Magalhães were in a sexual relationship: text messages about her new love sent from Peres Magalhães’s phone, photos of the couple on a trip to New York City and lingerie strewn on Brendan’s bed.
Records purportedly showed that the duo visited a firing range nearly two months before the double homicide, and that Brendan returned to the facility to buy a Glock 43X—the gun used by Peres Magalhães.
On Oct. 13, 2023, Peres Magalhães was arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Ryan. Nearly a year later, on Sept. 16, 2024, citing recently obtained information, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano announced that Brendan had been indicted for murder in the deaths of Ryan and Christine. “I will ensure that my office puts forward the strongest case possible at trial, and that we continue to seek justice for the victims and their families,” Descano said.
By all appearances the Banfields were a happily married couple who doted on the daughter they both adored. Christine, who grew up on Long Island and graduated from Quinnipiac University with a nursing degree in 2007, and Brendan, who studied accounting at St. Joseph’s University on Long Island, launched a children’s math tutoring center in Moriches, N.Y. They moved with newborn Valerie to Virginia in 2019. When not working as an ICU nurse, Christine was active in a neighborhood Facebook group, seeking recommendations for a backyard landscaper, a “doll hospital” to repair her daughter’s toy and a dog-boarding facility for the family’s husky.
The couple, who had previously employed another Brazilian nanny, made contact with Peres Magalhães in 2021. “Juliana wanted to travel and learn English,” says a friend from Brazil. “She was excited because she just graduated from nursing classes and was coming to live with a nurse, so they had so much in common.” In Virginia, Peres Magalhães “seemed so happy,” says her friend. “It was easy. Everything was working perfectly.”
Or so it seemed. By August 2022 Brendan fell for the au pair and had begun expressing “his desire to be rid of his wife,” Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan said at an October hearing. In the weeks before the murders, Brendan allegedly created a profile on a website for bondage and role-play enthusiasts and began communicating with a fellow user, Ryan. Days before the killings, Clingan said, Brendan directed Peres Magalhães, who posed as Christine, to call Ryan on an encrypted messaging app and confirm the details of “a consensual sexual encounter involving restraints used on her, her clothing being cut off with a knife and other violent role play.”
Police found several photos of Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhães in the Banfield home.
Fairfax County Police Department
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Brendan and Peres Magalhães’s carefully scripted plot to get Christine out of the way unfolded according to plan, authorities claim. At 7:17 a.m. Brendan was waiting at a nearby McDonald’s for Peres Magalhães to call when Ryan arrived at the house for the preplanned kinky sex date with Christine. Back at the house, Brendan and Peres Magalhães entered through the basement and left Valerie there while they climbed the stairs to the second floor. Brendan allegedly called out “police officer” before shooting Ryan in the head and then stabbing Christine. Peres Magalhães then shot Ryan after she allegedly saw him moving on the floor.
The In the months following Peres Magalhães’s arrest, while Brendan continued to live at the family’s house with his daughter and his mother, strains developed in the couple’s relationship. In a recorded jail call, Peres Magalhães can be heard saying, “I hope you are not just staying with me because you are afraid I’m going to turn against you,” according to prosecutors. In another taped conversation found on his mother’s phone, prosecutors say, Brendan complained that the nanny can’t “keep her goddamn mouth shut” on calls from jail.
Finally, on Oct. 29, just days before her murder trial was scheduled to begin, Peres Magalhães struck a deal with prosecutors, pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and agreeing to cooperate with authorities in exchange for potentially being released from custody on time already served.
Meanwhile, Ryan’s friend Zulu Bey says he is grateful the truth is coming out about his eccentric pal’s unwitting role in the twisted murder plot. “I know he didn’t do what they said he did,” says Bey. “He was just a pawn. Joe was the guy who took in the dogs that had no chance of being adopted and just loved the hell out of them.” And Christine, says her friend Valderrama, will be remembered for her service to community: “She was unique.”
