A Fairfax County case that reads like a grim mash-up of domestic betrayal, online fantasy, and real-world violence is inching toward trial. At its center: a Brazilian au pair, her alleged lover, his wife, and a man drawn in through a bondage website.
Juliana Peres Magalhaes, now 25, pleaded guilty last October to manslaughter for her role in the deaths of Joseph Ryan and Christine Banfield. Her former employer and alleged lover, Brendan Banfield, a onetime IRS criminal investigator, faces far steeper charges. A grand jury indicted him a month earlier on four counts of aggravated murder and a firearms charge. His trial is scheduled for October 2025.
The story prosecutors tell is both lurid and disturbing. After moving into the Banfield home to help care for the couple’s daughter, Peres Magalhaes began an affair with Brendan. Within months, she told investigators, he was openly talking about “getting rid” of his wife. Divorce, she said, wasn’t on the table. Murder was.
Banfield allegedly set the plan in motion by creating a FetLife account, seeking someone who would play out violent fantasies under the guise of consensual role play. That someone turned out to be Joseph Ryan, a mixed martial arts enthusiast with an interest in live-action role play. Prosecutors believe Ryan thought he was meeting Christine Banfield for a consensual sexual encounter involving restraints, knives, and staged resistance.
But on February 24, 2023, the fantasy dissolved into real bloodshed. Christine, a pediatric intensive care nurse, was sleeping when Ryan arrived at the Banfield home. Peres Magalhaes later described it as “part of the game” that Christine would resist while Ryan played out the fantasy. Instead, Brendan returned from a nearby McDonald’s and attacked. Ryan was shot in the head and chest. Christine was stabbed and later died at the hospital.
In her October 2024 plea hearing, prosecutors said Peres Magalhaes admitted to shooting Ryan when she saw him moving after the first round of violence. The pair then called 911, staging the scene as though Ryan had been an intruder who attacked Christine.
A year later, investigators served warrants on the Banfield home. What they found undercut the staged story: photographs of Banfield and Peres Magalhaes together in affectionate poses, lingerie laid out in the bedroom, and digital evidence tying them to the plan.
Peres Magalhaes initially faced charges of second-degree murder and firearms offenses. Her decision to plead guilty to manslaughter came with a deal: she will be recommended for release with time served after Banfield’s trial—so long as she continues to cooperate.
Banfield, meanwhile, awaits his day in court. His trial, slated for October 2025, will decide whether a jury sees him as a manipulator who orchestrated the deaths of both his wife and the man he lured into their home.
The tangled case has left Christine’s colleagues and family reeling, leaving Joseph Ryan’s family mourning a man who, prosecutors say, thought he was playing a role but wound up a victim in a deadly game.
