FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — Week two of the Reston au pair double murder trials will resume Tuesday with Fairfax County prosecutors looking to wrap up with its final witnesses expected to testify on the stand.
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The first three days of the trial for Brendan Banfield went by quickly, with prosecutors going through five witnesses on the first day before putting his alleged affair partner and accomplice, Juliana Peres Magalhae,s on the stand.
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Magalhaes, the Banfield’s au pair, painted a picture across two days about her alleged affair with Banfield, and what he told her before they allegedly killed Brendan’s wife, Christine, and another man they lured to the house with a fake online dating profile.
Prosecutors said they have only two witnesses left to call this week, and should be done with both by the lunch break on Tuesday, barring prolonged questioning by Banfield’s lawyer. Banfield’s lawyer is then expected to start calling his witnesses starting Tuesday afternoon.
The trial is expected to last up to four weeks.
TIMELINE | Alleged affair to murder trial: A timeline of events in Virginia’s Brendan Banfield case
Banfield, a former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent, is standing trial after being accused of concocting a scheme with the family’s au pair – with whom he was having an affair – to kill his wife, Christine Banfield, and another man, Joseph Ryan, in 2023. That alleged scheme involved Banfield creating a fake profile on FetLife, a fetish website, using his wife’s picture in order to lure a man, Ryan, to their Reston, Va., home to make it look like a home invasion gone wrong.
The alleged partner takes the stand
Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the family’s au pair with whom Banfield was having an affair at the time of the alleged double murder, has admitted to her role in the killings and is cooperating with authorities as part of a plea agreement.
She claimed Banfield told her of his plans to kill Christine, got her to learn how to shoot a gun, and told her where to park on the day of the planned killings. Banfield’s defense argued Magalhaes is an unreliable witness and that she was intentionally being negative toward Brendan, though she admitted to the affair.
Magalhaes, while on the stand Wednesday, shared a letter she wrote from jail claiming that Netflix offered her $10,000 for exclusive rights to her story and how she wanted to negotiate for as much as $100,000 or more.
“I’m going to sit down talking with them, negotiating. I want a higher amount, especially since my whole life will be exposed to everyone, and they’re going to be making a lot of money off of it. We deserve something,” Magalhaes said.
Detectives and other county officials on the stand
Officers who responded to the scene took the witness stand early on, alongside a Fairfax County 9-1-1 official and the county’s medical examiner. All to outline what police came across at the Banfield home on the 13200 block of Stable Brook Way in February of 2023.
After Magalhaes spoke, more detectives provided a look into the home immediately after the murders and in the months since.
Fairfax County Police Officer Kenner Fortner took pictures of the vehicles at the home the day of the alleged double murder, the drawer of the bar cart in the kitchen where Christine Banfield’s phone was located, as well as portions of the bedroom away from the blood-stained scene.
On the day of the alleged murders, Fortner took photographs of the guest bedroom where Peres Magalhaes was living. The closet was full of her clothes, including lingerie.
Fortner returned to the Banfield home eight months later to execute a warrant. He took pictures of the primary bedroom where Brendan Banfield slept, where you could see Peres Magalhaes’ clothes in the shared closet.
Additionally, pictures of Brendan and Christine Banfield were replaced by pictures of Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes, on the bedside table next to the area where Christine Banfield was murdered less than a year earlier.
Another detective showed crime scene photos so gruesome tthat hey were not shown to the courtroom as a whole. People sitting in the public seating area of the court were able to see some of the crime scene photographs showing blood stains on the carpet and clothes, as well as the gun and knife used.
During her testimony, Peres Magalhaes said Brendan Banfield planned to wait at a nearby McDonald’s until she called him to say Ryan had arrived at the house.
The surveillance video at the fast food restaurant showed Banfield ordering food through the drive-thru, then parking his car.
He then could be seen on camera walking inside and entering the bathroom.
About eight minutes later, at 7:37 a.m., he could be seen leaving the bathroom with his phone to his ear, walking to his car, and driving away.
Leach then showed call logs for both Banfield’s and Peres Magalhaes’ phones, showing the au pair called him at the time he was walking out of the McDonald’s bathroom.
Peres Magalhaes also testified on Tuesday that the plan was for both of them to also call Christine Banfield, to make it look like they were trying to alert her, even though her phone was turned off and hidden in the kitchen while she was asleep in the bedroom.
The call logs also confirmed that Brendan Banfield and Peres Magalhaes made outgoing calls to Christine.
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