Cheating husband used BDSM site to recruit unwitting accomplice in wife’s murder, au pair says
A Virginia husband allegedly turned to a BDSM dating site to rope in an unwitting accomplice to murder his wife — part of a months-long plot to get his spouse “out of the picture,” according to a report.
Juliana Peres Magalhães, a 24-year-old Brazilian au pair, told prosecutors that her 39-year-old employer, Brendan Banfield, allegedly chose to murder his wife, Christine Banfield, instead of divorcing her as the two carried out a steamy affair.
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“And then I asked him, ‘Are you gonna divorce her?’” Magalhães told Fairfax County prosecutors on Oct. 25, 2024, in footage that aired on Tuesday by NBC Washington.
“And then he said, ‘That’s not what I’m thinking about.’ And then he explained that he was thinking about finding a way to just get rid of her, out of the picture,” Magalhães said.
Brendan Banfield began the affair with Magalhães about a year into her job as a live-in au pair, she recalled.
She was fitted in a dark gray jumpsuit alongside her attorney as she recalled her testimony of the twisted chain of events under oath.
Brendon Banfield allegedly logged into Fetlife.com — a BDSM and fantasy site — and created a fake profile posing as his wife, Christine, to seek a man to come to their Fairfax County home to carry out a twisted rape fantasy, the au pair detailed.
He allegedly dragged in Joseph Ryan, 39, who believed he was speaking with the wife, but was actually communicating with either Brendan or Magalhães, according to investigators, the outlet said.
“He wanted somebody that sound, like, violent and was kinda playing the way he wanted the person should play, so that’s when he started talking to Joe,” she said of Brendan’s preferences on the site.
Ryan was then allegedly invited to the Banfield home on Feb. 24, 2023, with a knife to play out the staged attack on Christine, as the husband and au pair hid nearby to carry out the murders, prosecutors 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,’” Magalhães said in the footage obtained by the outlet.
The fake scenario allegedly gave Brendan and Magalhães the chance to kill Christine, then turn on Ryan, fatally shooting him in what prosecutors have called a staged act of self-defense.
Brendan allegedly fired at and wounded Ryan — but it was the au pair who then unleashed the fatal shots at Ryan after grabbing another gun stashed in the house, the Washington Post said.
The pair waited 10 minutes before calling 911, the outlet reported.
According to the au pair, the deadly plot was months in the making — with Brendan even installing noise-proof windows in the home ahead of the murders to prevent the sounds of screams from escaping.
“And then I went outside in the driveway and he went up to the bedroom, and then he started like screaming and yelling to see if I could like hear anything outside,” she said.
“And?” asked Fairfax County Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan in the clip.
“I couldn’t really hear, like, much,” she replied.
The twisted au pair pleaded guilty last year to manslaughter in connection with the double homicide.
Brendan Banfield is set to go on trial in October, and Magalhães is expected to be sentenced after that.
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