A judge in Fairfax County, Virginia, has sentenced Brendan Banfield to life in prison with no chance of parole in the 2023 “au pair affair” murders of his wife and another man.
Prosecutors said Banfield was romantically involved with the family’s au pair and the two plotted to murder Christine Banfield and blame her death on a stranger, Joseph Ryan, who they lured to the family’s home.
“One would hope that some day you will become tortured by what you have done to Christine, Joe, Christine’s daughter, and their families, but nothing I have seen suggests that you will,” said Fairfax County Circuit Court Chief Judge Penney Azcarate. “The level of cruelty, calculation, and inhumanity in this case reflects something far deeper than anger or impulse. It reflects evil, which is why I carry no burden and find no hesitation in sentencing you to life.”
Brendan Banfield was convicted in February of two counts of aggravated murder. He has maintained his innocence throughout the legal process, including during the sentencing hearing Friday.
In Banfield’s testimony, he claimed to have shot Ryan to stop him from attacking his wife with a knife — a version of events the jury didn’t buy.
“Christine cared very much for her family and friends, I’m not trying to, I’m not trying to diminish in any way what, what her life, what her life was. She truly was a caring, a caring mother, a caring wife, a loving nurse,” Banfield said. “But I am not responsible for her death. This is not a knife that I ever held in my hand, and I never stabbed her.”
Azcarate, who also presided over his trial, appointed Banfield an appellate attorney after imposing his sentence Friday. Banfield would have 30 days to file an appeal.
Aggravated murder became Virginia’s most serious offense after former Gov. Ralph Northam abolished the death penalty in 2021. It carries a mandatory life sentence.
Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, was also found guilty of using a firearm in the commission of a felony and child endangerment, as his 4-year-old child was home during the killings.
Speaking of Christine’s daughter, Azcarate said, “You did not just take her mother from her, you placed her in the middle of the horror you created. She is young now, but one day she will understand your true self, and she will understand what you took from her, which is everything.”
Before sentencing, prosecutors called three witnesses who provided victim impact statements: Christine’s sister, Ryan’s mother and his aunt. All three witnesses shared memories of their loved ones, and gave a window into the grief they’ve experience since their murders.
“Joe wasn’t the disposable caricature he was made out to be,” his mother, Deirdre Fisher, testified. “He had a face, he had a name, he had a life, but Brendan Banfield shot his face, soiled his name, and treated his life as disposable.”
The ‘au pair affair’
According to the prosecution and Magalhães, who testified against Banfield after taking a plea deal, Banfield and the au pair created an account on a fetish website impersonating Christine and drew Ryan to the home with promises of rough sex.
During her two days of testimony, Magalhães detailed her sexual relationship with Banfield, his desire to “get rid of his wife” and the plan he developed to do so.
Magalhães was initially charged with murder in October 2023, eight months after the killings and nearly a year before Banfield himself was charged.
With her trial date nearing, Magalhães accepted a plea deal, in which her charge was downgraded to manslaughter. In February, after testifying against her former lover, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for her role in the double murder.
On Friday, Banfield and his attorney argued that DNA evidence at the crime scene and digital forensic evidence were not properly weighed by the jury.
Both pointed to blood stain pattern analysis that suggested Christine’s blood was found on Ryan.
They referenced instances where Christine’s laptop was accessed when Brendan Banfield wasn’t home, as Magalhães had claimed he was the one to login to the device to message Ryan, not her.
The defense has repeatedly claimed that the catfishing theory was forced onto detectives and that members of the police department who disagreed with the theory were moved off the case.
‘I climbed in her crib’: Families share memories, anger over murders
Christine’s big sister, Danielle Hocker, gave a window into their memories from childhood, times of catching lightning bugs, backyard haircuts from their barber grandfather and staying up late to watch Saturday Night Live.
“We were each other’s first friends, sleeping in each other’s bedrooms, in sleeping bags, on the floor, or in tents in the den,” Hocker said. “I climbed in her crib several times and attempted a solo diaper change unsuccessfully.”
Hocker is four years older than Christine and as children, the sisters were at times mistaken for twins, she said.
“We both had curly hair, but otherwise I didn’t understand what other people saw,” Hocker said. “When I look into a mirror, I sometimes see her first, my face replaced by hers, and in a flash she’s gone, and I’m left confused by my own reflection. She was her own person, never trying to be me, but always wanted to be by my side, and I hers.”
Hocker also referenced Brendan Banfield’s testimony, during which he said both he and his wife had affairs throughout their 20-year relationship.
“As Christine’s sister, I didn’t just lose her, I had to sit and listen to a version of her that did not exist,” Hocker said. “I knew her in a way that he never could. I knew her honesty, her compassion, her refusal to live with secrets.”
‘I won’t forget you, Joe’
Speaking remotely, Ryan’s mother also described the hurt caused by the way her son was characterized as part of the scheme, as “the intruder, the fetish guy into rough sex, the rapist and the murderer.”
“Over these more than three years since Joe’s murder, my life has been filled with continued loss and with emotional and medical and financial trauma, I have not been able to function normally at home,” Fisher said.
In the time since Ryan’s death, Fisher said she has developed ulcers, a heart condition and had a toe removed.
“Would I have experienced such severe trauma without the brutal loss of Joe? Certainly not,” she said. “When Joe was alive, he would fly or drive to care for me, when I needed, and it included cancer twice.”
Fisher pushed back on accusations against Ryan’s character, saying he was a feminist who cared about women’s rights.
“Although he was chosen as a scapegoat from a website that is considered fetish, he was on that site to find a consenting partner because he believed in a woman’s right to bodily autonomy and in her control over her romantic and sexual life,” she said.
Ryan lived with his grandmother, who he cared for, and had previously moved to Florida to look after his grandfather before he died.
“Joe was a guy who believed in fighting for the underdog, and even actual neglected dogs,” Fisher said. “He would walk into an animal shelter and ask for the oldest, ugliest dogs, bring them home and love them for years. When Joe was murdered, he left behind a dog named ‘Kitty,’ who waited for him at the top of the stairs.”
Fisher said she gave birth to Ryan when she was 16 years old and, without financial or physical ability to raise her son, the two were separated.
When Ryan was 14, he pursued a closer relationship with his mom. Fisher said the two spent holidays and vacations together, and they would speak on the phone often.
Their last phone call was the night before his murder.
“I will choose to live in his fighting spirit and with his voice in my head, ‘Be kind to yourself, Mom. Take better care of yourself, Mom. Love you, Mom.’ I won’t forget you, Joe. I hear you now,” Fisher said.
WTOP’s Thomas Robertson contributed to this report.
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