The Brazilian au pair embroiled in a complex scheme to assassinate her employer’s wife took the stand again on Wednesday during the murder trial of Brendan Banfield.
“I believed it was the right course of action,” testified Juliana Peres Magalhães regarding her choice to accept a plea deal and provide evidence against Banfield, as reported by WDCW. “Everyone deserves to know the truth. I couldn’t keep it secret any longer.”
In 2024, Peres Magalhães admitted guilt to a charge of manslaughter, according to CrimeOnline. Initially, she recounted leaving the Herndon, Virginia residence of Brendan and Christine Banfield, where she worked as a live-in au pair, around 7:30 a.m. on February 24, 2023, to take their 4-year-old daughter to the National Zoo. However, she returned upon realizing she’d forgotten their lunches and noticed an unfamiliar vehicle in the driveway.
She attempted to contact Christine Banfield but received no response, prompting her to call Brendan Banfield, who was en route to his job. Brendan hurried back, and together they entered an upstairs suite, discovering a stranger had assaulted Christine, stabbing her several times. Brendan reportedly used his service weapon on the intruder, but as he was still alive, he instructed Peres Magalhães to retrieve another firearm from a bathroom gun safe to finish the job. She complied, shooting the man, later identified as Ryan, in the chest.
Prosecutors, however, are presenting a different narrative. Both in their opening statements and through Peres Magalhães’ testimony, they allege an alternate sequence of events. Starting her testimony on Tuesday, the trial’s first day, and continuing into Wednesday, the former nanny detailed how she and her lover, an IRS officer, conspired to murder Christine Banfield, planning to frame the killing on Ryan, a stranger they lured to the house.
Peres Magalhães also revealed discussions with television producers about selling her story, explaining in text messages to her family that “we deserve something,” not for the murder itself, but for “what my family and I have endured,” as reported by WDCW.
The au pair also answered questions about how she and Banfield created the FetLife account to lure Ryan to his death as defense attorneys challenged her for not remembering very specific details about the messages they sent him and other users on the fetish site.
If you were in my shoes you wouldn’t remember either,” she said at one point.
Peres Magalhães completed her testimony Wednesday afternoon, and the judge sent the jury home early. They will return Thursday for further testimony.
