20/20 - The After Show: The Au Pair, The Affair, and Murder

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

Deborah sits down with 20/20 producers to reveal details from inside the courtroom of the murder trial centered on the affair between an au pair and the father of the child she cared for.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everybody. Welcome to 2020 The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and I'm happy that you joined us again today. If you saw last week's show, I know you probably haven't forgotten it. And if you didn't, you're going to hear all the details. And we're going to share some extra details, too. It is the story, kind of a twisted story of sex and secrets and a double murder that just rocked an affluent community in Fairfax County, Virginia. The story of an opair from Brazil by the name of Juliana Perez Magalais, who fell from the for Brendan Vanfield, who's the father of the child that she was hired to care for. Now, she fell for this man, but then things kind of took a dark turn when he decided that he wanted that relationship and he wanted to get rid of his wife. So they orchestrated this elaborate catfish scheme so that they could be together.

But guess what? They didn't wind up together, not happily ever after. The story doesn't stop there, though. What happened inside the courtroom is something that shocked everybody. and our 2020 team was right there watching it all unfold. And today we're going to share some of the exclusive details from not only inside this investigation, but also interviews. I covered this story and I had an interview with one of Brendan's former mistresses.

Our team talked with so many people around the story. It's called the Opaire, the Affair and Murder. With me today is 2020 editorial producer Christina Corbin and Gail Deutsch, a producer on this story who I worked with on so many things. Christina, you do a lot of bookings. and this case, you know, kind of grab the headlines, I guess in 2023, sex and sort of a fetish website and catfishing and all of that. What did you think when you first read about this story? Yeah, people were really interested in this case, I think, because Christine and Brendan Vanfield

are so relatable to so many people. On the outside, they looked like this really happy couple. They worked really hard at their jobs. He for the IRS, she as a pediatric ICU nurse, to be able to afford this beautiful home outside Washington, D.C. And then you have this really sort of sorted plot involving a sex fetish website and affair with the couples live in au pair. And there was just so much going on. It's probably one of the most complicated, complex plots I think I've ever dealt with in a true crime story. And you can't get more Americana than that, right? He works for the government. She's this devoted pediatric ICU nurse. It just was like mind-boggling when you think about it. Gail, you were on it early on too, and you kind of watched it evolve.

We waited. I mean, I started shooting almost a couple of years ago with you, and we had to watch this thing evolve. Yeah, production-wise, it was a little bit of a challenge because it was years before the trial occurred. And Christina, luckily, was gathering bookings along the way. So we were doing interviews and then working on other stories. Yeah.

And what's also interesting is a lot of the critical details we didn't even get to see until the trial. Like, for instance, there was a 911 call that we knew about with Brendan and Juliana on it that we didn't get to hear until just very. very recently. And you and I talked about how everybody was speculating about what really happened in that house because you've got Christine who was killed and then you've got this stranger who was killed. So we began peeling back the layers trying to meet family and friends of the couple. I remember sitting down with Brian Jarrett, a friend of Brendan's who, you know, described their

lives and they met on a gaming website. And so Brendan was very much into gaming. But they only knew each other online, but yet Brendan's personality came out online and he was this guy who was like take charge, but seemed to kind of have the world figured out, Brian thought. Yeah, I mean, they developed into a real relationship where Brian became friends also with Christine. They were both nurses, actually. So that was a common thing. Oh, that's right. But Brian talked about how this isn't come up in our show, but that Brian was a really good magic gathering card player, which requires some strategy and skill. But he says that, Brendan was a very upstanding person.

He would tell people, you know, don't cheat on your taxes, somebody he looked up to. Yeah, he thought that this guy was like very upstanding. Christina, when you think about the opair, because a lot of people outside of New York don't know that term as well. But I've known friends over the years who have hired these young women who come from, typically women, who come from other countries. They live with the family. They're sort of immersed in their lives. It's more than just the classic babysitter.

And that's what's so interesting because Christine liked that concept. She had had an opair in the house before, went really well, that woman got married. She was a part of the family. So this was something that she felt very strongly about, right? Yeah. So Brendan Banfield and Christine, they both had very demanding jobs and would work long hours. So that didn't really lend itself to traditional daycare. So the idea of having a live in au pair was really suited for their lifestyle and for their

schedules and the Banfields had had an up pair prior to Juliana Margalais and it was really successful. And Christine actually became very close with that au pair and they became sort of these really great friends. So they thought the Banfields thought very highly of the au pair program and they wanted to bring somebody else in and they did and they brought in Juliana. Yeah. And you know, as somebody who has had babysitters and nannies in my life, you know, you do depend on these people, but to have them living inside the home, Gail, and like really bonding with the family. is sort of tricky, I guess, keeping those lines blurred. So in this case, Juliana falls for Brendan or Brendan falls for her.

