{"id":2955,"date":"2026-04-05T10:42:50","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2955"},"modified":"2026-04-05T10:42:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T10:42:50","slug":"a-death-wish-and-a-catfish-how-an-irs-agent-lured-his-wife-and-an-unsuspecting-man-to-their-murders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/?p=2955","title":{"rendered":"A death wish and a catfish: How an IRS agent lured his wife and an unsuspecting man to their murders"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>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\u2019d been repeatedly stabbed. With her was 39-year-old Joseph Ryan. He\u2019d been fatally shot.<\/p>\n<p>The nurse\u2019s husband \u2014 IRS special agent Brendan Banfield \u2014 told authorities he killed Ryan, a stranger, after the man attacked his wife.<\/p>\n<p>What prosecutors say actually happened inside the Banfields\u2019 Fairfax County home was the result of something far more convoluted and sinister \u2014 a deadly catfishing scheme that was motivated by an affair and relied on a fetish website to lure an unsuspecting man to his death.<\/p>\n<p>The plot, they said, was planned and executed by Brendan Banfield and his mistress, the family\u2019s Brazilian au pair.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caas-iframe-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"caas-iframe videoIframe caas-loaded\" data-type=\"videoIframe\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/embedded-video\/mmvo260511813853\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Brendan Banfield has maintained his innocence and\u00a0called the allegations \u201cabsolutely crazy.\u201d\u00a0After a three-week trial this year,\u00a0he was convicted of aggravated murder. He is set to be sentenced to a mandatory term of life in prison next month.<\/p>\n<p>The au pair, Juliana Peres Magalhaes, cooperated with authorities and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She was\u00a0sentenced to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div class=\"caas-figure-with-pb\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-lightbox\" data-lightbox-src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/yg6rsutjkeMbKZjfi.8Evw--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTI0MDA7aD0xNjAwO2NmPXdlYnA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/nbc_news_122\/c7bf227d2025c13c4c2b3cd5b55cf066\"><span class=\"caas-img-wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview caas-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/qRbyCQ7hmJvJ5y8Z53q87w--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/nbc_news_122\/c7bf227d2025c13c4c2b3cd5b55cf066\" alt=\"Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan (Dateline)\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\"><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\" data-id=\"m-1\">Christine Banfield and Joseph Ryan (Dateline)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2><strong>The murder<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>On the morning of Feb. 24, 2023, Brendan Banfield told a 911 operator that he\u2019d 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 \u201cDateline.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019d been stabbed multiple times and was later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n<p>On a dog bed in the corner, Gadell said, they found Ryan. In the basement was the couple\u2019s 4-year-old daughter. She was unharmed.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019 daughter when she saw an unfamiliar SUV pull into the family\u2019s driveway. So she called Brendan Banfield, who was at a nearby McDonald\u2019s getting breakfast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t know who is that,\u201d she described telling Brendan Banfield, body camera video shows. \u201cPlease come here. I\u2019m scared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>They put the girl in the basement with a tablet, Peres Magalhaes said, then went upstairs and heard what she described as \u201cspanking.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"caas-iframe-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"caas-iframe videoIframe caas-loaded\" data-type=\"videoIframe\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/embedded-video\/mmvo260590661601\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the bedroom, she said, they saw Christine Banfield on the floor and a man with a knife above her. Brendan Banfield pleaded with the man to drop the blade, she said, but the man refused and started stabbing her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Brendan shot him,\u201d Peres Magalhaes said.<\/p>\n<p>She told police that she shot the man as well.<\/p>\n<p>Brendan Banfield declined to provide a statement to police.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>The plea deal<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In the months after the killings, authorities came to doubt the au pair\u2019s account. A prosecutor in the case, Eric Clingan, told \u201cDateline\u201d that it didn\u2019t make sense \u2014 Ryan had a knife and Brendan Banfield had a gun, yet Ryan refused to drop his weapon.<\/p>\n<p>Nor had Peres Magalhaes provided a satisfactory explanation for a second 911 call made from her phone on the morning of Feb. 24, Clingan said. In that call, which was made 13 minutes before the one that summoned police to the family\u2019s home, the person on the line said nothing and hung up after only a few seconds, he said. But a male voice could be heard moaning in the background.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA person was in an injured state, and yet it still took 13 minutes\u201d for the other call to be placed, the prosecutor said. \u201cIt made no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Peres Magalhaes had already confessed to shooting Ryan while he was in what Clingan described as a prone, unthreatening position; in October 2023, authorities arrested and charged her with his murder. Nearly a year later, after the completion of a blood pattern analysis that pointed to Brendan Banfield as the person who\u2019d held the knife inside the bedroom, authorities arrested him, too.<\/p>\n<p>He pleaded not guilty to charges of aggravated murder and was held without bail.<\/p>\n<p>Peres Magalhaes had also pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. But in the weeks after Brendan Banfield\u2019s arrest, she told authorities she wanted to cooperate, Clingan said, and in a four-hour statement, she detailed her affair with Brendan Banfield and his plan to kill his wife, whom he described as \u201clazy\u201d and \u201cnot a good mother,\u201d a video of her statement shows.