When Christine Banfield was stabbed to death in her Herndon-area home in 2023, her 4-year-old daughter was in the basement. Now Fairfax County prosecutors want to use the toddler’s video-recorded statement from that morning against her father, who stands accused of killing Banfield and another man with the help of the couple’s au pair.
The Fairfax prosecutors provided new allegations about the planning and execution of the killing of Banfield, 37, and Joseph Ryan, 39, claiming Banfield’s husband and their au pair “engaged in a ruse” to convince the 4-year-old that a “strange man” had entered the house uninvited.
In an interview with authorities before she learned her mother was dead, the young girl corroborated the husband and au pair’s claims that an unknown intruder had entered the home, prosecutors said. The husband and au pair told police that the intruder fatally stabbed Banfield while the girl was in the basement, and that the husband and au pair then both shot Ryan. A judge must decide whether to allow the child’s statement to be played during her father’s trial without requiring her to testify or face cross-examination.
Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan wrote in a motion last month that Brendan Banfield had posed as his wife online and corresponded for a month with various men on a fetish sex website, seeking a partner for a “rape fantasy.” After he connected with Ryan, prosecutors said, the au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, spoke to Ryan on the phone posing as Christine Banfield to lure him to the house.
On the morning of February 24, 2023, Clingan said, Brendan Banfield, posing as his wife, sent messages to Ryan in which Ryan confirmed he would arrive exactly at 7:30 a.m. Prosecutors said Brendan Banfield, Peres Magalhães, and the Banfields' daughter left minutes earlier and then returned to the home at 7:30 a.m. They initially left without feeding the child breakfast, the girl told investigators. Then all three entered the home together through the basement, and the adults went upstairs while the girl stayed behind.
Brendan Banfield, 40, a criminal investigator for the IRS, allegedly shot Ryan in the bedroom where his wife was lying, then stabbed his wife to death with Ryan’s knife. Banfield is charged with murder. and endangering the welfare of his daughter.
Banfield's lawyer, John F. Carroll, declined to comment on the prosecutors' motion. But in Fairfax Circuit Court on Friday, Carroll accused prosecutors of withholding key evidence in the case, including a February interview with Peres Magalhães, who pleaded guilty last fall to manslaughter and agreed to cooperate in exchange for being released and deported. Carroll called the au pair’s new statement “a recantation” of her confession of involvement with Banfield in the double homicide.
In addition, Carroll demanded to know why “four high-ranking and important people in this case have been reassigned,” including the lead detective. Carroll, who often represents police officers in disciplinary matters, said he understood that one of the investigators “was removed based on a complaint of a hostile work environment.”
Clingan said the transfer of the investigators "was not disciplinary but the result of performance management." Carroll argued the transfers could be indicative of problems with the case and asked for their records. Chief Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Penney S. Azcarate scheduled a hearing on the issue for June 27.
Carroll also sought an investigation into an anonymous letter he received earlier this year, claiming to provide details about Christine Banfield’s sex life. The writer claimed he sent the letter to Clingan last July. Clingan said in court he had not seen the letter until Carroll included a copy in a recent motion, which argued the letter provided possibly exculpatory evidence and should be investigated. Carroll provided the original letter to police on Friday, and Clingan said they would investigate its allegations.
For months after the 2023 slayings of Ryan and Christine Banfield, no one was charged. Prosecutors said Peres Magalhães moved into the Banfields’ main bedroom, and that Brendan Banfield “was engaged in preparing to remove himself, [his daughter] and Peres Magalhães to Brazil,” her native country, “in an effort to escape detection and apprehension for his crimes.”
But in November 2023, prosecutors charged Peres Magalhães with second-degree murder in the shooting of Ryan. She and Banfield had told police that after Banfield initially interrupted the supposed home invasion by Ryan and shot him once, that he was still alive, and Peres Magalhães then fired the fatal shot. Prosecutors said Banfield then rearranged the victims to conform with his story that Ryan was stabbing Christine Banfield when he was killed.
In October, Peres Magalhães sat down with police and prosecutors and provided a lengthy statement recanting the claim of a home invasion, court records show. She said Brendan Banfield had planned the killings and arranged for Ryan to appear at the house with a knife, as a result of online discussions the two men previously had.
Clingan said in a legal brief that Christine Banfield had planned to sleep in that morning on her day off from working as a pediatric nurse at Reston Hospital Center. Brendan Banfield crafted a plan in which the au pair woke the daughter at 6 a.m., ostensibly for a trip to the zoo, and the au pair told the girl everyone needed to be quiet in the house that morning, Clingan wrote. Banfield then left the front door unlocked and placed his wife’s cellphone in a drawer on another floor, prosecutors said.
While Banfield went to a nearby McDonald’s, he instructed Peres Magalhães to park in their cul-de-sac and wait for Ryan, Clingan wrote. When Ryan arrived, Peres Magalhães called Banfield and told him a “strange man” had just entered, to convince Banfield’s daughter of the supposed surprise attack. The au pair also told Banfield, for the toddler’s benefit, that she had forgotten their lunches, Clingan said. Peres Magalhães told police she was near the home because of the supposedly forgotten lunches, police said.
After the police were called, the 4-year-old was interviewed by a forensic interviewer with SafeSpot Children’s Advocacy Center, the prosecutor said. The girl told the interviewer that Peres Magalhães, not her mother, had woken and dressed her that day, and that “she wanted me to be quiet because my mom was still sleeping.”
The 4-year-old reported that while they were in the car, "Juliana forgot the lunch," and that "somebody strange that we didn’t know came to our house," the prosecution brief says. The girl said that the au pair "told Daddy to come very, drive very fast."
Virginia law permits statements made outside of court by children under 13 to be used as evidence as an exception to the hearsay rule, under which out-of-court statements are typically not admissible. A court must hold a pretrial hearing to examine the circumstances of the statement and determine its trustworthiness.
At the time of the interview, the girl had not been told that her mother was dead, Clingan wrote. He said she described the events "in age-appropriate and matter-of-fact terms," and that her comments were corroborated by Peres Magalhães.
Defendants have a right to cross-examine their accusers. Clingan noted that the girl is now 7 years old and has lived with Brendan Banfield’s mother since the killings, during which time she may have been unduly influenced. He said the mother has been paying the legal fees for Banfield and Peres Magalhães. If Carroll wants to cross-examine her, Azcarate will decide if the girl must testify, in addition to whether she will allow the video.
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