Brendan Banfield, the Fairfax County man accused of plotting with his family’s au pair to impersonate his wife on a sexual fetish website to frame a stranger as her killer, was sentenced Friday to life without parole.
Banfield, 41, was found guilty earlier this year of aggravated murder in the 2023 killings of Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan.
The conviction followed a month-long trial during which prosecutors painted Banfield as a man so deeply in love with the young Brazilian au pair that he orchestrated an elaborate plot to lure Ryan to his family’s Northern Virginia home under the pretense of a rough sex fantasy, shoot him, stab Christine, then frame Ryan as a violent intruder. Prosecutors had testimony from Banfield's former mistress and au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhães, to corroborate their theory.
Banfield maintained his innocence until the very end. During the trial, he emphatically denied any plan to harm his wife and dismissed the idea that he had concocted a catfishing plot as “absolutely crazy.” He told jurors that his relationship with Magalhães was not serious, citing his previous extramarital affairs as proof that he would not kill his wife over a dalliance. He stuck to this version of events in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Friday, continuing to accuse Ryan of fatally stabbing his wife and portraying himself as a loving husband.
Brendan Banfield. (Fairfax County Police Department)
“She truly was a caring mother, a caring wife, a loving nurse,” he said. “But I am not responsible for her death. This is not a knife that I ever held in my hand, and I never stabbed her.”
Judge Penney S. Azcarate eviscerated him before delivering the sentence. She said sentencing normally weighs heavily on her as people often act out of anger, passion or have underlying struggles with substance abuse. But not this time, she said.
“To testify as you did shows the court that you still think that you are the smartest person in the room,” Azcarate said. “One would hope that some day you would become tortured by what you have done to Christine, Joe, Christine’s daughter and their families – but nothing that I have seen suggests that you will. The level of cruelty, calculation and inhumanity in this case suggests something far deeper than anger or impulse. It reflects evil. Which is why I carry no burden and find no hesitation in sentencing you to life.”
This is a developing story and will be updated.