I'm not sure which one came first. But at what point did their relationship become physical? Well, Julianna says in her testimony that it was around a year where they just had a relationship, but they didn't even talk that much. She was mostly interacting with Christine. And then it turned physical. Brendan in his testimony says that she came onto him. Who knows?

What really happened? But then it turned into where they began also dating. What was interesting is that Christine was very open and bubbly and posting online. And she would post pictures of either her family or, you know, her relationship. She felt very, very good about this. Her friends, and we'll talk more about this later, wondered whether her life was as fairy tale as it sounded. So obviously the specter of divorce is raised.

If Brendan is so unhappy, why doesn't he decide? to get a divorce right away. When you started to investigate, what did you learn about those early moments of his discontent? Well, I spoke to several people who knew Brendan years ago, knew Brendan recently, and they said that Brendan was always fixated on money. He was always fixated on finances. So he didn't want to be hit with the cost of a divorce and what it would cost him financially? Right. He wasn't willing to have to lose money and also give up custody of his young daughter or share a custody, I should say. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it led to some very strange things. So ladies don't go anywhere and you don't go anywhere because when we come back, we're going to dive into

this sort of disturbing scheme that you're going to hear about that Brendan and Juliana plot it from a fetish website to an unsuspecting victim who was lured to the Banfield's home. We've got some exclusive details when we come back, so don't go anywhere. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Sometimes it can feel like everybody's got it together, but you. Well, the truth is no one's perfect. So if you're struggling with feelings of inadequacy or like you're always comparing yourself to your friends and neighbors, therapy can help you find your way.

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Just go to ABCsecret Savings.com slash 2020. Again, that's ABCsecret Savings.com slash 2020. ABCsecret Savings.com slash 2020. Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. I'm sitting here with our editorial producer Christina Corbin and producer Gail Deutsch, helping sift through a story that we all reported on together. The episode is called the opair, the affair, and murder. And it was just really sort of unbelievable. Brendan Banfield, as you learned in the episode, had an affair with the opair of his four-year-old daughter. Christina, let's talk about when you started digging into this. And of course, investigators, it took a while

to figure out what happened because some did a little. assume that maybe Christine did do this and wanted to be involved in something that was like a little on the wild side and that her husband stumbled upon this. And then investigators slowly began to sort of unravel. There was pre-planning that went on. There was a name that Joe Ryan responded to online. Talk about that elaborate, you know, set up, that scheme. Right. Well, this is the catfishing theory. And this was at the heart of the prosecution's argument at trial was basically Brendan Banfield and Juliana Perez-Magulays used Christine's photo to create this profile in Christine's name, although it was under the name, Anastasia and 9, to lure this unsuspecting

person to the home with the idea that he was going to engage in a consensual, sexual encounter with Christine Banfield. That's a lot to take that. And that was basically the plot. Yeah, he was supposed to come with. knives and all of that gale i remember when we were talking about this in the very beginning and of course the investigators hadn't revealed everything they knew so we only knew what we had read about and it was the whole idea was like this sort of violent sexual encounter is what had been portrayed and that she

had signed on for this and this is something that people who knew her absolutely never believed yeah they never believed that this is the type of thing that she would do and it emerged later that she had a blood disorder and she's not the kind of person who would be playing around with knife play that Yeah, yeah, I remember when we talked about that. And then there were, there were also moments that were revealed. I mean, she was even thinking about her daughter, even as she lay dying in the house. I mean, she even uttered some words about her daughter. This is one of the most heartbreaking parts of it. This was revealed in Juliana's confession to police. It didn't come up at trial. But in this, she talks about how Christine's final thoughts were about her daughter and her daughter's birthday. And that, you know, why did this have to happen before she could sell it? her daughter's fifth birth. Still thinking. So it's truly. I mean, till the end, she's a mom who's caring and thinking about her daughter.

