Nanny turned lover testifies against taxman over ‘BDSM plot to murder his wife’
The key witness for the trial of a husband accused of orchestrating a BDSM plot to murder his wife is the Brazilian nanny he cheated with.
Brendan Banfield is charged with the murders of his wife, Christine Banfield and another man, Joseph Ryan.
Christine was fatally stabbed on February 23, 2023, in her home in Herndon, Virginia and Joseph was found dead from gunshot wounds nearby.
Prosecutors allege that Brendan, who worked for the IRS, was having an affair with his family’s Brazilian nanny, Juliana Peres Magalhães, and was the mastermind of a BDSM plot to kill his wife.
They claim the affair began after Ms Peres Magalhães started working for the family as an au pair and moved into the home with the couple and their 4-year-old daughter.
A month before the killings, Brendan allegedly created a profile on a bondage website, posing as Christine, a pediatric intensive care nurse.
He then began talking with Mr Ryan and started discussing a ‘consensual sexual encounter involving restraints used on her, her clothing being cut off with a knife he brought, and other violent sexual role play,’ prosecutors said.
Brendan had also allegedly made Ms Peres Magalhães call Mr Ryan while pretending to be Christine.
The alleged plot involved Brendan giving Ms Peres Magalhães a gun and telling her to call Christine’s phone when Mr Ryan entered the home and to call him.
When Mr Ryan arrived at the Banfield home, the au pair reportedly said that Christine was sleeping.
According to NBC, she said: ‘We told him before that it was kinda part of the game, where the person gets in the bedroom and then I would act like scared, like, try to run or try to scream or if the person starts doing something, she would just get kinda freaked out and try to resist but it was like part of the game.’
In a recorded interview, she said that her and Brendan ‘reported the offence as if Mr Ryan was an intruder who stabbed Christine.’
When he received the call from the au pair, Brendan drove home, where he shot Mr Ryan in the head and stabbed his wife, prosecutors allege.
Ms Peres Magalhães was accused of then shooting Mr Ryan after seeing him move.
In October 2024, she pleaded guilty to manslaughter in relation to Mr Ryan’s death and claimed to prosecutors that Brendan was the mastermind behind the plot, according to NBC4.
She is now testifying against her former lover because she ‘could no longer carry the guilt and shame’ of what happened.
During her testimony, she said that Brendan started concocting the murder plot after saying he wanted to ‘get rid’ of his wife and that ‘divorce was not an option.’
Brendan pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder charges.
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