Featured Image Credit: Fairfax County Police / Fairfax County Commonwealths Attorneys Office
Topics: News, US News, Crime, Court, Sex and Relationships
Kit Roberts
Topics: News, US News, Crime, Court, Sex and Relationships
A Brazilian au pair says she just wants to go home after an affair with her employer eventually led to her being charged in a bizarre murder case.
Juliana Peres Magalhães travelled to the US from her home in São Paulo, Brazil as part of an au pair exchange program.
The 24-year-old had left wanting to find a better life for herself in the US, with the au pair program giving her a way to get herself set up in the country.
But now Magalhães is at the centre of a court case in which she has been charged with murder.
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After arriving in the US, Magalhães began having an affair with Brendan Banfield in her host family.
On February 24 2023, the 39-year-old IRS investigator said he arrived at his mansion in Virginia with Magalhães when the pair saw a stranger, Joseph Ryan, allegedly attacking Banfield's wife Christine Banfield.
Tragically, Christine did not survive the attack.
After seeing what was happening, Banfield had shot Ryan.
Magalhães had then grabbed a firearm which was kept in the house and also shot Ryan, who was killed.
Magalhães has been charged with second-degree murder for shooting Ryan, and is the only person to face charges in the case.
Police are throwing doubt over the au pair's claim that she was acting in self-defense when shooting Ryan as the alleged intruder was already incapacitated by the shot Banfield fired, which a medical examiner said partially blinded him.
Police are also interested in a 10 minute window between the first 911 call from the house - which was just a moan followed by silence - and the final call in which Banfield explained what had happened. Prosecutors claim this suggests a cover-up.
Then there are questions about how Ryan arrived at the house in the first place.
Ryan had been communicating with an account called Annastasia9 on a fetish website.
Chats from the site have been shown which show him speaking with someone about engaging in 'blood play', where participants deliberately cut each other.
The identity of the account-holder for Annastasia9 has not been discovered - though investigators found it was being maintained on Christine's computer.
Prosecutors insist there is no evidence Christine was interested in 'knife play, binding, BDSM' and are alleging that Magalhães had used the account to lure Ryan to the mansion as part of a plot to get rid of Christine.
Police evidence photographs show a framed picture of Magalhães and Banfield on the bedside table and her clothes in the closet in the house's main bedroom.
Magalhães has denied the charge, and is claiming that she acted in self defence after discovering the intruder in the house.
Speaking to her mom Marina Peres Souza via email from prison, she said she just wanted to go home.
Magalhães wrote: “I am tired of this place, this situation."
She added: “I am unhappy, and nothing makes me happy. I just want to get out of here and go back home to be with you guys.
"We will be together soon, with God’s grace, mommy.”
Souza has asserted her belief in her daughter's innocence in the case, saying: “I pray for the prosecutors and the judge to understand who is guilty in this case, because it is not Juliana."
The case continues.