IRS Agent Gets Life in Prison After Double Murder Plot With Family's Nanny

‘I Am Looking at Evil’

A former IRS special agent was sentenced to life in prison without parole on June 5, 2026, for the murder of his wife and a man he lured to the family’s Virginia home as part of an elaborate plot prosecutors said he constructed with the family’s au pair, with whom he was having an affair.

Brendan Banfield, 41, was convicted in February by a Fairfax County jury on two counts of aggravated murder and one count of child endangerment. Before handing down the mandatory life sentence, Judge Penney Azcarate addressed Banfield directly. ‘As I listen to the evidence in this case and listen to your testimony, it is apparent that I am looking at evil,’ she said. ‘The disregard of the life of your wife, someone you supposedly loved, is almost unfathomable.’

Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse, was stabbed to death inside the family’s Herndon, Virginia, home on the morning of February 24, 2023. She was 37 years old. A man named Joseph Ryan, 39, was also killed that morning - lured to the home under false pretenses and shot, prosecutors said, to serve as a scapegoat.

The Plan to ‘Get Rid Of’ Her

The prosecution’s case rested heavily on the testimony of Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the Brazilian au pair who had been living with the Banfield family since October 2021. Magalhaes testified that she and Brendan Banfield began an affair in August 2022. He told her, she said, that he wanted to marry her and have children with her - but that he needed to ‘get rid of’ his wife first. He did not want a divorce because, Magalhaes testified, he feared Christine would receive more money than he would and he wanted custody of the couple’s young daughter.

Using Christine Banfield’s laptop, the pair created a fake account on a sexual fetish website and posed as Christine to contact Ryan, convincing him he was coming to the home to participate in a consensual encounter. Prosecutors alleged Banfield and Magalhaes then used Ryan’s arrival as cover - shooting him and staging the scene to look like a home invasion gone wrong.

The Banfields’ 4-year-old daughter was in the basement of the home during the killings.

A Jury Took Less Than a Week

Over five days of trial testimony, prosecutors called more than 20 witnesses. Magalhaes, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter as part of a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, testified for three days. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Banfield took the stand in his own defense, maintaining that he was not present during the killings and had driven home from a nearby McDonald’s after Magalhaes called him. He said he fired his service weapon at Ryan after finding him attacking his wife. The jury rejected that account.

‘He planned their murders over several months,’ prosecutor Kelly Sprissler told the court at sentencing. ‘He planned ruthless and brutal killings.’

He Still Would Not Acknowledge It

At his sentencing, Banfield continued to maintain his innocence. ‘I was found guilty of a crime that I did not commit,’ he told the judge. ‘I’m greatly disappointed in the legal system.’

Christine Banfield’s sister, Danielle Hocker, delivered a victim impact statement before the sentence was read. ‘While justice was served, it does not lift the grief or make more space for it,’ she said. ‘It will never bring Joseph Ryan back to his loved ones or Christine back to our family.’ Ryan’s mother described her son as ‘a kind human being who had a full life of meaning.’

The judge also sentenced Banfield to consecutive terms of five years for child endangerment and three years on a firearms charge. He will serve all sentences consecutively.

References: Brendan Banfield Murders Sentencing Virginia | Brendan Banfield Sentenced Life in Prison Double Murder Scheme Au Pair | Brendan Banfield Sentenced Life in Prison Fairfax County