This article contains sexual content and graphic descriptions of murder. Please read with caution.
What would you do if you arrived at the home where you were a nanny and found a stranger holding a knife to the throat of the mother you worked for? In Feb. 2023, that happened to Juliana Peres Magalhaes, a 23-year-old Brazilian woman who worked in childcare for the Banfield family in Fairfax County, VA.
What came next left Christine Banfield, a 37-year-old mother of a 4-year-old daughter, and Joseph Ryan, the man holding a knife to Chrstine’s throat, dead. Ryan was shot, and Christine was stabbed and killed. However, evidence emerged that Christine may have met Ryan, who had no known connection to the Banfield family, on a fetish website advertising BDSM roleplay.
But who started Christine’s profile on the site? Was there more to Peres Magalhaes’ relationship with Christine’s husband, Brendan? And who killed Christine? Did Peres Magalhaes do the right thing, sensing Christine was in danger, or was she just one side of a love triangle, leading to a bizarre murder plot? In April 2024, Virginia prosecutors sought those answers as the tragic true crime case captured headlines nationwide.
How did Joseph Ryan die?
Before Joseph Ryan, 39, and Christine Banfield died, Julian Peres Magalhaes left the Banfield home with the Banfield’s daughter to the zoo, NBCWashington.com reported. Peres Magalhaes realized she had forgotten the packed lunches for the zoo, so she returned home, only to find a car she didn’t recognize in the driveway as a strange man entered the house. Concerned, Peres Magalhaes called Christine’s husband, Brendan Banfield, who rushed home, telling her to stay out of the house until he arrived.
Once Brendan showed up, Peres Magalhaes and Brendan entered the home together, and Peres Magalhaes took the young child to the basement for safety, according to DC News Now. The nanny said she called 911. Unsure exactly what to report, however, she hung up the phone. At that point, Brendan, an armed IRS special agent, and Peres Magalhaes left the basement. Brendan entered the bedroom on the second floor of the house and encountered Ryan with a knife to Christine’s throat.
Brendan said he ordered Ryan to drop the knife, but he didn’t. When Ryan viciously stabbed Christine Brendan fired, but didn’t kill him. He shouted for Peres Magalhaes to get another gun from a safe in the bathroom. She did and entered the bedroom. Ryan was still alive and still posed a threat, so Peres Magalhaes fired her gun, hitting him in the heart and killing him. Christine later succumbed to her injuries at the hospital.
A home invasion, a murder plot, or sex play turned deadly?
According to the prosecution, the scenes described were not what they seemed. Brendan Banfield and Juliana Peres Magalhaes didn’t interrupt a home invasion, resulting in Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield’s death. Instead, Virginia prosecutors allege Brendan and his nanny orchestrated an elaborate plot to launch a profile for Christine on the fetish website, communicate with Ryan online, and then lure him to the home to possibly kill them so that Peres Magalhaes and Brendan could be together.
Christine or someone posing as Christine did communicate with Ryan on the site, but friends and family said those messages didn’t seem like her, and investigators suspected the messages were sent by someone else. Meanwhile, evidence emerged that Brendan and Peres Magalhaes were having an affair, which Peres Magalhaes denied, and that they had visited a shooting range a short time before Ryan and Christine died. Around that same, Brendan also purchased a gun used in the shooting. Brendan and Magalhaes also purchased new phones shortly before the incident.
Peres Magalhaes was charged with Ryan’s murder
As of April 2024, Juliana Peres Magalhaes had been charged with Joseph Ryan’s murder. Brendan Banfield, meanwhile, had so far claimed the Fifth Amendment when questioned about the case. As the investigation proceeded, prosecutors called into question every aspect of Peres Magalhaes and Brendan’s story. In addition to the evidence already mentioned, why were three 911 calls made that day — the first two hung up, while the third reported Ryan had been shot.
Furthermore, why would a trained IRS special agent call upon his nanny, in her 20s, to fire the fatal shot? And, according to the prosecution, there’s overwhelming evidence that Peres Magalhaes and Brendan were having an affair in the months leading up to Ryan and Christine Banfield’s murders and even after they died. To date, no charges have been filed stemming from Christine’s murder. A jury was expected to convene later that April.
Referring to the case, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said, “I suspected from the very beginning — and I went to the scene of that double murder — that there was going to be a lot of twists and turns to this investigation. The twists and turns are still ongoing. It’s my expectation that we will eventually be able to hold more than just one person accountable for this crime.”