{"id":131950,"date":"2026-06-05T05:58:02","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/virginia-man-in-au-pair-affair-case-to-be-sentenced-in-double-murder-scheme\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T05:58:02","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T11:58:02","slug":"virginia-man-in-au-pair-affair-case-to-be-sentenced-in-double-murder-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/virginia-man-in-au-pair-affair-case-to-be-sentenced-in-double-murder-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Virginia man in \u2018au pair affair\u2019 case to be sentenced in double murder scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FILE
FILE – Brendan Banfield looks on during the double murder trial for Brendan Banfield in Fairfax County Circuit Court, Jan. 14, 2026, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo\/Tom Brenner, Pool, File)<\/span>(AP Photo\/Tom Brenner, Pool, File)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) \u2014 A Virginia man who was having an affair with the family\u2019s Brazilian au pair is scheduled to be sentenced Friday for the murder of his wife and a man<\/a> who was lured to the couple’s home as a fall guy.<\/p>\n

Brendan Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, claimed that he shot Joseph Ryan<\/a> after he came across Ryan attacking his wife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. But prosecutors said Brendan Banfield and au pair Juliana Peres Magalh\u00e3es<\/a> set Ryan up in a scheme to get rid of Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse.<\/p>\n

Brendan Banfield faces the possibility of life in prison. In addition to murder, jurors in February convicted Banfield of child endangerment because the couple\u2019s 4-year-old daughter was home during the killings.<\/p>\n

During Banfield’s trial, Magalh\u00e3es testified that he had told her he wanted to marry her and have children with her, but he needed to \u201cget rid of\u201d his wife first. He didn\u2019t want a divorce because \u201cshe would have more money than he would\u201d and because he wanted custody of the couple\u2019s daughter, said Magalh\u00e3es, who was 21 when she started working for the Banfields in 2021.<\/p>\n

Magalh\u00e3es told jurors that she and Brendan Banfield had impersonated Christine Banfield on a website for sexual fetishes. They used the site to lure Ryan to the house in Herndon, Virginia, for a sexual encounter involving a knife and staged the scene to look as though they had shot a violent intruder.<\/p>\n

Magalh\u00e3es testified that on the day of the killings, she waited in a car outside the house with the Banfields’ child. When Ryan arrived, she called Brendan Banfield, who was waiting at a nearby McDonald’s. The pair took the child to the basement and then went to the bedroom, where they encountered Ryan. Brendan Banfield shot Ryan and then stabbed Christine Banfield with the knife Ryan had brought. When Magalh\u00e3es saw Ryan moving, she fired a second shot that killed him.<\/p>\n

Magalh\u00e3es pleaded guilty to manslaughter<\/a> after agreeing to testify against Brendan Banfield. Magalh\u00e3es was sentenced<\/a> to 10 years in prison after Banfield’s trial.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

– Brendan Banfield looks on during the double murder trial for Brendan Banfield in Fairfax County Circuit Court, Jan. 14, 2026, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo\/Tom Brenner, Pool, File)(AP Photo\/Tom Brenner, Pool, File) FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) \u2014 A Virginia man who was having an affair with the family\u2019s Brazilian au pair is scheduled to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":131951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-131950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=131950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=131950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=131950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=131950"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=131950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}