Au Pair Affair Murders: The Brendan Banfield Double Murder

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,760
A nurse who spent her career walking into rooms at three o'clock in the morning to help

2
00:00:05,760 --> 00:00:08,560
strangers through the worst night of their lives.

3
00:00:08,560 --> 00:00:13,240
A man from Springfield who thought he was going to a house in Virginia for one thing and

4
00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:16,360
walked into something else completely different.

5
00:00:16,360 --> 00:00:20,960
And a husband who wanted out of his marriage without paying for divorce or splitting custody

6
00:00:20,960 --> 00:00:29,560
of his daughter, which is where the whole thing starts.

7
00:00:29,560 --> 00:00:48,360
Christine Benson grew up on Long Island.

8
00:00:48,360 --> 00:00:52,040
Her family says that she was thoughtful and wise beyond her years.

9
00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:55,840
She got her nursing degree at Quenipiac in 2007.

10
00:00:55,840 --> 00:01:00,480
She became a sexual assault nurse examiner, which means that she was the one who came

11
00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:05,760
in in the early morning hours to sit with a stranger on the worst night of that stranger's

12
00:01:05,760 --> 00:01:06,760
life.

13
00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:10,760
And she collected the evidence off of that woman's body while keeping her calm enough

14
00:01:10,760 --> 00:01:14,760
to get through the exam that most people can't get through.

15
00:01:14,760 --> 00:01:16,400
She was in her early 20s.

16
00:01:16,400 --> 00:01:21,280
She ended up supervising some of the other nurses and training the new hires.

17
00:01:21,280 --> 00:01:27,120
Think about who you have to be as a person to volunteer to do that for a living.

18
00:01:27,120 --> 00:01:31,960
She met Brendan Bannfield when they were both in college as freshman in 2002.

19
00:01:31,960 --> 00:01:34,560
They got married in June 2010.

20
00:01:34,560 --> 00:01:39,520
Their daughter Valerie came along and the family moved down to Fairfax County, Virginia when

21
00:01:39,520 --> 00:01:43,000
Brendan took a job with the IRS.

22
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:46,120
Christine took a job at the pediatric ICU.

23
00:01:46,120 --> 00:01:48,800
Then the pandemic landed on her floor.

24
00:01:48,800 --> 00:01:54,520
A man named Rodrigo Valderama woke up out of a week's long coma in her hospital and hers

25
00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:57,080
was the first face he saw.

26
00:01:57,080 --> 00:01:58,400
She shaved him.

27
00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:01,640
She sent him up on a Zoom call so that he could see his family.

28
00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:06,680
He said she was an angel to him and that spring he invited the Bannfields out to a party in

29
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:08,200
a park.

30
00:02:08,200 --> 00:02:12,360
At that party Christine mentioned that she was hiring an all-pair from South America to

31
00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:14,000
help with Valerie.

32
00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:18,600
Rodrigo was born in Columbia and she asked him for restaurant recommendations because

33
00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:23,960
she wanted the young woman moving into her house to find some food that tasted like home.

34
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:29,760
Juliana Magalese was 20 years old and living outside Sao Paulo when she moved into the house

35
00:02:29,760 --> 00:02:32,040
in October 2021.

36
00:02:32,040 --> 00:02:36,080
The all-pair arrangement is a strange thing when you look at it head on.

37
00:02:36,080 --> 00:02:41,520
A woman in her early 20s flies in from another country, takes up your spare room, learns

38
00:02:41,520 --> 00:02:46,280
your kid's nap schedule and which cabinet the good snacks are in, and on paper she's an

39
00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:52,160
employee while in practice she's family which also handles the car seat straps.

40
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:54,320
Most of the time it works out fine.

41
00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:59,120
Around August 2022 Juliana and Brendan started sleeping together.

42
00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:04,040
She testified that within a few weeks of starting that he was already floating the idea of

43
00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:06,000
getting rid of his wife.

44
00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:11,000
He told her Christine was a terrible mother and a danger to Valerie and that his marriage

45
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:14,360
was a prison he had no way of getting out of.

46
00:03:14,360 --> 00:03:20,360
Christine was a special agent with the IRS Criminal Investigation by then, promoted in 2019

47
00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:25,600
after a decade of auditing people's taxes, which means his whole career was built on catching

48
00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:29,120
people who thought they were smarter than the paperwork.

49
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:31,440
He did not want to pay for divorce.

50
00:03:31,440 --> 00:03:35,200
He did not want to split custody of his daughter.

51
00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:38,240
The plan started at Christine's own laptop.

