A Brazilian au pair who helped orchestrate a chilling murder scheme inside a Virginia home will spend the next decade behind bars.
Juliana Peres Magalhães, 25, was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter for her role in a plot that ended with two people dead, according to the New York Post.
The punishment came despite her cooperation with prosecutors and testimony against former IRS special agent Brendan Banfield.
Judge Penney Azcarate described the case as the “most serious manslaughter scenario” the court had ever encountered, imposing a 10-year sentence with an additional two years suspended, according to NBC News.
Banfield, 40, was later convicted of killing his wife, Christine, 37, and Joseph Ryan, 38, a stranger the couple had lured to their home.
Magalhães told jurors that she and Banfield began an affair while she was living with the family as an au pair caring for the couple’s young daughter. She said the relationship evolved into a plan to murder Christine.
The pair created an online fetish account posing as Banfield’s wife and contacted Ryan, convincing him to come to the house to act out a rape fantasy, Magalhães testified during the three-week trial.
On Feb. 24, 2023, Ryan arrived carrying a knife as instructed and began the staged encounter with Christine, who was unaware of the plan and had previously worked as a nurse assisting sexual-assault victims.
Magalhães waited in a car outside and called Banfield to report an intruder in the home — a move prosecutors said was designed to set up a false self-defense scenario.
Banfield then entered the house with Magalhães, shot Ryan with his service weapon, and stabbed his wife multiple times in the neck in an attempt to make it appear Ryan had killed her, according to Magalhães’ testimony. The couple’s young daughter was left alone in the basement during the attack.
Magalhães was arrested eight months later and had hoped her plea deal and cooperation would result in time served.
Banfield’s defense attorney, John Carroll, attacked her credibility during closing arguments, telling jurors, “Her entire story has been bought and paid for,” and suggesting she hoped to profit from the case.
The jury ultimately convicted Banfield, and the court handed Magalhães a decade-long sentence for her role in what prosecutors described as a calculated and gruesome conspiracy.
