A fetish website and claims of a sordid affair: Husband charged over double murder

Warning: Graphic descriptions

It’s a case that has drawn international attention for months: a woman was found fatally stabbed in an upscale neighbourhood outside Washington, DC. Her husband, who prosecutors say was having an affair with their Brazilian au pair, was a federal law enforcement officer.

A second victim, who authorities said had been lured to the couple’s home through a sexual fetish site, was found shot dead next to the slain wife.

Brendan Banfield was charged with the premeditated killings of his wife and another man this week.

Since the killings took place in February 2023, the case has riveted the public, spawning true-crime podcast episodes and obsessive online chatter from the high-rises of Sao Paulo to the Washington suburbs.

It took months for the first charges to come down, but in October 2023, authorities charged the au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, 24, with second-degree murder in the shooting death of the man found in the home, Joseph Ryan, 38.

And this week, the husband, Brendan Banfield of Herndon, Virginia, was charged with aggravated murder in the deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, 37, and Ryan.

Prosecutors in Fairfax County, Virginia, have accused Banfield of plotting to kill the two in his home in Herndon, about 30 kilometres west of Washington.

Banfield, formerly an agent for the criminal division of the tax authority, the IRS, was arraigned on Tuesday; his trial date will be set later this week. If convicted, he could face a life sentence without parole. His lawyer declined to comment.

A lawyer for Magalhaes, whose trial begins in November, also declined to comment. If convicted, she faces more than 40 years in prison.

Here’s what we know about the case.

Police found an ‘appalling’ murder scene

On the morning of February 24, 2023, police officers responded to 911 calls placed by Magalhaes, and found a scene they would later describe as “appalling”.

Juliana Peres Magalhaes.Credit: Fairfax County PD

In a large home on a cul-de-sac, they found Banfield’s wife, a paediatric nurse, who had been stabbed in the upper body and would soon die of her injuries, and Ryan, who had been shot dead. Banfield, Magalhaes and Banfield’s four-year-old daughter were also at the scene, unharmed.

Banfield and Magalhaes told police that Ryan was attacking Christine Banfield that day and they were trying to defend her. But police found no sign of forced entry, and prosecutors said the man who was shot had been invited to the home for a sexual tryst.

Police recovered a knife and two guns.

The au pair fired a weapon, too

Magalhaes started her job as a live-in childcare worker for the Banfields in 2021.

On the morning of the killings, Magalhaes said she set out with the couple’s daughter sometime after 7am for the zoo, but returned after forgetting their lunch, according to her lawyers, who gave her account of events at a hearing in April.

She saw an unfamiliar car outside the home and called Christine Banfield, who did not pick up. She then called Brendan Banfield, and once he arrived, they went inside together, the lawyers said.

Christine Banfield.Credit: NBC4

Magalhaes took the child to the basement but heard a commotion and went upstairs, the lawyers said, where Brendan Banfield was shouting, “Drop the knife!”

Banfield told a 911 operator that a man was stabbing his wife, and that he fired his service weapon at the man to stop him. Magalhaes later told a detective that Banfield told her to get a second gun from a bathroom, giving her the code to a safe.

She retrieved it and fired, the lawyers said, arguing that she was acting in self-defence to protect the family. They later emphasised that she was acting on orders from her employer.

Ryan, of Springfield, Virginia, was pronounced dead at the scene. A medical examiner testified that he was struck twice, in the head and chest, and that it was the shot to the chest – the au pair’s bullet – that was the fatal shot.

Who was the man shot in the Banfield home?

Prosecutors say Ryan exchanged messages with a profile featuring a photograph of Christine Banfield on the website FetLife, which describes itself as a community for people interested in kinky sexual practices.

It was not clear who had created the profile.

Ryan had arranged to come to the Banfield home after discussing plans for “rough sex”, prosecutors said.

Ryan was open about his activity on FetLife, his friend told The Washington Post.

People who knew Christine Banfield said the messages discussing a rendezvous did not sound like her, and a prosecutor, Eric Clingan, said in April that there was no evidence that she had been “into knife play, binding” or other similar sexual practices.

But Magalhaes’ lawyers have emphasised that it was Christine Banfield who purchased tickets for her daughter and au pair to go to the zoo that day, suggesting she wanted to have the house to herself.

Allegations of an affair

While prosecutors have not said that Magalhaes and Brendan Banfield concocted a plot to frame Ryan, they have offered a possible motive: the two had been having a months-long affair.

In October 2023, when police returned to the Banfield home with a warrant to arrest Magalhaes, they found that she had moved into the master bedroom with her employer, the same room where Christine Banfield was stabbed eight months earlier.

Magalhaes’ clothes were hanging in the closet and her lingerie was strewed around the bed, according to photos introduced at a hearing. A framed picture of the two had been propped on the bedside table.

Her lawyers have said that she was Brendan Banfield’s “girlfriend”, but claim that neither of the Banfields were sexually exclusive.

In April, prosecutors revealed that the pair practised shooting at a gun range two months before the killings, and that Banfield later returned to the range and purchased a pistol – the Glock with which Magalhaes shot Ryan.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

If you or anyone you know needs help, call Lifeline on 13 11 14, Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636, or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service on 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732).

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.