In October, Magalhaes agreed to co-operate with police in her second interview since the day of the crime. On Tuesday, two weeks before she was scheduled to go to trial on charges of second-degree murder and felony firearm use, Magalhaes pleaded guilty to Ryan’s killing, saying she had agreed to help the husband’s ruse to kill the wife and make it look like they both shot a predator.
“Are you entering your guilty plea because you are, in fact, guilty of this offence?” Chief Judge Penney Azcarate asked Magalhaes before accepting her plea to a single count of manslaughter, reduced from murder and a firearm offence.
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“Yes,” she replied softly.
The sentencing of Magalhaes, raised in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, awaits the conclusion of Brendan Banfield’s trial. Depending on her co-operation with authorities, attorneys said in court they may agree for her to be sentenced to the time she’s already served.
Viviane Magalhaes, her stepmother, said she hoped her stepdaughter could soon return to Brazil and that “this nightmare ends”.
Christine Banfield in a photo from her social media account. Credit:
“We still can’t figure this out – I believe she was fooled by this guy, he brainwashed her,” Viviane Magalhaes said in Portuguese, referring to Banfield. “She was never a gold-digger in Brazil; for many years, she dated a man who was as humble as she was. We could never think of her living a situation like this.”
Laying out facts that Magalhaes corroborated in court, prosecutors said that she made several 911 calls that day. The first lasted a few seconds, with no words – just the sound of someone’s guttural moaning in the background. Then, about 15 minutes later, another call went through, saying that an intruder had stabbed her friend. Brendan Banfield then took the phone, saying he had shot a man who was stabbing his wife.
An officer’s body camera recording submitted in court last month shows Magalhaes on her knees in the driveway, seemingly flummoxed and unable to catch her own breath.
“There was a lot of blood,” Magalhaes said while hyperventilating. “Brendan said, ‘Please drop the knife, drop the knife,’ because he had a knife.”
She later told detectives that she had shot the trespasser in the chest after Brendan Banfield shot him in the head.
In court on Tuesday, prosecutors alleged that she had been lying as part of a ruse to lure someone else into the home to be framed in the wife’s murder.
This image submitted as evidence shows a framed photo of Banfield and Magalhaes on a bedside table.Credit: AP
Affidavits have said Magalhaes began working for the Banfields in late 2021. Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Clingan said in court that the au pair and the husband began having an affair in August 2022. Shortly thereafter, Banfield began plotting to kill his wife, Clingan said.
To cover the ruse, Clingan alleged that Brendan Banfield created a profile for his wife on a social networking platform for people interested in sexual fetishes and matched her with Ryan. Soon, they were chatting through Telegram, an encrypted messaging application, with Magalhaes pretending to be Christine Banfield on a voice call. Ryan agreed to come to the house for what appeared to be a consensual sexual encounter.
“At various points before the 24th, Peres Magalhaes expressed to Brendan Banfield that she did not believe he would go through with this plan and, at other times, she told him she did not want to continue,” Clingan said. “But he insisted that it was too late for her to back out.”
Clingan said Magalhaes and Brendan Banfield followed Ryan to the bedroom, guns in their hands.
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Authorities monitored her phone conversations at the Fairfax County jail. In one call last month, Clingan said Brendan Banfield’s mother, who has paid for the au pair’s legal defence, discussed the consequences that “snitches” in the jail would face.
In another, between Brendan Banfield and the au pair, Magalhaes said: “I hope you are not just staying with me because you are afraid I’m going to turn against you.”
AP
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