Christina, the 911 calls were significant and major evidence in this piece because there had been a 911 call, as you might expect in a case like this. Then investigators discovered that have been a quick 911 call before that one that was only just a few seconds long. And that was also very telling. The time between the first 911 call and the second might have been close to 15 minutes. and, you know, 15 minutes is an eternity of time in a situation like this. So as we would come to find out from Juliana in her confession,

when she made that first 9-1-1 call, Brendan was in the room about to start attacking Christine, and he gestured to Juliana. Stop, the call, hang up. It's too soon. And then we would get a second call 15 minutes later, you know, where Juliana is frantic on the phone, she can hardly speak.

So Brendan gets on the phone, and he basically says, I just shot a man who came into my home and he was attacking my wife. Yeah, yeah. And that was the ruse all along to lure somebody in there so they could pretend that this was a whole assault scene in a way. Gail, you touched on something a minute ago about how her friends responded. And we had a chance to sit down with three nurses who had worked with Christine and they were adamant. You know, she was this, you know, happy, go lucky. I mean, this is a woman who worked during the pandemic. She was a COVID nurse, very proudly taking care of her. her patients, worked long hours they talked about. I mean, all of them said they didn't believe

for a second that there was a dark side of her that maybe we didn't know. I remember they were adamant about that. Right. And they also brought up the fact that she had been a sexual assault nurse. Oh, that's right. And so that was something where they just couldn't conceive that she's somebody who would be enacting some sort of rape fantasy. And not to mention in the like very early in the morning right after her daughter left her house. It just didn't make any sense. Yeah. You and I were talking earlier and while we're putting this. piece together, we were talking about Joe Ryan, the guy who was killed here, too. And you can't forget, while we're talking about Christine Banfield, this guy who came to the house, this fantasy,

which he was willing to participate in, you know, was a guy who was killed, who unwittingly was involved in this. And we had a chance to speak with his mom and to hear them talk about their loss, because that kind of got lost in the headlines that this other guy's life was taken, too, in this whole plot. Because he was shot, and the idea was that he was attacking Christine. Right? And talk to us a little bit about his family. Sure. I had a chance to sit with Deirdre Fisher in Florida where she lives. And, you know, one of the first things she said to me was my son has been victimized twice. He was killed in this brutal crime. And then he was framed as the person who committed the crime. And we sat there for a bunch of hours and she talked about him and really brought him to life in a way that hadn't been done before by anyone in the media, certainly. And she just portrayed this. loving, caring, wonderful son. She's so descriptive and shared many anecdotes about him. And it was really very moving.

And she also brought his baby shoes and his baby box to the interview. And that was especially heartbreaking. Early on when we were talking about the story, you know, we're unspooling all the details. And I was struck by something that was really shocking. When police were trying to peel away at all the details, they were hearing all the stories. A few weeks and a few months have gone by. And Brendan is still living in the house. The scene of this murder,

Juliana is still living there. And when police come back to go and re-investigate a little bit more, their photo, the two of them, their photo was in the house. And that was also something that raised some alarms for police. Oh, yeah. So when they,

after they arrest Juliana and they, they're in this house, they can see that she's basically moved into the primary bedroom. Shocking. And it's just the most insulting thing ever. Yeah. Yeah. Because her photo with Brendan is right there, you know, on the nightstand.

Yeah. And just months after his wife has been killed. Right. And it's as if they talk about it as if Christina had been basically like erased from this household. And so it's pretty shocking. And it certainly doesn't lend itself to like a grieving husband's, you know. It really was something that turned the case for police. We're going to take a quick break.

And when we come back, we are going to sit down and talk about my exclusive interview with one of Brendan Banfield's former mistresses who tells a lot of details about him that shed a lot of light on who he is. And we're also going to take you inside the courtroom, some real shocking details that were revealed there. So stay with us. ABC Wednesday in comedian Nate Bergetze's new game show. To win, you don't need to know the right answer. Just what most Americans think is right. It's not about being the smartest.

