Virginia man gets life in prison for double murder scheme in affair with Brazilian au pair

Judge Penney Azcarate called Banfield’s actions evil and calculated.

“The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable,” she said in handing down the sentence, which is mandatory in Virginia for an aggravated murder conviction. The 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 the Banfields' 4-year-old daughter. Brendan Banfield “took everything from her,” Azcarate said.

In addition to murder, jurors in February convicted Banfield of child endangerment because the couple’s daughter was home during the killings. Azcarate sentenced Banfield to an additional five years on that charge and three more years on a firearms charge.

Speaking at his sentencing, Banfield continued to proclaim his innocence, saying it would have been impossible for him to have committed the murders. Banfield said he loved his wife and, although he had affairs, he never intended to leave her.

Azcarate was unmoved, citing his lack of remorse as one of the reasons she felt no hesitation in ordering him to remain behind bars for life.

Speaking at Friday's hearing, Christine Banfield’s older sister, Danielle Hocker, spoke of their close relationship and described her sister as kind, caring, reliable and selfless. She said they grew up chasing fireflies and sleeping next to each other on the floor in sleeping bags.

“When she was born, 'I' became ‘we’,” Hocker told the court. “I haven’t stopped saying ‘we’ when I speak about my childhood after her death, except now when I do, it takes my breath away — a pause filled with love that has nowhere to go.”

During Brendan Banfield's trial, Magalhães testified that he had 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 had also testified that she and Brendan Banfield staged the scene at the home in Herndon, Virginia, to look as if they had shot a violent intruder. The pair had pretended to be Christine Banfield on a fetish website to lure Ryan to their house for a sexual encounter involving a knife.

On the day of the killings, Magalhães said she waited in a car outside the house with the daughter. 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.

On Friday, Banfield emphasized that there was dissent within the police department over the theory that he had impersonated his wife on social media, saying it would have been impossible for him to send some of the messages.

Some media have dubbed the case the “au pair affair.” Magalhães pleaded guilty to manslaughter after agreeing to testify against Brendan Banfield. Magalhães was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Banfield's trial.