52
00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:43,960
The two of them sat down there in January 2023 and made a Gmail account in her name.

53
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:49,720
They used that account to open a profile on FET life, a social network for people into

54
00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:52,880
Kink with about 13 million members.

55
00:03:52,880 --> 00:03:56,000
They put up a photo of Christine in a bathing suit.

56
00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:59,800
It took turns logging in from her machine so that it would look like it was all pointing

57
00:03:59,800 --> 00:04:01,120
back to her.

58
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:03,360
Then, he went shopping.

59
00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:04,720
Brendan bought a handgun.

60
00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:06,960
He took Juliana to a shooting range.

61
00:04:06,960 --> 00:04:08,920
They swapped their phones for new ones.

62
00:04:08,920 --> 00:04:13,400
He started leaving for work earlier than he needed to and stopping for breakfast at places

63
00:04:13,400 --> 00:04:16,320
near the house, over and over for weeks.

64
00:04:16,320 --> 00:04:21,560
So that by the time he needed a morning routine on camera, he would already have one.

65
00:04:21,560 --> 00:04:26,440
That is a federal investigator building himself in alibi in advance.

66
00:04:26,440 --> 00:04:29,560
And he was not as good at it as he thought he was.

67
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:34,880
While this was going on, someone started talking to the fake Christine on the FET life account.

68
00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:38,040
Joe Ryan lived over in Springfield, Virginia.

69
00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:39,440
He was 39.

70
00:04:39,440 --> 00:04:42,720
His friends knew that he used that site and he was pretty open about it.

71
00:04:42,720 --> 00:04:46,200
And you have to understand what he believed he was walking into.

72
00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:50,080
He thought he was talking to a married woman named Christine.

73
00:04:50,080 --> 00:04:55,320
And by February, the conversation had moved on to a platform called Telegram, where he

74
00:04:55,320 --> 00:05:01,760
was asked to bring a knife for a rape fantasy that both adults had supposedly agreed to.

75
00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:04,760
He came over and brought the knife.

76
00:05:04,760 --> 00:05:06,840
Christine was off work that Friday.

77
00:05:06,840 --> 00:05:11,560
Brendan had her cell phone with him that morning and he used it to disable the automatic

78
00:05:11,560 --> 00:05:13,200
locks on the house.

79
00:05:13,200 --> 00:05:17,080
Then he texted Joe to park in the driveway and walk in.

80
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,680
Then he turned the phone off and left it in the kitchen drawer.

81
00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:23,080
He drove to the McDonald's up the road.

82
00:05:23,080 --> 00:05:26,560
Juliana told Christine that she was taking Valerie to the zoo.

83
00:05:26,560 --> 00:05:30,920
Instead, she parked down the street with the four-year-old in the back seat.

84
00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:32,320
Joe pulled in.

85
00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:37,000
Juliana called Christine's phone first, the one that's sitting in the kitchen drawer turned

86
00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:38,000
off.

87
00:05:38,000 --> 00:05:43,360
She called Brendan, who was standing in the McDonald's bathroom and came straight home.

88
00:05:43,360 --> 00:05:49,000
They went in through the basement together, left Valerie down there and they went upstairs.

89
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,000
Christine heard someone on the stairs and called out to her husband that the man in the bedroom

90
00:05:53,000 --> 00:05:54,440
had a knife.

91
00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:57,240
The next minute comes from Juliana on the stand.

92
00:05:57,240 --> 00:06:02,400
She said Joe looked up at them, shocked, and Brendan shot him in the head with his IRS

93
00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:03,960
service weapon.

94
00:06:03,960 --> 00:06:08,280
Then picked up the knife, Joe would carry it in and stabbed Christine in the neck seven

95
00:06:08,280 --> 00:06:09,280
times.

96
00:06:09,280 --> 00:06:14,480
Juliana saw Joe still moving and shot him in the chest with Brendan's new handgun.

97
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:16,720
And then came the part that took some real work.

98
00:06:16,720 --> 00:06:22,760
They moved Joe's body into position and transferred Christine's blood onto his hands and clothing

99
00:06:22,760 --> 00:06:27,400
so that if you walked into that room, you would read it as a stranger attacking a wife

100
00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:31,080
and a husband getting there in time to shoot the intruder.

101
00:06:31,080 --> 00:06:34,040
Officers found no forced entry anywhere in the house.

102
00:06:34,040 --> 00:06:36,560
They found Valerie unhurt in the basement.

103
00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:40,440
They found Brendan kneeling over Christine with his hands on her neck, telling them that

104
00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:43,480
he was applying pressure to slow the bleeding.

