Solved case · 2023
Also known as Christine Banfield & Joseph Ryan · The Au Pair Affair
The short answer
Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan were killed inside the Banfield home in Herndon, Virginia, on February 24, 2023, in an attack prosecutors said was staged to look like a home invasion. Christine's husband, Brendan Banfield, was convicted of both murders in 2026, and the family's au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Ryan's death and testified against him.
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Suggest coverage for this caseChristine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse, lived in Herndon, Fairfax County, Virginia, with her husband, Brendan Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service agent, and their young daughter. In 2022, the Banfields employed Juliana Peres Magalhães, a Brazilian national, as an au pair. During her employment, Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhães began an extramarital affair, which included a trip together to New York City. Prosecutors said that during the relationship, Brendan Banfield expressed a desire to end his marriage without financial repercussions or a custody dispute involving his daughter.
Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield created a fake account on the fetish website FetLife under Christine Banfield's name and used it to lure Joseph Ryan, a Washington, D.C. resident with no known prior connection to the Banfield family, to the Banfields' home under the false pretense that Christine wanted to take part in a BDSM encounter.
On the morning of February 24, 2023, police responded to 911 calls from the Banfield residence in Herndon. Officers found Christine Banfield with multiple stab wounds and Joseph Ryan dead of gunshot wounds inside an upstairs bedroom. There were no signs of forced entry, and the Banfields' young daughter was found unharmed in the basement. Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhães initially told police that Ryan had entered the house, attacked Christine with a knife, and was then shot by both of them in self-defense. Investigators concluded that this account was contradicted by physical and digital evidence, and prosecutors said the scene had been deliberately arranged to look like a home invasion.
Peres Magalhães was arrested in October 2023 and charged with second-degree murder and firearm offenses. Brendan Banfield was indicted on multiple counts in September 2024; he was taken into custody and denied bond as a flight risk and a danger to his young daughter. In October 2024, Peres Magalhães pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Ryan's death and agreed to testify against Brendan Banfield as part of a plea agreement.
A Fairfax County jury convicted Brendan Banfield of the aggravated murder of his wife and Joseph Ryan on February 2, 2026, after a trial in which prosecutors presented the case as a premeditated plot by Banfield and Peres Magalhães to kill Ryan and stage the scene as a home invasion gone wrong. The following week, a judge sentenced Peres Magalhães to ten years in prison, declining the prosecution's recommendation, made pursuant to her plea agreement, that she receive credit for time served. In June 2026, Brendan Banfield was sentenced to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
The case, referred to in media coverage as the "au pair affair" and the "au pair murders," drew extensive attention because of the extramarital affair between Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhães, the alleged use of a fetish website to lure Ryan to the home, and the prosecution's account that the defendants staged the scene after the fact.
Brendan Banfield and the family's au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, begin an extramarital affair that includes a trip together to New York City.
Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan are found dead inside the Banfield home in Herndon, Virginia, after police respond to 911 calls; Christine has multiple stab wounds and Ryan is dead of gunshot wounds. There are no signs of forced entry.
Juliana Peres Magalhães is arrested and charged with second-degree murder and firearm offenses.
Brendan Banfield is indicted on multiple counts and taken into custody, denied bond as a flight risk and a danger to his daughter.
Peres Magalhães pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Joseph Ryan's death and agrees to testify against Brendan Banfield.
A Fairfax County jury convicts Brendan Banfield of the aggravated murder of his wife and Joseph Ryan.
Peres Magalhães is sentenced to ten years in prison; the judge declines the prosecution's recommendation of credit for time served.
Brendan Banfield is sentenced to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.
Victims first. Every legal label is set from public records and court outcomes, not from the prose.
Pediatric intensive care nurse who lived in Herndon, Virginia, with her husband and young daughter; killed at the family home alongside Joseph Ryan in a plot her husband was later convicted of orchestrating.[3]
Washington, D.C. resident with no known prior connection to the Banfield family; killed at the Banfield home after being lured there under a false pretense.[3]
Christine Banfield's husband and a former Internal Revenue Service agent; convicted by a Fairfax County jury of the aggravated murder of his wife and Joseph Ryan and sentenced to consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.[3]
The Banfield family's au pair and Brendan Banfield's extramarital partner; pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in Joseph Ryan's death, was sentenced to ten years in prison, and testified for the prosecution against Brendan Banfield.[3]
From the record
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Credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)Public domainSourceSOLVEDListenFoxstone Park, Vienna, Virginia · 1970s
FBI agent Robert Hanssen spied for Soviet and later Russian intelligence services intermittently from 1979 to 2001, selling thousands of classified documents and betraying U.S. intelligence assets before his 2001 arrest.
UNSOLVEDListenLeesburg, Virginia (site of former rail freight depot) · 1880s
Orion Anderson, a 14-year-old African American boy, was taken from a Leesburg, Virginia jail by an armed mob on November 8, 1889, and shot and hanged at the town's freight depot after being accused of assaulting a white schoolgirl. No one was convicted.
SOLVEDListenLeesburg, Virginia · 1990s
Robert Schwartz, a renowned biotechnology scientist, was stabbed to death at his Leesburg, Virginia home in December 2001 in a killing orchestrated by his daughter Clara Jane Schwartz and carried out by her friend Kyle Hulbert, with two others assisting. All four were convicted for their roles in the crime.
SOLVEDListenLeongatha, Victoria, Australia · 2023
Erin Patterson murdered three relatives and seriously injured a fourth by serving beef Wellingtons laced with death cap mushrooms at a family lunch in Leongatha, Victoria, in July 2023. She was convicted on all charges in July 2025 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Credit: National Center for Missing and Exploited ChildrenEditorial useSourceOVERTURNEDListenColorado Springs, Colorado · 2020
Gannon Stauch, an 11-year-old boy from Colorado Springs, was reported missing on January 27, 2020, and later found to have been murdered by his stepmother, Letecia Stauch (also known as Letecia Hardin), who was convicted in 2023 and sentenced to life without parole; her conviction was overturned on appeal in April 2026.
Satilla Shores, near Brunswick, Glynn County, Georgia · 2020
On February 23, 2020, 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery was chased by three white men in trucks while jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick, Georgia, and was fatally shot by Travis McMichael after a struggle. No arrests were made for over two months until a video of the killing went viral, after which Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William "Roddie" Bryan were charged, tried, and convicted of murder and other crimes in state court, and later convicted of federal hate crime and attempted kidnapping charges.
