Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Nanny's Twisted Double Murder Case Takes a Shocking Turn

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. An au pair from Brazil pleads guilty to her role in a double murder scheme that left the woman she worked for and another man dead. So does this mean she will testify against the husband of one of the victims? I look at the possibility. Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. This case is a little bit convoluted, so I want to start at the very beginning. Juliana Perez Magalhaes came to the United

Starting point is 00:00:34 States from Brazil in 2021 to work as an au pair, which is a nanny. Magalhaes was working for the Banfields in Fairfax County, Virginia. That's a pretty well-to-do suburb outside of DC. Christine Banfield was a pediatric intensive care nurse who had a four-year-old daughter with her husband, Brendan Banfield. Brendan worked as an IRS agent. They looked like the picture-perfect family. But as the old saying goes, looks can be deceiving. And because there are so many people involved in this case, I'm going to refer to them by their first names. Somewhere along the way, Juliana and Brendan began having an affair,

Starting point is 00:01:16 and prosecutors say Brendan expressed an interest in killing his wife, believing it would be easier if she just wasn't around. On February 24, 2023, Juliana Mogelhays called 911 and reported a terrifying crime, that someone had been hurt. She was hyperventilating. So Brendan Banfield took the phone and told police what happened. I'll have more on that in just a moment. But first, here's the Fairfax County Police Chief describing what officers found when they arrived. In an upstairs bedroom, we found Joseph Ryan deceased as a result of gunshot wounds and found Christine Banfield suffering from stab wounds. Christine was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead. We recovered two firearms and a knife.

Starting point is 00:02:01 We know Brandon Banfield and Juliana Margolis, the family au pair, were involved in a romantic relationship at the time of the murders. So back to what Brendan Banfield told the 911 call taker. Prosecutors said Banfield described how his wife Christine had been stabbed in the neck and killed by Joseph Ryan, a man he claimed that his wife had invited to her home for rough sex. Prosecutors believe Brendan was actually posing as Christine on a website called FetLife. That's a site that connects people with sexual fetishes. Brendan, they say, chatted with Joseph to lure him to his home. Juliana and Brendan claimed Brendan shot Joseph after he had stabbed Christine and that Juliana shot Joseph once after he moved following the first shot fired by Brendan. Now,

Starting point is 00:02:52 this was all in February of last year. Police weren't really buying the story though, and it took some time to investigate. And later in the year, in October of 2023, Juliana was arrested and charged with second degree murder and Joseph Ryan's death. Before her arrest, police returned to the Banfield home. And look at this. They said they found a framed photo of Brendan and Juliana on the nightstand. Juliana had moved into the bedroom, according to police. And they claimed they found Juliana's lingerie in the bedroom. NBC Washington reported that Juliana

Starting point is 00:03:26 told detectives that the first shot Brendan fired at Joseph didn't kill him, so Brendan got another gun, and that's the gun that was used by Juliana to fire at Joseph. Prosecutors have previously said that Juliana and Brendan went to a shooting range together in the months before the murders and that Brendan bought a gun there. Then last month, Brendan Banfield was taken into custody and charged with several counts of aggravated murder for the deaths of his wife, Christine, and Joseph Ryan. At a bail hearing, Assistant Commonwealth Attorney Eric Klingin said blood spatter experts analyzed the crime scene and believed Christine and Joseph's bodies had been moved after they were killed. Those experts, according to published reports, also believe that Brendan smeared Christine's blood on Joseph's body to stage the scene and

Starting point is 00:04:17 essentially frame him for Christine's murder. Meanwhile, Brendan Banfield's lawyer said the evidence didn't add up to him killing his wife before Judge Penny Askarati ordered him held without bail. The Commonwealth's attorney explained the charges that Brendan Banfield faces. So we did charge four different aggravated murder charges, even though we're only talking about two victims. The reason we did that, it's very lawyerly and technical, but essentially it boils down to in the aggravated murder statute, there are a number of different options to prove that.

Starting point is 00:04:52 And when we took a look at what we intend to present at trial, we believe that our presentation of evidence can possibly hit both of those different subsections elements. So what we decided to do is we wanted to put all of them in there to give the jury the full picture of what they can choose from. But we anticipate that, of course, we have... The reason that we did that, quite frankly, is we wanted to cover all our bases, make sure that the jury had every option that they could possibly want when taking a look at the evidence.

