TELL ME YA CHEESIN FAM?
I walk around a little edgy already
A death wish and a catfish: How an IRS agent lured his wife and an unsuspecting man to their murders
Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan were murdered in her Northern Virginia home on Feb. 24, 2023, in a scheme carried out by her husband and their au pair.Listen to this article with a free account
00:0008:09
1x
Brendan Banfield during his double murder trial in Fairfax, Va., on Jan. 14.Tom Brenner / Pool via AP
Share
Add NBC News to Google
Savewith a NBCUniversal Profile
April 3, 2026, 5:38 PM CDT / Updated April 4, 2026, 4:07 PM CDT
By Tim Stelloh
On a Friday morning three years ago, a horrific scene unfolded in a Northern Virginia home: A pediatric ICU nurse, Christine Banfield, was mortally wounded in her bedroom. She’d been repeatedly stabbed. With her was 39-year-old Joseph Ryan. He’d been fatally shot.
Subscribe to read this story ad-free
Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.
The nurse’s husband — IRS special agent Brendan Banfield — told authorities he killed Ryan, a stranger, after the man attacked his wife.
What prosecutors say actually happened inside the Banfields’ Fairfax County home was the result of something far more convoluted and sinister — a deadly catfishing scheme that was motivated by an affair and relied on a fetish website to lure an unsuspecting man to his death.
The plot, they said, was planned and executed by Brendan Banfield and his mistress, the family’s Brazilian au pair.
Brendan Banfield has maintained his innocence and called the allegations “absolutely crazy.” After a three-week trial this year, he was convicted of aggravated murder. He is set to be sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison next month.
The au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan
Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield.Dateline
The murder
On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Brendan Banfield told a 911 operator that he’d come upon that terrifying scene inside his home in Herndon, a suburban community near Washington, D.C. Authorities found him in the primary bedroom kneeling over his wife, Christine Banfield, 37, with one of his hands on her neck, Fairfax County homicide detective Thomas Gadell told “Dateline.”
Recommended
Space
Artemis II astronauts return home, ending historic NASA mission around the moon
She’d been stabbed multiple times and was later pronounced dead.
On a dog bed in the corner, Gadell said, they found Ryan. In the basement was the couple’s 4-year-old daughter. She was unharmed.
In a statement to police, Peres Magalhaes walked authorities through what happened: The au pair was preparing to go to the National Zoo with the Banfields’ daughter when she saw an unfamiliar SUV pull into the family’s driveway. So she called Brendan Banfield, who was at a nearby McDonald’s getting breakfast.
“I don’t know who is that,” she described telling Brendan Banfield, body camera video shows. “Please come here. I’m scared.”
They put the girl in the basement with a tablet, Peres Magalhaes said, then went upstairs and heard what she descr
ibed as “spanking.”
Read it here or listen to the podcast for free
A death wish and a catfish: How an IRS agent lured his wife and an unsuspecting man to their murders
Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan were murdered in her Northern Virginia home on Feb. 24, 2023, in a scheme carried out by her husband and their au pair.
www.nbcnews.com
This world is full of sick people