105
00:06:43,480 --> 00:06:47,080
That story held for 570 days.

106
00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:51,760
Fairfax County police worked it as a home invasion interrupted and the two people who called

107
00:06:51,760 --> 00:06:55,000
it in went right on living in that house together.

108
00:06:55,000 --> 00:06:59,360
Eight months later, investigators found a framed photo of Brendan and Juliana sitting on

109
00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:00,960
his nightstand.

110
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:05,600
Some scene photos taken months apart showed her clothes and her pictures had drifted into

111
00:07:05,600 --> 00:07:06,880
the master bedroom.

112
00:07:06,880 --> 00:07:09,680
But the blood is what broke the case.

113
00:07:09,680 --> 00:07:14,560
Analysts concluded it had been placed on Joe's hands rather than coming out of a wound.

114
00:07:14,560 --> 00:07:18,640
Juliana got arrested first in October 2023.

115
00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,920
Brendan was indicted in September 2024.

116
00:07:21,920 --> 00:07:26,480
The following month, she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and agreed to testify against him

117
00:07:26,480 --> 00:07:27,480
in court.

118
00:07:27,480 --> 00:07:31,480
And she told the jury that she gave in because she couldn't carry the guilt and couldn't

119
00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:33,520
carry the shame around anymore.

120
00:07:33,520 --> 00:07:39,720
The trial ran three weeks in January 2026 and the whole fight was over the digital evidence.

121
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:44,920
Detective Brendan Miller, the department's own forensic examiner, analyzed dozens of devices

122
00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:50,240
and concluded Christine was the person operating them when those accounts were built and used.

123
00:07:50,240 --> 00:07:53,440
A peer reviewer went through his work and agreed with him.

124
00:07:53,440 --> 00:07:58,160
And then he got strange. The department moved Miller out of digital forensics and into

125
00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:00,640
child exploitation cases.

126
00:08:00,640 --> 00:08:04,400
And he got on the stand and told the jury that the transfer was tied to his work on the

127
00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:05,560
case.

128
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:10,240
Both sides agreed nobody can prove who is sitting at a keyboard.

129
00:08:10,240 --> 00:08:12,920
Brendan testified in his own defense.

130
00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:15,880
It's the only time he's told his version out loud.

131
00:08:15,880 --> 00:08:20,040
He said he saw a strange car outside and came in through the back.

132
00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:21,200
And he heard sounds.

133
00:08:21,200 --> 00:08:23,040
He took for sex.

134
00:08:23,040 --> 00:08:27,560
And he did not call 911 because he assumed his wife was cheating on him.

135
00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:30,680
He said he shot Joe after finding him attacking her.

136
00:08:30,680 --> 00:08:34,680
He also told the jury that he'd been on his way to a work meeting about a promotion that

137
00:08:34,680 --> 00:08:36,160
morning.

138
00:08:36,160 --> 00:08:40,560
Prosecutors put his IRS supervisor on the stand who said he was in Baltimore that day and

139
00:08:40,560 --> 00:08:42,800
no such meeting existed.

140
00:08:42,800 --> 00:08:45,960
Brendan spent 37 minutes in a McDonald's.

141
00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:49,840
The jury did not buy a single word of his testimony.

142
00:08:49,840 --> 00:08:53,280
They convicted him on February 2, 2026.

143
00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:56,400
Juliana got 10 years, the statutory maximum.

144
00:08:56,400 --> 00:08:58,680
More than the prosecutors even asked for.

145
00:08:58,680 --> 00:09:02,080
She faces deportation to Brazil when she finishes.

146
00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:07,520
On June 5, the judge in the case gave Brendan life without parole plus eight more years and

147
00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:13,000
told the room that the cruelty and calculation in this case reflected his evilness.

148
00:09:13,000 --> 00:09:15,160
He stood up and said that he was innocent.

149
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,800
His lawyer noticed an appeal in July.

150
00:09:17,800 --> 00:09:21,880
Christine's father and her sister gave their first interview after the sentencing because

151
00:09:21,880 --> 00:09:26,880
they didn't want the salacious version of the trial standing in as the record of her.

152
00:09:26,880 --> 00:09:32,080
Her sister got asked the question most people always ask, which is why she didn't leave.

153
00:09:32,080 --> 00:09:34,480
She said she will not put that on any victim.

154
00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:44,240
Let alone her own sister.

155
00:09:44,240 --> 00:09:48,320
Thanks for listening to 10 Minute Murder, binge-abull true crime stories.