Starting point is 00:05:26 So I know that it's a little unusual, but the aggravated murder statute, the way it's written in Virginia, is a quite unusual statute. We wanted to just cover our bases. Paul Bergeron was the lawyer who could get you out of any sticky situation. Caught selling pirated videos like Queen Latifah?

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Starting point is 00:06:24 You can also listen to Criminal Attorney early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Now here comes the big twist in the case. Juliana was supposed to go on trial in November, but this week she entered into a plea agreement. She's no longer facing a second-degree murder charge. She's cooperating with prosecutors and has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. She's going to testify against Brendan Banfield at his trial, and after that, prosecutors are recommending she be released with time served. Prosecutors remain tight-lipped about other details, but they believe Juliana's cooperation is key to their case against

Starting point is 00:07:01 Brendan Banfield. That manslaughter conviction could have carried a 10-year prison sentence. Second-degree murder could have sent her to prison for more than 40 years. I want to bring in Rich Schoenstein. He is a trial attorney. Rich, this case is so convoluted and kind of scary, the allegations that the prosecutor has laid out. It's very calculated, really, really frightening and terrifying. But it seems like this guilty plea by Juliana McGalhays could be really, really bad for Brendan Banfield in this case. Right.

Starting point is 00:07:39 I think, Anjanette, the guilty plea, but also obviously that she'll now be a testifying witness and she'll testify against him and probably talk about what this conspiracy was and how it acted out. So the fact that she's pled guilty, accepted a lesser charge and is now cooperating should be of great concern to the defendant. She's getting quite the deal here. cooperating should be of great concern to the defendant. She's getting quite the deal here. I mean, the prosecutors are recommending that she basically be released with time served. So she if she follows through on her end of the bargain and the judge signs off on it,

Starting point is 00:08:19 will get out after testifying against Brendan Banfield banfield as long as she cooperates does everything she's supposed to do she could though get up to 10 years in prison on a manslaughter conviction so i mean it's they really look at her it sounds like as somebody who was kind of duped into going along with this and he obviously they believe the prosecution does the commonwealth is the mastermind i mean they think he's the one who's going on the fet life website setting up the profile luring this guy joseph ryan to the house and trying to make it look like he murdered his wife and then according to everything we're reading smearing his wife's blood on the guy to make it look like he stabbed her. I mean, this is some pretty horrific, gruesome stuff for a guy who's an

Starting point is 00:09:11 IRS agent. I mean, this is some major criminal thinking. Yeah. Well, and I think that's what prosecutors are thinking. He's the mastermind. He's much more culpable than the woman is. And of course, there's also a big age difference. She's, I think, 24 years old. She's young. She's in the country from Brazil. And he is, you know, he's a professional guy. He's at the IRS. He's older. He hatches this plan to kill his wife and somebody else to make it look like somebody else did it and takes these acts that you're talking about the smearing of the blood so he is highly culpable it is premeditated murder and so i think they view his conviction as much more important than hers and they're willing to trade time in order to have a better opportunity

Starting point is 00:10:06 to convict him i'm not surprised she's been in jail now for a year um so by the time this trial if this trial indeed goes forward uh next year in march i believe february or march is when it's scheduled that seems very quick since he was just arrested last month i mean she could be out of jail by you you know, March or April of next year if all goes as planned. I don't know if the trial will happen that quickly. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, she'll do just over maybe a year and a half in jail for a crime of this magnitude. Yeah, it's a little bit light. I see that point. She's obviously highly culpable herself. She participated in this. She's involved in it. She's a co-conspirator.

Starting point is 00:10:53 All of that to murder, and you would expect a longer sentence for that kind of activity. But sometimes, you know, when you're the prosecutor, you confront this type of issue all the time. Are you going to trade a little bit of time for somebody in order to get the bigger fish? I mean, we do this in cases all the time that we have to make this sort of deal. And I think they've decided it's worthwhile here. So she is serving time right now. She is in jail. She's obviously had her life up now. She is in jail. She's obviously had her life upended. She's being punished.

