Brendan Banfield committed the double murder in 2023 after he started having an affair with his family's live-in au pair
Credit: Fairfax County Police Department
NEED TO KNOW
- Brendan Banfield was sentenced to life in prison after he killed his wife and a stranger in a BDSM-fueled plot
- “The level of cruelty, calculation and inhumanity in this case reflects something far deeper than anger or impulse — it reflects evil,” the sentencing judge said
- Banfield, a former federal agent, committed the double murder in 2023 after he started having an affair with his family’s live-in au pair
A Virginia man has learned his fate after he killed his wife and a stranger in a BDSM-fueled plot that he allegedly concocted with his au pair lover.
Brendan Banfield was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday, June 5, four months after he was found guilty of aggravated murder in the deaths of his wife, Christine Banfield, a 37-year-old pediatric intensive care nurse, and 39-year-old Joe Ryan, who was allegedly lured to the couple's Virginia home on Feb. 23, 2023, the Associated Press, CNN and The New York Times reported.
“The level of cruelty, calculation and inhumanity in this case reflects something far deeper than anger or impulse — it reflects evil, which is why I carry no burden and find no hesitation in sentencing you to life,” Judge Penney S. Azcarate said, per CNN, as she handed down the sentence.
Moments before, Brendan maintained that he was “not responsible” for his wife's death, the outlet reported.
After he started having an affair with his family's live-in au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, around October 2022, Brendan began planning a murderous scheme to frame Ryan for killing his wife in a BDSM-fueled plot.
As Peres Magalhaes alleged during her testimony, Banfield, a former federal agent, told her that “divorce was not an option” because “money was involved” and he didn't want to lose custody of his daughter, NBC 4 reported in January.
Prosecutors said Brendan created a profile on Fetlife.com, a bondage, fetishism and kink website, pretending to be his wife, and began communicating with Ryan about a “consensual sexual encounter involving restraints used on her, her clothing being cut off with a knife he brought, and other violent sexual roleplay.”
“He made Brendan feel confident enough that he would be the person to play the role that he needed a person to play, which means being aggressive and hold her down and come over to the house and bring stuff,” Peres Magalhaes testified, per CNN.
On the day of the killings, Brendan allegedly instructed Peres Magalhaes to call Christine's phone when Ryan entered the home, after which Brendan would come to the house and shoot Ryan in the head, before stabbing his wife in an attempt to frame the stranger for her death.
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Credit: Fairfax County Police Department
“When I first saw that happening, I ran to the other side of the bed, and I was just crouching down … and covering my ears and covering my eyes,” Peres Magalhaes recalled of the stabbing, according to CNN. “And a few times I looked, and I was able to see him stabbing her.”
Peres Magalhaes pleaded guilty in October 2024 to manslaughter for the death of Ryan, as she allegedly saw him moving and shot him after Brendan took the initial shot, per the AP.
In addition to murder, Brendan was convicted of child endangerment, as the couple's daughter was home during the killings. During the sentencing, Judge Azcarate said Brendan “took everything from” his 4-year-old child.
“The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable,” she said, per the AP.
Azcarate added that Brendan's scheme involved “luring a completely innocent man into your deadly trap; continuing on after the murders without a care; and not once — not once — thinking of the impact [on his daughter.]"
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