Jurors began deliberating Friday on whether a former IRS law enforcement officer in Virginia conspired with his family’s Brazilian au pair, with whom he was having an affair, to kill his wife and pin it on a stranger.
Brendan Banfield allegedly spent months plotting to get rid of his spouse so he could be with their nanny, Juliana Magalhães, who is now the key witness for the prosecution and testified against him earlier this month.
Magalhães alleges she and Banfield created a social media account in the wife's name on a fetish-focused platform and used it to lure a man, Joe Ryan, to their home for a sexual encounter involving a knife on Feb. 24, 2023. Prosecutors say the lovers shot Ryan and staged the scene to look like he was a predator stabbing the wife.