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"caas-figure\">\n<div class=\"caas-figure-with-pb\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"caas-img-container caas-img-lightbox\" data-lightbox-src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/pJtgp38tbPhpD.M1VI1jNQ--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTI0MDA7aD0xNjAwO2NmPXdlYnA-\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/nbc_news_122\/c703f0640c3e56291493f93463d938ce\"><span class=\"caas-img-wrapper\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"caas-img caas-lazy has-preview caas-loaded\" src=\"https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/ny\/api\/res\/1.2\/U4dq8k5lACL8Xk9lYh9aXA--\/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MDtjZj13ZWJw\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/nbc_news_122\/c703f0640c3e56291493f93463d938ce\" alt=\"Juliana Peres Magalh\u00e3es standing by a door while holding hands. (Tom Brenner \/ AP file)\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrapper caption-aligned-with-image\"><\/div>\n<\/div><figcaption class=\"caption-collapse\" data-id=\"m-2\">Juliana Peres Magalh\u00e3es is escorted into the courtroom before continuing her testimony, during the double murder trial for Brendan Banfield in Fairfax County Circuit Court on Jan. 14 in Fairfax, Va. (Tom Brenner \/ AP file)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Peres Magalhaes confirmed what some of the investigators had come to believe about the killings: it was a catfishing scheme. In the statement, she said they\u2019d created a fake user profile on a fetish-focused social network \u2014 FetLife.com \u2014 using Christine Banfield\u2019s laptop and posing as \u201cAnnastasia9,\u201d a person seeking to act out a violent sexual fantasy with a stranger in her home.<\/p>\n<p>Brendan Banfield wanted to find someone who liked to \u201cplay violent\u201d and could be blamed for Christine Banfield\u2019s murder, Peres Magalhaes said.<\/p>\n<p>Ryan was that person, she said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caas-iframe-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"caas-iframe videoIframe caas-loaded\" data-type=\"videoIframe\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/embedded-video\/mmvo260666437897\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Authorities had learned that Ryan met other women through FetLife, but they described Ryan as a person who respected boundaries and wasn\u2019t violent, Patrick Brusch, a retired captain with the Fairfax County Police Department, told \u201cDateline.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ryan, Brusch said, \u201cwas baited and hunted.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ryan agreed to bring restraints, rope and a knife to the Banfields\u2019 home. Brendan Banfield planned on stabbing his wife with that blade after he shot Ryan, Peres Magalhaes told authorities.<\/p>\n<p>She agreed to plead guilty to the lesser crime of manslaughter and testify against Brendan Banfield. In exchange for her cooperation, prosecutors would recommend she be sentenced to time served.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caas-iframe-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"caas-iframe videoIframe caas-loaded\" data-type=\"videoIframe\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/embedded-video\/mmvo257664069627\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2><strong>The conviction<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Brendan Banfield\u2019s trial began in a Fairfax County courtroom in January, nearly three years after the killing of Christine Banfield and Ryan. Peres Magalhaes\u00a0testified for the prosecution, telling the jury about her affair with Brendan Banfield, his plan to kill Christine Banfield and the horrific scene on the morning of Feb. 24.<\/p>\n<p>Brendan Banfield\u2019s attorney grilled Peres Magalhaes, questioning why she took so long to provide her account to authorities and pointing to an offer she received from a streaming outlet for an interview. In an email presented in court, she told her mother she\u2019d been offered $10,000 but believed she could negotiate a fee of more than twice that.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do deserve something,\u201d she wrote in the message.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat is it you deserve something for?\u201d asked the attorney, John Carroll.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor everything we\u2019ve been through,\u201d she said on the stand.<\/p>\n<p>Brendan Banfield also testified, acknowledging his affair with Peres Magalhaes but denying that he played a role in planning or executing his wife\u2019s murder. When he opened the door to his bedroom and saw Christine Banfield on the floor and a man behind her with a knife, he said he was \u201cextremely terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"caas-iframe-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"caas-iframe videoIframe caas-loaded\" data-type=\"videoIframe\" data-caas-lazy-loading-init=\"1\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/embedded-video\/mmvo257039429753\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>He shot Ryan after he saw him stab her, he said.<\/p>\n<p>A witness for the prosecution was able to refute a key part of Brendan Banfield\u2019s account of that morning, however. In his testimony, Banfield said that he was on his way to a work meeting with his supervisor when he stopped at McDonald\u2019s and Peres Magalhaes called him about the unfamiliar SUV in the driveway.<\/p>\n<p>But after that testimony, Brendan Banfield\u2019s supervisor told authorities that no meeting had been scheduled, lead prosecutor Jenna Sands told \u201cDateline.\u201d In court, the supervisor testified that he\u2019d been in Baltimore on an undercover operation.<\/p>\n<p>On Feb. 2, after nine hours of deliberation, a jury convicted Brendan Banfield of aggravated murder. Eleven days later, a judge sentenced Peres Magalhaes to the maximum penalty allowed for a manslaughter conviction \u2014 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYour actions were deliberate, self-serving and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life,\u201d Circuit Court Chief Judge Penney Azcarate said. \u201cThat is the most serious manslaughter scenario that this court has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This article was originally published on\u00a0NBCNews.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a Friday morning three years ago, a horrific scene unfolded in a Northern Virginia home: A pediatric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2958,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2955\/revisions\/2958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}