You just have to be the most average. We asked 100 average Americans, do they keep it anything? empty gas can in their car. No. Have they ever broken a bone? No. I said a lot of no. That's all right. My wife says a lot of no as well. The greatest average American premieres Wednesday, 9-8 Central on ABC and stream next day on Hulu. Hi there everybody. Welcome back to 2020, the after show. And there are some really unusual details that Christina Corbin and Gail Deutsch are sharing with me in our most recent 2020 episode called The O'Pare, the Affair, and Murder. Brendan Banfield had a history of infidelities, and you all were able to convince one of his

former mistresses to come forward. And what was so interesting to me is that she had a real resolve about wanting to share her story. We called her Jennifer. The twist and turns in this case and sort of the bizarreness of this case, she started her relationship with him on a sugar baby webber. sight. Well, it was a big unexpected surprise that she came forward in the first place, and we were able to corroborate a lot of her story with text messages, photo, some emails. But when we finally met in person,

and she started to share her story about her relationship with Brendan, she said that it started with these meetups. They had a total of seven meetups. And then after that, it sort of evolved into a real relationship, where they developed feelings for each other. And they were basically like boyfriend and girlfriend, but in secret. Yeah, I was really surprised when she walked into the room because she was just this very normal, fun-loving, cracked jokes, had a dry sense of humor woman, and she had a boyfriend with her, and she felt adamant that it was important that people knew what Brendan was all about. Because when she started to read about the case, she learned about this, just in passing,

she read about this story and couldn't believe it was the guy she had dated. And then she started to hear a lot of the details that were being at least shared with the media. And she wanted to set the record straight. She did. And she also wanted to share with us that there was one instance where Brendan said something to the effect of, gosh, things would be so much easier if Christine were just gone. Yeah. And at the time, she really didn't think much of it. But then 10 years later, after he's charged with what he's charged with, she has a totally different take on that.

She wanted to share that with us. Yeah, she actually did. She felt it was very important. Gail, the idea that he was able to sort of lead this double life in a way, I mean, presumably his wife didn't know the extent. I mean, we did learn that she did know that he was not completely faithful, but obviously didn't know the extent of it. Right. And Brendan testified that she, that Christine did not know about his affair with the O'Pere. I mean, this is a man that's bold enough, I mean, to have an affair with the person

living in the house with him and his wife. Yeah. So, and Juliana testified that, that, Brendan didn't seem particularly concerned. Like they would go out in public together. So, I mean, he didn't tell anybody, but... Yeah, she also talked about how when they went on a trip to New York, but you try to figure out, like, how he was able to figure all these things out. But we've done plenty of stories where we know that these things do happen and people do figure it out. But she was sort of thinking she was going to spend her life with him.

And then he starts, you know, to Christina's point, he starts saying if only his wife were gone. Right. And apparently, I mean, she didn't... She says she didn't take it seriously at first. But then it kept going on and on with these really, really specific plans. And this horrible murder happens. This woman is killed. Joe Ryan is killed.

And police are investigating. So ultimately, they're arrest. Juliana is arrested first. And she was sort of the lower hanging fruit in a way because she had admitted that she actually shot Joe. Right. Day one, she told police on the scene that she had been one of the people who had shot Joseph Ryan. So she was arrested first, and it took a year before Brendan was. And that's the part two where I think police said that they couldn't see how that, or prosecutors,

they couldn't see how that was a justifiable killing when Juliana pulled the trigger, hence her arrest. Yeah. So she's arrested, and then months later, ultimately he's arrested too. Right. And that arrest is, investigators say it was after very careful looking at forensic evidence, blood evidence, digital evidence, and that's what led to his arrest. That's before Juliana flipped on it. him. So do you think that he, you know, oftentimes there's such hubris in these stories, right? People

think they are not going to get caught. He clearly had, this was a very elaborate way of making sure the Opaer was deeply entwined in this whole thing. Do you think that he just thought he was not going to ever be caught? He didn't talk to police. He lawyered up. He stopped talking. Yeah. So he didn't talk and he went to a lot of trouble. Like he told Juliana he didn't want to do a hitman because you could always trace a hitman. So that's what led to this whole elaborate thing. he put in the windows that you couldn't hear screaming through. He changed his routine. There was a lot of detail in this plan.

So I guess he thought he could get away with it. Yeah, he had a very detailed life, too, the way he worked with the government and the IRS, and he carried a gun because he did work for the IRS in that capacity, which I didn't even know IRS, you know, agents and employees carried guns until you guys told me in this story. So Juliana is in jail, and they are exchanging letters, and they still are caring about each other, but then there's questions about whether she's going to flip on him.

And ultimately she does. So the case goes to court, and you were there in the courtroom. Yes, I was there in the courtroom. You know, this judge, Ashkarati is a very strict judge. She's a former Marine. You can't drink water in her courtroom or chew gum. So it's very strict rules. By the book.