156
00:09:48,320 --> 00:09:54,800
I'm Joe, I'm the host, and here's an email subject from a retired detective, Joe.

157
00:09:54,800 --> 00:10:00,760
26 years, most of it in property crimes last eight in violent crimes, retired in 2021.

158
00:10:00,760 --> 00:10:03,320
I say that up front so that you know where this is coming from.

159
00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:07,200
I listen to a lot of these shows and most of them make me want to throw my phone.

160
00:10:07,200 --> 00:10:12,400
Not because they get details wrong, everybody gets details wrong, but because of the assumption

161
00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:13,400
underneath.

162
00:10:13,400 --> 00:10:17,680
The assumption is always that somebody knew and didn't act.

163
00:10:17,680 --> 00:10:18,680
Sometimes that's true.

164
00:10:18,680 --> 00:10:23,280
More often it's that the information was spread across four agencies and three counties

165
00:10:23,280 --> 00:10:26,520
and nobody had a reason to put it together until after.

166
00:10:26,520 --> 00:10:29,280
You do less of that than most, I noticed.

167
00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:31,560
Where I'd push back is on interrogation.

168
00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:35,360
I've heard you describe a confession as though the room did the work.

169
00:10:35,360 --> 00:10:36,920
Sometimes the room does.

170
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:40,800
Sometimes the guy walked in already needing to say it out loud and we just didn't stop

171
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:41,800
him.

172
00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:45,080
It's identical in a transcript and they're not the same thing at all.

173
00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:49,000
If you ever want a set of eyes on a script before you record, I'll read it for free.

174
00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:52,240
I'm retired and my wife has run out of projects for me.

175
00:10:52,240 --> 00:10:54,320
Regards, Frank and Illinois.

176
00:10:54,320 --> 00:10:58,480
Frank, thank you for the email, taking the time to send it and also thank you for listening.

177
00:10:58,480 --> 00:11:02,800
And by the time you hear this, I will have already replied to this email asking for a specific

178
00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:04,440
on the interrogation.

179
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:09,480
If I was suggesting that the room is what gets the confession that I didn't mean for it

180
00:11:09,480 --> 00:11:10,480
to come across that way.

181
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:14,800
And I'm not sure what episode or what episodes you're referring to.

182
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:21,280
Now what I have said in the past multiple times is that I think polygraphs are BS.

183
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:25,720
Polygraphs are just a tool that police use in order to get you to confess.

184
00:11:25,720 --> 00:11:29,680
They can and will lie to you and pretend like you failed a polygraph when you passed it

185
00:11:29,680 --> 00:11:34,360
or it was inconclusive just to get you to confess to something that they think that you did.

186
00:11:34,360 --> 00:11:37,960
Because the accuracy on a polygraph is no better than basically a coin flip.

187
00:11:37,960 --> 00:11:41,680
I have said that maybe a dozen times on this podcast.

188
00:11:41,680 --> 00:11:45,120
But again, Frank, thank you for the email and thank you for the critique.

189
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:49,560
And maybe I will send some scripture away, especially if they involve a confession.

190
00:11:49,560 --> 00:11:52,600
If you're a brand new listener to this podcast, welcome.

191
00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:57,000
Make sure you do me a huge favor and hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast

192
00:11:57,000 --> 00:11:58,000
right now.

193
00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:02,840
And also, if you listen on a couple of different podcast listening apps, subscribe on all

194
00:12:02,840 --> 00:12:03,840
of them.

195
00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:09,520
Personally, I use an Apple phone so I subscribe to podcasts that I listen to often on Apple

196
00:12:09,520 --> 00:12:13,880
podcasts and also on Spotify because I use both of those to listen to podcasts.

197
00:12:13,880 --> 00:12:18,560
And I don't want to switch back and forth depending on what podcast I want to listen to.

198
00:12:18,560 --> 00:12:23,200
You can go to 10minutemerder.com and find more places to listen, more links to where you

199
00:12:23,200 --> 00:12:24,200
can listen to the podcast.

200
00:12:24,200 --> 00:12:27,720
You can also find links to where you can follow the show on social media.

201
00:12:27,720 --> 00:12:28,720
So please do that.

202
00:12:28,720 --> 00:12:31,360
It's at 10minutemerder.com.

203
00:12:31,360 --> 00:12:32,440
And that's going to do it.

204
00:12:32,440 --> 00:12:34,240
Watch your episode for today.

205
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,000
Thanks again for listening to 10minutemerder.

206
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:37,440
See you next time.

207
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:47,440
[BLANK_AUDIO]