FAIRFAX, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man who was having an affair with the family’s Brazilian au pair is scheduled to be sentenced Friday for the murder of his wife and a man who was lured to the couple's home as a fall guy.
Brendan Banfield, a former IRS law enforcement officer, claimed that he shot Joseph Ryan after he came across Ryan attacking his wife on the morning of Feb. 24, 2023. But prosecutors said Brendan Banfield and au pair Juliana Peres Magalhães set Ryan up in a scheme to get rid of Christine Banfield, a pediatric intensive care nurse.
Brendan Banfield faces the possibility of life in prison. In addition to murder, jurors in February convicted Banfield of child endangerment because the couple’s 4-year-old daughter was home during the killings.
During Banfield's trial, Magalhães testified that he had told her he wanted to marry her and have children with her, but he needed to “get rid of” his wife first. He didn’t want a divorce because “she would have more money than he would” and because he wanted custody of the couple’s daughter, said Magalhães, who was 21 when she started working for the Banfields in 2021.
Magalhães told jurors that she and Brendan Banfield had impersonated Christine Banfield on a website for sexual fetishes. They used the site to lure Ryan to the house in Herndon, Virginia, for a sexual encounter involving a knife and staged the scene to look as though they had shot a violent intruder.
Magalhães testified that on the day of the killings, she waited in a car outside the house with the Banfields' child. When Ryan arrived, she called Brendan Banfield, who was waiting at a nearby McDonald's. The pair took the child to the basement and then went to the bedroom, where they encountered Ryan. Brendan Banfield shot Ryan and then stabbed Christine Banfield with the knife Ryan had brought. When Magalhães saw Ryan moving, she fired a second shot that killed him.
Some media have dubbed the case the “au pair affair.” Magalhães pleaded guilty to manslaughter after agreeing to testify against Brendan Banfield. Magalhães was sentenced to 10 years in prison after Banfield's trial.
FILE - Brendan Banfield looks on during the double murder trial for Brendan Banfield in Fairfax County Circuit Court, Jan. 14, 2026, in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner, Pool, File)
A truck-driving preacher who helped thwart an alleged kidnapping attempt in South Carolina — all caught on his rig’s dashboard camera — said Thursday that he was not a hero, but a “divine” tool.
Anthony J. Moore, 53, was driving a route in Aiken County, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from the Georgia border, last Friday when a woman ran directly into his path with her hands cuffed behind her back.
The video, which has no sound, shows the drama unfold: The woman passes in front of the truck, and a man in a Cadillac that had been on the side of the road swerves in front of the truck before taking off. The woman then runs down the road, and the man drives off.
“I just see it as a divine assignment from God, because had not I been there with the dashcam ... they probably wouldn’t have caught the footage that needed to be catched,” Moore told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “It was another assignment from God, a special assignment from God. That a life needed to be saved.”
Authorities arrested Jonathan Willard, 39, of New Ellenton, on one count each of kidnapping and impersonation of a law enforcement officer. He was being held Thursday at the Aiken County Detention Center.
According to an incident report from the Aiken County Sheriff's Department, the woman was taking a walk when a man in a green Cadillac “came from behind her and told her he was with the police.” She said he took her phone and Social Security card, put her in handcuffs and placed her in the back seat of the car.
The woman told police that the man pulled over by a gated property and got out. She said she tried to open the rear doors, but they were locked.
As the man rummaged through the trunk, she said, she climbed over the seat and escaped through the open driver's side door.
Moore was driving south of Aiken when he saw the woman running toward him.
“I let my window down and she said, ‘Please help me. He’s trying to kidnap me,’” Moore said.
As the woman swerved, Moore said, the man chasing her pulled up beside him and showed “what looks to be a badge.”
“And he said, ‘I’m with law enforcement, and she jumped out of my car,’” Moore recounted. The man then left in the Cadillac.
Bystanders called 911, helped get the cuffs off the woman and gave her water. Moore said she told him that she had just graduated the day before, and that the man had also taken her diploma.
She asked Moore if he would accompany her back to the spot where she escaped, to see if the man had might have dumped her belongings. He said they found nothing.
The Aiken County Solicitor’s Office said Willard had not yet been assigned a defense attorney and no court dates had been scheduled. The AP called the jail to speak with Willard, but the request was denied.
Moore is pastor of Amazing Grace Ministries in Denmark, South Carolina. Moore is also a 27-year Army veteran, said his wife, Betty, an associate pastor at the church.
“When I learned that he was caught the next day I was relieved of a lot of things that he didn’t get away,” he said, “to go try that again someplace else.”
This May 30, 2026, booking photo from the Aiken County (S.C.) Sheriff's Department shows Johnathan Willard, 39, who is charged with kidnapping and impersonating a law enforcement officer in connection with a dramatic incident caught on a trucker's dashboard camera. (Aiken County Sheriff via AP)