By the book. And when Juliana was testifying, I mean, you could hear a pin drop in that room. And the jury was just so laser-focused as she basically took everybody through how this plan evolved and how it was ultimately executed on that day. And she essentially says that Brendan was sort of the mastermind of this whole thing. She even, he even had her jump on a call at one point to lure Joe Ryan to the house. Yes. And one of the strangest parts of Juliana and Brendan's story that kind of stood out to investigators from day one was this part. When Brendan comes back to the home because Juliana's notified him that a stranger is in the residence, instead of going in by himself or calling 911, he goes in and he brings with him the au pair and his four-year-old child.

Just astounding. And if you really, as a law enforcement officer especially, believed that there was danger in that home or you didn't even know what you were going to find in that home, would you bring a child in with you? Yeah, yeah. No, that was actually very, very stunning. that resulted in additional charges against him. Right. Yeah. What about the emotion between them, you know, because you're sitting there, you're watching. When she's testifying, is Giuliana looking at him? Is he looking at her? What's going on with body language? She didn't really look at him. She was sort of looking at, you know, the prosecutor or the defense attorney on cross.

I think there was one moment where the defense attorney said something defective and you knew this happened. and you didn't tell anybody and no one else knew the truth. And she kind of looked over at Brendan and said, well, Brendan knows. He knew the truth. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that was pretty dramatic stuff.

Yes. And, Gail, you and I, you know, finally felt like we sort of knew what happened, you know, because we're trying to piece this all together as we're preparing the story. But the intricacies of what happened that day in that house were finally revealed because Brendan took the stand. And he hadn't talked to anybody. And now finally you're hearing his story. and he's, of course, telling a real story, a big story, that investigators weren't sure they really

truly believe. Clearly, the jury didn't believe him. And he said certain things in there that were off-putting, particularly the way he disparaged his wife in certain ways, and she's not there to defend herself. But it was fascinating hearing his side, his, you know, his story of how it happened, that it was just crazy that he could have been behind it. Yeah. Well, clearly it didn't pay off for him because he was convicted.

two counts of aggravated murder, use of a firearm in a felony, child endangerment, as you said. He was convicted of all of these things. We don't know exactly what he's going to serve, but he could serve life in prison. Just last week, Juliana was sentenced to 10 years on a manslaughter charge for which she pleaded guilty in 2024. The judge said her actions were deliberate, self-serving, and demonstrated a profound disregard for human life. And she does not deserve anything other than incarceration. and a life of reflection on what she has done. Juliana said she prays for forgiveness and acknowledged that she could never take back the devastation that she has caused. Both of them obviously are paying the price for this horrible, horrible scenario.

And, you know, the families always get you, you know, when we talk about this. And the family had been quiet. Christine's family had been quiet. And then they gave us a statement, Gail, just at the very end, just before we went to air. about how they felt about her, what the world is missing, you know, how hard it was to hear her names sort of dragged through the mud, but yet they want to make sure that people remember the bright light that she was in their lives. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, they want people to know her for the beautiful, caring person that she was. And same thing with Joseph Ryan's mom. I mean, she was just very touching and very strong in her interview, talking about how she wants people to understand who her son, really was. And people have this vision of him that's not true. This is a story that just has a lot of captivating details, right? But at the end of the day, there are a couple people here who lost their lives. And you do such a great job of reminding us and bringing in people into these stories who will talk about their lives and remembering the victims. Sure, yeah. When you hear about

their stories, I mean, Christine could have been anybody's friend, anybody's sister, and same for Joe. I mean, I think they're really relatable. And one thing we do so well here at 2020 is we really try to bring to life the victims in our stories. So they're not just remembered as a victim. Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is a story.

I tell you that people will be talking about for a while. And particularly because the trial just happened. And we've been working on this for a long time. Ladies, it's always a pleasure, Gail. So great to see you. Great to see you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. And thank you all for being with us today. Remember, you can watch the latest episodes of 2020 on Friday nights on ABC, and you can stream episodes just like this one anytime on Disney Plus and Hulu. Take care, everybody. It's the Paradise Podcast. I am your host, Ryan Michelle Bathay, with my husband Sterling. What's up?

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fulglement, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson and Sterling Calby Brown. Oh, Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming. And stream Paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers. Terms Apply.

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We were all a part of this victory. Now get those nachos out of the premium warmer. Nachos! It feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech. The new season of Scrubs, Wednesday 8.7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.