Virginia police made a second arrest on Tuesday in connection with a double murder case that happened in Herndon, a wealthy neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in 2023.
“The killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan at the beginning of last year shocked everyone in our community.
Following the hard work of police and prosecutors, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office is pleased to say that Brendan Banfield has been charged with killing his wife Christine and Ryan.
This was announced by Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano at a press conference on Tuesday.
In February 2023, Christine Banfield (Brendan’s wife and NICU worker) and Joseph Ryan (38-year-old man who came to her home with a knife) were killed in Herndon, Virginia.
Brendan Banfield was the husband and father of a 4-year-old daughter, and Juliana Peres Magalhaes was his family’s 22-year-old Brazilian au pair.
It is not clear how Ryan works with the family or their au pair.
Brendan Banfield is being charged with four counts of gross murder and felony use of a handgun.
Magalhaes is also accused of murder with intent to kill and possession of a firearm during a crime.
“On February 24, 2023, I stood in the middle of a cul-de-sac street in Fairfax County and talked about the killings of two people in a home.”
“After 570 days, we know that Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield were killed,” Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said at a press meeting on Tuesday.
When the police went to the house that day to investigate a 911 call, they found Christine had been stabbed in the neck and Ryan had been fatally shot in the upstairs bedroom. Davis said that Christine was taken to a hospital and later declared dead there.
At the scene, police found a knife and two other guns.
Davis told reporters, “I will not talk about how our victim Joseph Ryan is connected to anyone in the case right now because the investigation is still going on.”
On February 24, 2023, Magalhaes told the police that she had left the Banfields’ home in the 13200 block of Stable Brook Way in Herndon to take their young daughter to the National Zoo.
She told the cops that she had started to drive but then realized she had forgotten to pack lunches for the trip back home. When she turned around, she saw a strange car in the driveway.
After that, she allegedly called Brendan, a former IRS criminal investigator who was already at work, and told him about the strange car in their driveway. The Washington Post says that they agreed to meet at the Banfields’ house and take a walk inside together.
Magalhaes first told the police that when she and Brendan walked inside, they saw Ryan, an unknown guy, holding Christine at knifepoint. It is said that she called him an invader.
Christine was naked in the main bedroom of the house, but Ryan seemed to be fully dressed.
It is not clear what happened inside the house that Friday morning, but both Magalhaes and Brendan said they shot Ryan while he had a knife to Christine’s throat.
The Post says that authorities think a computer in the Banfield home was connected to an account on a sexual fetish website.
It looked like there was a picture of Christine in a swimsuit in the computer account, but it is not clear who was talking through it. The Post also said that the profile did not show “one iota of evidence that she was into knife play, binding, and BDSM,” which is what prosecutor Eric Clingan said in court.
Ryan, the man who threatened Christine with a knife, seemed to have an account on the website and was talking to the person using the computer at Banfield to get to it.
Magalhaes was caught in October 2023 after moving into the main bedroom of the Banfields and putting a framed picture of herself and Brendan next to the bed on a table. The 23-year-old woman was charged by a grand jury in April, and her trial is set for November.