Starting point is 00:11:29 Is it enough punishment? Probably not. But we're trading that for cooperation. The Commonwealth is being really tight-lipped here, as they should be. I mean, we don't necessarily like that because we want to know everything that they have. But they're not spilling the beans on everything that they know or that they think they know or their theory. We just know that they think he created the profile. He staged all of this.

Starting point is 00:11:54 They went to the gun range. They have their blood spatter experts that they had analyze this. We know they were listening in on the jail calls between Juliana and Brendan for, you know, a year or so or almost a year while this whole thing was unfolding. So they've got to have a lot more and they're not going into that right now. Brendan Banfield's attorney said in court, you know, this just doesn't add up to him killing his wife. I mean, how do you how do you defend this case though because it does seem kind of fantastical this theory that you know christine banfield goes on this fetlife website invites this guy over to the house and then he stabs her in the neck and then all of a sudden you know juliana and brendan happen to be there and they witness the witness this attack and then

Starting point is 00:12:44 there there are gunshots from both of them. I mean, that's kind of an over-the-top type thing to say happened. Yeah, it's a convoluted story to have to get behind if you're the defense. But remember, the defense is always grounded in this. You have to prove my guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and you have to do it unanimously to the entire jury. So first of all, they're going to be looking for any juror who they could get some foothold in. They're going to attack the au pair as offering a story in exchange for this reduced sentence and getting out of jail. So they're going to attack

Starting point is 00:13:25 her credibility based on the deal she's getting, and they're going to try to neutralize her on a witness as a witness on that basis. And then they're going to attack the other evidence as just being not enough to get over this burden that we have in the American judicial system of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It's a reasonable doubt case. I think it's going to be pretty hard for them, given all the circumstances, given the way everything is lining up here, but that's what I anticipate them doing. There's also been some talk by the prosecutors in court. It doesn't seem like there's really been cameras in there, but according to the published reports that it wasn't just the au pair. It sounds like prosecutors have some evidence and

Starting point is 00:14:13 have interviewed other women, and it shows that Brendan Banfield had affairs with a lot of people. So do they bring in a long line of women that they say they've interviewed and have them testify about multiple affairs that Brendan Banfield had had in the past or when he was married to Christine and have them testify that, yeah, I was having an affair with him during his marriage and this, that and the other. And this is a serial philanderer. And, you know, he he was always cheating on his wife. Yeah. Well, if you're the prosecution, you want all of this evidence in there because it does two things. It establishes motive in the sense that he didn't have a happy marriage and might've wanted to get rid of his wife, but it also establishes that he's a cheat and a liar and that he's just a bad guy. And for exactly those reasons, the defense is going to challenge the admissibility of that

Starting point is 00:15:12 evidence. I mean, the defense is going to say, what does it matter if he had 50 affairs? It doesn't make him a murderer. Lots of people have affairs. That evidence can't be entered to prove his propensity to commit murder. It doesn't have any relevance to propensity to commit murder. I think because there's a motive hook here based on establishing that there were deep problems with the marital relationship, I think because of that motive angle, you're going to be able to get in a lot of this evidence. But the judge is going to probably issue some limiting instructions to make sure the jury doesn't confuse what that evidence is there for. If you're the au pair, you're Juliana, once this case is over, do you just get the heck out of the United States? I mean, are you just like, okay, I got to go back

Starting point is 00:16:05 to Brazil because this is a young woman who came here to work as a nanny. She gets tied up in this. She has an affair with this guy. This unfolds. And then, my God, this is a mess. Yeah. Listen, I don't know anything about this young woman. I don't really know how culpable she is. She falls into a category here where I think she's part victim, part perpetrator, because it doesn't sound to me like there's any record of criminal conduct of hers apart from being involved with this guy. So I'm not going to jump to a lot of conclusions. I wouldn't surprise me if the first thing she did is got the heck out of the United States. On the other hand, Anjanette,

Starting point is 00:16:51 we live in a crazy world and sometimes there are opportunities for people who have been involved in cases like this after they're over. So who knows? A lot of people probably wanting to do documentaries and there're having podcasts about this. So you're right. Rich Schoenstein, thanks as always. We appreciate your time. Great seeing you. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix.

Starting point is 00:17:14 I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Nanny's Twisted Double Murder Case Takes a Shocking Turn

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