A Herndon man was sentenced in Fairfax County Circuit Court today to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of his wife and a stranger he lured to their home through a fetish website.
Brendan Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, claimed that he shot Joseph Ryan after he came across Ryan attacking his wife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. But earlier this year, a jury convicted him of murder after prosecutors argued that Banfield and the family’s au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, set Ryan up in a scheme to murder Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse.
“Life in prison is a punishment reserved for a very small number of individuals, those whom the community has determined should never walk free again,” said Judge Penny S. Azcarate, who noted that only five years ago, Banfield would have been eligible for the death penalty. “It is a harsh sentence, but in this case it is a justified one.”
Azcarate said that in her 18 years on the bench, she has sentenced hundreds of defendants—the vast majority of whom “were not inherently bad people, but they made terrible decisions” due to substance abuse or anger, “in a moment that changed everything.”
“Sentencing in those cases is difficult, it weighs on me often long after the hearing is over,” she said. “Only two times prior to today have I encountered something different in my court. Two individuals that carried no remorse calculated and planned their violent crimes and left many victims and devastation in their path.
“As I listen to the evidence of the case and listen to your testimony, it is apparent that I am once again looking at that same kind of evil. The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable: Scheming for months, a master plan involving so many moving parts, including deception and manipulation, manipulation 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 Christine’s daughter, the unspoken tragic victim of your behavior.”
In addition to murder, jurors in February convicted Banfield of child endangerment because the couple’s daughter was home during the killings.
During Banfield’s trial, Magalhães testified that he told her he wanted to marry her and have children with her, but he needed to “get rid of” his wife first. He didn’t want a divorce because “she would have more money than he would” and because he wanted custody of the couple’s daughter, said Magalhães, who was 21 when she started working for the Banfields in 2021.
Magalhães told jurors that she and Brendan Banfield had impersonated Christine Banfield on a website for sexual fetishes. They used the site to lure Ryan to the house in Herndon for a sexual encounter involving a knife and staged the scene to look as if they had shot a violent intruder.
Magalhães — who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison — testified that on the day of the killings, she waited in a car outside the house with the Banfields’ child. When Ryan arrived, she called Brendan Banfield, who was waiting at a nearby McDonald’s. The pair took the child to the basement and then went to the bedroom, where they encountered Ryan. Brendan Banfield shot Ryan and then stabbed Christine Banfield with the knife Ryan had brought. When Magalhães saw Ryan moving, she fired a second shot that killed him.
Ryan’s mother, Deirdre Fisher, testified over a video feed that that since her son’s death she has suffered an array of medical and emotional difficulties.
“Joe was chosen because Brendan Banfield thought he would make a good dupe to be framed for the planned murder of his wife,” Fisher said. “As with so many other things, Brendan was wrong.”
Fisher said that her son moved to Florida to become a caregiver for his grandfather, who suffered from dementia, took care of his grandmother when she was in ill health, and took care of a woman he loved for two months after she had a radical hysterectomy.
Ryan would also go “into an animal shelter and ask for the oldest, ugliest dogs, bring them home, and love them for years,” and after he was murdered, left behind a dog who waited for him at the top of the stairs, Fisher said.
“Joe wasn’t the disposable caricature he was made out to be. He had a face, he had a name, he had a life, but Brendan Banfield shot his face, soiled his name, and treated his life as disposable. My son was a kind human being who had a full life of meaning. In contrast, Brendan will remain known as an abusive father, the brutal murderer of his dedicated and compassionate beautiful wife, and a narcissistic killer of an innocent man. My son’s legacy is one of selfless love, while Brandon’s is one of senseless evil.”
Ryan’s aunt and Christine Banfield’s sister Danielle Hocker also testified.
“I didn’t just lose her, I had to sit and listen to a version of her that did not exist,” Hocker said. “I knew her in a way that he never could. I knew her honesty, her compassion, her refusal to live with secrets. Hearing him attempt to rewrite her life and her character felt like losing her all over again, piece by piece, in a room where she could not defend herself. His lies did not just attempt to destroy her reputation, they forced me to relive my grief with anger and helplessness, I cannot fully describe.”
When Banfield was asked if there was anything he would like to say, he disputed the validity of the verdict, which he had unsuccessfully attempted to get thrown out at a hearing yesterday.
“I’m greatly disappointed in the legal system,” he said. “The system has failed not only me, but also Christine, my daughter Valerie, the Bensons, and the rest of my family. I was found guilty of a crime that I did not commit. It is actually impossible to have committed the crime, as the prosecution, the experts, and their witnesses have presented. The prosecution and their witnesses’ statements do not match the evidence.”
On Friday, Banfield had emphasized that there was dissent within the Fairfax County Police Department over the theory that he had impersonated his wife, saying it would have been impossible for him to send some of the messages.
Banfield has the right to appeal, the judge told him, and noted that a new attorney will be appointed on his behalf.
Some media have dubbed the case the “au pair affair.” Magalhães pleaded guilty to manslaughter after agreeing to testify against Banfield. Magalhães was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Banfield’s trial.
The spelling of Danielle Hocker’s name has been corrected.
